Last stop Samarkand – Crossroads of Cultures

The train ride from Tashkent to Samarkand was much shorter and we did enjoy the few during the ride. Nice landscapes.
At about noon we did arrive at the train station in Samarkand (want to know more ?). First we wanted to head to the ticket counter to buy our next train ticket, which was not so easy since the moment we left the train station we were surrounded by people each time annoying travellers and tourists arriving at a new place. And one of them was a real pain in the ***. He did not stop annoying us and followed us everywhere. Even worse was that he had the strange idea that ATMs do not work on Sundays. For sure he wanted us to exchange money on the street with one of his friends. Also he was willing to sell tours.
Bernd got really angry and was willing to beat him. He had a lot of practice in his career beating a light bulb (video minute 11:11) many times. Would have been easy with this guy.
I managed to stop him before we could get in big trouble.
It took a long time to get rid of the guy and find a way to our guest house. The tram was the best way to get there, no need of expensive taxis.
Since we did not book any guest house we had to search for one and quickly found an awesome place to stay at. Good price, nice ambient and free drinks and snacks.

So the first day we did not manage to explore the town further. We had a good time at the guest house listening to the singing birds, drinking and eating with the manager and totally funny drunk Korean guy.

Next day we first visited the presidents tomb. Not only the place was interesting we also got there a good view above the town.

The next interesting place was not far away and also worth a short stop. The mosque BiBi-Xonum. Close by is also the bazaar, a good place to spent some money. Only the prices for tourists may be a bit much higher than for locals. So a t-shirt for a tourist may be 50k Som, which is like 6 dollars. Ok it is not much but when the locals only pay 7k Som (less than a dollar) it is absolutely not fair at all. Bargaining is very important or local friends going to the shop without you and buy stuff for you.

Back to exploring. The next place was just across the street, many ancient and interesting places are close by and we did not need to walk much. We did not stay very long since the Bibi-Khanym mausoleum was not very big.

The most known place in Samarkand is and was Registan with three huge old buildings. Not only Bernd did feel very small next to them.

Some silent noises lead us away from the ancient place in Registan to the park. We met some people making music and we spent some time with them. Seems like we meet at many places good musicians.

We also had the chance to meet with Amir Temur (want to know more ?) who was sitting around at the beginning of a large park. We did share many interesting stories. He had to tell a lot and he seemed happy that he found a place with a nice chair, at other places he is all the time forced to sit on a horses back.

The time in Samarkand was very good and we for sure will miss this place. But globe trotters have to keep on going. And getting to new places.
Our last stop was again the train station, before we left I helped another traveller to find a good way to the center without getting to much bugged by the people around there. Oh and there for the first time during this journey we saw a working fountain.

Train travel from Almaty to Samarkand

After spending almost a month in beautiful Kazakhstan we decided to take the train and head to Uzbekistan. Bernd was not sure if the idea was so great after buying the tickets he realized that the train ride to Tashkent would last more than 17 hours. At least most of the time would be during the night and we had beds as well. Seated might have been a nightmare.
By the way title is not wrong chosen, our first stop in Uzbekistan was Tashkent, we also wanted to spent some good moments there.
Tashkent quickly showed us how different Uzbekistan is. In Almaty almost all cars on the road will offer rides to people waiting at the street and also for low rates. Here we got to wait long and bargain a lot. Also the currency is a bit different, we became millionaires. The language is also much different and less signs in Russian.
It took some time to settle up and find a good place to stay at. Later on we started exploring the town.
First we went to the ancient cathedral one of the few orthodox churches.

From the church we headed to a bazaar close by, this time not for shopping, we only wanted to take a look around and take a short break at a cafe.

Almost forgot to say, the public transportation here is rather good, low prices (about 15 euro cent) only would advise to first get a map of the lines since at the platform is no map and also many trains do not have any.
We took the metro to get to Alisher Navoi park. Beautiful big park with some lakes and many places to rest.

Bernd wanted to have a chat with Alisher but his bodyguards did not allow him to get close and have a conversation.

Very disappointing but a few moments later we met a nice family at the square close by and had a great conversation.

Next we took the metro to get to the Chorsu bazaar. There were felt like a million people and many people willing to sell something to us. Bernd decided to buy a lot of dried fruits for our friends and family in Kazakhstan since we decided to head back there after being in Samarkand. I couldn't stop him from buying the fruits and of course he found a friend who could carry all the fruits for the rest of the day. Great, why couldn't I say no.

Not far away from the bazaar we found two nice looking mosques. Actually there are many in Tashkent so we had to decide which we going to visit and picked the one's at Chorsu.

We again took the metro and went to the independence square. The square was very nice and we both loved the park close by. Also be worth visiting at night.

So far our first impression of Uzbekistan was very nice also having a slight rough start. And if required in the today's time it is also possible for tourists to get a sim card, therefore tourists have to go to the official stores from the phone companies.