Medressas, minarets and mosques in Uzbekistan

WARNING : If you don't like really old ancient buildings from the Silk Road era, then you're probably not going to like this post. But I'll stick in lots of pretty pictured to keep you happy.

First stop on the Silk Road was Bukhara, which many travellers list as their favourite Uzbek city. It's got some cool looking buildings such as the Ark.

An old royal fortress containing an ancient town complete with mosque, reception and coronation court, the Ark is pretty impressive. Occupied from the fifth century until it was bombed by the Red Army in 1920, it is Bukhara's oldest building. 

The most noteworthy buildings in Bukhara, though, would have to be the Kalon Minaret, Kalon Mosque and Mir-i-Arab Medressa. They all face onto each other so can be viewed at once. Here is a photo of me at Chashmai Mirob restaurant which undoubtedly has the best views of the three structures in town.

View from inside Kalon Mosque courtyard.

And of course we had to visit Char Minar. Not a particularly outstanding building, but it's on the front cover of the Lonely Planet so a visit was of course essential.

After spending five nights in Bukhara we got a shared taxi to Khiva with a Belgium couple we would continue to bump into throughout our time in the city.

Khiva was by far our favourite town, with the old wall surrounding the ancient city centre. The modern town of Khiva is quite large, but we barely saw any of it. Our hostel was located just inside the east gate of the Old City, and as all the sights and most of the decent eateries are situated within the Old City, we barely ventured out.

Juma Minaret

The most eye catching building would be the Kalta Minor Minaret.

Me at Bir Gumbaz cafe with Kalta Minor Minaret in the background.

It kinda looks like a chopped-in-half minaret due to construction ceasing before the structure was completed. Building of the minaret commenced in 1851 under Muhammed Amin Khan who apparently wanted to build a minaret so high it would be seen from Bukhara. With 452 kilometres between the two cities, this was an audacious undertaking. Unfortunately for the good khan, he died four years later and construction ceased, leaving the minaret in the stumpy form we see today.

One can't help but be overwhelmed by the number of souvenir stalls in Khiva. If only I had enough room in my pack for one of these!

In the desert north of Khiva there are some old forts, including the ruins of the impressive Ayaz-Qala, dating back to the 6th century. 

A day tour around these old forts is cheap (around $10 per person if you have four in a car) and well worth the effort.

Be aware there are no ATMs (well, working ATMs) in Khiva and we had to make a quick dash by taxi to the larger town of Urgench to get cash out. Doh.

Be warned that the food situation in Khiva is nothing to get excited about. Unless you enjoy microwaved food. We only found one good restaurant in town, to which we inevitably kept returning when we needed a good feed. This was the Khorezm Art Restaurant, where we were introduced to a wonderful food called 'gumma', which is kind of like a deep fried potato cake, only better.

We ventured outside the walled city one night for dinner at a local restaurant. After waiting over an hour for our meals to arrive it came with meat, despite us ordering it biz myaza (without meat). When we pointed out that it had meat in it, the lady gave us a spoon so we could pick it out. We were not impressed. Keep your expectations low if you're eating outside the city walls.

After four nights in Khiva we got an overnight train to Samarkand. It's how the locals travel and it's good value for money, around $17 for the 12 hour ride.

We arrived in Samarkand at 5am and had no problem getting a taxi and checking into Bahodir B&B, just a short walk to the Registan.

Samarkand is more glitzy and expensive than the other towns, causing me to like it less. However, you can't help but be impressed by the incredible architecture which is the most impressive in all of Uzbekistan.

Tilla-Kari Medressa at the Registan. 

Claire at Ulugbek Medressa at the Registan.

Shah-i-Zinda mausoleum.

Ulugbek Medressa the Registan.

Woman in trading dress at the Registan.

After three nights in Samarkand we made our way to Tashkent, the day before flying out to Astana, Kazakhstan. While there we headed to a good coffee shop for some treats and amazing wifi, after being deprived of a good internet connection for two weeks. Downloading podcasts while eating a brownie and drinking good coffee felt very luxurious. 

Entering Uzbekistan (not by camel)

Our time in Tajikistan drew to an end and we tried psyching ourselves up for Uzbekistan. We were both a little wary, as we'd heard many negative stories about border guards and police 'shake-downs' of foreigners in Uzbek cities. We were also not too excited about being stuck in cities for the next two weeks. There would be no camping for us in Uzbekistan due to the compulsory registration system where foreigners are required to provide evidence of their accommodation. Apparently this is only required every third night, but we didn't want to take any chances as border officials can make up the rules as they go, especially if you look like a wealthy foreigner. We didn't want to give them any reason to have a problem with us.              

We had heard many bad stories from other travellers about the border guards in Uzbekistan. These were mostly from people exiting Uzbekistan, rather than entering, but still we were a little nervous. To help us with the border crossing we decided to purchase the traditional dress (a kurta) and wear it for the crossing. Given that I'll probably never wear it again I thought I may as well get the most flamboyant one I could find. Just for laughs.

Me in my leopard print kurta. Our driver trying to fix the car in the background after just having crossed the border.

Here are a couple of the horror stories we heard from people when trying to leave Uzbekistan:

A guy from Spain we met at Green House Hostel in Dushanbe said that when he tried to enter Tajikistan from Uzbekistan using the Denau/Tursanzade crossing he was arrested for having prescription medication for back pain. He was taken to the city of Termiz, several hours drive south of the border crossing, was detained for five days, and was required to pay for a lawyer and get blood tests. Eventually he was allowed to cross the border into Tajikistan.

A couple we met on the Pamir Highway had been detained for five days for having prescription medication - for which they had a letter from their doctor back home. I think the medication was some kind of sedative to help with sleep. They also had to pay for a lawyer and were out of pocket more than a thousand dollars once the ordeal was over. They were also crossing the Denau/Tursanzade border. 

This may have something to do with Uzbekistan's relationship with Tajikistan more so than their war on drugs. However, they are very serious about the eradication of drugs, possibly a knee jerk reaction to being a neighbour of Afghanistan, the largest opium producer in the world.

The night before we did the crossing we did a purge of anything that may be considered contraband. We had read online that codeine is illegal in Uzbekistan. We weren't sure if it was true but just in case, it went in the bin. All medication that wasn't in its original packaging, in the bin. All religious or political material from our kindles - deleted. John Piper sermons on my phone - not deleted. There are some things I can't live without.

From Dushanbe it only took around an hour to get to the border where there were several 'illegal' money changers waiting for travellers. In Uzbekistan, all money is changed on the black market due to inflation and other economic problems. Changing on the black market will get you twice as much for your dollar than if you change it at the official money changers, which only really exist in banks or fancy hotels. Even though it's illegal, I liked this system as every hostel owner, taxi driver and street vendor is a money changer. So you never waste time looking for a bank or a money change. If you're motivated enough, you can also negotiate your exchange rate.

Taxi drivers don't go over the border and you have to walk across no man's land from the Tajik to the Uzbek check points. Thankfully, this is only about 100 metres. We got many smiles and comments of "Uzbekski!" from Customs officers and the border guards about our kurtas and it proved to be a really good icebreaker.


The border crossing was incredibly quiet, with hardly anyone around. After getting our visas stamped we entered a final building where we were ushered to the front of the very short line. Big benches waist high rowed each side of the room and we were instructed to put packs on the benches and empty them. Everything came out. Tent, sleeping bag, powdered milk, toiletries, underwear! Everything. They went though our medications asking (in Russian) what everything was for. Our explanations were limited to touching the relevant body part - head or stomach. They went through my kindle, asking what was on it. Then they went through my phone. Photos, videos, music etc. They looked at my play list which contained a lot of John Piper and some Christian music. 'What type of music do you have on here?' I was asked. 'Pop music' I said. 'Do you have anything religious?' My heart skipped a beat. 'I have pop music', I said. She must have seen something to prompt the question but after x-raying my bag and hiking boots she let me go. Whew! 

All up the border crossing probably took about an hour. It was a hassle, with us having to repack our bags in rapid time as there was quite a queue after us by this point, but it all went smoothly.

Now we just had an eight hour car ride ahead of us to get to Bukhara. We got a taxi at the border, plugged into our podcasts (at high volume in order to drown out the loud local pop music that blared from the taxi's speakers), and settled in for what we assumed would be a restful, if long, journey.

Alas, before long we were stopped at a check point and searched again! Despite there being four passengers in the taxi, the local passengers were waved through and Claire and I were taken into a separate room, our packs put on the bench, and were requested to take everything out. Again. 

The guards were two young women who diligently went through every item. One of them picked up my bag of brightly-coloured tampons and with a questioning look indicated she wanted me to explain what they were. It took several attempts with me making lots of hand gestures south of my cervix. Thankfully, Claire then offered the Tajik word for 'blood' and the guard pieced it all together. She went very red, shared some embarrased laughter with her colleague and us, and that was the end of my search. They even helped us pack our bags back up.

We had assumed when we negotiated to go to Bukhara with our taxi driver from the border that he would,  you know, take us to Bukhara. Turns out he had other plans. He pulled over at the town of Karshi, loaded us and our packs into a different taxi, and headed north with his remaining passengers to Samarkand. On a side note, he had tried to convince us several times during our drive that we really wanted to go to Samarkand. We remained adamant that we wanted to go to Bukhara. So he had to pay a portion of our fare to the next driver, and find new customers to fill his car to Samarkand.

All up we changed taxis four times before we reached Bukhara. The driver for the final leg chain-smoked as he drove and Claire spent a lot of that trip with her head out the window getting increasingly headachy and grumpy.

It was after dark when we finally reached Bukhara. For the icing on the cake, it turned out our driver wasn't going to take us to our hotel. He left us near some local taxi drivers, to whom we then had to pay an extra fee to get to our lodgings.

Things improved significantly once we reached our hostel. We stayed at a beautiful B&B called Rustam & Zuxro which had the best breakfasts in Uzbekistan with pastries, fruit, eggs and real coffee.

View of the courtyard at Rustam & Zuxro B&B

We slept in a mixed six person dorm and thankfully we were so exhausted each evening from all the sight seeing that we had no problems sleeping.

I hope you like really old buildings because next post will feature some architectural highlights from Bukhara, Khiva and Samarkand.