May 27 and 28th Tashkent and return to Muscat

We rose early and met the guide at 8:30 to go to the used goods market about 20 minutes outside of town, where there were supposed to be old Uzbek silk dresses for sale.  Unfortunately, it turned out that this was only on Sundays, although the market had a well-organized area to buy old electric motors and used construction materials. We then went to the Chorsu Bazaar, where we hope to find old silk dresses, ikat material, and fur hats.  Leslie succeeded in the first two, but we were told fur hats were out of season, and there were not enough tourists. After lunch and a hotel break, we headed for the large department store TUM where we heard we could find a large selection of fabric, and this turned out to be correct, and Leslie again scored.

We then went to the building that was supposed to be the replacement for the Opera House, which was closed for renovation, where we had purchased tickets for a ballet performance.  We noticed that a lot of families were arriving, many with young children, and some carrying bouquets of flowers.  It turned out that we had bought tickets not to a professional performance, but to a high school one!  Anyway, we were the only tourists there, and the students were quite good, but we left at the intermission.  Even our guide seemed to know something was amiss.

Next morning at 5:15 AM we left for the airport, and spent an hour or more hassling with the exit procedures, including the "lines" for our customs declarations.  One Australian had to pay a large fine because he had lost his copy of the customs form he used when he came in, and we heard a lot of loud complaining. We finally got on our Uzbek Air flight, had an uneventful passage to Dubai, and then our Oman Air flight down to Muscat, where we found the temperature a lot hotter than Tashkent, about 100 degrees at 5 PM. We are happy to be back in Oman after almost a month away, although we are very glad to have seen this major eastern part of the Silk Road.