Tashkent to Urgench to Khiva

Tuesday 24 September

We had an early start to catch our flight to Urgench and were up and out by 0530.   We caught our taxi to airport - it was all looking good.  Then realised we couldn’t see our flight on the departure boards.  In fact there were no domestic departures.  Panic set in. We were in the wrong terminal!  It turned out that the domestic terminal was a taxi ride around the other side.  We hopped in a cab and sped around to the right terminal kicking ourselves we hadn’t checked.

We checked in ok -  you can't check in online with Uzbek Airway - and JC found some French tourists to chat to.   It amazes me how he just switches from language to language.  We also started to recognise tourists we'd seen the day before.  Tashkent (and, by the extension most of Uzbekistan) is not an overly touristy place and we were often the only Caucasian faces on the metro.

The flight to Urgench was short and uneventful - the best type of flight.  Although Urgench is a large town, we headed straight down the 30 km to Khiva as, according to the guide book, only “clueless tourist groups” stay in Urgench.  It goes on to describe Urgench as “a flat, grey Soviet city with all of Tashkent’s faults and few of its saving graces”.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the ancient city of Khiva.  Khiva is an ancient trading post on a side branch of the Silk Route.  Established in the 8th Century the majority of the buildings now here were built in the 17th Century.  Our hostel was within the city walls so we were in spitting distance of everything we wanted to see.  For a 15 USD tourist ticket you got entry into all the mosques, Madrassahs and museums you fancy.

Our tickets also included entry to the highest minaret which was short but steep climb up and gave us great views of Khiva.  All the stone steps were set very high apart so it was a good workout climbing them.  They must have the fittest Imans around.

The Khuna Ark was magnificent.  It contained numerous open courts from which the ruling Khan would receive guests, administer justice or pray.  Some courts contained a round stone plinth on which a yurt would be erected in the winter.  The temperature here varies from over 40 deg in the summer to below freezing in winter so all climates have to be coped with.

The beautiful blue tiles are individually painted.  They seem to be cemented onto the walls and then affixed with a nail for security.  Many of the tiles are numbered.

The throne room.

The tiling was amazing.

Khiva buildings date from the 16th century onwards.  In 1968, during the Soviet rule, all of Khiva's buildings were designated museums.  The most holy place, Pakhlavan Mahmoud Mausoleum, became a place where people were ‘invited’ to attend anti religious lectures, and another became a Museum of Atheism (it’s now a Zoroastrian museum).  As the Soviet republic continued over the years, Khiva morphed from a spiritual place of learning to a historical site to be abandoned.

In 1990 Khiva became the first site in Asia to be awarded a UNESCO world heritage site and regeneration began.  Buildings are being restored to their former state with tiles being replaced and plaster reapplied.  This process was naturally expedited by Uzbekistan’s independence in 1991.

JC visited here in 2001 and saw no hotels, restaurant or tourist stalls.  Now these sit side by side with the mosques and Madrassahs: like places the world over it has now become a tourist Mecca.

Silk weaving.

I loved the 16th Century Juma Mosque which contains two portals of natural light and appears like a leafless forest with its 117 wooden pillars, some dating back to the 16th century.

I worked out how to order Ruth friendly food today simply by ordering a side of veg and a side of rice.  Beetroot and squash are in season so the veg is usually boiled or fried combinations of these with aubergine, onion and potatoes.  It’s going to keep me fed along with nuts and fruit.  JC is discovering a favourite called lagman - beef, veg and noodle soup.

We found a place for a decent sundowner. Sunset. Wine.  The most awesome raspberry tea.

Tashkent - Fountains, Mosques, Parks

Monday 23 September 

After a 12 hour sleep (!) we ventured down to Independence Square.  Today, as we were trying to decipher the Cyrillic metro names at the station (our map had Latin script) some students befriended us and helped.  They were both studying international studies and the smartest students I’ve ever seen.  First year undergrads and wearing three piece suits.  In fact all the students we’ve saw were super smart.  It’s like office wear for lectures.  One of the students kindly accompanied us right down to Independence Square before leaving us.

We explored the fountains and arches under the watchful eye of the park guards.


Found the eternal flame in the remembrance memorial.

After lunch we explored a small mosque complex, Shayhantaur Memorial complex tucked behind a high street.


As I’ve seen at other mosques this had a rack of scarves outside, presumably for tourists.

Prayer time.

Loved the lights which were in keeping with the Ottoman Empire star and cresent.


We noticed that Tashkent has an abundance of white cars.  In fact not only white, but white Chevrolets.  About 80% of the cars on the road seem to fall in this category.

Other makes we saw were Daewoo and the odd Lada.  I was expecting to see many more of these.

As we walked down to the metro we waited at a road crossing next to a man.  A school girl no older than 7 walked up.  The man looked at her, offered her his hand and they walked hand in hand across the road.  Once over they dropped hands and went their separate ways.  What a lovely culture where children simply trust a stranger to cross the road with them.  I wonder when most societies lost that trust.

Whenever we were on the metro I was never allowed to stand.  There was always a teenager jumping up as I got on the train and insistent I take their seat.  I just go with the flow but it’s quite funny watching them all jump up for JC too.  He’s certainly not accustomed to being treated as an elder.

We strolled around a local park which had an air of faded glamour about it.  It was full of young couples enjoying time together away from the watchful gaze (glare?) of their parents.

Not quite sure what the red fruit was.

Tashkent has a wide variety of trees with oak, horse chestnut, spruce, willow and sycamore all abundant.

Lots of birds chirping around but I rarely saw a dog or cat. I  suspect that’ll change when we leave the capital.  I loved these plants!

We discovered a lovely restaurant for supper.  Unlike last night, we’d planned this one and knew it was veggie friendly.  It also had an English menu so we were quids in.  Veggie shaslik.  Rice.  Wine. JC had beef and noodles and the most awesome raspberry tea.  All for under 12 USD between us.

Uzbekistan - Getting to Know You

In September I had a two week adventure to Uzbekistan with a friend, Jean-Claude (JC).  JC is travelling the Silk Road bit by bit and I was delighted to join him on this unusual trip.

Saturday 21 September 

I started my trip by pogging on salads at Heathrow!  Bring meat free and gluten sensitive, and now heading for a country where fresh salads/raw food/unpeeled fruit are to be avoided, I knew it was going to be hard to feed a Ruth.

It was an easy flight to Tashkent changing at Istanbul.  The only event being a man collapsing one hour into our flight from Istanbul to Tashkent.  He seemed to not be in dire need of medical attention so we didn’t deviate course but it was still a reminder that we are all fragile.

Sunday 22 September

We landed at 0645 local time: a delightful 0145 BST.   Passport control was easy despite the Turkish ground staff telling JC that a Luxembourg passport needed a visa for Uzbekistan (it doesn’t).  Then the long wait for luggage commenced with our bags popping out at 0800.

It’s a small airport.  They put all the immigration officers on duty when a plane arrives then stand them down until the next one comes.  Part of me thinks the officers are then detailed off to empty the plane of luggage as it took forever for our bags to come through.  Sort of shifting from one job to the next.

We’d heard that Uzbeks were a friendly bunch and our first encounter of this was when, as we were leaving the airport, the customs officer called over to us.  Ok we thought, time to show him our luggage, but, no, he simply wanted to ask us if everything was ok as we were last out of arrivals.  We haggled for taxi prices and dropped our bags at the hotel.

Today was the day we found out how to do things.  We learnt that there is one flat fare for the metro.  It’s 1400 SOM (approx 15p) which gives you a blue token and entry to the metro.  You could spend all day underground if you liked.   We popped out at Amir Temur station expecting to be in the bustle of the city centre.   Instead we found ourselves in a pretty deserted hotel zone.   My three hour sleep the night before was showing and we stopped in a cafe to plan our day.   It was terribly hot ~32 deg C, I was sleep deprived and I was hungry.  This didn’t match well with Tashkent cafes offering of pastries and breads.   After iced tea we pushed on and walked down to the main railway station.

The station is a beautiful, imposing building typical of Tashkent.  Soviet architecture echos throughout the city.  As does complexity with buying things.  We wanted to buy a train ticket for later on in the week as buying outside of the country quadruples the price.  At the security kiosk to enter the station we were informed we had to enter a separate building to buy tickets.  Once we’d found that we navigated the queuing system and ticket purchase although ended up with economy which wasn’t the plan.

We caught the metro up to Chorsu to explore the huge bazaar there. It is enormous and categorised into quadrants of vegetables, meat, bread, dried fruits and nuts etc.  We headed for the latter in a circular dome topped building - meat on the ground floor, dried fruit and nuts on the first floor viewing balcony.

I was getting beyond tired and whilst JC wandered around taking photos I hung over the rails watching the ground floor market happen until the sight and smells of the horse meat got to me.  We bought some overpriced dried apricots and nuts (overpriced because even I was too tired to haggle hard) and we sat in the small shade we could find and dined on water and our goodies.

We watched local men lunch on water melon and bread.  Each group sat on cardboard, or directly on the grass, and carved up the melon with long knives.  Instead of slicing the melon into crescents as we do, they halved the melon.  From this they speared chunks of melon and, once finished, the last man drank the juice out of the massive fruit bowl.

Another discovery today was that Tashkent, and therefore most likely Uzbekistan, does not sell Diet Coke.  In fact it doesn’t seem to sell any diet drinks.  For some reason, no doubt fuelled by sleep deprivation, that put me in a sour mood.

We headed north to find the Hazrati Imam, the religious centre of Tashkent.  It contains the Uthman Qur’an - thought to be the oldest extant Qur’an in the world.  We walked an extra km or two in the stifling heat due to the construction of a huge mosque just beside it.  Post-communism, Islam is increasing its presence in these ex USSR countries.

Next on the list was the television tower.  This involved another metro trip and JC had a list of some of the stations he wanted to photograph.  Until 2017 photography was banned on the metro.  The stations doubled up as emergency bunkers and for this reason, and obviously Soviet sensitivities, had been off limits for photographers.  But now one can not only take pictures but use a tripod (something banned on London’s underground). We stopped at a few stations and JC set up and took some great pictures.  The security guards all came to see what he was doing.  They were fascinated by the images he was capturing as, using a long 30 second exposure, the people evaporate giving a strange emptiness to a station that’s never vacant.

Tashkent TV tower is 375 m high, which seemed quite small after my visit to the CN tower last month. Having said that it’s the tallest structure in Central Asia so not to be sniffed at.


The observation deck is 97 m high so it’s not a vast view once up.  It certainly showed how flat and featureless Tashkent was.  The odd tower, block of flats or mosque, but nothing to over excite the eyes.  But still an awesome view!

We lingered over iced tea for sun downers then headed for supper.

Another learning point for the day: Ruth really is very hard to feed in Uzbekistan.  We stumbled thro
ugh a menu of pictures with a waiter who had some English ability, but I ended up with a salad (bad), a dish of uncooked cabbage (bad) and a beetroot dish (good).  After sending one of them back I got a dish of beans (good).  Note to self - find out a better way to communicate.