Towering Above Samarkand

I was only halfway up the minaret and my thighs were already burning. Dust from six centuries past filled my hair, nose and eyes and my shoulders could barely wedge through the corkscrew staircase. Small trapezoidal apertures to the outside were the only light sources, letting in increasingly violent gusts of wind. Finally, after forty stories of dustdevils and buttblasting stepclimbing, I peeped my head out the top. Of course, this being nonlitigious Uzbekistan, I could have easily fallen to my undocumented death, but the thrill was intense. The mosques, minarets and plazas of Samarkand splayed out before me and the screaming wind felt as if it would scoop me out of the portal. Trying not to drop my month-old Razr cameraphone, I tremored out some crappy photos, took a breath, and started back down, a task even more difficult than the ascent. I stumbled out, exhausted, and thanked the police guard who I had greased with a $3 bribe and headed for the nearest bench to recover. Exploring the rest of the Registan would have to wait until the lactic acid in my muscles subside.

With its blue mosaic walls, majestic medressas and green spaces, the Registan is a wonderfully shocking sight here in the middle of Uzbekistan. The oldest medressa, finished in 1420 by the great astronomer/ruler Ulughbek, himself the grandson of Amur Timur, is filled with lecture halls where theology, philosophy and mathematics were taught. About a hundred students lived here in the two stories of dormitories nearly 600 years ago.

Further up the road is the Old Town, a habitat dating back to the 5th century BC, where I had my first view of real Uzbekistan. Big cities, like Tashkent and elsewhere, tend to put on a false face, emphasizing not only the best of a culture but also the worst. Small buses crammed with people, meat and dry goods spill out onto the street, the occasional donkeycart with family clopping by. Uzbek boys sell drinks of Fanta and beer, all from the same four glasses, which are busily washed in-between customers. My green eyes and longish black hair make me stand out even more here, where everyone is Tajik or Uzbek, but I don't feel threatened. The throngs of beggars with pupa-like children in arms who throng me is unnerving. Few signs here are in Russian, the only Cyrillic seen in old shops%