Honestly Uzbekistan was never in my list of countries to visit. It was just by chance that an old acquaintance contacted me to say that he is organising a tour to Uzbekistan and ask whether I want to join the group. Since my aim is to go to as many countries as I can before I turn 50 so I figure why not?
Being a newbie (the country just became independent on 31 August 1991), in my humble opinion they still have a lot to improve in their handling of leisure world travellers. These group of people need a little bit of pampering and being stuck in slow moving Customs line upon landing is definitely not it. Neither do the luggage scanning every few metres. Most especially when there is nobody to help the women to put their huge luggage in the scanning machines. Porters are also scarce at the hotels and not all hotels have ramp or elevators. So my advice is if you don't have personal bag carriers a.k.a husbands... travel light ;p
I also noticed that when it comes to food, the servings were very sparse. The first hint was in Uzbekistan Airways. For an 8 hour flight they served food and drinks only once. So you better make sure that you are awake during that one "drinks round" cause after that the stewardesses are no where in sight!
Throughout the trip, lunch and dinner comprised of one or two main dishes only. No desserts either. I'm not sure whether this is normal in their tourism industry or was it merely our local tour operator skimping. Breakfast was no better. The servings were so small and the selection so limited that it was a bit of a cultural shock ;p The good thing is there is no risk of me putting on weight during this holiday :)
As a country, Uzbekistan has a lot of potential. They have beautiful landscapes, ancient history and monuments, fertile lands and productive people. Even though their infrastructure and facilities are dated but you know that their people make it their responsibily to keep it clean. You can see a lot of people sweeping the road and their places of business any time during the day.
Their currency is called Uzbekistani Som (UZS). The currency symbol is лв. For US$50 you can get UZS100,000 (picture). That is 100 of лв1,000 notes. лв1,000 is the largest denomination so all the tour members got 1,000 notes in bundles. For awhile we felt like rich people with bundles of cash that can't fit into our normal handbags ;p The currency is not acceptable outside of the country so do not change too much. US$100 is sufficient. If it is not enough, you can always use US$. In fact most traders outside of Chorsu Bazaar prefer to quote US$ when asked about the price and you'll get a better bargain.
Their TV channels are a bit bizzare. They have more than 100 channels and yet in Tashkent and Samarkand I cannot find even one English channel. In Bukhara I can find only one and it was Republic of China's CCTV! Funny huh? Their airline also did not offer any English movies. They offer local movies dubbed in English. I wish that they use subtitle instead of dubbing everything.
Another thing that is unique in this country is the requirement to return the local SIM card. Few of the tour members bought it cause the roaming charges here are exorbitant. It costs US$5 for the card alone and then you need to top up to use it. They were not told by the local tour operator that they need to return it by the end of the journey so all were caught by surprise. Most did not even finish their credit.
My recommendation is maybe just the tour leader buy and everybody else just pay лв1,000 per SMS to send message home. After all most of the hotels offer free Wifi. If you have smartphone you can Whatsapp away with people at home ;p
One thing I find interesting is their teenagers. Some of them purposely approached us so that they can practise their English and Japanese language (one of our tour members is a Japanese teacher). They love to take pictures with or of us. Everywhere we go we are like minor celebrities. Probably because there are not many tourists yet visiting their country ;p
The kids are friendly but since most of them cannot speak English, our "conversations" are limited to hand signals and lots of giggles ;)
This tour was organised by Ramza Travels. Tour price was RM4,720 per person on twin sharing basis. Frankly speaking for that same price you can get longer stay, better hotels, very much better food and more interesting places to visit if you were to go to Turkey.
Nonetheless, I had a great time thanks to the tour members. They are seasoned travellers and really know how to have fun in any circumstances. We laughed and were merry thoughout the journey. The weather was not too bad and the snow fights were priceless!
In another 10-15 years, I think Uzbekistan will be a great country to visit. You can see that they are slowly building their country. Everywhere you can see them reparing and building stuff. They probably need to build some theme parks at the Chimgan area, organise cruise or water sports at Charvak Lake and set up premium outlets to bring the tourists and their shopping money in droves. Their roads, hotels, toilets and airports need an upgrade too.
In the meantime, do check out the pictures. I have uploaded 568 photos for your viewing pleasure.
You can access the pictures at my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mkhasha.n.travels/. Go to the photo albums.
Njoy!!
