We have red wine, and we have white wine

As in Bukhara, our hotel in Khiva is a few minutes’ walk from the historical centre, but it’s still a 4am start to try and shoot at blue hour. However on this occasion we really could have had an extra half an hour in bed, as it turns out they don’t light the buildings in the morning.

Mehmet does his usual positive tour leader thing and tries to find subjects which can be shot in almost total darkness, but I’m not buying it. Is there a special "photo tour leader course" where they learn how if you turn up and your subject has been buried under concrete and there’s a hailstorm they suggest "why don’t you try capturing the graceful arcs of the hailstones hitting the concrete"?

Fortunately there is a bit of security and street lighting and I’m free to safely wander the streets for a while until the sun comes up. Once the buildings are naturally illuminated everything changes. We get some great shots, including a nice old street cleaning lady who happily poses for a small tip, and a mosque illuminated by the sun, but where I’m ideally positioned so that my shadow, and those of things around me, form part of a dramatic composition.

After breakfast there’s considerably more activity. I try on one of the local hats, which is designed for the depths of an Uzbek winter which is allegedly colder than Iceland, but not ideal headwear in over 30C. We explore an old mosque and the Sultan’s palace, where we encounter a lady selling shoes, who is just in a perfect setting and light.

One thing which is really heart-warming is to see even quite small children playing in the street, running errands, interacting with adults, just being allowed to BE, not locked away somewhere with only a screen for company. There’s one particular little girl of maybe 5 in a pink dress who we see all over the city and on the route down to our hotel, usually carrying a bag of stuff with a determined expression on her face. Her mother obviously keeps her busy when she’s off school running little errands, but I suspect it’s growing a sense of self-reliance which will be valuable later. If I have to guess which environment will create the more capable young adults, it won’t be ours.

After lunch we go to yet another cultural show. This is very different to the others – it’s a group formed by three generations of the same family, who perform traditional music and dances. It’s much easier to photograph, as we’ve commissioned the performance so we have the best seats, we’re straight on to the performers with a beautiful background, and there’s enough light to capture the movement at a chosen shutter speed. There’s less variety than the other shows, but I still take quite a few shots in the hope of securing particularly photogenic moments.

Dinner is taken at what is supposedly one of Khiva’s best restaurants. Our guide keenly points out the smartly dressed woman a few tables away who owns the restaurant and many others in Khiva. He’s ordered ahead for us, including the "house special".

Drinks are entertaining. Our usual four local beers to start turn up without a problem, but we decide to also get a bottle of wine. We tackle the young waiter, and say "can we please see the wine list". He disappears off for several minutes, and then turns up and proudly announces "we have red wine, and we have white wine"! Suspecting we’re not going to get any more information we send off for a bottle of red wine. Fortunately it’s the same locally-bottled merlot we’ve been drinking all week, but the concept of grapes and vineyards seem to be bypassing our hosts. (In fairness, most are Muslim, so it’s not of direct interest to them.)

Starter out of the way the house special arrives. My immediate summary is "sausage in a pancake". I am chided that this is being unfair to the local cuisine, and I reframe it as "kofta in a pancake", but after everyone has had a couple of bites my initial assessment is widely accepted. Perfectly acceptable, but maybe not quite as expected.

Early start tomorrow, back to Tashkent.