Photos

Like picture one from this series, picture two is by no means a good picture from a technical perspective. It only makes sense when compared to the one uploaded yesterday and the one from tomorrow.
So this was taken just 80km downstream the point where I stood when I took the picture uploaded yesterday. Between these two points nearly all the water is taken from the river, used for irrigation. Thus what still is a mighty stream only a little further upstream, has become a small trickle here. You can see the levt and the right bank on this picture and instead of water in between you only see sand. There are few places on earth, where the immediate environmental effects of our behaviour become as visible as here.
For an explanation of the effects (environmental, economical and medical) please see the picture I took on what once was Lake Aral and the according note I wrote:
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/Uzbekistan/photo716128.htm

By the way, the Uzbek government, promoting the beauty of the country's silk road cities does not welcome any debate on the Lake Aral catastrophe and taking pictures on the bridges crossing the "river" Amu Darja is strictly prohibited. Thus the picture was taken under very difficult circumstances, I had to leave the vehicle and cross the brdige on foot, with police closely watching all the time. The picture you see here therefore was taken without looking through the view-finder. Furthermore the colours look faded since I had to scan from the printed picture. Nevertheless I would like to emphasis that this is not here for beauty but for telling a story.