After our hectic schedule across Iran and Turkmenistan, we have relished the opportunity to settle into a more relaxed pace in Uzbekistan, taking our time to explore the fabulous former Silk Road capitals of Bukhara and Samarkand. Bukhara's imposing old town is a delight to spend a day getting lost in, whilst Samarkand's veritable orgy of gleaming blue domes, lavish tilings and towering minarets gives an idea of quite how important these cities must have been in their day. Though undoubtedly impressive, it's a bit of a pity that so much of Samarkand has been the victim of overzealous Soviet era restoration - personally I think a few centuries of wear and tear adds character, whilst the restored sections in a way detract from what remains of the original. Bukhara has a fantastic atmosphere though, at least when we managed to escape from the marauding French tour groups, and it was great to spend hours just wandering around, chatting to entrepreneurial teenagers selling tacky souvenirs, and relaxing in the square with a beer.

Not every moment of cycling is fun, and sometimes we get irritated with being asked the same tedious questions over and over again - Where are you going? Where are you from? - plus the slightly odd demands for our home address and telephone number, despite having only met the person in question 30 seconds ago. But every now and again somebody comes along who really makes us smile, and we remember why we chose this method of travelling. From the man who drove alongside us excitedly shouting the name of every English footballing legend he could think of, from Michael Owen to Kevin Keegan, to the lovely old lady who appeared with a handful of freshly picked apricots, there's always something a little different to spice up the day.

One encounter that sticks in my mind was when we stopped at a roadside stall for a drink. We talked to the girl running the stall for a while as the rest of her family gradually accumulated around us, and eventually were invited in for tea. Having expected a Turkish style tea - i.e. everybody sitting around with cups of tea but nothing else, we were suprised to have a spread of food laid out as well, but curiously only three tea cups. In Uzbekistan it seems that only the guests are permitted to eat and drink, whilst the hosts merely provide conversation. Still, it was interesting to see the inside of an Uzbek home - a complex of buildings arranged around a central courtyard with the entire extended family, usually spanning several generations, living together on the site. Certainly very different to family life in England. Talking to the stallholder's father - obviously the head of the household - highlighted another common theme we encounter when talking to locals. "England good, America good, Uzbekistan not good", he said. We enquired why he thought this. "Because in Uzbekistan, people are not rich", he replied. It's quite common for people to ask us what our salary is in England, and it's always difficult to know quite what to say. Even when we quote what seems a pretty conservative figure, we are inevitably forced to spend the next ten minutes trying, and usually failing, to get across the idea that although English people may earn more than Uzbeks in absolute terms, the cost of living is also rather different - you could probably buy half of Tashkent for the price of a one bedroom flat in London.

The scenery along this stretch of the route hasn't been particularly exciting - too flat for our liking - but it has been interesting to see up close the massive irrigation scheme that has turned acres of arid, infertile land into cotton plantations. Miles and miles of open topped concrete gutters carry water from canals to the fields; these must be a hugely inefficient way of transporting water, with massive evaporation losses, but they do make a convenient bath for passing cyclists. The downside of the project is the devastation of the Aral Sea, which used to be fed by the water now used for irrigation. Having seen the sheer scale of the scheme, and realising how many people's livelihoods must depend on it, you realise why simply stopping irrigating isn't a realistic solution to the Aral's problems.

Like any self respecting former Soviet republic, Uzbekistan takes its alcohol seriously. So far we have managed to resist cafe owner's attempts to force vodka down our necks whilst we're cycling - as early as 9am - but it's quite clear that the locals have no such qualms about daytime boozing, and the sight of a vodka session at a neighbouring table whilst we eat lunch is all too common. We are quite big fans of the beer though, and with a cold pint of local brew costing as little as 20p it's a nice cheap addition to lunch.

We are now in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, which has a very different feel to it than the rest of the country. There is a significant Russian population, which we hadn't noticed elsewhere, and all the cultural diversity you would expect from a capital city - evening entertainment ranges anywhere from the opera to a pole dancing club. Though it shares little of Bukhara or Samarkand's architectural marvels, it is a pleasant enough place, with wide tree lined boulevards and lots of open spaces and parks. The city's cheap, efficient metro system is worthy of note for its striking Soviet look, with each station being a new experience. Unfortunately it was also designed as a nuclear shelter, so taking photos is prohibited.

I had hoped to be able to write in this journal entry that we'd finally got all the visas required for the rest of the trip, but of course the Chinese had other ideas. Despite only opening their embassy for a total of 9 hours each week, they clearly felt this was too heavy a schedule and had decided to take an extra day off yesterday when we turned up to collect our visas. Hopefully we will be able to get it - the final piece in the visa jigsaw - when the embassy opens again tomorrow.

We've heard numerous scare stories about police corruption in Central Asia, but so far we haven't had any major problems, and the biggest bribe we have handed over is a handful of pistachios. At most police checkpoints we are just stopped for a chat, and half the time don't even need to get our passports out. A few dodgy policemen, particularly in Tashkent, have tried to invent problems and hint that we should give them something to smooth things over, but they appear to be utterly incompetent at extracted bribes - they don't seem to provide any carrot or stick to enforce the request so we just play dumb, obstinately pretending not to understand a word of Uzbek, until they get bored and let us go. It's a good job we don't have to hand over much money though, as keeping stocked up on cash in Uzbekistan is a complete pain. It's not so much the reams of paperwork and countless signatures required to extract money from a bank that is the problem, but the actual money itself; the largest denomination banknote is worth less than 50p, so even the simplest transaction requies handing over vast fistfuls of notes.

Assuming we manage to collect our Chinese visa tomorrow morning, we'll be heading off into the politically volatile Fergana Valley. This area is supposed to be very different again from western Uzbekistan, and will be our last bit of flat land before heading into mountainous Kyrgyzstan.