In Part 1 of my Uzbekistan series, I talked about getting there, as well as the experiences visiting Tashkent, Samarkand, and Shahrisabz. While Samarkand may get the most tourists in that country, a trip there can’t be complete without also visiting Bukhara and Khiva. Those two cities will be the focus of this post, while I’ll save Almaty for a separate write up.
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| The Ark of Bukhara seen from Bukhara Tower |
Bukhara
After an Afrosiyob train ride from Samarkand, we had a 14-kilometre Yandex ride from Bukhara train station to Art Guest House USTO. At about $34 USD per night, that hotel was cheaper than the hotels in Tashkent and Samarkand, while they had a nice ceramic collection in the common room pictured below. The breakfast – while OK – wasn’t as good as the other two places and one of the toilets wouldn’t flush.
We started our first day in Bukhara at the Bukhara Photo Gallery which not only has an excellent photo collection, but it’s also home to several other artist shops including painting and metal graving. The Ark of Bukhara – built in the 5th century – is a huge fortress with the Juma Mosque, several mini museums, a throne room, former stables, and an archaeological park.
The columns inside the mosque are very colourful per the above photo, while the below archaeological park makes for a nice walk with some excellent views. Well worth the 40,000 Som ($4) admission.
The Bolo Hauz Mosque was nice to visit with an outdoor pond. Bukhara Tower offered some nice views, but we felt it wasn’t worth the 50,000 Som ($5) and would suggest visiting the Ark instead.
We then stopped by Chess Zone for a drink among giant chess pieces before visiting the Kalon Mosque and Minaret which was decent.
The second day started with the Ismail Samani Mausoleum which saw a lot of tour groups given it was one of the few structures spared by Genghis Khan’s Mongol invasion. The park it’s situated in is peaceful while the nearby Bukhara Zoo was small but decent. We then stopped by the Central Bazaar before taking a Yandex to the Chor Bakr Complex.
The Chor Bakr Complex was worth the Yandex ride with lots of good architecture and fewer tourists. A pigeon caretaker gave us some seeds to encourage the pigeons to land onto us which was cool.
The below complex had a few pools and some animals which contributed to the peaceful atmosphere. We had lunch at the nearby Chor Bakr Café which did good shashlik and chicken Caesar salad before returning to the old city. We then visited the Qo’sh Madrassa which was free to enter and was better preserved than the Ulug’bek and Abdulaziz Khan Madrassas.
The third day was relatively quiet with the Chor Minor Madrassa (below) and a Yandex ride to the Sitori I Mokhi Palace.
Chor Minor was pretty small, while I thought it was ridiculous the Palace charged 30,000 Som ($3) to take photos in addition to the 40,000 Som ($4) admission. Despite this, the palace had a mix of Islamic and Russian architecture, as well as lots of peacocks and green spaces.
Bukhara was the first city where we tried plov; Uzbekistan’s national dish consisting of rice, vegetables, and meat. Each region does their own variation of plov while it is sometimes served with quail egg and/or even a piece of horse meat; the latter for an added charge. It’s a cheap and delicious meal costing between 30,000 and 40,000 som ($3 – 4). We also couldn’t get enough of a boiled fruit drink called compote. Here’s a picture of a Samarkand plov with horse meat and compote at “The Plov” in the northern part of Bukhara.
A couple of other restaurants we liked include Mavrigi – situated in a former madrassa pictured below – as well as Chalet and Sitora. We found restaurants near the tourist hub at Lyabi Khause Square to be more expensive than those just a short walk away.
Overall, we felt Bukhara was our favourite city with a more relaxing atmosphere and fewer tourists than Samarkand while there was still lots to do.
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| Kalon Minaret and entrance to Kalon Mosque |
Khiva
While getting to Khiva meant taking the overnight sleeper train, Uzbekistan Railways is working on extending the Afrosiyob high-speed train there to connect all main Silk Road cities. The train station was relatively close to the Itchan Kala (old city), but the Khiva Mirza Bobur Hotel was still too far to walk with our large backpacks. The hotel was a bit disorganized and the owner initially forgot we had a day trip the following day to the Khorezm castles, but it all worked out and $99 USD for two nights plus the day trip was a good deal. The breakfasts there were also decent with lots of fruit and even some cooked sausage.
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| Looking west towards Pahlavan Mahmoud Mausoleum and Kalta Minor Minaret from the Islam Khoja Minaret |
In Khiva, you get a pass for most attractions inside Itchan Kala for 200,000 Som ($20), though the Pahlavan Mahmoud Mausoleum and Islam Khoja Minaret cost extra at 25,000 Som ($2.50) and 100,000 Som ($10) respectively. While there are over 20 attractions included with the pass, the only ones which were worth visiting include Khuna Ark, Toshhovli Palace, and Juma Mosque pictured below. The Kalta Minor Minaret was also decorative despite it being incomplete. Aside from those sights, we found Khiva – especially inside Itchan Kala – to be cheesy with a fair number of madrassas having exhibits of little to no value.
Getting to the castles of Khorezm took longer than expected because of a bike race which closed off some major roads in Urgench and our driver got lost. We ended up visiting the Ayoz Kala, Topraq Kala, and Kyzyl Kala. The first one was free and the largest, but also the least well preserved. The other two castles charged 15,000 Som ($1.50) each and were better preserved.
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| Topraq Kala |
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| Kyzyl Kala |
We used our third and final day in Khiva to visit the Pahlavan Mahmoud Mausoleum and Islam Khoja Minaret. The latter was a must for the views. We also visited the Nurullaboy Palace outside the city walls (pictured below) which had lots to see and authentic exhibits. Getting to Urgench Airport was the most expensive Yandex ride, but was still less than 100,000 Som ($10) to cover the over 30 kilometre distance.
Regarding food, we found Tohir & Zuhra to be very good despite the low rating on Google, while we also liked Khiva Moon and Khiva Kafe Milly Taomlar. Terrassa was overpriced, but we did have some tea there to enjoy some sunset views of one of the watchtowers.
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| A panorama shot taken while having tea at Terrassa |
Final Thoughts
Overall, we enjoyed Uzbekistan for the rich Silk Road history, its relative affordability, and the delicious shashlik and plov. Bukhara was our favourite city, while Tashkent is worth staying for a couple of days despite it being often overlooked by tourists. One thing we would change is to do one layover instead of two by taking Uzbekistan Airways from Frankfurt, though they do direct flights from other European cities and from New York.
One travel resource we found to be useful for visiting Uzbekistan was the Journal of Nomads.
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