More than any other country in Asia, Uzbekistan is the place to soak up the culture of the ancient Silk Road. Influences from China, India and Persia mingled in the great oases cities of the Kyzl Kum Desert and Oxus Delta, and although suppressed for decades by the Soviet authorities, numerous cultural vestiges of this lost Golden Age endure.

The most striking, of course, is the sumptuous Islamic architecture of the Timurid Dynasty, whose great mosques, madrasas and tombs adorn the walled cores of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. With the help of your TransIndus guide, you’ll also be able to experience the living legacy of the Silk Road.

Visit a word carving workshop in Khiva, in which designs deployed on the pillars of the oldest mosque in Central Asia are painstakingly taught to young apprentices. Watch women stitch traditional pomegranate and tulip forms on to beautiful Suzani wallhangings in the backstreets of Bukhara. And enjoy a recital by Uzbekistan’s most acclaimed musical instrument maker at his cell in the great Registan ensemble of Samarkand.