Samarqand in the Spring

Way back, nearly seven years ago, I changed the name of this blog to The Golden Road to Samarqand.  It had had a couple of names before that, but the new one seemed better.  It from James Elroy Flecker's poem which reads in part:

Sweet to ride forth at evening from the wells,
 When shadows pass gigantic on the sand,
And softly through the silence beat the bells
 Along the Golden Road to Samarkand.
We travel not for trafficking alone;
 By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:
For lust of knowing what should not be known
 We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.

I still haven't been to Samarqand, despite living next door for nearly two years, but we're really hoping to make it there before we finish this round in Kyrgyzstan.  It's unfortunately a lot more expensive to go now that it was in 2005 or 2006, but still relatively inexpensive.  I can't tell you how much I want to see Khiva and Tashkent and Samarqand and especially Bukhara.