Blogs from Khiva, Uzbekistan, Asia

03 Nov: Starting the day at break of dawn was not everybody's cup of tea but I loved it! A one hour flight got us to Urgench from where we drove to Khiva, a small, walled city with labyrinthine alleyways and dazzling turquoise-domed mosques. Enroute was the cotton fields, then modern Khiva , nice clean roads and no frill apartments. THEN we entered the gates of Khiva! Wow! Inspite of all the pictures we had seen, I wasn't prepared for the sheer magnificence of the huge minarets,impeccably-preserved gigantic madarassas and mosques . The brown mud fortress is a stark contrast to the exquisitely intricate facade of the buildings and you get the feeling of being in a surreal world! The whole atmosphere is like a bustling movie set with local music, wedding dances, colourful shops and ... read more

21-9 When we arrived in Bukhara we were amazed at how traditional the old town looked, we felt as if we were stepping back into the days of the Silk Road. Our hotel had a lovely open air roof top restaurant a great place for dinner while watching the sun go down over the minarets and domes of the ancient city. 22-9 We explored Bukhara on foot and learnt a thousand years ago there had been a thriving slave trade. We saw the Ark Fortress, the crumbing city wall and the Samanid Mausoleum, which dates back to the 9th century. We both enjoyed strolling through the narrow streets of the old city to the covered bazaar which dated back to Silk Road times. 23-9 Bukhara is surrounded by the vast expanse of the Kyzyl Kum Desert, ... read more

July 2 - At the shared taxi stand in Urgench, I had to wait about 10 minutes for the taxi to fill up - we needed one more person. Then we were off, with me sat in the middle in the back seat. When we got to Khiva, we dropped off a guy and then I realized I could see my guesthouse. He started to drive away and I told him to stop, I was staying there, and he said something and drove on. He dropped the girl off and started to go a different way, telling me it was closed. It is an old scam, to get you to pay more somewhere else where they get a commission. I eventually convinced him to take me back, and he got out of the car to chat ... read more

The drive west to Khiva let us see the development taking place here in Uzbekistan, but also highlighted some of the challenges. Although it's not finished yet there are now a few hundred km of smooth concrete road through the desert which makes a massive difference to the journey (concrete is used because it doesn't melt in the heat). Our driver told us that for one section of ~100km the journey time has been reduced from a bit under 4 hours to about 1 hour, but then when we needed to fill up with gas - most cars, minibuses and vans run on methane or propane as Uzbekistan has it's own gas fields – the only station for kilometres was closed. We were lucky as he had some petrol but we saw others who'd run out. ... read more

Geo: 41.3806, 60.3595Khiva is an ancient Silk Road town - it operated a slave market for 3 centuries on which its wealth was based. They point out the places in the East Gate where slaves for sale were displayed but otherwise there isn't much evidence of its trading past. The caravanserai and bazaar are 'closed for restoration'.So what is there - and why Disneyland. It is a walled town - actually there were two sets of walls. The area inside the inner walls known as Ichon-Qala and the bit inside the outer walls Dishon-Qala. With the exception of one infrequently visited palace Dishon-Qala doesn't figure in this tale, that's Uzbekistan, remote from its capital. That means broken roads and pavements, holes in the pavement big enough to fall down, litter and rubbish everywhere.Inside Ichon-Qala there is ... read more