So, Uzbekistan these holidays. Pretty much everyone said “why there?” To which the answer is always “Why not?”
Once we’d decided to come here, the next issue was how. There aren’t many airlines who fly to Uzbekistan apart from Uzbekistan Airways and a handful of others, few of whom also flew to Australia! By process of elimination we selected Batik Air, because the transit was in Malaysia where we wouldn’t need to re-check bags, the price was right, and we couldn’t get here on our preferred airlines. They do have a reputation for delays and our flight was lucky enough to be delayed by four hours… not much fun on a 1.30am flight, but at least it got there eventually, safe and sound.
After reaching KL four hours after the scheduled arrival, we headed to the Sama Sama Express, the airside hotel that I’d booked a 6-hour slot to get a bit of sleep in between. This had shrunk to a 3 hour sleep, but better that than nothing!
A quick shower later (great water pressure!) we headed off to find our next flight which wasn’t looking like it was delayed! We hopped on the premium bus between terminals and got to terminal H in good time. This time we were in Batik’s version of business, which is pretty much like premium economy – wide seat with good recline but not a lie flat seat, and very few food items on offer.
We arrived at Tashkent airport with only a slight delay due to the thunderstorm in KL, slid through passport control quickly and waited for our luggage, with enough time that we visited an ATM and got out some soms.
We located our driver, Omid, outside the airport amidst hundreds of people waiting to welcome their loved ones with flowers (that should really be a thing at home) and headed to the Tashkent Wyndham, our base for the two nights we were here.
I’d seen some amazing culturally focused group tours to Uzbekistan, but none of them fit into our dates, so after a lot of searching, we ended up on a private tour from a Chinese tour company Agate Travel. They’ve been good to deal with so far, happy to tweak the tour to suit our requests, and the cost was pretty reasonable.
The hotel is big and comfy, with a big buffet brekky including ten (yes, ten!) different types of cheese and four or five different kinds of olives. Plus coffee which we felt very much in need of.
Our full day of sightseeing in Tashkent involved our friendly driver Omid (whose car doesn’t have seatbelts in the back -eek!) and our guide who took us around many of the sights of the city. We started at the Uzbekistan Hotel, a Soviet-era landmark next to Amir Temur square, then headed down to the metro.
I loved that the metro stations each have a theme. We visited a couple, and the best one was Cosmonaut station. This one was decorated with blue and white tiles depicting the layers of the atmosphere and pictures of the Russian and Uzbek cosmonauts. No Laika the dog though.
Next up was the arts museum, with some amazing woven fabrics, embroidery, wooden carving, musical instruments, ceramics and metalwork. Very cool huge ‘decorative goose’ jug. I was interested to hear that dowry chests are apparently still a thing.
After a wander past the government White House and through the memorial park for World War Two losses, we hit the Plov Centre for lunch. Plov is a pilaf/biriyani type of dish made from rice, meat, fried veggies, typically with a slice of horse meat and some quail eggs to garnish. It was delicious, but very filling, especially the Samarkand Plov that I had, which starts off with lamb fat to fry the meat, rice and veggies in. The ‘wedding’ Plov R had was a little lighter, made with olive oil.
After filling up with Plov, we viewed the TV Tower and headed off to the old town to the Khast Imom Complex to see the Quran museum and glimpse the huge mosque built in under a year to house the religious convention being hosted in Tashkent in the early 2000s. It’s undergoing some renos at the moment so we couldn’t get very close.
Last stop on the tour was the huge domed market, where we tried some delicious dried fruit and nuts and I paid way too much for a handful of roasted pecans. They are yummy though! We also tried dried yoghurt snacks which weren’t enough like labneh for my taste. R had a sinful gooey custard pastry and the ‘spring treat’ sumalak which was a sweet malty syrup thing made of wheatgrass.
After the busy day and an early start in the morning to catch the train to Samarkand, we didn’t feel like going out for dinner, so we walked down the street to a supermarket where we tried our best to break the self checkout machine. At least it had an English setting so we knew we’d done something wrong! We found a lot of pomegranate juice (yay!) and those milky curd treats we’d had in the Baltics, plus a smoky string cheese that rounded out my dairy intake for the day.
Next stop, Samarkand!
Two Weeks Away 