Around the 1620 stone pool Bukhara has sat four centuries: ancient mulberries shading tea tables, the facing Nadir Divan-Beghi madrasas — and Nasreddin Hodja laughing on his donkey in bronze. Evening tea at the pool is the essential Bukharan rite; the Divan-Beghi portal's simurgh birds arrest the eye; surrounding restaurants run touristic-reasonable, the authenticity being the sitting itself.