Just to chip in a bit:

It's very hard to get decent photos of the Registan as it is so huge. Having just trawled through mine, I am not impressed!

If you don't want to see other westerners, go to Kyrgyzstan! Just the odd trekker.

Most of the major travel agencies do trips to Uz these days. It would be hard but not impossible to go there without ... getting about is hard mainly because buses leave when they are full which makes organising anything quite tricky.

I went with Explore, a UK outfit. 9 of us. We ran into some larger groups, mainly French and German. No Americans anywhere. We didn't come across MIR.

I was not impressed with the accommodation but I don't think there is much decent stuff there. Not sure about the B&B scene taking off in Samarkand... though I didn't check! We stayed in 'homestays' which were very basic, a couple of nights in a 'yurt' for novelty value, and the rest of the time in local hotels which were pretty dire. There were better options available but Explore didn't use them! One of my complaints was that some of the places were inconveniently located.

We often had lunch at pre-arranged stops and fended for ourselves in the evening. Not really a problem. Lonely Planet came through and our guide occasionally organised something. I'm not keen on 'group dinners' so I usually opted out of them.

The food was not brilliant... the ubiquitous 'plov' was a bit of a trial.. 1kg of meat, 1kg of rice, 1kg of oil. Ugh! The salads were OK and the breakfasts the best. Quite a tricky place for vegetarians. I lost about 6 pounds over 4 weeks!

Annhig, doesn't sound like you will be going any time soon. Anyone else?

thursdaysd - I understand your frustrations - what with unwanted shopping stops, keeping going through the heat of the day, and badly planned accommodation and restaurant options, MIR and their guide don't seem to have done a very good job.

gertie - i think that you are right in your estimation of how likely I am to be going to this area of the world, especially as there are so many other places that I want to visit which I think I would enjoy more. Sadly the Registan [which I hadn't heard of before anyway] is probably a sight that will remain forever unseen by me.