Khiva rises out of the desert like a stage set that someone forgot to take down. The walled inner town, Itchan Kala, is built of mud brick and glazed tile on the edge of the Kyzylkum and Karakum deserts, in the fertile oasis of Khorezm along the lower Amu Darya. Its sand-colored walls, about ten meters high, enclose a maze of lanes, madrasas, mosques and minarets that was inscribed by UNESCO in 1990, among the first sites in Uzbekistan to be listed. Khiva was for centuries a khanate famous for its slave market and for the raiding caravans that crossed the steppe, and it kept its independence until the Russians took it in 1873.
The sights are close together and best done on foot. The Kalta Minor minaret, stubby and covered in turquoise tile, was meant to be the tallest in Central Asia and was left unfinished when its builder died, so it stops at a few dozen meters like a fat blue stump. The Juma Mosque has a forest of carved wooden columns, over two hundred of them, some said to be a thousand years old, holding up a roof that lets in only a little light. The Islam Khodja minaret, striped in red and blue, offers a view across the roofs. Climb it at sunset, when the walls turn amber and the swallows come out.
The road here is the real subject for a rider. From Samarkand you ride west to Bukhara, then north-west across the Kyzylkum desert for several hundred kilometers of long, dead straight asphalt with shimmering horizons and a few tea houses. The surface is mixed, with sections of broken pavement and sand drifts that make it tiring, and in summer the heat is severe, often well above forty degrees. Spring and autumn are far better. Wind can be strong and the dust thick.
Fuel is the practical matter. Gas for cars is widespread, but petrol is not always available along the desert road, and quality varies, so carry a reserve and fill whenever you can. Khiva itself has stations on the outskirts, and the hotels inside the old walls are small guesthouses with courtyards and breakfasts of bread, melon, yoghurt and tea. Khorezm melons are famous, so buy one when they are in season.
Eat plov, the rice dish of the region, and watch the sunset from the walls. The town is quiet in the evening once the day-trippers leave.