Chorsu Market

Last Uzbek thing to do, and the first place we went on arrival here three weeks ago now. Full circle, indeed.

The market is huge and far-ranging, from fruits, vegetables and nuts to fabrics, tourist trinkets, carpets and home furnishings. The central ‘Sirk’ or dome reminds me of the French-buit central market place in Phnom Penh I visited so many years ago now. This domed area is central and comprises the mentioned fruits, nuts, and butchered meats. There are, however, miles of radiating ‘streets’ off of it to house the rest of anything else you might want to buy. Silver, gold, ceramics, spices, men’s wear, women’s wear…

And so we say goodbye to O’zbekiston. It has been a thorough trip and we have availed ourselves of much of it – train travel, a flight, much car travel, desert, rebuilt antiquities, majestic Madrassas and Mosques, backcountry jaunts, city life… Much of the foregoing tailored for us by our indominable fixer Bekzod, without whom we’d have been lost babes in the woods (as we were anyway, really).

Time to have a late lunch and relax in the hotel until it’s time to go to the airport.