Afghanistan, where history keeps repeating itself

The war in Afghanistan is no longer making headline news since the U.S. withdrew its troops in a sudden and short-term operation. What’s new, we might ask. The answer is nothing. 

Alexander spent three years of his life in Central Asia fighting an ever-elusive enemy of tribes that no longer fought each other but joined forces against the invader. In the 5th century, the Huns wreaked havoc; Genghis Khan, at the head of the Mongols, rampaged the region in the 13th century; Tamerlane repeated the operation a century later; and the Mughal dynasty followed suit in the 16th century. Even Islam spreading brotherhood among men could not achieve any result. The more recent invasions by Britain in 1839-1842 and 1870-1880, the Soviet Union in 1979-1989, and the United States in 2001-2021 only repeated their predecessors’ fatal outcomes.  

Who are we to call Alexander’s campaign in Central Asia a failure when later invaders with far more sophisticated means did not fare any better? Alexander was a military genius, and no one has been able to surpass him – certainly not here in Afghanistan. 

Those looking for a complete analysis on the situation in Afghanistan will find useful information in Frank Holt’s book Into the Land of Bones, Alexander the Great in Afghanistan. The author draws an excellent comparison of Alexander’s achievements with those of later invaders. He asserts that the only way to rule the country should imply that the conqueror subdues every warlord because one single exception would erase all previous successes. Isn’t that precisely what Alexander tried to achieve? 

The French archaeologists who worked in Afghanistan early in the last century, upon the invitation of King Mohammed Zahir, were confronted with the double face of the local population. During the day, they gathered around to look and give a helping hand, while at night, they would destroy the statues and steal the precious artifacts. Tribal elderly, generally strong Islamic believers, destroyed many human statues as soon as they were unearthed. Altogether, many unique artifacts were destroyed overnight or disappeared on their way to the Museum in Kabul (see: Le trésor perdu des rois d’Afghanistan by Philippe Flandrin). Typically for Afghanistan, not even the king could overrule the tribe's elders! 

Under these circumstances, it is impressive that the gold treasure from Tillya Tepe, a tomb hill in the northwest corner of Afghanistan, has survived. The content of these six tombs was barely rescued when the Soviet Union entered Afghanistan in 1979 and safely transferred to the Museum in Kabul (see: Bactrian Gold, the Hidden Treasures from the Museum of Kabul). The Museum suffered greatly from the ensuing civil wars and was repeatedly plundered, and artifacts were stolen. The worst, however, was still to come when, in 2001, the Taliban decided not only to destroy the huge Buddha statues at Bamyan but also to annihilate the 2,500 statues and reliefs of the Museum. However, a handful of brave Afghans rescued the Tillya Tepe treasure and locked it away in the vaults of the Presidential Palace. They managed to keep the place a secret. By 2004 the government of Afghanistan decided that the situation was safe enough to bring the gold artifacts out in the open again, but the Museum in Kabul was no longer fit to shelter this precious collection. Based on their earlier collaboration, they contacted the Musée Guimet in Paris and, together, they agreed to send these rich finds on a traveling tour around the world. 

Today, with the ruling Taliban, the country is still dominated by its warlords, who consistently cling to their traditions and mistrust all foreign intrusion.

Merv, Alexandria Margiana

The origins of Merv seem to go back to Cyrus the Great, who founded the city in the 6th century BC. As Margu, it is mentioned in the Bisutun inscription (see: The Bisutun relief of King Darius I), meaning that it was one of the many satrapies ruled by the Achaemenids.

It is still uncertain whether Alexander took Merv in today’s Turkmenistan, although the area of Margiana became part of his empire. When he was in Central Asia, he may or may not have conquered the city. According to some theories, it was Craterus who founded the town. If this were the case, Alexandria Margiana would be the first and only “Alexandria” founded in Alexander’s absence. A questionable assumption. If Alexander went to Merv, the only plausible time would be while he was in Bactra, in modern Afghanistan. Pending confirmation and further excavations, this question remains unanswered (see: Alexander in Bukhara).

In any case, after the king’s death, Alexandria Margiana became the capital of the Seleucid Empire. It was his son, Antiochus I Soter, who expanded the site and built the fortress of Gyaur Gala. He named it after himself, Antiochia Margiana.

The rulers of the later Graeco-Bactrian Empire, the Parthians, the Kushans, and the Sassanids all recognized the importance of its strategic location. Before the arrival of Islam, Merv was renowned for its Buddhist monasteries and stupas.

Its defensive walls were almost eight kilometers long, fortified by sturdy towers. Through one of the four entrance gates, traders and other visitors would access the clean streets divided into quarters among the branches of the Murghab River and its canals. The principal buildings were mosques and madrasas, libraries, and bathhouses. The marketplace was centrally located and well-organized. Under the Seljuk sultans, Merv was enhanced with a palace and several administrative buildings.

As a significant stopover on the prosperous Silk Road, Merv was a welcome oasis full of gardens and orchards surrounded by richly cultivated lands amidst the barren Karakum Desert. Some sources tell us that around 1150 AD, Merv was the largest city in the world. Merchants from as far as India, Iraq, and China would have crowded the narrow streets and spent the night in one of the many caravanserais. Besides the trade of silk, Merv was also famous for the high-quality cotton that was grown in the nearby fields.

Unfortunately, Genghis Khan razed the city to the ground, killing all its 700,000 inhabitants. The many dams and dykes that supported an efficient network of canals and reservoirs were forever destroyed. Genghis Khan and his Mongols annihilated this lifeblood so thoroughly that Merv never truly recovered, in spite of the numerous attempts to rebuild and resettle the city over the centuries.

By 1888, Merv was entirely abandoned. George Curzon, who was the Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905, visited the remains at that time. He describes the city as “Very decrepit and sorrowful looked those wasting walls of sun-dried clay, these broken arches and tottering towers; but there is magnificence in their very extent and a voice in the sorrowful squalor of their ruin.”

Merv today exposes, in fact, four separate walled cities. The oldest settlement from the Achaemenid times is Erkgala, whereas the Hellenistic and Sassanid capital Gyaur Gala is built around the Erkgala fort. The Abbasid/Seljuk city is Soltangala, and the largest as it sits on the edge of Gyaur Gala. Just south lies the smallest town, Abdyllahangala, which was founded by the descendants of Tamerlane. 

The archaeologists are clearly facing a daunting task. A joint team from Turkmenistan and the UK worked here from 1992 to 2000. A year later, a new collaboration was started between the Turkmen authorities and the University College London. It will be fascinating to learn if they ever retrieve some relics of Alexander’s short passage in the area.

[Pictures from The Guardian]

Le trésor perdu des rois d’Afghanistan by Philippe Flandrin

Le trésor perdu des rois d’Afghanistan (ISBN 2-268-03977-3) translates into The Lost Treasure of the Kings of Afghanistan and is written by Philippe Flandrin, journalist and war correspondent.

This book is the best work about the history of Afghanistan. In a most pleasant and comprehensive way, the auteur manages to mix Afghanistan’s recent history with that of antiquity. After an introduction to the times of Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great, he seeks and finds the transition to the days of Graeco-Buddhist art.

The catalyst agent in opening up the country of Afghanistan in recent times was, in fact, its last king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, who ruled for forty years. Unhappy about the British interference in the 19th and early 20th centuries, he turned to France for archaeological expertise. He had studied in France, and this created a natural bond. The king was deposed in a coup in 1973, and soon afterward, the Soviets invaded the now Republic of Afghanistan. Political changes always prevail in the way of life in any country. The archaeological teams soon withdrew from Afghanistan because tribal powers were still powerful. We all remember how the Taliban “liberated” the country from the Soviets and then imposed their own religious ideas.

Philippe Flandrin takes us by the hand and leads us through the mazes of Afghanistan’s stirring history as it has been forged over the centuries. People like Cyrus, Alexander, Genghis Khan, and Tamerlane have left their marks, followed by Buddhist and Chinese travelers on the Silk Road.

He starts his book with the first discoveries of sites like Ai-Khanoum, Tillya Tepe, and Hadda, including the hardships the archaeologists encountered and the opposition from the local people – generally strong Islamic believers who smashed and destroyed many of the human statues as soon as they were unearthed. Tribal elderly had their say, as even the king could not overrule or control them. Many wondrous finds have thus disappeared before reaching Kabul. Half of the artifacts that made it were entered into the newly built Museum of Kabul, and the other half were shipped off to France, finding a home at the Musée Guimet in Paris. And luckily so, because soon after the Soviet occupation, the Museum of Kabul was plundered. The gorgeous statues from the Gandhara era were destroyed, and the smaller pieces slowly but surely found their way to the illegal markets, mainly through Peshawar in Pakistan. This procedure is detailed in the second part of this book - an unfortunate episode indeed.

This exciting book's third and last part discusses the world of legal and illegal art trading worldwide. The conclusion is that most of Afghanistan's precious finds have vanished from Ai-Khanoum, Begram, Tillya Tepe, Hadda, and other key excavation sites. The sites proper have been trampled or bulldozed, and all that remains of the Museum of Kabul is a skeleton building; people are still determining what became of its rich collection. The gold, jewels, and coins from the excavations had been locked up safely in the vaults of the Central Bank in Kabul. It was a miracle to find these pieces intact when a team of local and international experts and archaeologists laid eyes on them in 2004. This treasure was luckily saved and is now part of an exhibition traveling around the world as it would not be safe in its homeland  (see: Bactrian Gold, The Hidden Treasures from the Museum of Kabul).

It is a sad story that clearly illustrates how the Afghans have been nearly entirely stripped of their history – a story much less known than the destructive path the IS has left behind in neighboring Iraq and Syria. Still, the drama in Afghanistan is at least as devastating and radical.

Deir Ezzor on the Euphrates in Syria

Deir Ezzor is one of those cities whose foundations go back to the third millennium BC, the days of King Sargon I, till it fell into the hands of King Hammurabi (reigned 1792 to 1750 BC), followed by the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, and the Persians. It is located some 450 km northeast of Damascus on the banks of the Euphrates River. 

When Alexander the Great marched through Syria, Deir Ezzor became part of his empire. After his death in 323 BC, the country was ruled by Seleucos, one of his former generals. In Roman times, this green oasis was a crossroad on the trade route that connected the Mediterranean Sea with India. We may not forget to mention Queen Zenobia, who in the third century fervently opposed the Roman presence and occupied the city. 

By the fourth century, Deir Ezzor fell under the rule of Aleppo and afterward became part of the Ayyubid and the Mamluk empires. Tamerlane (read more under the Label Central Asia) and his Mongols totally destroyed Deir Ezzor in 1401, after which the city sank into the desert and disappeared.  

It is only in recent years, when oil was discovered in the region, that Deir Ezzor was revived, and this is what we are seeing today.

The confrontation with the Euphrates River is always an exciting experience. The river was used as a frontier line for eons and still is – in fact, the other side (east) is where Mesopotamia starts. The French, who arrived here at the end of the 19th century, built a narrow suspension bridge, a mini San Francisco Bay bridge, executed by nobody less than engineer Eiffel! Recently, a wider modern bridge has been built for motorized traffic. It is an unforgettable adventure to cross this old bridge on foot, as it is now reserved for pedestrians, and to feel the soft swinging movement caused by our steps. The strong current of the Euphrates is clearly visible from up here, and setting foot on Mesopotamian soil for just a short moment is definitely worth the detour. 

 

This is the story in a nutshell. Unfortunately, no traces have been found of Alexander’s presence here – not yet, at least.

[Click here for more pictures of the cities along the Euphrates]

Discovering Forts Alexander might have known (Central Asia 9)

[8 - In Spring 328 BC, Alexander splits up his army in five sections. Hephaistion cleans up the Panj River Valley, Ptolemy the Vaksh River Valley, Perdiccas the Karfernigan, Coenus the Surkhan, and Alexander marches to Maracanda, where his generals will join him afterwards.]

Alexander used his winter in Bactra to evaluate the complex resistance he has been facing in Sogdiana. Killing Bessus had made him King of Persia, but as it turned out, not the ruler of Sogdiana, where Spitamenes and his warlords led a full-scale guerrilla war. Alexander had to learn to face this new kind of warfare and had to make drastic changes in his tactics and in his army set-up. He decided, once across the Oxus, to split his forces into five columns, as each of them would mop up the valleys between the outstretched fingers of the Pamir Mountains. His faithful friend Hephaistion would handle the Panj River Valley on today’s border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan; Ptolemy would take care of the Vaksh River Valley originating in Kyrgyzstan as the Kyzyl-Suu, passing Dushanbe and emptying into the Amu Darya; Perdiccas would lead his men along the Karfernigan River, the longest of Kyrgyzstan and last tributary to join the Amu Darya; Coenus would subdue the people along the Surkhan River in southern Uzbekistan, also running into the Amu Darya; and Alexander would ride to Maracanda to rendezvous with all his generals afterwards. Unfortunately, historians only relate stories about Alexander, dismissing any details about the accomplishments of his generals.

They took several forts perched high amidst the Central Asian plains, roughly east of Derbent on the southern edges of the Pamir Mountains into western Tajikistan.  When I am in Khiva, I have the opportunity to visit some of such forts. It is my chance to get an idea of what this episode must have meant in Alexander’s life. The road takes me north, on the other side of the main road, Urgench-Tashkent near Beruni, towards Bostan. This is still within reach of the Oxus and its irrigation canals, watering the cotton fields. We make an unexpected stop alongside the road for a steady look at the Kyzyl Kala, i.e., the Red Fort, just beyond the fluffy cotton stacks. It is a near-square construction of 65 x 63 meters that once stood two stories high - not difficult to guess even from this distance. Soldiers from neighboring Toprak Kala were stationed there, I’m told, spending alternatively one week inside these walls, one week at Toprak Kala, and one week working in the fields. Time-wise, it belongs to the 1st-8th century as part of the Kingdom of Khorezm.

Now Khorezm deserves some explanation, for most of us have never heard of this kingdom, which may find its origin in the fact that it goes by many different spellings: Chorasmia, Khwarezmia, Khwarizm, Khwarazm, Khorezm, Khoresm, Khorasam, Harezm, Horezm, and Chorezm. Pick your choice!

The land was inhabited as early as 3,000 BC and is said to have been colonized by an Iranian hero in 1292 BC. When Alexander arrived here some thousand years later, it was governed by the Persian Achaemenids together with Bactria and Carmania. Arrian, in his Anabasis, mentions that the king of the Chorasmians, Pharasmanes, visited Alexander at his court in Bactra in great style, “with 1,500 mounted troops. He told Alexander that his territory had common frontiers with the Colchians and the Amazon women, and that if Alexander should ever contemplate an invasion of those countries with the object of reducing the various peoples in that part of the world as far as the Black Sea, he was willing to act as his guide and to provide all the necessary supplies for his army.” It is one of those paragraphs we tend to dismiss amidst all the events Alexander is being confronted with in 328 BC. It is evident that he had no intention at all to march back west, as his plans for India were by now drawn up. So “he thanked Pharasmanes for his offer and concluded a pact of friendship with him, adding that an expedition to the Black Sea was not at the moment convenient…” [Arrian, Book 4, 15-16]. This being said, it is clear that this Kyzyl Kala survived the largely independent days of the later Parthian and Seleucian dynasties, and those of the Sassanid rulers as well. How exciting to stand in a place with such rich history! Of course, Islam took over, and leaders like Genghis Khan and Tamerlane swarmed down over these lands as well, but that is beyond this part of the story.

Back to my own itinerary, the landscape soon becomes very desolate, and that is no surprise since I’m in the middle (well, middle…) of the Kyzylkum, the Red Desert, which I first discovered from my precarious airplane. We drive on for quite a while as distances are proportionate to the land, as always. I enjoy the comforts of an air-conditioned bus, while Alexander and his army had to trudge through these sands and spiny shrubs on foot. Sturdy men, no doubt.

Toprak Kala, meaning Clay-Fort, lies in the middle of the Ellik Kala oasis as part of a city of which I see no remains. This fort is much larger than the previous one, 500 x 350 meters, with walls reaching up to 8-9 meters, but I find the site in poor condition; the earthen walls have suffered badly from eons of exposure and erosion. One of the wooden doorposts still carries an inscription, but I cannot even figure out in what language it is written. Russian archaeologists have counted three hundred rooms in the palace on the northwestern side, discovering wall frescoes and polychrome statues of Zoroastrian gods as well as documents from the royal archives written in the Khorezm language (1st-4th century). A few vaulted corridors are, in fact, the most striking elements that remain today.

About twenty kilometres further down the road, the fort of Ayaz Kala stamps its presence on the flat landscape. It was part of a series of forts very much like the Roman Limes, built to protect the agricultural lands against the nomads’ invasions. From the top of its one-hundred-meter-high hill, it has a commanding view over the surrounding land. It measures 180 x 150 meters and dates from the 4th/early 3rd century BC, meaning this is the kind of fort Alexander must have been confronted with. And I am going to climb to the top, plowing through the loose sands as if walking in the dunes, what an experience!

Once I have reached the inside of the fort, I’m totally taken by surprise as it has not just one outer wall but two walls with in between them a vaulted passageway approximately two meters wide. Each wall is about ten meters high and at its base at least 2.2 to 2.4 meters thick. What a defense that must have been! During the 3rd century AD, these walls were enhanced and fortified by forty-five semicircular watchtowers at 10-15 meter intervals. As a fort, this construction was used till the first century, but after that it remained a safe haven for the local population till far into the Middle Ages. The flat top of this hill has been stretched to its limits and covers an area fit for a small town. The entrance gate was built in the shape of a labyrinth and was consequently highly defensible. How ingenious!

Under me, between this fort and the road, lies a lower hill of about forty meters high, with on its top, another, much smaller fort. This was the residence of King Afrig and was at the time connected by a suspension bridge to the next rocky outcrop crowned with a citadel to defend the king’s palace. This is all more recent, 7th/8th century AD, and functioned until the 13th century. These walls are clearly round and oval in shape, quite original, I would say. From what I hear, the movie about Genghis Khan was shot at this location – has anyone seen it?

The view alone is worth the climb. The wind feels like a storm up here, and I’m not surprised to learn that the locals called this place Windy Fort. I’m still within the flat valley floor of the Oxus, and in the distance I can see the blue waters of Akcha-Kul Lake on one side and to the left the sharp outlines of yet another fort. This one, shaped as a parallelogram of 260 x 180 meters, dates from the 1st/2nd century AD, but remains in the north-eastern corner are said to be much older, 5th/4th century BC. So, yet another fort from Alexander’s days! The outside walls were not as thick as up here, a mere 7.5 meters, and the watchtowers were entirely circular. According to the archaeologists, the fort was mainly used during the 1st century as a garrison, but it may also have served as a shelter for the tribes’ leaders or even as a temporary residence for the local population in case of trouble. Those who want to learn more about these forts can visit this interesting link on the UNESCO website.

It goes without saying that this entire setting in this specific desert area is giving me a precious insight into the forts Alexander the Great had to besiege during his campaign. Besides, who dares to say he never was here? It is not because nothing is put down in our history books that nothing has happened here …

Click here to read Episode 10 of Central Asia 

Jaxartes River and the Iron Gates (Central Asia 6)

[5 - Alexander moved to the end of the Persian Empire on the Jaxartes River (modern Syr Darya) through the Iron Gates (the only road east out of Maracanda), over Jizzak and Uratube.]

On my travel across Uzbekistan, I happen to drive on the road from Samarkand to Tashkent, which inevitably passes through the Gates of Tamerlane or Iron Gates, i.e. the only way to go east from Samarkand – now as it was in antiquity. This narrow passage is just wide enough to let the Sanzar River run through, flanked by a railroad and our main road. The lush grasses along the river offer good grazing grounds for a handful of cows and goats – a timeless picture, no doubt. In short, this pass is worth of Thermopylae, an easy place to defend.

It is obvious that history has been written here over the centuries and Alexander was no exception. Spirits from the past still seem to haunt the present carried by the winds squeezed at increasing speed between these steep rocky walls. On either side of the pass, these same walls once carried two Persian inscriptions; one telling about Ulugbek’s campaigns (the grandson of Tamerlane); the other about the brutal murder of Abdullah Khan, son of Iskandar Khan. Luckily both panels have been removed and placed in the care of the museum because the walls are desperately defaced with horrible screaming graffiti. Isn’t there a law against this? There is, but nobody seems to reinforce it. A dreadful sight for such a historic location!

It should be noted that there are two places in Uzbekistan labeled as “Iron Gates”. There is this one, on the road out of Central Asia to the east and there is a place south of Samarkand near Derbent which I mentioned above when Ptolemy went in pursuit of Bessus (I have not seen it for myself). Useless to mention that this adds to the confusing in locating Alexander’s path through Bactria and Sogdiana.

We drive on through Jizzak, an uneventful place. Further north we unexpectedly have to take a detour because of the intricate jigsaw puzzle borderline with Kazakhstan. The main road runs right through that foreign enclave, a complicated situation with customs and passport control we rather avoid by driving around it. We loose precious time, as far as I’m concerned for when we finally reach the Jaxartes River, of which I had such high hopes, it is pitch dark. The beams of the bridge flash by against a black void where the Jaxartes is said to run. What a disappointment that is.

This is one of the places of which we know for sure that Alexander was here and now I can’t see it! In the summer of 329 BC, he entered Maracanda, but not for long as he badly needed to secure the borders of his newly acquired empire which the Persians had set along the Jaxartes River (Syr Darya). On this occasion, he must have passed through these very same Iron Gates and the city of Jizzak to reach the Jaxartes which I didn’t see. So much for tracing Alexander in this corner of Uzbekistan!

[Click here to see all my pictures of the Iron Gates]
Click here to read Episode 7 of Central Asia .

A view of the Karakum and Kyzylkum Deserts (Central Asia 2)

[1 - Alexander marched his army from Bactra (Balkh in today’s Afghanistan) with heavy losses through the Karakum Desert to reach the Oxus River in pursuit of traitor Bessus, who proclaimed himself king after killing Persian King Darius III]

In the early morning I’m being directed to board the plane that will take me from Tashkent in eastern Uzbekistan to Urgench, approximately 300 km south of the Aral Sea and squeezed halfway between the Oxus River and the border of Turkmenistan – in fact nearly at the end of the Uzbek world.

My bi-plane is not very reassuring and looks very much like a fixed-up engine coated with successive layers of paint to cover up the presumed crust of rust underneath. I hesitate to climb on board and even ask the welcoming stewards if this plane is truly safe. Well, they are not going to deny that – after all, they will be taking off with me. I am crowded in with another twenty brave travelers. Inshallah!

Instead of the promised one hour flight, this plane takes double that time but once I have accepted that my destiny was in the hands of Zeus, Zoroaster, and Mohammed, I am starting to enjoy my ride. This being such a small plane, it has the advantage of flying at a lower altitude so that I can follow its route across the landscape below. It is like reading a map at life-size scale! The Kyzylkum, meaning Red Desert soon shows its monotonous terrain and my thoughts almost immediately drift back to Alexander the Great and his army crossing similar stretches of desert.

As so often, he has my deepest respect. Watching these endless sandy hills enhanced with rare green dots of long grasses and entirely stripped of trees, I can only have admiration for Alexander’s courage and determination when he covered the fifty miles of “pebbled desert” to reach the banks of the Oxus River after he left Bactra in the spring of 329 BC. He and his army faced unbearable heat among shifting sand dunes where daytime temperatures easily ran above the 40 degrees centigrade. There was a dramatic shortage of water and in an unforgiving attempt to quench their thirst, the soldiers in their despair broke into the provisions of wine and oil, which made things only worse. It is said that when Alexander reached the Oxus he ordered to light huge bonfires to signal his men in the right direction. Survivors went back with water to help their comrades, others simply died on the spot after drinking too much of the tempting river water. We do not know how many men Alexander lost during this journey but rumors have it that the figures ran higher than the losses he suffered during any of his battles. That should tell us a lot.

With the map on my knees, I follow the patchy desert as it unfolds under me, wondering how different this Kyzylkum can be from the Karakum on the south side of the Oxus River which Alexander crossed. I decide it has to be minimal – a different color, a different texture with more pebbles and maybe a little less “green”, but as barren and hostile as what I see here. From time to time there is a tiny lake or some marshlands but clearly not enough water for anyone to settle in the area for I see no constructions and no roads, except the straight line of the main road which I’ll take later on and which connects Nukus-Urgench to Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent beyond.

At last, the landscape turns green with square irrigated fields and narrow shiny canals turning increasingly larger as my plane sets in its descent. Water definitely makes the whole difference. Rows of whitish houses and high-rise buildings appear in straight lines and squares among the lush green lands till a wide meandering river appears. I’m sure this must be the Oxus flowing in lazy curves dotted with sandbanks and flanked by the fertile green parcels, cotton no doubt. Such a wide river, which Alexander has crossed on more than one occasion. I feel at least as excited about this view as when I first saw the Euphrates River. If only those rivers could speak…!

My rickety plane lands without any problem and I continue my trip by bus to Khiva, a true treasure filled with Tamerlane’s legacy which is another story altogether.

[Click here to see all the pictures of the desert]
Click here to read Episode 3 of  Central Asia