Khiva

From Bukhara to Khiva in 24 annoying hours

Getting from Bukhara to Khiva took one full day, and was not a fun process: far better to take the night train from Samarkand (or Tashkent). Even if you're dumb, like me, and visit Tashkent, Samarkand, and finally Bukhara in geographical sequence, it would still be better to backtrack from Bukhara to Samarkand just to take the night train.

The reason I say this is because the road from Bukhara to Urgench is really bad, and in order to take it you'll need to get a ride in a shared taxi. As with other places, getting a shared taxi often isn't fun, and often involves hours of waiting around. For me, the taxi process involved showing up at the bazaar in the morning, negotiating with a driver until we reached a reasonable price, then waiting in the car while he solicited more passenger. Then, after an hour of waiting, he returns to the car with three passengers who want to go somewhere else, so tries to kick me out of the car, while I argue with him for a while and tell him to find me another driver going to Khiva or Urgench for the agreed price. He finally does, after first threatening to run me or my bag over. Then it's another hour waiting for the other car to fill up, followed by a half hour of driving around Bukhara in search of something. I had assumed we were looking for cargo, but after slowly driving past a few fuel stations where no fuel was being pumped but whose long lines of cars—some parked until the station started pumping again, others with driver asleep inside or nearby—at the entrance would make the 1973 oil crisis look minor in comparison,  I understood we needed to get some gas. This was followed by us starting our drive outside of town, then the car sputtering to a stop. After a few phone calls, another car shows up and hooks up a rope to tow us. We are then towed not into the city, but into the country, where we were taken to a fuel station that was open for service. There we popped the trunk and filled up the LP tank that so many cars in the region run on.

Finally fueled up and ready for the road, we set off on the bumpy hell-hole of a road (one would think a road through the desert would be fairly easy to maintain, but the potholes and eroded tarmac said otherwise) to Urgench. At about the halfway point we made a stop, and one of the ladies in the back who was traveling with her daughter (they were sharing a seat) asked to change places with me; I was in the coveted front seat, which the first passenger inevitably secures. I was kind of surprised, because everyone knows the front seat is the best and I've never seen it conceded, nor anyone ask for it if someone else was in it, but I relented and got to be squeezed in the back.

Between the time spent waiting, the time spent getting fuel, and the poor road, it was well after dark when we pulled into Urgench, and were deposited just north of the train station (a brand new and gleaming facility, though they don't get many trains out there). A bus pulled in at about the same time, and there were some taxis milling around. Not many were going to Khiva, which is about 35km away, but one woman who was going there teamed up with a driver to try and scam me. Well, really she's the one who tried to scam me, saying that we could split the cost of the car to Khiva, and that if we each paid 25,000 sum we could leave immediately. This was half as much as I had paid from Bukhara (which is over ten times further, on worse roads), and although she insisted she would have to pay the driver just as much (which he confirmed), it was clear that I would be paying for more than the car would cost and she would take a cut of the money after pretending to pay the driver. Oh, Uzbekistan, how predictable you're getting.

I refused, and ended up being taken to a nearby restaurant and guesthouse by a local. I was a little surprised they would let me stay (since they obviously weren't set up to take foreigners and didn't issue registration slips), but it was only $5 a night for pretty basic accommodation with a slightly grotty shared bathroom.

The next morning I set out to try and find the trolley bus that runs between Urgench and Khiva, which was actually fairly difficult since LP is predictably vague on the details of where to catch it. I ended up walking to the outskirts of town, and starting down the road to Khiva, thankfully ignoring one stretch of overhead lines near the center, as they didn't actually serve this trolley bus.  As I walked along the trolley line towards the stop I was able to get a closer look at cotton crops in the field: they were dry scraggly little plants in parched soil, quite unlike the steamy and humid conditions I associate with the American South, which is the place I most associate with cotton.

Khiva

Khiva, like all Khorezm sites in this arid region, owes its existence to the Amu Darya (aka Oxus) river and the fertile delta it formed as it emptied into the nearby Aral Sea. The Amu Darya river is the product of the confluence of the Pyanj river (which we saw in the Wakhan valley, and which forms much of the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan) and the Vakhsh river (which is what the Kyzyl suu river that we first saw in Sary Mogol turns into in lower Tajikistan): it's amazing how these rivers we saw over a thousand kilometers away continue to shape and inform the cultures we see weeks later. The Amu Darya is also what led the Soviets to decide that intensive cultivation of cotton was a good idea, a decision which has disastrous consequences for the Aral Sea, whose eastern shoreline has receded by over a hundred kilometers and which now contains only 10% of the water it held only 50 or so years ago. I mean, cotton in a desert: who could have seen this coming?

Once on the slow little trolly bus from Urgench, the ride to Khiva took about an hour, during which time we trundled through these bizarre fields of cotton and other crops before being deposited next to the northern gate of the Ichon Qala, or walled city. This drop-off location allows for a pretty inspiring introduction to the city, as it's just inside the northern gate that you can climb the walls and walk along the ramparts, getting nice views of the old town.

Just inside the northern gate.

Looking south over the rooftops of the walled city towards the main monuments. The taller minaret of the Islam Khoja madressa is on the left, while on the right is the shorter minaret for the Juma (Friday) Mosque.

View south from the western ramparts.

The iconic, unfinished, Kalta Minor minaret over the walls of Khiva's Kuhna Ark.

A view from the northwest ramparts. The watchtower of the Ark is the tower on the right, and its walls are the limit of how far you can walk on the ramparts. On the left is the Kalta Minor, and next to it is the iwan of the Muhammed Amin Khan madressa.

From the northeastern ramparts.

It's interesting to look out over old-city rooftops, though I'm surprised they aren't used more extensively as living or sleeping spaces.

Bukhara

The overnight train to Bukhara arrives at about 6:30 in the morning, and since it had left Samarkand at around 1:30, I hadn't been able to get too much sleep. But it's nice to be forced to get up that early in the morning, as it really lets you see the city before people and tourists are up and about.

The Bukhara train station really isn't in Bukhara but in the neighbouring town of Kogon, and is about 15km from the center of Bukhara. But they have regular marshrutkas/buses that run from the station, and if you just follow all the locals leaving the train you'll find them in a lot in front of the station pretty easily. The buses (or at least the one I was on) don't go into the center of historical Bukhara, but skirt the old town, eventually passing by the Ark on their way to the main market west of the Ark. Apparently there are some marshrutkas that go directly to the Lyabi Hauz area, however.

Before you leave the train station area, however, I suggest you take a couple of minutes to check out the nearby Kogon Palace, apparently built for Tsar Nicholas II, who never arrived to see it. It just in front of the train station, across from the parking lot where the buses and marshrutkas leave from, but it's tucked a bit behind a park so you might not see it immediately.

Sunrise from the adjacent to the walls of the Ark, shortly after getting off the bus. The Ark was closed for restoration while I was there, and most of the walls that you can see have been pretty heavily restored already.

The Kalon minaret behind the Kalon mosque, itself behind a row of shops.

View down the street that runs from the Kalon ensemble to the Ark. To me, Bukhara is immediately more likeable since the old city really feels old, worn, and lived in. Nothing feels glossy or new, and it has much less of a touristy vibe for some reason. I suspect the largely monochrome look of many of the monuments, and the way the blend in with residential buildings and shops, helps contribute to this.

The courtyard between the Kalon mosque complex and the (still functional, non-tourist) Mir-i-Arab madressa in the middle of the picture contains Bukhara's emblemaic Kalon minaret. Yet the shops around it are remarkably low key.

The eastern entrance to the Kalon mosque complex.

View from the iwan towards the Mir-i-Arab madressa, with a couple of early-rising locals up and about. Tourists aren't allowed to enter the working madressa.

View from inside the Mir-i-Arab madressa in 1890, courtesy French photographer Paul Nadar.

Samarkand: the epicenter of over-restored Timurid architecture

The night train to Samarkand departs Tashkent at around 9:00 and arrives in Samarkand shortly after 1:00 in the morning. This is far from ideal, and means I didn't get much sleep on my trip: the smarter thing by far would have been to take the night train all the way to Bukhara, then backtrack to Samarkand, as this would have allowed me to take the night train from Samarkand to Urgench (there's no train from Bukhara to Urgench, as Bukhara is on a different line). A ticket all the way to Bukhara is also only slightly more than simply going to Samarkand, as I paid 40,000 som for a first-class (4-berth kupe) ticket, and all the way to Bukhara would be only 46,000 som.

Anyway, I arrived at Samarkand at about 1:30, woken up by the conductor maybe 15 minutes beforehand. Somewhat surprisingly, there was a large, illuminated billboard map of Samarkand outside the station, in English. We're clearly in a well-touristed place, now, which is a definite difference.

You know you're back on the tourist trail when you see signs like this.

The station itself was closed, so I wasn't able to kill some time in there. But given the map, it was fairly easy to figure out how to walk over to the central tourist district and the Registan. As I walked down the road leading to the station, I stopped by one of the little markets that I was surprised to find still open and grabbed a quick snack.

I took my time walking into town, and when I came close to the monuments at around 4:00 I was pleased to find that many of them are illuminated all night long.

The first monument on the wwy to the Registan area is the Gur-e-Amir mausoleum, built for Temur/Timur/Tamerlane, who founded the Timurid dynasty which is responsible for most of the monuments in Samarkand.

The entrance portal in front of the Gur-e-Amir.

The entrance portal in front of the mausoleum.

Across from the Gur-e-Amir is another smaller mausoleum, the Rukhobod Mausoleum, which is partially surrounded by this court. As is typical of Uzbekistan today, the stalls now serve as souvenir and craft stores.

The Registan is Samarkand's signature monument complex, and is comprised of three madressas built over a period of 250 years. The Ulugh Beg madressa, on the left, was built from 1417-1420, while the opposing Sher-Dor madressa was constructed in 1619-1636. The central Tilya-Kori madressa was constructed in 1646-1660.

5:00 in the morning isn't that bad a time to visit, as it's truly empty at that time.

One of the guards for the central building saw me walking around and offered to let me in by selling me a ticket (which was just a used ticket). You can get into most places after hours by bribing people, but I figured it would be better to see everything during the day.

The Sher-Dor madressa is famous for the mosaic tigers just above the iwan—portrayal of living beings is forbidden in Islamic art and architecture.

After looking around the exterior of the Registan, I headed across the street to a small cafe that was open and serving locals. I was pretty surprised that you could have a humble cafe on prime real estate across from what is probably the most famous building in Central Asia, but it really was a cheap, blue-collar sort of establishment.

Shortly after 7:00, having eaten breakfast, I returned to the park around the Registan to take some more pictures.

There's still no one up and about yet.

One day in Tashkent

In all honesty, I have very little sense of Tashkent, which is fairly understandable since I was only there for one day. And because I knew I was only going to be there for one day, I used the subway a lot to get from place to place, even though Tashkent really isn't that large and I normally would have walked everywhere—I find that walking places gives me a much better sense of a place, it's people, and the geography.

After waking up and having a breakfast that was a little more leisurely than I like (especially since I almost never have breakfast unless it's free), I headed down to the train station but a ticket for Samarkand, and was only able to secure a first-class sleeper berth for that evening. In retrospect, it would have made more sense to buy a ticket for Bukhara, then come back to Samarkand, then take another night train from Samarkand to Khiva—trains to Khiva only pass through Samarkand, and not Bukhara.

Khast Imam

After this I headed to the premier religious complex in Tashkent, the Khast Imam complex, and it was already 1:00 by the time I arrived there—I really had only half a day in Tashkent. The central mosque contains what is claimed to be the oldest Quran in the world, written in 655. For me it was most interesting as a place to observe the obvious tension between the government and the devout—something especially curious given that the current mosque was recently constructed as a way to curry favour with the religious.

The main entrance to the new Khast Imam mosque. Uzbekistan makes sure that the religiously devout know they're being kept tabs on, as there were a bunch of police cars ostentatiously parked directly behind me.

Shoes galore.

Behind the mosque are s number of other religious buildings, including this, the Barak Khan madressa. Like many madressas in places frequented by tourists, the study rooms facing the interior courtyard have been converted to souvenir shops.

The back of the mosque. The air is so polluted that shooting into the sun makes everything look hazy and washed out, while shooting with the sun yields very different results.

Gorgeous geometric tile work and the aturquoise tiles on the dome that characterize so much Timurid architecture—unlike the mosque, the madressa dates from the 16th century.

The mausoleum of Abu Bakr Kaffal Shoshi, just north of the madressa.

This child knows the universal pleasure of playing in a pile of fallen leaves.

A woman asking for alms in the shadow of the madressa.

View from the interior colonnade of the madressa.

Looking east from the madressa.

Detail of the dome and tile work.

The western entrance of the mosque.

Chorsu Bazaar

The nearby Chorsu Bazaar is, to my mind, much more interesting than the Kumtepa in Margilan, and is probably the best bazaar I visited in Uzbekistan. As the main bazaar in a huge city, it's an appropriately large complex, with different sections/buildings for fruits and vegetable, clothes and consumer goods, spices, etc. The most charismatic building is a circular domed building that somewhat resembles a cross between Phnom Penh's Central Market and a Soviet-style circus building—but which was undoubtedly inspired by Samarkand's ancient Chorsu bazaar, which is also round—and which holds the spice & dry food market.

Porters man their carts next to an entrance to the spice market.

Concentric rows of spice vendors under the dome.

Piles of rice on display. In the middle, directly under the dome's oculus, is a souvenir stand selling postcards, bags and the like.

This spice vendor wanted me to take his picture. A uni-brow is considered very attractive in Uzbekistan, especially on females—you often see it penciled in by those who only have two distinct brows.

Panorama of the market from the second floor.

View from the second floor.

A young couple admire the Kukeldash Madressa, located just southeast of the Chorsu Bazaar.

I was taking this picture when I was approached by a curious local who wanted to talk to me. He was pretty friendly, and when he asked me what religion I was, I made the mistake of saying I had no religion. He wouldn't have minded if I said I was Christian or Buddhists (and I doubt he would have minded if I said I was Jewish), but he was legitimately concerned for me when I said I wasn't religious, and for his peace of mind he had me repeat the Shahada to signify my acceptance of Allah and Muhammed as his last prophet.

Inside the madressa, which still functions as a religious school.

Tourists aren't supposed to climb the stairs to the second floor, but I'm a very bad person.

Navoi Park

The Istiklol Palace concert hall, on the northern end of Navoi Park.

South of Istiklol Palace is the Abdulkasim Sheikh madressa, which is now used as a space for cultural exhibits. The north side exhibits significant earthquake damage, and was apparently the most interesting thing about the madressa.

There's a wedding palace in Navoi Park, and it's clearly a popular place to take wedding pictures. As with most of Central Asia (in the cities, at least), western-style wedding dresses are typical.

The Amir Timur statue with the Hotel Uzbekistan in the background. Like the Hotel Kazakhstan in Almaty, the Hotel Uzbekistan was an architectural landmark... though I think the Hotel Kazakhstan is a much better building.

The Ministry of Justice building has an unusual, Art-Deco-ish design—certainly a departure from typical Russian or Soviet-style architecture.

There were a surprising number of shopping centers in buildings near the Ministry of Justice, but they were unusual in that they were like shops lining relatively narrow indoor hallways, like you might find in a subway complex or something. They had a few international stores like Zara (somewhat fittingly in the "Zarafshon" shopping center) but these appeared to be unofficial shops. There isn't much foreign corporate presence in Uzbekistan, and the international hotels apparently withdrew their investments/presence after the 2005 Andijan Massacre. On the other hand, you do have things like the Uzbek Chevrolet factory (75% locally owned, 25% by General Motors), as well as international things like an ATP tennis tour event.

Bit in reality Uzbekistan is very much isolated from international commerce. There are only a handful of ATMs that take international cards, and since I knew I was going to need to collect dollars for my time in Iran (where you cannot use ATM cards at all and have to bring enough hard cash into the country to last your entire stay—which I figured would be $800), I knew I would have to try and get dollars wherever I could—daily withdrawal limits had hampered how much I could withdraw in Osh. The only places that have international ATMs tend to be high-end hotels that get foreign tourists and/or businessmen, and I tried to track a couple down after the sun set and exploring was no longer possible. I found one of the few hotels that had an ATM, went past their guards and valet parkers, walked inside the extremely luxurious lobby, only to find that their ATM was empty—a common situation. I would have to hope that I had better luck in Samarkand or Bukhara.

After that, I took the subway back to Chorsu, picked up my bag from the guesthouse, and headed down to the train station to catch my train.

I'll let you guess what each of these snack-food vendors at the Chorsu Bazaar were selling.

Budget

November 2, Tashkent: 52,900 som

• Night train to Samarkand (1st class): 40,000 som
• Coffee sachets and ice cream: 2,200som
• 1kg of apples: 2,000 som
• Lavash and drink: 5,000 som
• Subway (5 trips): 3,500 som