Before the last concert, outside the concert hall in Tashkent

Alasdair and Alan dance to Sher Ali's band with Victoria Belyavskaya,
who became a new member of staff at the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office in Tashkent that day!

Alan in front of the Registan buildings.
I'm afraid it's difficult to do justice to this
amazing place with these small photos.

A young fiddler played us some very sad Russian music.
He caught us in the right state of inebriation and ended
up being well recompensed .

D - I -S - C - O!
Nightclubbing in Uzbekistan - we can't remember where...
Alasdair's already boarded the groovy train and Pat's keeping him company.
Mr Van Sante lets his hair down on the right of the photo.

Pit stop on the road to Ferghana

"can we keep it dad?"
In the mountains on the road to Samarkand

We visited marketplaces in Tashkent and Samarkand
Amazing places

They may look like oranges but they definitely tasted of lemons!

The Uzbek Oor Wullie?

Interesting wares.
You can see some of the Registan
buildings in the background

An aesthetically pleasing cabbage arrangement

Nice faces...

...and cheeky kids

Jaldy!

A roadside café in the mountains

The outdoor concert in the public park at Ferghana

Behind Mike is a giant statue of the ninth century astronomer Al Ferghani
who wrote a science of heavenly bodies and their movements.
The town of Ferghana and the region are named after this ancient scientist.

BEFORE

AFTER
The two faces of Alasdair in Uzbekistan:
either grinning beatifically or sound asleep.
We've got stories to tell about that too
but perhaps not just now...

Various military attachés meeting at the Queen's
Birthday Celebrations in Tashkent.
It'd be interesting to eavesdrop on that conversation.

Pat, trying a dutar in a music shop

The shop owner gives him some tips on playing the gichchak...