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.