Here follows some passages, a bit disjointed in parts, that just don't make the cut for inclusion in the book.

In my dreams I see two cities. First is Bukhara, where deserts and dervishes suffuse monochrome mosques and madaris with venerable nobility. Then there is Samarkand, where tree lined boulevards and rolling hills meet blue domes and slender minarets, where crowded bazaars filled with the goods from China, India and beyond dissolve into a riot of color. One is perched in the peach colored foothills of mountains which begin their rise in a high arc towards the Subcontinent only to taper off into the Bay of Bengal; another is situated on the flat plains of an oasis: the guardian and gateway to the great Central Asian desert whose desolation and sun-scorched nothingness reaches all the way to the Persian Gulf and beyond. Two cities in one country could not be more dissimilar. Yet both share something that cannot be found anywhere else in the Islamic world.

In Bukhara adorning the main pishtaq (portico) of the Nadir Divan Begi Madrasa you will find a mosaic of gorgeous blue, green, white and orange tiles depicting a pair of opposing peacocks and a sun god smiling between them. In Samarkand atop the main portico of the Shir-dor Madrasa you will find another mosaic, this one mostly orange with a smattering of blue and white, depicting a pair of opposing lions who happily chase a pair of small white gazelles. The face of a man in the form of a sunset rides uneasily on the back of each lion.

Similar but different: each lay in the valley of the Zerafshan, watered by the same river. Each has a substantial Persian (Tajik) majority and each city an Oasis. And, what is the one really big thing they both have in common? Yes, they are both the only two places in the world that I know of where animate objects, life, are depicted in religious art. How could I not see this at first? [But the similarities end there. I believe that Bukhara owes more to a Kwarazmian history and then more of an Arab influence. Samarkand’s pedigree in my opinion is much older, and more documentable. Bukhara is a city that sprang up, emerged from an oasis culture, much like that of Mesopotamia—a city that arose out of the shifting sands of the Kizilkum desert. Are there any Soghdian ruins in Bukhara? Any Kushan? Any Buddhist remnants as there are in Samarkand?

“Where would you rather live: Bukhara or Samarkand?” my father invariably asks when we talk about our travels. “I have no idea,” I always reply. What I do know about Samarkand and Bukhara is this: I am utterly incapable of describing them with a fair eye, so indelibly have they colored my dreams. They don’t call Samarkand ‘glorious’ for no reason and they don’t call Bukhara ‘noble’ because it just sounds nice. They are cities of fanaticism, tragedy and beauty on an almost megalomaniacal scale where mystery, history and fascination blow around like sands from the surrounding deserts.

The Macedonian interloper who visited Samarkand in the 4th century BC said, “All I heard about the beauty of Samarkand appeared to be true, but the fact is: she is even more beautiful than I could have imagined.” This he said almost seven centuries before the Arabs threw out the Soghdian infidels and roughly fourteen before Genghis Khan thrashed the city. All that is left of Alexander’s ‘Maracanda’ are a few gorgeous wall paintings (in a museum) and a mound of dirt with some bricks scattered hither and thither. Yet, for all the devastation of the intervening centuries Alexander’s words [are still the most complete expression of what Samarkand remains.]

The city which inspires now is the city Byron called ‘the setting of the Timurid Renascence.” Samarkand, aged though she be, wears it well. I found her a vivacious older woman: stunning and alive yet dignified and frank. “Time has ravaged me,” she says, “but I am still gorgeous.” And so Samarkand is. When I imagine her I always see Alexander but when I am there Alexander and his myth dissolve into a riot of rich colors, sounds and smells.

Samarkand deserves the sobriquet ‘glorious’, you can be certain of that, but forget not: they call Bukhara ‘noble’ for a reason. Bukhar-i-Sharif, as it has been historically known is an austere, holy and sacred place surrounded by monochrome deserts. Where Samarkand is hilly and fecund, Bukhara is flat and fertile. Oddly, Bukhara is more social, more civilized. Around the Lab-i-hauz, the sole remaining collective pool in Bukhara, the social heart of the old city, five year old boys dive into the water off the branches of five hundred year old Mulberry trees while long bearded ak-sakals, known colloquially as ‘babus’ gather to play checkers and the women mill in a circle around the pool, stopping briefly to gossip and then moving on. This life, this living, is certainly ironic, because when I think of Bukhara I see the beheaded bodies of Connolly and Stoddart atop the Ark of Nasrullah Khan. And I remember all barbaric atrocities are usually justified by false holiness. I suppose no place can be perfect.
No politics, only people, but I cannot help it: and anyway, everyone wants to live in America. They really do.

“My uncle lives in New York,” he said.

“Well,” I replied, “what Uzbek doesn’t have a relative in the city?”

“But I’m not Uzbek, I’m Tajik!”

“Whatever.”

Two massive facades set opposite each other (another old Soghdian tradition?) a third sits between the opposing pair in the background. Each madresseh is colored and covered with a thick carpet of intricately carved turqiouse tiles. It is the signature color that Samarkand is famous for.

Samarkand is a place that, even though I have been there, doesn’t seem to exist. I know I have touched the ornamented walls of the Bibi Khanoum and sat in the shadow of the Shir-dor Medresseh, but still, it seems to exist beyond consciousness. When I think of Samarkand, when I imagine Samarkand, I am halfway between sleep and wakefulness, beyond consciousness yet not quite dreaming.