Things to know before visiting Uzbekistan

The silk route wonder

The stans of Central Asia have always been like black box to me. It was difficult to imagine or visualize these places since you hear or see so less about them in the media. It is extremely confusing to locate each Stan on the map and know the different places in each country. We have put together a guide of things to know before visiting Uzbekistan to make planning easier

We wanted to visit some of them to get a sense of this part of the world. Samarkand was one of the cities appearing regularly on Travel XP. Tashkent seemed familiar with stories of Lal Bahadur Shastri passing away there. All Stans have some Russian influence but they are quite different in their own ways

As I read more about them, I realized Tashkent is only 3 hours away from Delhi. It would probably take the same time to reach my hometown in south India

Introduction of flights from Indigo made them more popular and gave a feeling of accessibility, although Uzbekistan airways has been operating from Delhi and Mumbai from a long time

As our plans firmed up, we added Almaty to see a little more and add another Stan overall

Uzbekistan has been one of the most welcoming nations I have ever visited. There is some unexplainable warmth among the people there, particularly towards Indians. My mom wears a bindi which was a centre of attraction for most women and children. They never went without taking a selfie with her. Some women also invited us home for a meal which we kindly declined

Uzbekistan does remain as of one of the most cherished countries personally for me

Visa

E-Visa is available for Indians costing $20/ INR 1700, typically issued within 3-5 working days. You can apply here

Currency: Som

We exchanged USD at Tashkent airport as rates were not too bad. Most places accept cash, so do keep some all the time.

How to travel between cities

There is a good high speed rail network Afrosiab that connects major cities in 2-3 hours. We took a flight on Uzbekistan Airways to Urgench and then tracked backwards through trains via Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent staying 2 days at each place

Train between Khiva and Tashkent don’t run on some days of the week- you will have to take a taxi by road in that case. Islambek travel has transparent pricing on its website and can help arrange one

Our tickets costs were not high for second class coach

Khiva- Bukhara: $15/ INR 1300
Bukhara- Samarkand: $12/ INR 1000
Samarkand Tashkent: $16/ INR 1350

Booking starts 45 days in advance and tickets can be booked and cancelled on their app. Be careful and check the date at every stage of booking, we had instances where the date would move by one day due to some bug. Cancellation charges were nominal at 45k Som. In case of refund related issues, you can reach out to them on Telegram. They are quite prompt with response

How to travel within cities

Yandex app is like Uber of Uzbekistan. Rides are pretty cheap <5 typically. We used it extensively, aided by Google Translate to communicate with drivers. Card payments is accepted

Places to see

Tashkent
Khiva
Bukhara
Samarkand

We cover details in a separate post here

Water and food

5 litre can costed 5k-10k Som ($0.5-1). Supermarkets had a good stock of fruits, biscuits, yogurt which we stocked up on. Non is their bread which you will find in every corner with stamped prints