Go with the Flo | Through Asia and Beyond

From Samarkand to Dushanbe/Tajikistan

After six days of Uzbekistan, looking at countless medresses and eating too much schaschlik and somsas, I was ready to move on to Tajikistan. Uzbekistan was great and now is the time to visit. I’ll have a post soon on why I think you should better go soon. While the...

A visit to the Urgut Bazaar

About 30km outside of Samarkand lies the village of Urgut. It is know for the big bazaar, which supposedly is especially big on Sundays. After asking around for a while, I found myself in a shared taxi to Urgut and from there in a Marushtka to the bazaar. It was indeed...

Samarkand: former capital of the Timurid Empire

Samarkand would be my last stop in Uzbekistan and I was really looking forward to my visit as it is probably the best known Uzbekistani destination. After the delay on the train ride, I did not want to waste further time and left for the Registan, Samarkand’s premier landmark. Samarkand used to...

Bukhara to Samarkand with Uzbekistan Railways

The next leg of my trip would take me from Bukhara to Samarkand. Since this is also part of Uzbekistan’s Railways network, I was happy to give them a try since at least trains don’t have to deal with bad roads.   I tried to buy a ticket a day...

Cars in Uzbekistan

During my first days in Uzbekistan I thought to myself, “wow, Chevrolet really does have a very high market share here“. Turns out, thanks to their joint-venture factories with the Uzbekistani government (whereby General Motors just hold a 25% minority), they practically have a monopoly as import duties for foreign-manufactured cars...

Bukhara: onwards on the Silk Road

After a very pleasant stay in Khiva, my next stop would be (as is the case with 90% of travelers in Khiva) Bukhara, one of the main cities of the Silk Road and a historical center of commerce and religion. The drive would be a long one and my hostel...

Khiva: my first stop on the Great Silk Road

After visiting the Savitsky Museum, I wasn’t keen on spending much more time in Nukus. I packed my bags and headed for the shared taxi stand to get to Urgench and then Khiva. Maybe this is the right time for a few words on the transport system in Uzbekistan. It...

The State Art Museum of the Republic of Karakalpakstan (Savitsky Museum)

So, I ended up in Nukus. Out of all places. I did read about Nukus in the guidebook but it certainly wasn’t included in my initial itinerary. The guide book recommended it for trips to the Aral Sea, but after doing some reading, I wasn’t kind to drive several hours into...

My S$600 ticket for a two hour flight

[if you’re not an #avgeek, you might want to skip this post 🙂 ] My initial plan was to take a cheap flight from Singapore to Amritsar and catch one of Turkmenistan Airlines’ bi-weekly flights to Ashgabat, which are fairly cheap. However I underestimated how tough it is to get...

The Golden Temple in Amritsar

While I really wanted to visit during my trip to India in 2008, I did not get around to visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar and it has been on my travel bucket list ever since. Hence I was very happy I would finally get to see it this time....