what I saw on my way to Bukhara

Cotton fields, often with people bent over picking and filling bags that look like those plastic feed bags I get chicken feed in.

Stands of apples that looked like red or yellow ornaments in rows, alongside orchards.  A kang nestled in the shade of one of the trees

Lines of jars of honey, glowing in the sun like liquid amber or gold, in so many shades it was impossible to count

Donkeys! Pulling carts, carrying people or loads on their backs, tied to a tree, or wandering unmoored along the side of the road. So picturesque, I have no discipline when it comes to limiting the photos I attempt.

Herds of cattle, sheep, a few horses

More and more cotton, in some places there are big tufts of cotton attached to tall grass or trees, blown there in the wind.

Men wearing robes over their pants and shirts, some in plush velvet with elaborate trim, and some made from a sort of suit material.

Gypsies with their typically picturesque and rough attire, walking along the road or riding on a donkey- I would not have known they were gypsies, but Sherzod told me. He said they live outside the system- no birth certificate, being born at home, no schooling, no papers. Freedom, but at a cost.

A man in knee high boots with a scythe in hand in the field, with his donkey yoked to a cart beside him

Long lines at the petrol station, but not for gas (natural)

Potholes to swallow the car

An ancient well at which caravans used to stop on their way along the silk road

Men on bicycles carrying big bundles of corn stalks and shelves of wheat

New fields of rice, green and bordered by earthen curbs to allow the necessary flooding

Periodic police checkpoints, which make Sherzod grumble, but we are never asked to pull over

And more cotton, always more cotton.