Uzbekistan, my Unintended Wish that Came True

It was more than 2 years ago, when we visited Uzbekistan pavilion in Sheikh Zayed Heritage Festival, we got Uzbekistan's tourism magazine. The cultural performances and of course the food mesmerized me, it made me put Uzbekistan in my bucket list, someday, someway I will visit this country that culturally and historically rich.

Winter 2021, 2nd year of Covid pandemic, it's been so long we only stay in UAE. Our family already fully vaccinated, me and hubby also got booster, we made a plan for winter holiday. We checked on Abu Dhabi green lists, and pick a country that could be our winter fairytale getaway, unfortunately the covid case in the region was raising. So we should change our destination. We re-check the green list, and do small research for covid precautionary measurements, needs for quarantine, and also the number of the case there, and the final decision goes to Uzbekistan. Yes, it's a country that already in my bucket list, and yeah, we got more than we expect 😊.

Since I'm busy with my study and works, hubby prepare the itinerary, booked all hotels, plane, and also train for commuting to other city there. It's not easy, since Uzbekistan was opened for tourism not more than 5 years ago. Not many hotels are listed in popular hotel reservations apps, for particular destination I browse through their instagram account and try to get info via DM, furthermore some of them replied back in Russians. 

And to book the train ticket, especially Afrosiyob, the fast train that connected several big cities in Uzbekistan, it surely challenge your patience, the web supposed to be open 30 days before the trip we want to book, but it's not the fact, everyday you should check whether it's open or not, or you can use travel agent's services to book for you.

For people like us, who loves to travel planned but unplanned, we love to arrange everything by ourselves, there's flexibility in time and money. Uzbekistan is quite challenging, but at the same time it's enrich our experiences. 

National language in Uzbekistan is Uzbek language, but people widely use Russians for their daily communications inter-ethnic, Uzbekistan was under Russian Empire during 19th century, and in 1924 as an independent republic within Soviet Union until their independence on 31 August 1991. In several area, like Samarkand and Bukhara, people use Tajik languange for daily conversation.

With a long history, and so many great emporium ruling the lands, old cities like Khiva, Samarkand, and Bukhara are rich city during silk road era. Uzbekistan is a promising cultural and heritage tourism. I'll try to write about our trip by the cities we visited.