Ten miles into town we visited the ruins of Kunya Urgench. This city was built in the 1100's, pillaged countless times by Persians, Timor, and Ganges Khan.
When Islam was introduced the leaders believed it was not necessary to visit Mecca and created the 200 ft tower as their Hag. From that point it was the place for pilgrims from Central Asia to visit. It still is today.
Afterward we went to Sagkat's home to visit his mother and family. While their we filled the truck's water tank from the well and were treated to tea and jelly sandwiches.
We reached the Uzbek border at 3:00 pm to begin the process. We were checked out of Turkmenistan by 5:30 and on our way to the Uzbek station. And ... surprise, surprise! Less than thirty minutes to get in...yippee!
We waited for our truck to clear and met our guide, Illya. Nice guy! Great English skills. There was a problem with some of the paperwork so we had to wait. We're getting good at that by now. Once the truck was cleared we headed to Khiva and our hotel. By now it was 7pm. To help pass the time between the border and the hotel Illya offered to do a liittle black market rate money exchange so we would have some "pocket" money. The rate is 2200 soms to the dollar. It was a hoot getting wads and wads of local currency for a few US Dollars. Dinner and a bottle of local wine was 42,000 ($14.85). It ended up being a very long day again!
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