We got out into the countryside and met some interesting people!

We hopped in a taxi yesterday morning and got ourselves about 10 kms (6 miles) south of the city into a more rural area. There was a detour that the taxi had to take on a dirt road, but the road had no traffic, and the scenery was pleasant enough so we just stopped him right there and got out and walked.

We didn't really have a destination in mind... just to get out of the city.

Views over Osh, Kyrgyzstan

There is a small mountain right in the middle of the city of Osh. Of course there are trails all over it, but there is also a museum... built into a cave right on the side of the mountain. It's very strange, so of course we had to hike up there.

But first, we needed flight tickets! We wanted to fly to Bishkek on Sunday. There is no train from here, and it's a 12-14 hour drive through the mountains. So for a cheap 45 minute flight, it makes sense. 

We lost an hour somewhere!

We thought we were doing okay getting out of the room yesterday morning at around 9:00am and heading down for some breakfast and hot drinks. But we got into the kitchen, and I saw the kitchen clock... reading 10:00am!

We quickly clued in to the fact that maybe we lost an hour somewhere!

Welcome to Kyrgyzstan, country #64 for us!

Wednesday was a travel day for us as we made our way across the border from Fergana, Uzbekistan to the city of Osh, Kyrgyzstan.

Border crossings are always interesting, and you never know how it's going to go. This one was definitely interesting!

Silk factory in Fergana, Uzbekistan

On Tuesday, we took a taxi from our apartment in Fergana to the nearby town of Margilan. 

Still can't believe how ridiculously cheap taxis are around here. And using the Yandex app (similar to Uber), it's so easy! The taxi ride was about 13 kms (8 miles) and took about 25 minutes. The cost was under $2 USD!

That was a very cool thing to do!

We were up at 6:00am and took a taxi to Fergana Airport in order to be there for 7:00am. 

The small airport was actually fairly busy because there was a scheduled flight to Moscow departing soon. We made our way to the booking desk where we had been told to check in for our flight to Sokh.

This ought to be fun!

Writing this Monday morning at 7:00am in the waiting area at Fergana airport. 

Where are we off to? The Uzbek enclave of Sokh! And we're going to fly in a 55 year old Russian biplane to get there!

Tashkent to Fergana train ride

We like traveling by train, and here in Uzbekistan it's both easy and inexpensive. The ticket booking website is in English and is easy to navigate, and you simply pay by credit card.

On Saturday, we took the train from Tashkent to Fergana, a five hour trip.

Back to the cardiologist

On Thursday, I had my other eye lasered. You can read about that in yesterday's post. But the cardiologist who confirmed that I was okay to have the laser repair said that I did in fact have a separate issue that I should have checked out. My blood pressure was too high!

So I was to come back and see her at 9:00am Friday for some tests. I was going to put it off until Thailand where I was planning on having some tests done anyhow, but I figured it would be cheap to have these blood tests done here. And it was.

I didn't plan to end up at the doctor's in Uzbekistan!

Long time readers will remember that we both had refractive lens exchange surgery in Turkiye two and a half years ago. 

But I developed a common condition called posterior capsule opacification in one of my eyes, and I had that repaired in Belfast, Ireland at the beginning of July. At the time, they mentioned that the problem was developing in my other eye as well, but it didn't bother me enough to do anything about it yet.

Return to Uzbekistan

By 6:30am, we were out the door and on to the road in front of our rented apartment in Dushanbe.

Our flight to Tashkent didn't leave until 10:30am, and the airport was only a 20 minute taxi ride, but I had read horror stories of customs problems at Dushanbe airport where they target foreign travelers with bribes etcetera so I wanted to make sure we had lots of time to deal with that if a problem came up.

Another cultural experience to remember

Regular readers will remember the other day when we crossed the border from Uzbekistan to Tajikistan and we met Ali, another customer in the shared taxi to Panjakent. 

He really looked after us, and said that his sister lives in Dushanbe and would like to meet us. I gave him my WhatsApp contact info, so we could keep in touch.

There's a language we haven't heard much of!

We relaxed for the morning, then after lunch we went for a long walk here in Dushanbe. There were a couple of other attractions we wanted to see. 

Our apartment is located in the north end of the city, so we pretty much have only one route to get to the main area south of here, and of course we've done part of that route several times now. 

Dushanbe is an interesting city

99% of you will have never heard of the city of Dushanbe. I admit that until I started researching this trip, I had never heard of it either! But Dushanbe is the capital of Tajikistan, and is similar in size to our hometown of Ottawa, the capital of Canada. Population about 1.2 million.

Dushanbe is a modern city, and I'm surprised that it's not more popular with western tourists. There is even a five star Hyatt Regency Hotel. 

If we careened over the edge, seatbelts were not going to help!

Woke up to another beautiful clear blue sky in the Fann Mountains at Iskanderkul.

The plan for the day was to make our way to the capital city of Dushanbe (pop 1,200,000). The only question was "how are we going to do this??"

Our caretaker friend Hamid came by and brought us some more bread and boiled eggs, and we think he said that all we can do is try to flag down a passing car. 

We never saw a single cloud the whole time!

We didn't have much in the way of food available for yesterday. We had some snacks only. So when we woke up, we didn't have any breakfast.

But then there was a knock at the door...

Welcome to Tajikistan, country #63 - What an adventure!

Thursday was a travel day. We planned to leave the guest house at 9:00am, and make it through the Tajikistan border and into the town of Panjakent by 11:00am. Then find a shared taxi that would take us to Zeravshan-2 where we could somehow catch a ride up to Iskanderkul Lake and then the tiny mountain village of Sarytag.

But right from the beginning, it didn't go as planned!

We are off to Tajikistan!

On Wednesday, we walked to a less touristy part of Samarkand. It's actually a nice city. Lots of park space, and crews of people constantly cleaning and sweeping leaves, even into the evening. 

Beautiful sunny day, with a forecast high of 19C (66F). But with the sunshine, and no wind, it actually felt warmer than that.

October Expenses - Yikes!

We know that when we do a trip to an oddball country, it's always an expensive endeavor. But this most recent oddball trip, to Turkmenistan also involved the cost of getting there from Eastern Canada. 

And, although we use the $CAD for our expenses, most of the trip was priced out in $USD. And the $USD has been on a tear since July and now sits at over a three year high vs the $CAD. Not only due to $USD strength, but also $CAD weakness.

Bought some more flight tickets!

And finally, I am all caught up on the blog posts. Not having internet access while in Turkmenistan for five days meant that I was playing catch up since we got back online!

So the post you are reading now actually details what we did yesterday. And one of the things we did yesterday was some more onward travel planning.

One last walk around Bukhara, and then the train to Samarkand

It was quite hot on Monday with a high of 29C (84F). So although we didn't do too much, we decided to walk into the more modern section of town outside the tourist area. There's not really a lot to see. I think on an overall basis, we enjoyed Khiva more than Bukhara. 

Our train was departing at 4:06pm, and the train station is quite far from the central area, so we had to be back at the guest house by 2:00pm.

Second ferris wheel ride this month!

After a late breakfast on Sunday, we walked over to a big park where Ruth was looking for an old mausoleum that she had read about. Along the way, we came across an amusement park with a ferris wheel.

We always like a ride in a ferris wheel, especially when the price is reasonable! 

Surprised by the number of tourists here

Uzbekistan is having a bit of a heat wave for the next couple of days. Highs around 29C (84F) with hazy skies. Not really that humid, but it's definitely hot if you're in the sun. Supposed to be back to normal highs of 19C (66F) by Tuesday.

We set off to explore the city of Bukhara.

Long ride through the desert to Bukhara

We haven't done much in the way of planning for this "stan" countries trip. We had no idea until the last minute that we would be crossing the Turkmenistan border at Dashoguz, so our recent stay in Khiva was also last minute.

But it turned out great, and we met a wonderful local family. And if we had crossed a border further east, we would have skipped Khiva entirely because it's so remote and it would have involved backtracking. 

Last day in Khiva, Uzbekistan

On Thursday, our last day in Khiva, we returned to the old city to see some of the things we hadn't seen the day before. There's a reason that your entrance pass is good for two days... there is a lot to see.

Once again, a decent enough day with some sunshine and a little cooler high of 19C (66F).

The old city of Itchan Kala, Uzbekistan

On Wednesday, we set off to explore the old walled city of Itchan Kala. There are more than 50 historic monuments and 250 old houses, most built in the 1700's, although the original Juma Mosque with its 112 wooden columns is one of the oldest structures.

A little cloudy and overcast, but still with a pleasant high of about 20C (68F).

First day in Uzbekistan

It's Tuesday, and we are in the small city of Khiva, population about 90,000. The attraction here is Itchan Kala, the inner walled old city that has been in existence for about 1,500 years.

Itchan Kala was the first Uzbekistan attraction protected on the UNESCO World Heritage list.