Uzbekistan
Following the Silk Road to Samarkand
Anything Marco Polo Can Do, We Can Do Better
In Uzbekistan
we struggle through the desert and eat dinner inside a shipwreck. How we survive two sandstorms and what we make of islamic architecture? Find out in this article!
Links marked with (*) are so-called affiliate links. By clicking on one of these links and purchasing products from our partner website in the same session, we may receive a commission at no additional costs for you. Thank you for supporting our journey! 
Table of Contents
- Problems with the Border Force
- The First Issue with the Bikes
- A Hitchhikers Guide to Karakalpakstan
- Daily Life in the Desert
- 48 Hours of Hell
- A Thirst-Quenching Watermelon
- Stopped By a Tank and Interviewed
- The Bellagio in Kungrad
- A Family Run Business
- A Sandstorm and a Ship Graveyard
- A Birthday in Nukus
- A Car Industry Monopoly
- Khiva and Bukhara – Amazing Architecture
- Mixed Results with Phone Apps
- The Good Life in Samarkand
Problems with the Border Force
Jeremy, Moritz and I get through passport control at the border quite quickly. We take a seat after the baggage check section and wait for Jana. The border officer seems to want to chat her up. He has apparently found irregularities with her surname as the letter “ß” isn’t in the Latin alphabet. He asks her a barrage of questions: Where do you live? Where are you going? Where are you staying? What do you do for a job? What are you doing for dinner? etc. (OK so I made the last question up, but it was obvious he liked her).
After about 15 minutes she is told to move along and have her bags checked. The men in this section have AK47 guns over their shoulders, so when they ask her to see all the medicine she has in her bags, she doesn’t mess around and hands it all over.
It’s getting late and we just want to find a hotel to sleep in for the night. Well I do. The others don’t seem too bothered that it’s almost dark and we are next to a line of lorries at the border. I turn around to see Moritz just standing there like a lemon, Jana taking a photo of a “pretty sunset” and Jeremy doing his next vlog video.
We need to get an official registration from a hotel within 3 days of entry to Uzbekistan in order to fulfill visa requirements. Luckily we don’t have to go far as the first building after the border is a large restaurant with extra rooms for rent. We agree to pay 400000 So’m (30 €) for the four of us to stay in a private room and get our stamps. It’s not like a normal hotel. The rooms are actually rented per hour and have nothing in them except a table and a couple of sofas. Putting two extra sofas in our room the staff then fold them down into beds.
After some “kfc chicken” (as it appeared on the menu) and a Laghman each, we retire to our room. The restaurant is busy and there are children running around in the corridor. At 1 am I put my earplugs in to drown out the children’s screams and the noise of cars in the car park outside our window. They work a treat and I fall asleep, so no idea what time the kids went to bed!
The First Issue with the Bikes
Free coffee in the morning at the cafe is a lifesaver before we head out into the desert. It takes all of about 10 minutes before we have to stop. Moritz has an issue with his bike. We shelter in the shade between two parked lorries and inspect the damage on his bike. He must have hit a pothole. A crack runs almost the whole way around his rims and nearly all of his spokes are damaged. The chances of his bike completely breaking are quite high. He needs replacement parts desperately so we decide to ride to the first town over the border; Karakalpakstan.
We get money out at the ATM and find a man willing to exchange our Kazakh money for Uzbek So’m. I have done this a few times before while travelling and it can get quite complicated. As a foreigner you are always working out the exchange rate to the currency you know best (your home currency i.e. dollars, euros, pounds etc.), but changing from one foreign currency to another makes for even more interesting exchange rates. Luckily I have an app with the relevant currencies and their rates so we manage to negotiate a good price, losing only around 2%. Thank you technology, millennials (and later generations) like me would be lost without you!
A Hitchhikers Guide to Karakalpakstan
Moritz’s bike won’t make it the 400 km through the desert to the next town. The next train isn’t leaving for 16 hours so, back on the main road, he decides to try his luck hitchhiking. Jeremy, Jana and I continue on the road to Nukus. Only 400 km of desert to go.
We don’t get far before a car pulls alongside us. We hear “heyyy” being shouted in our direction. It’s Moritz! His hitchhiking has worked. He has the middle seat in the back of a packed car and his bike is strapped with cellophane to the equally crammed roof. Around the border, this is quite normal. We regularly see cars with so much packed on the roof that it doubles the height of the car; fridges, washing machines, furniture, bags of clothes, scooters. All strapped down or celefaned on, it’s like a game of buckeroo*!
Daily Life in the Desert
48 Hours of Hell
What we now call the “48 hours of hell”, after Moritz’s bicycle breakdown and our defective petrol cooker, the problems continue.
Managing roughly 10 km before we have to stop again for Jeremy’s second puncture of the day, he sits on the edge of the road in silence. Jana and I give him a moment and then assist with fitting yet another new inner tube. Only a few kilometers further down the dusty road and this time it’s Jana’s turn to have a flat tire. It’s annoying, but in some ways Jeremy is happy that it’s not just him that has issues.
When we stop for lunch in the shade of an oversized digger, I notice my right pannier dangling strangely from my rear rack. Oh no, now me as well. One of the clips that fixes the bag to the rack has come loose and fallen off while riding. I trudge back along the road to try and find the clip while the others prepare lunch. I’m in luck. The clip is lying on the road a few hundred meters back. The screw needed to attach the clip to the bag is missing though.
48 hours ago we were a group of 4 happy bikepackers with fully working bicycles and equipment. We are now a group of 3 very tired bikepackers with half broken bicycles and a broken cooker. Ah the joys of being in the 40+ degree celsius desert on sandy roads with more potholes than actual tarmac.
A Thirst-Quenching Watermelon
We get a lot of funny looks in supermarkets in Central Asia. Maybe it’s because we are foreign, or that our clothes are stained with sweat and dirt. People are definitely amazed at the amount of food that we buy and how we are then able to cram it all onto our bikes. We have to plan a couple of days in advance here as we can never be sure when we will pass the next shop.
Stopped By A Tank and Interviewed
We arrive late to Kyrkkyz after our 110 km ride. Having passed several gas fields and a giant gas plant, it’s quite a modern town in comparison to what we have seen in the majority of Uzbekistan so far. A building on the outskirts of town has a cafe sign out front, so we head on in. Still not fully being able to read cyrillic we order Pelmini soup, Lagman and fries for dinner.
We aren’t far from what we have heard is the end of the desert. Apparently “civilisation” starts again in Kungrad, 65 km down the road. As we set up the tents on the outskirts of Kyrkkyz we wonder if this is our last night in the desert?!
Unfortunately we don’t have much for breakfast, or lunch, so need to go back into Kyrkkyz to get supplies for the ride to Kungrad. On our way into town, next to the cafe from last night, there is a tank blocking the road and we are stopped by men in military uniforms. As it’s generally encouraged to stop when someone with a gun asks you questions, we halt next to the road. After a mini “interrogation” (where are you going? Where are you from? What are you going to buy? etc.) that we pass with flying colours, we continue on to the supermarket.
The small shop is next to the school and therefore can be considered more of a sweet shop than a supermarket. We find a few essentials and even treat ourselves to a morning ice cream. Some schoolchildren, presumably on their break, potter around in the entrance to the shop and giggle at us and our bikes. A twenty something year old teacher then comes out of a classroom and asks us in fluent English if we would come into her lesson. There are 6 children in the class, all sat in a line on the edge of a stage. We each introduce ourselves and are then asked questions by the teacher, on behalf of the children. After a few selfies we leave with a sense of joy.
The Bellagio in Kungrad
Something strange happens when you pay on card in Uzbekistan. Normally in Europe at a till you put your card in a machine and have to tap your pin in or sign a receipt. Not here. In the supermarket in Kungrad I request to pay on card. The lady at the check out takes my card and puts it in a machine out of my reach. She then asks for the pin. “Urmmm, no”, I reply. “Please pass me the machine”, I continue.
After walking into one restaurant and then leaving within 20 seconds of seeing the menu, Jeremy, Jana and I eat in another restaurant near the hotel called The Bellagio. Nothing like the Bellagio in Las Vegas and with no casino, the food is actually good and there are surprisingly few mosquitos on the terrace where we eat. Towards the end of our main course the music from inside gets louder. I really can’t describe the genre, but it’s a mix of russian techno, local uzbek ballards and central asian pop.
Out on the terrace with us are just groups of men drinking beer and eating snack food. Wearing shorts and flip-flops, they all look very relaxed. Taxis and other cars arrive and women all dolled up and in lovely dresses get out and head inside.
We have to go in to pay, the waiter tells us. The Bellagio isn’t your standard restaurant on the inside. Once you go through the main doors you are essentially entering a sit down disco. The large room is dimly lit and strobe lights flash around the walls and disco balls hang from the ceiling. There is a dance floor with a small group of women dancing in a circle and then a lot of other groups sat at tables having dinner. The music is so loud there is no way they are able to have a conversation.
We dance a little at the bar area where we have to pay. I indicate I want to pay with card. The same as with the supermarket earlier in the day the barman walks to the other end of the bar, then returns and shouts, so as to be heard, “What is your pin?”.
We leave wondering if the men ever go inside or the women ever out to the terrace?! Maybe there is a certain hour in which they then mix?!
Examples of Uzbek Cuisine
A Family Run Business
Sweaty and absolutely shattered from the almost 40 degree heat, we arrive in Muynak after a 100 km ride from Kungrad. Taking shade in the corner of a supermarket car park, we eat an ice cream. Jeremy and I then head off into town in hunt of sim-cards. We are directed to a barber shop that apparently doubles up as a phone shop.
Upon entering the barbers there are two rooms. On the right, a conventional looking barbers with a middle aged man cutting someone’s hair. On the left, what looks like a waiting room at a doctors surgery, but with a small desk counter at the back. Behind the desk sits a 13 year old girl. She happily shows us our options on sim-cards. The monthly tariffs have prices we can only dream of in Europe; 4.10 € for 20 GB of data, 1000 texts and 1000 minutes.
Before we can finish paying the father (and barber) comes around and starts asking us questions about our travels. The mother and son, around 10 years old, also appear and join in the conversation. The family assist us in setting up our phones with the required settings and we leave as happy customers.
How many 13 year old children in Europe could successfully run a phone shop and serve customers in a foreign language?! We often notice differences in culture to home, but how the children are put to work here in central asia really stands out.
A Sandstorm and a Ship Graveyard
A Birthday in Nukus
A Car Industry Monopoly
It’s difficult to put it into numbers, but at a guess, 80% of cars in Uzbekistan are white Chevrolets. If they aren’t Chevrolet, then they are probably Daewoo and almost certainly also white. In a former Soviet country that gained independence on 31st August 1991, I didn’t expect to see an American brand now so prevelant.
All of the Chevrolets are manufactured in Uzbekistan. Originally a joint venture with Daewoo, the Uzbek government recognised cars as an important step in gaining greater economic success, so set up the factory in Asaka. After General Motors acquisition of Daewoo, they rebranded the car models to be Chevrolets, hence why there are so many. The factory is now solely owned by the Uzbek government and 250,000 new cars are produced every year, some of which are now exported to the Russian market.
Other points on cars.
We have never been beeped at, or heard as much beeping from cars as here in Uzbekistan. They drive like maniacs and the beeps are incredibly startling when the car passes so closely. We have also never had so many cars pull up alongside us while we are riding and been shouted at from the moving car, “hey Tourist!” or “where are you from?” in Russian. Often they shout their question or statement, wave and don’t even wait for an answer before driving off. We almost have repetitive straining injury from lifting up our hands to wave at all the cars that beep at us.
Interestingly the majority of cars run on gas and not petrol or diesel. I am not sure if you are supposed to, but you can often smell the gas when a car passes or they are parked up next to the road. We try to give those ones a wide berth for fear of an explosion.
Khiva and Bukhara - Amazing Architecture
We are allowed 30 days in Uzbekistan visa free. To ensure we get to see everything we want to, we have booked a train for the 250 mile journey to Bukhara. Deutsche Bahn and National Rail eat your heart out, the train rolls out of Khiva exactly on time. In economy, everyone is assigned their own bunk bed. The bottom bunks fold up to make a table and chairs. The next block of six beds is taken by a group of ladies. Makhira and Mekhrigio, two sisters with their Mum, Auntie and cousins provide the entertainment and keep us stocked up with food on our journey. The conversation, flowing surprisingly well using google translate, is good. I’ll take a miss on the horse meat chunks next time though.
Arriving in Bukhara we meet up with Jeremy again. He plays tour guide for us on an afternoons walk and takes us to the main sights. The streets that evening are bustling with people, all out especially for the silk and spice festival. The colours in the setting sun are magical and upon nightfall, the city remains very much alive, all lit up and with the sound of street musicians. Being a proper tourist however is only short lived. We are back on the bikes in the morning, Samarkand bound.
Mixed Results with Phone Apps
Becoming quite the tradition, we take a nap after lunch on sleeping mats given to us by the restaurant owner. Cycling here is tough and It is so hot during the day that we try to stop at 1 pm for lunch, sleep from 2-3 pm, then get ready and head off at about 4 pm.
Reading the Cycling East Whatsapp group, we are recommended the Windy app. We often have a head wind, so with this app we should be able to better plan our days according to the wind direction. Lots of people comment in the group, giving praise to the app’s accuracy and how they all use it. I download it immediately and happily inform the others that we should have a tail wind and sunny clear blue skies all afternoon.
We start riding and definitely don’t have a tail wind. It’s coming from the side. Only about half an hour after we have set off we notice a giant brown cloud to our left. Getting constantly larger, it takes us a minute to realise what it is. A sandstorm! It’s too late to do anything, the cloud stretches from floor to sky across the horizon. It’s quite scary actually. I have never seen anything like it.
We stop and cover our faces with scarves and snoods, keeping our sunglasses on to protect our eyes. Moments later we are engulfed by the sand. The wind changes direction too and it’s now head on. We can still breathe but a sandy soot clings to our skin and visibility is poor. Cars continue to speed past us as we trundle forwards into the storm. “What an app! I’ll be sure to give it a 5 star review if I survive this”, I think.
We get past the town of Navoiy, cycling 110 km in total, to a spot Jana has found on the iOverlander app. Joking that we hope Jana has more success with her app than I did with the windy app, the camp spot turns out to be magical. Right next to the town, but tranquilly placed with our own private beach next to the river, we are over the moon. The current is too strong for us to swim, but we get into our bikinis and go knee deep into the water for a wash. Relieved to have the sand, sweat and salt off our skin, we still can’t get over how different the landscape here is compared to a few days ago. Normally with Jeremy we are pitching up in the desert with nothing but camels around us. Now we are at a river, surrounded by fertile land.
Today is unique. We overtake some other bike tourers for the first time since our journey began. OK, so they have already done 60 km compared to our 20 km and are tired, but we are still happy. Maybe we aren’t so slow after all. Today is also the first day since we arrived in Central Asia that we have to go up a hill. As we look down onto our next camping spot that Jana has found us next to a lake, we remember an advantage hills can also provide; views!
A curious shepherd is more interested in us than his sheep as we trudge over to the lake for a swim. Viewing from a distance, maybe it’s Jana in her bikini that he is so interested in, but it could also be him wondering why we think we are going for a swim when the water is only knee deep. Oh well, we can swim tomorrow. We have booked a hotel with a pool for our stay in Samarkand.
The Good Life in Samarkand
The Green house Eco Hotel is amazing. This family run hotel is everything we could have dreamed of. The garden is idyllic and the pool is exactly what the doctor ordered, literally.
The city of Samarkand is a 20 minute bus ride away. We pay with card when we get on, 1400 So’m per person (0.11 €). Strangely though, everyone else pays when they get off. Also, they pay cash. There are no notes with a lower denomination than 1000 So’m though, so how does that work?!
Samarkand is extraordinary and exceeded our expectations. The Registan is just as much beautiful as it is imposing and the light show at night is very impressive.
When we get back to the hotel we ask Nelly, the hotel owner, about the bus. She laughs and explains to us the system. There are coins, but only old people bother with them, as they can only be used on the bus. And people pay at the end in case the bus breaks down. She finds it weird when we tell her we pay when we get on in Germany. “What do you do when the bus breaks down though? Surely it’s annoying for the driver to give everyone their money back?”, she asks. We don’t go into detail on how much of an effort it is to claim anything back from public services, but she seems positively surprised to hear that buses don’t break down several times a week in our countries.
Sat by the pool and trying to respect the owner’s faith, we drink beer out of apple juice bottles. Nelly leans out of her kitchen window next to the pool and asks if we are OK. Then she says, “why don’t you drink beer? All other German tourists drink beer.” When we tell her the truth, she can’t stop laughing. I guess we should have just asked.
Uzbekistan started with a ride through the desert and ends with us drinking poolside beers. What a country. What a journey.
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