In Summary….

Now that you’ve drooled over all the stunning architectural photos and listened to us drop every synonym for the color blue throughout our time in Uzbekistan, this post will begin to convey more of our real experience in the country…now that we’ve successfully exited. You can read about that story a bit more in the Tashkent blog post.

Overall, the mistake we made…the one which we had control over…was simply lingering too long…basically our full allotted 30 days attached to our visa. While the country has remarkable sites, and some elements of a concrete travel infrastructure, it has others that are severely lacking. Because of this, the thing we’re learning is that some countries, like Uzbekistan, are just not meant for slow travel, as we now long…make that need… to do. 

So without further adieu, below is our personal list of highlights, stats, money saving tips, and personal upsides and downsides for the country. 

Time Spent: 29 nights 

Money Spent: $1558 or $52/day

• $839 (Accommodation)
• $229 (Restaurants) 
• $225 (Groceries) 
• $164 (Transport) 
• $100 (General, including visa) 

Our itinerary: 

• (7 nights) Samarkand
• (5 nights) Bukhara 
• (4 nights) Khiva
• (1 night) Train from Khiva to Tashkent
• (11 nights) Tashkent
• (1 night) Airport/Red Eye Flight

Would we return? Highly doubtful. Actually…No. We’ve usually don’t say ‘NO’ this adamantly about a country, but this was how much the final week soured us. 

Our favorite place: Khiva

Least favorite place: Tashkent

Our Top Five Highlights

1. Our morning buffet breakfasts at the eccentric Qibla Tozabog hotel (Khiva) 
2. Riding the sleeper train from Khiva to Tashkent
3. Wandering through and soaking in the Old City of Khiva
4. Witnessing Shah-i-Zinda Necropolis in Samarkand by early morning light
5. Doing our normal morning exercise routines in the solitude of the morning, while running by glorious architectural marvels like the Registan and Bibi Khanym Mosque. (Samarkand)

What did we do Right?

• We enjoyed the itinerary itself, and the places we saw along the Silk Road
• Booking our trains in advance, and upgrading to a cabin for the Khiva-Tashkent overnight
• Unintentionally, timing our stay in Bukhara with the Biennial art show 
• Visiting during the month of October…the weather was absolutely perfect

What would we do Differently?

• Understand the complexities of the e-mehmon hotel registration system earlier (See Tashkent post).
• Avoid staying too long in each place, particularly Tashkent
• We should have bought a SIM card on day one, because our global Gig Sky was consistently a problem

Best Budget Saving Tips

• Be wary of tourist taxes and how much your hotel is charging before you book with them
• Avoid using the west or east gates to enter the old city of Khiva. They charge you there, while at the north/south gates, they are not as aggressive or present
• When required to take taxis, use Yandex 
• Book guesthouses with breakfasts, and eat that breakfast late so you only require one other big meal in the day
• Choose the sites you visit intentionally with advanced research
• Avoid tourist restaurants right in the center of historic districts; pay attention to service charges either way when you arrive
• Avoid restaurants that don’t have a menu with pricing
• Ask for the price before you buy anything in markets, particularly ones heavily frequented by tourists

Our Upsides

• The marvelous Islamic/Persian architecture is the most stunning we’ve ever seen….truly!!!
• All the cities we visited were pleasantly walkable and compact (including Tashkent, though definitely not compact). 
• Also, people stop in the crosswalk for you
• It’s an affordable destination, well within our budget. Groceries are particularly inexpensive.
• Generally, Uzbekistan is quiet. There are few barking dogs, sirens, or gatherings causing a lot of noise. Even social celebrations have hours conducive for avoiding night-time noise pollution. 
• The train system is wonderful! It’s easy-to-use, affordable, and bookable in advance online WITH a credit card. You can use it traverse the entire “tourist circuit” as we did. 
• Every hotel/guesthouse we stayed in included an outstanding breakfast. These competed with other “breakfast forward countries” like Turkey or Sri Lanka. 
• They have a versatile use of dill….in fact, they dump it on EVERYTHING!
• Using the Yandex taxi app is easy, affordable, and payable by credit card
• They have quality, cheap beer, including craft for as low as $2.50/pint, or a liter in the grocery store. Decent Uzbek wine is also available for around $5-10/bottle 
• The permanent amusement parks are quirky and fun to visit 
• They have some of the best souvenir shopping we’ve experienced in quite some time. Unfortunately, we don’t buy souvenirs, other than clothes, every once in awhile, and consumables. 
• An absolutely gorgeous and outstanding metro system, and only $.14 a ride. (Tashkent)
• The cats (Bukhara and Khiva.)
• They had fantastic local markets and a variety of produce. And mmmm….pomegranate season!
• Overall, we experienced terrific pillows. 
• Uzbekistan, along with all the Central Asian countries we visited, are a different world. Their exoticism and uniqueness definitely had something quite different to offer any traveler.

Our Downsides

• The E-mehmon hotel registration system does not allow tourists to track their own registrations, which places all the ownership on the hotels, when tourists are equally as liable. This means if you have a dishonest and/or negligent hotel owner, you can run into significant problems, which is essentially what happened to us. 
• All this said, as the most touristed country in Central Asia, they really need to get their shit together on this archaic Soviet system.
• Along with this, they have a lot of dubious practices to nickel and dime tourists from taxes/fees at hotels, service charges, rounding their money and not giving out 1000 Som notes, and overcharging for entrance fees to certain sites.
• Many hotels do not accept credit card payments. 
• In the meantime, many hotels ONLY accept cash for tourist taxes, which set-ups a system ripe for corruption
• Overall it’s a cash-based system. We were able to use our credit card in most supermarkets, but only with the physical card present. For the record, this was not an issue in any of the neighboring countries we visited.
• Signage is lacking and so is English, in what should be very obvious tourist areas…which includes at the migration department(s). Otherwise, this can be anything from significant train station signage, to simple things like “do not enter,” signs “don’t flush toilet paper,” or stated and consistent information on tourist taxes. Yes, this is unfortunately a running theme for us. 
• It’s nearly impossible to find decent ground coffee in the supermarkets. When you can, it’s cost prohibitive for us at $12-13 for a small bag of something mass marketed. Other than this, it’s all freeze-dried, which is crap. When you buy a coffee out, it’s around $2.50 or more. Clearly, the import taxes on coffee are quite high (?) 
• We had many, many problems with the internet. In addition to regular drops, VPNs did not work, nor did two-factor authentication. Also, our Gig Sky global data was very inconsistent even when in theory, “it should have worked here.” It’s quite clear the government was trying to control, or at least monitor, your connectivity (in addition to movement) within the country
• Reminding us of Vietnam, there were glass doors in too many hotel rooms, allowing the polar-white lights to flood in. We fix this by hanging Greg’s sleep sheet over it, but it still drove us nuts.
• Train tickets sell out early. This was not an issue for us because we planned for it, but definitely something to consider if planning a trip here.
• Other than in Tashkent, we consistently had bad water pressure.
• In Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva, there are lacking, or no, supermarkets in tourist areas, which means we were typically walking about 30 minutes each way to pick up groceries we couldn’t get at local markets.  
• Although we had good pillows, we had 1 good mattress out of 4. In fact, these three were just slightly better than sleeping on plywood
• Again, they would not accept “white” USD in any exchange facilities without quite a conversion fee. We were still holding on to one given to us at a bank in Kyrgyzstan
• The air quality, especially in Tashkent, was quite bad…in the “unhealthy” range most days. This meant no outdoor exercise for us, and an overall feeling of entrapment. 
• The air, overall is quite dry, and dusty, in the whole country! Plan to go through a lot of moisturizer and eye drops.