While the two countries are neighbors, they don’t have a particularly good relationship. Tajikistan plans to build the world’s largest hydropower dam, the Roghun dam. It would make Tajikistan energy independent but at the same time Uzbekistan is worried about the effects on its country. There are several other factors that have deteriorated relationships between the countries.

The effect on travelers is that the closest border from Samarkand has been closed for some years now, requiring a big detour to the next land border.

The route is not particularly well traveled, so I was a bit worried about finding transport. Again, there are no buses and instead you have to rely on shared taxis. I was mentally prepared to charter an entire car but still made the trip to the shared taxi stand in hopes of finding someone to share the ride with.

Sunrise on the way to the Grebnoy Kanal/Betonka stop

Grebnoy Kanal/Betonka taxi stand

I left the hotel at 5.45am and caught a taxi to the Grebnoy Kanal/Betonka stop. I was the first passenger and was quoted USD35. I was lucky and 10mins later a grandmother and her granddaughter showed up, also traveling to Dushanbe. But then we waited…and waited. Shortly before 7am, the driver told me if I paid USD50, we’d leave. It was still too early for my bargaining skills, so I agreed. I asked him when we would arrive at the Sariosiyo/Tursunzade border and he said 1pm. The guy was an absolute pro as we arrived at 12.55pm. It was a long, uneventful drive with changing scenery.

Samarkand to Sariosiyo

Samarkand to Sariosiyo

Samarkand to Sariosiyo

Topping up on methane

The vast majority of vehicles in Uzbekistan run on propane, some on methane. Only very few on gasoline, which is very hard to find.

Donkeys on the road in the middle of nowhere

Samarkand to Sariosiyo

I’d say about 60-70% of the road was in decent state, the rest not. Nevertheless, we made good progress and arrived right on time as predicted. The driver seemed to know the road in his sleep. He even seemed to be buddies with most of the police guards along the road blocks on the way. He frequently made phone calls, and it almost looked to me as he’d call ahead to the next checkpoint to announce his arrival. I had to show my passport twice and my particulars were handwritten into a big book.

At the border we were dropped off. Vehicles are not allowed to drive to the other country. So we had to haul our luggage to the Uzbekistan checkpoint. First stop was customs. I had read some reports that they’d scrutinize everything – and they sure did. I had to unpack my backpack (at least it reminded me that it is about time to do some laundry). The customs officer went through all my medicine, looking for some prohibited ingredients. But what really annoyed me (even though I had read about it, I couldn’t believe it is actually true), they went through all the photos on my phone and laptop. One officer each. Apparently they search for pictures of military installations, terrorists or even nudie pics (not sure whether the latter would get you in trouble or they’d copy them). They even went through photos from way before Uzbekistan. Now, I am not sure whether they know but there is something called the “internet”. And this internet (or in Bushism, the internets) allows you to upload files to the cloud or send it to other people. So you can delete it on your phone, but guess what – it hasn’t disappeared from the face of the earth. So I honestly don’t understand their logic. At all. The whole process took about 40mins. Luckily I was almost the only person there, so did not have to wait in line. Oh, and nobody ever asked whether I have more than one phone or wanted to see what’s on my camera.

I was then stamped out of the country. A requirement is also to collect registration slips, accounting for your stay every night. Luckily you only need a slip every third night, so it did not matter that I stayed in an unofficial accomodation (AirBnB) for two nights in Bukhara. You also have to declare all your cash upon arrival and fill out the same paperwork again when departing – to make sure you don’t carry more cash when you leave. All in all a very strange system and I was happy to have passed the border.

We (my two fellow taxi passengers and me) then had to haul our luggage through no-mans land to the Tajikistan border. It’s always a strange feeling to walk through no-mans land for several hundred meters with heavily armed guards on both sides. I’ve done it previously between Thailand/Cambodia and several countries in Central and South America but it is still a unique experience.

Luckily the Tajikistan border guards were very friendly and efficient. As of June they have electronic visas. Another country that has realized how much more efficient this is if they are just after the money from tourists. I was stamped in quickly, we passed customs with no questions asked and met the friendly Tursunzade taxi mafia.

Now, I took a year of Russian back in 9th grade but except for reading Cyrillic script, I have forgotten just about everything (I don’t think it helped that classes started at 7.30am). I would have never been able to negotiate with these guys but the grandmother told them off. Wow. To the point I was almost worried that shit would soon hit the fan. I was actually glad I could just stand there like blur sotong. In the end, they drove us to the town of Tursunzade for 21 TJS each (SGD4). There the grandmother again organized us shared transport and we reached Dushanbe at around 3.30pm. Thanks again to her for helping me!

A long and exhausting day of travel but Dushanbe welcomed me.

Welcome to Dushanbe

After a bit of googling, I nearly gave up on finding a taxi but figured that due to the late night arrival, I’d probably just get ripped off if not pre-booked. The airport sees four international arrivals a day in addition to two or three domestic arrivals. So taxis won’t exactly be around in abundance, especially not for the last flight of the day.

So I resorted to the Thai version of Google with the help of Google Translate. I eventually found a few phone numbers of supposedly taxi drivers in the area. I drafted a simple message in English and had Google translate it for me into Thai script. Lo and behold I actually got a reply through WhatsApp a few hours later (odd since WhatsApp is rarely used in Thailand – Line is the messenger app of choice). From there a conversation in Thai started about price and destination. He would write, I would translate into English and then translate my reply back into Thai.

Let’s see – if Google Translate served its purpose, I’ll meet my WhatsApp taxi driver tomorrow at the airport with a prearranged destination and price. Stay tuned, I’ll report back.

WhatsApp conversation in Thai thanks to Google Translate

• First factor: how far is the airport from the city centre? I am not talking about airports misleadingly named by some low cost airline (Paris – Vatry, I am looking at you… – 147km from Paris) but rather airports that are the primary gateways to their respective city. They can be 60km (Tokyo Narita) from downtown or just a few kilometers (Hamburg, Lisbon, Taipei Songshan… just to name a few)
• Second factor: cheap vs. expensive taxis. A taxi ride from the airport will likely set you back significantly more in New Zealand or Switzerland than in Malaysia
• Third factor: how good are public transport options? Alternatives range from several direct trains every hour (Zurich) vs. not even a proper bus service (Pasto, Colombia)
• Fourth factor: is the public transport option reasonably priced? There are airports with fantastic public transportation links, however if they are privately owned they can get very expensive. The Heathrow Express certainly is a great time saver, however at SGD45 one-way not exactly cheap.

At the end of the day, the combination of the four factors leads to the question: how much do you value your time? Do you have plenty of time and don’t mind taking the cheaper but slower option or are you in a hurry. But a word of advice here: if you do dash for the cheapest option, think it through. Have a look at all options, especially if you are in a group. In some cases, an extra 50 cents per person (ok, maybe slightly more) can make the difference between a 30 minute door-to-door taxi ride or a 2 hour journey with three different busses and trains.

The case of Hong Kong is interesting as there are various options and traffice can get busy.

• Most straight forward is a taxi at around HK$300 (SGD50)
• Depending on traffic, the Hong Kong Express train HK$100 (SGD17) can be quicker but then requires a taxi ride at the end or a subway transfer
• There are numerous busses (HK$20-40 – SGD3-7) but they can be slow and less convenient
• The cheapest and still reasonably fast option: connecting with a bus to the closest subway (MTR) line

In this post I’ll be outlining the last option and share whether it is worth it in my opinion.

It is actually quite straightforward and doesn’t need a lot of explanation:

1. As you exit baggage claim and customs, turn to your right and walk all the way to the end of the terminal. You will see a sign towards parking at the end of the terminal, exit and proceed down the elevator, escalator or stairs to the ground level
2. Immediately below you will find the platform for the S1 bus to Tung Chung MTR station. The bus leaves from the most left platform (driving direction). It should arrive every 15 or so minutes. The catch is, if you don’t have an Octopus card, you need exact change (anything above is forfeited)  HK$3.50. The drive to the MTR takes around 15 minutes and takes you through an industrial area with some airline and civil aviation authority offices
3. At Tung Chung MTR (there is a large shopping mall), you can connect to the MTR (around HK$20) which takes you nonstop to Kowloon and Central stations. It actually runs parallel to the Hong Kong Express and only has two additional stops. Along the way, you can change for other MTR lines.

All in all, I paid HK$21.50 (SGD3.70) and took just about an hour to get to Tsim Sha Tsui. Would I do it again? If I was in no hurry and with little luggage (the transfers are quite convenient), I would chose it again instead of the Hong Kong Express – especially coming from the airport.

Today’s post is about communication with taxi drivers in foreign countries. Unless it is a country where I feel confident communicating in the local language or taxi drivers are known to speak English well, I almost always try to resort to written communication. It just avoids a lot of misunderstandings and takes out most of any kind of ambiguity. Make sure you have your destination written down somewhere, be it a business card, a print out or any other kind of handwritten directions. Even if the driver does not know where exactly you want to go, at least he can check with other people while avoiding misunderstandings.

It is even trickier in countries that uses another than the Latin alphabet. In such cases I find it even more important to have written documentation of where you want to go. In places with the Latin alphabet you can at least to write it down on the spot, however that does not get you anywhere in some places. So print out the address in the local script from a website or ask a friend to send it to you via e-Mail/SMS.

My most recent experience was in Qingdao, China. The taxi drivers spoke pretty much zero English (which is about as much as I speak Chinese – ni hao!). However, with a printout in big signs (if you print it, you might as well print it big), commnication was no issue.

Unambiguous directions for the drver