It’s mid-April and we are hoping that we can visit Uzbekistan before the desert gets too hot to cycle. Our plan is to spend a couple of weeks cycling near Samarkand, then to head across to Bukhara and Khiva by train, as cycling across flat endless desert does not appeal to us.

Having had no sleep on the plane we arrived at 4.30 am in Samarkand. As ours was the only plane we were soon through immigration and hopefully awaiting luggage. I was really pleased that after two nights with limited sleep I was able to put together some coherent sentences in Russian to locate large luggage and currency exchange. And also, a bit later to haggle down the price of a taxi and chat to the driver. Our bike boxes and luggage all came through unscathed and were soon being strapped to the roof rack of our chosen taxi. The driver seemed to take it as an affront to his driving skills when Bernie put his seatbelt on, there were non in the back.

We arrived at Hotel Silver Rows just before 5 am and I felt guilty waking up the manager. He was really kind and let us use the room we had booked for later and to have breakfast at no extra cost. Before collapsing into bed I noticed the view from our balcony of the sun rising over the domes and minarets of the Registan at the end of the street.

A few hours later and after a delicious breakfast we set off to visit the Registan complex in Samarkand along with a handful of others including young families. It was such a pleasant experience after the seething crowds and sharp hawkers in Istanbul. All three Madrasahs had been beautifully restored and were covered in intricate mosaics and tiles. We wandered around in and out of cool rooms and courtyards. Everyone was very friendly and spoke with us in a mixture of Russian and English. This one is the Tilya-Kori Madrasah that was built between 1646-1660. It was not only a madrasah but also a mosque.

Cycling from Samarkand to Os’met

Saturday 20th April 2024

We were packed and wobbling up the road on our rather heavy bikes by 8.30.  Luckily we were leaving Samarkand through parks and pedestrian walkways for a few miles until I got my heavy handlebars under control.  We passed by another ancient Mosque which was surrounded by tatty niknak stalls which were thankfully not around the Registan.   People were pouring in and when we stopped to take pictures we were immediately surrounded by old men wanting their photos taken with us.  This was going to be the theme of the day.

After a couple of days exploring Samarkand we set off. We hadn’t been able to see any accommodation where we were heading, but Os’met looked like a large town so we guessed that there must be somewhere to stay. It takes a while when in a new country to understand where it is possible to stay. We had a lot to learn!

Our peaceful cycle ended abruptly as we left the city and immediately found ourselves on 2 and 3 lane highways, sometimes with a gravel verge and sometimes not.  The drivers were well behaved and tooted and waved at us happily. The lorry drivers occasionally lent on their horns if we needed to get off the road.

Eventually , after persuading a security guard to open a gate we found ourselves on a peaceful rural road surrounded by small holdings with cows and goats grazing the verges.  Most of the road was surfaced but generally there were large sections of potholes every hundred yards.  We passed apple, pear and quince orchards covered in flowers, with cherry blossom just finishing. Although it looked flat we were steadily climbing against a head wind and it was about 30 deg C, so as a first day it was tiring.

Lunch was interesting. We stopped in a small rural village with one restaurant.   We caused quite a stir and a call went out, touristy.  Lots of smiles from the farm workers while the women in the kitchen just giggled at us.  With the help of the whole restaurant we apparently ordered some kebabs, a wheel of bread and green tea.  Once we had finished eating the men got a bit braver and in a mixture of Uzbek, Russian and google translate started firing questions at us.  During the meal there had been three women chopping tiny pieces off a huge block of fat.  I think our minced kebab was mainly fat and most of that was now stuck on the roof of my mouth.  The women in the kitchen were still giggling at us so I asked them if I could take a photo, while trying to make them smile to show off their mouths of gold teeth.  On the way out I asked one of the women for the toilet.  She took me down the road a bit and through a farm yard past high dung heaps and cows in sheds.  I was shown in to a dark room with a concrete floor with a slit hole.  The effluent from the cow barns was running under the hole, it made my eyes water.

As we set off again the gradient increased and in front of us were high mountains covered in snow with dark rain clouds heading our way.  The houses were now mainly made out of mud bricks with a mud and straw render.  It was getting colder as we climbed past wide open pasture land dotted with herds of goats and sheep each watched by a shepherd in long flowing robes and a mastiff dog who ignored us thankfully.

Feeling very tired and by now a little wet we arrived in the town of Os’met  where we were hoping to stay.  Google sort of showed a hotel here but with no info.  We stopped at a road junction and were immediately surrounded by a group of road workers who got some local boys to take pictures of us all.  Lots of questions about us as always, but they then mentioned that no, there were no hotels in this district, they were not allowed to have them.  We thought we would head into town anyway and ask again.

We got to a small shop and asked there.  Again everyone in the shop wanted to help and have their photo taken with us.  More and more of them turned up, then younger cousins who spoke English were summoned and did a brilliant translation job.  But still, the nearest hotel was 70 km away and it was now fully raining, cold and we were tired.  Eventually Baktiyor said that we must come and stay with his family.  He took me in his car and the delighted teenager rode my bike and showed Bernie the way.

He had thankfully told his wife, Kamela, we were coming, and we arrived at a wonderful small holding where we were introduced to three of the daughters and regularly spoke to his oldest daughter who was studying languages in Tashkent, on skype.  They quickly spread colourful soft mats on the floor in a large carpeted room and a low table was soon covered in small bowls of sweets.  Their 18 year old cousin and 14 year old daughter had to translate increasingly personal questions.  Starting as usual on how old we were, how much pension we got paid, did women get this too. Was it usual for women to cycle as Uzbek women don’t. And on to things like if I was 68 why wasn’t my hair grey, it took a while to get the translators to understand genetics and the fact my mother never went grey either.

Then they wanted to take us to see their mountains. So six of us piled in his tiny, very old car, which had no seat belts and we went haring off, charging over pot holes then turning up a very steep single track that turned to wet mud.  A dam had collapsed up here flooding the valley and we stopped just above that, next to the Tajikistan border to take photos.  They seemed oblivious to the fact that it was raining, very muddy and very cold.  Eventually we persuaded them that no, we didn’t want to walk up the mountain from here as we were tired after cycling 70 km and it was getting dark.  So we all roared off home.

Baktiyor and his wife only spoke Tajik but their older daughter and a cousin spoke English and they did an amazing job translating back an forth. We even talked to another daughter on the internet who is studying English at university. They gave us a wonderful meal, but the women did not join us until we had finished eating, they ate in the kitchen. I suppose, as a guest I was considered an honorary man. Much of the meat, milk, cheese and butter come from their own animals. Earlier I had been invited into the kitchen where the women were rolling out pasta and making Manti with root vegetables and lamb. They are steamed dumplings and they were delicious. We had quite a frank discussion with the family after supper, about their lives, aspirations and history which was fascinating but very sad, as of course they are on the wrong side of the arbitrarily drawn line which is the border to Tajikistan, and their grandparents had not faired well in the 1930’s which explains why the parents would/could not speak Russian.

Cycling from Os’met to Jizzax

Sunday 21st April 2024

Temperature: 38°C in the sun, about 28°C in the shade if there was any

We were up early, at 6, but the family was already up doing chores, milking the cow and churning butter.  One of the girls met us outside with an ornate kettle of warm water to wash our face and hands before breakfast of their new milk, boiled, and freshly made butter.  So much for agreeing not to eat dairy products while we were here.  They were delicious.   We had to resist strong pressure to stay another day.  We had a quiet debate about what to give Kamela before we left and this was resolved when one of the daughters came in and mentioned that her mother would very much appreciate a gift.  We decided that money would be accepted, which it was. Always a difficult one as you don’t want to insult your hosts but do want to show appreciation.

We found market day in full swing as we cycled through the town.  With people selling calves and goats, cheese, bread dough and yoghurt plus all the usual fruit and vegetables.   Then we were off, mainly downhill with the wind and mountains behind us.  The wide road was quiet and we had an easy cycle until we met the motorway at the bottom.  We  cycled along the shoulder for a few miles  then turned off to Jizzax along the valley on a smaller road.

Cycling from Jizzax to Lake Aydar – wild camping

Tuesday 23rd April 2024

Temperature 41°C in the sun, about 33°C in the shade

We had a day off yesterday in Jizzax. As we are heading into a very empty area tomorrow we thought we would spend a day in Jizzax to take stock and relax a bit.  Although chilling out in one sense we ending up walking about 12 km in the 30 degree C heat.  Although they are planting a lot of trees, most are not yet big enough for shade.  We ate a lot of ice cream!

We tried to get away early, but somehow it was 8.30 by the time we left and already getting hot. It got up to 41 degrees C on the road later, but was a balmy 33 deg C in the shade. We were lucky we had early showers as the water in the hotel ran out just as we were leaving and possibly might be off for days. A regular occurrence.

When we got to the last small town showing a restaurant, Zafarobod, we decided to stop for lunch even though it was only 11.45. We wanted to make sure we had a decent meal before camping tonight by the lake, and we were just too hot. As always everyone was so welcoming and horrified when we locked the bikes. No need here. Then after all the usual “where are you from”, we were shown to a small private dining room that wonderfully had air-conditioning. Absolute bliss. They all crowded in to have photos and videos taken.

He didn’t seem to have a menu so he took me around the kitchen where they were making kebabs and then I peered into the brick oven that had Somsas stuck on the walls cooking.  Definitely Somsas.  I had seen others eating these but had no idea what they were.  They turned out to be like Cornish Pasties, just like home then.  We have found them all over the world, the Spanish call them empanadas. 

The Somsas came with a salsa, tomato and onion salad, bread wheel and green tea, plus some brilliant orange coloured fanta. Everyone here was so excited that we were from England. We had had the same in Jizzax, which is a big town, and had obviously appeared on Telegram so much that I heard a couple of taxi drivers saying, “Oh the English”, as we cycled past. Fame at last!

Cycling from Lake Aydar to Yarashlov then back to Jizzax by car

Wednesday 24th April 2024

Temperature: Over 40°C, just too hot

It was a lovely place to camp.  It did cool down a little overnight, and we had tied back the doors on both sides of the tent and just left the mosquito doors zipped up, so any breeze could blow through.  I had hoped to see lots of stars as we were so remote but the full moon was so bright it was almost as light as day so no stars were visible.   Every now and then we heard a distant boom of explosive and thought that maybe the fishermen were not being very sporting.  But later we passed several massive rock quarries so it must have been them blowing the hills to pieces.  We were very close to a huge reed bed which got very noisy with birds and frogs as the sun set and rose, and quite a lot of storks flew overhead and landed on the grass just past the tent.  The skylarks were busy and singing their hearts out.  I turned on a bird song app and it identified tree pipets, crested larks, gull-billed turns, swallows (there were hundreds), European bee-eaters, red throated pipet, great Reed warbler, wood sandpiper and moorhen.

Just as we were packing up a marmot poked his head out and stood around looking at us for quite a while.

We had originally been going to cycle out off-road over the steep hills behind us.  But neither of us are coping well with the incredibly hot days and Bernie now had two very painful saddle sores.  I had taped them up but they were still sore.  So we decided to take a much longer but flatter way round, although with the state of the mud roads it was no less bumpy.

As always we left too late and by 8.30 the temperature was already steadily climbing over 30 deg C.  An hour later it was over 40.  One of the problems with coming to Lake Aydar is that it is a low depression so it is very hot.  I was hoping that when we started to climb it would cool down a bit.

We stopped at the small village of Lolazar to buy more water, as we are getting through about 4 litres a day each plus all the Sprites and Cokes that we find along the way.  They also had the lovely Uzbek pastries filled with walnut and raison, which made a good breakfast.

We slowly ended up on bigger and bigger roads.  Although there were more cars and they were travelling faster the road itself was just as bad.  Luckily for us they had graded the mud and gravel shoulder so we had a much flatter surface than the cars.  At one point we saw men working in the road, in amongst the speeding cars.  When we got there we found 5 men with big shovels getting clods of grass and earth from the side of the road, dumping this in a pothole in the road then jumping up and down on it to pack it in before rushing out the way of the next car!

We passed mile after mile of big rock quarries, taking whole hillsides away.  It was very dusty and there was no shade.   We started climbing in earnest then, and it did get cooler for a while, a drop of 10 degrees but only because some heavy clouds came over,   But when these cleared it rapidly went back up to 38.

We arrived in the tiny village of Yarashlov, where we were due to turn into the higher hills to where, in a further 9 km, we thought there would be a Yurt camp where we could stay.  Bernie was in a lot of pain from his saddle sores and we were both very tired.  So we asked in the village if there was anywhere we could stay there.  This was complicated as people outside the big cities only speak Uzbek or Tajik, and Google Translate is really bad in Uzbek, much of the time the translation does not make any sense and there is no spoken version.  So we all confused each other for quite a while.  But the upshot was, no, nowhere we could stay there.  In  the end I resorted to the sympathy card, saying the Bernie was 70 years old and he was feeling ill.  We talked about taxis and I pointed out some hotels shown on Google about 15 km away, but like all hotels shown by Google in the countryside here they did not exist.  Eventually a driver was found to drive us back to Jizzax for two hundred thousand Som.  Sounds a lot but was about £15.  Our bikes where piled on the roof rack  and we set off at high speed with no regard for potholes or other road users.  Bernie, up front, actually had a seatbelt.  I had one too but nothing to plug it into, so I sat on the end and hung on to it.  It was such a relief to get back to the hotel we had left a few days ago, to wash all the encrusted dust off and sit in an air conditioned room.

But what now?  It can take an age for burst saddle sores to heal.  We will decide tomorrow.

Jizzax Day Off

Thursday 25th April 2024

I woke in the early hours and it felt like my stomach was on fire.  I suppose it was inevitable due to all the things we shouldn’t have been eating.  I was just glad we had a modern toilet and were not in a Yurt, having to run to an old shed with a hole in the floor and no light.  As it was I spent an uncomfortable day in my room on a BRAT diet minus the rice.  Thank goodness for antibiotics!  Strangely,  as we had been eating the same food, Bernie didn’t get it.

By the evening I risked going down to the market to buy some bread, bananas, biscuits and cheese for Bernie.  Typical,  on a day we were not cycling, it was about 10 deg cooler than it has been.

Jizzax to Samarkand by train

Friday 26th April 2024

I managed a light breakfast this morning, with no adverse effects, before packing up and heading off through the centre of Jizzax, 6 km to the station.  It took us quite a while to get to Jizzax station.   To avoid the 3 lanes roaring into town we cycled the wide pavements.  This has its own problems as the pavements are between 6” to a foot high and they don’t go in for ramps, just the occasional loose brick or two as a step if you are lucky.  There are also a foot deep and wide concrete drains plus manholes with no covers to avoid.

We had checked there was a train at 11.15 but when we arrived at the ticket office we were told the train had left at 9.30 and the next was 4.30.  We directed her attention to the notice board above her head and we all agreed that there was indeed a train to Samarkand at 11.15.  I told her we had bikes, produced the passports and paid in cash as their card machine was broken.

We then had to get through security to enter the station.  All the bags had to come off and go through an airport style scanner.  Of course when we walked through the scanners all the alarms went off.  Metal cleats, Bernie’s multitool that they never noticed luckily.  They were a bit cursory and apologetic with their search of us as we were tourists who they are trying to encourage.We were told how far up the platform to wait for carriage 4, and there were a group of ladies there with a lot of small children and a massive pile of pushchairs.

When the train pulled in we found the doors were about 1.5 metres high, about chest height on Bernie.  Somehow Bernie and the guard managed to lift the fully loaded bikes in, then, as there were no steps at that door we ran to the other end of the carriage to get on.  Back up with the bikes we found the poor train guard wrestling with them as they were blocking the doors up and down the train, with people rattling on the doors.  Bernie took off both front wheels and tied them up on their back wheels against the door with bungies.

The train was full so we had to sit in different parts of the carriage.  But the women were not having that.  One of them told the poor man sitting next to Bernie to swap seats with me.  They all then took turns to carry the baby twins that had got on with us up and down the carriage to give the mother a break.

Arriving at Samarkand was another drama.  Everyone got off at the other end of the carriage and our door was still locked.  I managed to get through to the guard and another passenger translated our quandary.   We finally unloaded in a bit of a heap just before the train pulled out.  I think it’s easier to cycle!

By the time we where rolling again the station was deserted so we went in to the beautiful station building, full of stained glass windows and crystal chandeliers and had a peaceful snack in the cool.  Then out into the heat and noise of fast moving 3 lane traffic where 6 eyes were required at all times, thank goodness for our wing mirrors.  The cars were sometimes just stopped in the middle of the slow lane, or swooping in just in front of us to pick up passengers, or pulling back out into the traffic having picked up passengers who were also just standing in the slow lane to attract a taxi.  How Bernie also managed to navigate at the same time I have no idea.

But after 7 km we were back at Silver Rows, being welcomed back by the family who ran it like old friends.  The hotel was full but he was putting us up in some hostel rooms he had round the corner, where we had the place to ourselves.  It was blissfully peaceful and a lot cheaper!

Samarkand for a few days

It was much cooler when we woke this morning in Samarkand, almost cold,  which is much more the norm for this time of year.  We had been very unlucky with the weather and the extreme heat when we had set out.  Bernie’s saddle sore was obviously going to take quite a while to heal and the pain he had had in his swollen feet and ankles had been debilitating at the time.  So we have decided that on this occasion we cannot carry on riding the bikes.  We will continue visiting the ancient cities of Bukhara and Khiva by train.  We had been going to get to Khiva by train anyway.  Then we will head back to the UK.  We spent our time here visiting the more modern side of this city, getting ourselves some comfortable walking shoes, chilling out and generally exploring. We also spent more time looking around the ancient monuments, pictures of them below.

Samarkand to Bukhara by train

We left our bikes with the parents of our hotel manager and hopped on a train to Bukhara. It was so much easier without bikes!

Bukhara, were we stayed for a couple of days, has a very different atmosphere to Samarkand where they had kept the touristy tat well away from the ancient monuments. Here the stalls and cafes are attached to the fronts of many of the old buildings unfortunately. A few pictures below of the town.

Bukhara to Khiva by train

Most public transport seems to happen in the early hours of the morning and our overnight train through the desert from Bukhara to Khiva, 6 hours, was no exception.  We arrived,  bleary eyed, at the packed station at 3 a.m. We had struggled to book a train as they are all full. Our train had come from Tashkent, and we tried to find our bunks in the dark cramped, airless train amongst snoring passengers.  Thankfully in this direction we have the bottom bunks, on our 10 hour journey back to Samarkand in a few days we were only able to book the top bunks, which look impossible to get into, are about 5 foot long and have about 2-3 foot headroom.

Khiva was much more touristy than either Bukhara or Samarkand.  I suppose it is smaller so everything is more concentrated.  It is strange travelling without the bikes.  With them it is all about the journey and what you find on the way, now it seems to be just about the destination which inevitably disappoints.  It was difficult to find the ancient monuments through all the stalls of tat.  If you stopped to peer in a dark doorway you inevitably heard a voice in your ear – it’s real silk madam, all hand made.  The buildings have been restored to an inch of their lives and look – well – they look new.  Oh, I miss my bike!

Khiva to the Kyzylkum Desert Fortresses by car

The next day we got ourselves a driver and set off to the desert to visit 3 forts, Ayaz Kala, Toprak Kala and Kyzyl Kala.   They are about 2 hours drive from Khiva and were built between the 4^th and 7^th century BCE overlooking the Kyzylkum Desert to defend against raids by nomads and the Saka of the Syr Darya Delta.  They are part of the series of the fifty fortress oasis.  They were all very different and in different states of preservation.   A fascinating if very hot day.

Our driver didn’t speak any English and I felt I did very well chatting to him in Russian from the back seat without all the usual theatrics of waving arms, hopping around and making faces when I try to make myself understood in a language I don’t speak well.  I was practicing reading Russian on all the signs we passed when I saw one that made me laugh, I guess someone has a black sense of humour.  It was over an old industrial area, full of debris, twisted metal and dust.  It translated as Russian Lake!

Back to Samarkand by train

The 10 hour train journey back to Samarkand was excruciatingly uncomfortable and a bit like being at the gym. Somehow I managed to pull myself up to the top bunk which was above my head, and you had to get in it feet first as there was no room to sit up. We had applied for visas to cross the border into Tajikistan, but although Bernie got his mine was refused, no reason given. This is quite common but had taken over two weeks and we decided to just go home and apply for visas another time.

The temperature here has also varied widely, from 40 C when we arrived, then down to 13 C which had us all shivering for a few days, now back up to 35 C today.  We have also had a couple of days of really heavy rain.

A few facts about money and food in Uzbekistan in 2024

I thought I would say a bit about money and costs here in Uzbekistan.   And there is a lot of money about, suitcases full in fact.

As 12,630 Uzbek Som is worth $1 it means you need a big wallet and need to keep an eye on precisely how many noughts you are being charged in Som.   They will often refer to a price as being 10 or 20, meaning 10,000 or 20,000.

While we were waiting in a bank we saw men with suitcases of Som notes.  Added confusion with the notes is caused by new and old notes which are often a different size, colour and design and it is a common  sight to see people sorting out their handfulls of money while standing on the pavement .

It is good idea to arrive with as many dollars as you are going to need for your time here.  Then to resist all attempts to get you to pay in dollars as the price is always inflated.  I tend to negotiate in Som, and as you need so many Som to buy anything just the number of noughts seems to keep the price down.  Taxis have been the only place I have insisted they reduce the price.  Particularly at the airport or at stations they will quote an extortionate amount in dollars to go anywhere.   I have just told them I will pay 30 to 40 thousand Som and no more.

If you need to get more dollars you can either get them in exchange for Som at a currency exchange (you can’t use a card here) or in the National Bank (not other banks and there you can use your Visa card). But in both places you can only get $100 per person per time.  Banks have a numbered queuing system and we have generally waited about 2 hours.  You can get to the window and have it shut in your face while they go for lunch.  If the numbering system starts to fail queue jumping is rampant and it is worth checking what numbers the people around you have or you will never get a turn.  Older Uzbek women will not queue and will literally push you out of the way.

You can get more Som using a Visa card at some ATM (if they say foreign cards accepted) but as you need so many notes they often run out of cash, so go in the morning.

There are very few places you can use a card to pay for things, it is a cash society.   Even hotels you book on Booking.com may not take cards when you arrive, so ask before you book.  You can get through millions of Som notes that way. 

A typical one course lunch in Samarkand is around 100,000 Som per person ($8).  It is more in places like Khiva, possibly double as it is more touristy,  and about half or quarter that amount in rural areas.

Accommodation in the tourist towns and cities comes in the usual range from hostels, B&B, hotels of different levels.  We haven’t stayed in Hostels but I haven’t seen anything for less than $50 per night for the room for two people.  There is no accommodation outside the cities.

Buying food at the mini markets, a basket of say bread, cheese, biscuits, fruit juice and 2 bananas generally comes to about 80,000 Som ($6.4).  Most cheese is smoked and slightly out of date, the alternative protein seems to be very pink german sausage or nuts and raisins that are plentiful,  especially walnuts that grow here.  A half litre bottle of water can cost 2000 Som in a mini market and 5000 Som on a stall in a tourist area.  Anything imported is much more expensive.

At this time of year, spring, readily available fresh fruits are bananas, apples, oranges, satsumas, strawberries and cherries.   Readily available vegetables are carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers as well as leaf vegetables, that I tend not to eat raw, and onions.  There are more fruits and veg in the markets.   Later in the season there will be a lot more as things ripen.  There are a lot of dried fruits and nuts and the markets are full of herbs and spices.

For stocking up for a few days camping there are lots a pasta types, pulses and oatmeal.  Tins of fish such as Tuna, mackerel, salmon and tinned beef.  There is honey and lots of types of chocolate spread. Bread tends to come in flat wheels about a foot wide and can be very tough if a day old.

If you have any questions please get in touch.