I had been due to take a bus from Samarkand to Bukhara, leaving early in the morning to arrive in the middle of the day. The day before Ruslan had persuaded me that he could take me and his friends on a road trip to Bukhara, rather than me taking the bus.
On the way out of Samarkand, we took a small detour so Muhammed could show me his champion fighting dog...
it certainly let me know that I shouldn't approach too close and I wasn't about to argue with it!
Most of the route was bordered by farmland of one variety or another and it was great to see the donkey carts trundling home as the retreating sun painted the end of the day in one palette after another.
Arriving on the outskirts of Bukhara, it emerged that Muhammed had some business lined up with a local friend – two young antelope! Muhammed and his friend removed the beasts one by one from a small wooden pen set up in the house coutyard. Naturally petrified, the young animals came out bucking, kicking and struggling and its captors had to keep a firm hold to prevent escape.
This one nearly made it, freeing two legs before recapture. While the animal was pinned down, the friend tore open the end of a long sock and pulled it snugly over the its head, covering its eyes, but freeing its nostrils at the end of the tube. Covering the eyes effected a change in the animals behaviour that was near instant and remarkable in its contrast. Like someone had flicked a switch, the antelope stopped struggling and relaxed its muscles, the second one even arranged its limbs neatly as if to sleep! Muhammed and his friend stepped aside for a private price negotiation before the animals were loaded, in completely relaxed compliance, into the footwells of Ruslan's car and we were on our way!
No one we asked on the semi-deserted streets of Bukhara seemed to know where my guesthouse was and the phone number I had from Sundowners was missing digits, so, after a bit of a run around town, we were somewhat elated to locate Sasha and Son just before midnight. A triumphant ending to an epic day!
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