Silk Road Kebab

Shakrazabs is a small town southeast of Samarkand in Uzbekistan. At first glance dusty and ordinary, it in fact has a lively market as well as several beautiful remnants of an earlier, glorious era of Uzbek history. Tamerlane the Conquerer built a large caravanserai here at the end of the fourteenth century; its ruins are still awe-inspiring, with their turquoise tiles and soaring flocks of pigeons.

Late one afternoon I arrived in Shakrazabs and hurried out to see the caravanserai.