After nature and idyllic campsites in the Aral Sea region, it was time to explore the famous old Silk Road towns Khiva and Bukhara. Get a bit of Silk Road romantics so to say (thanks, Markus D. for using that term). 🙂
As we both are not the huge friends of camping in a city and the hotel prices were reasonable, we decided to enjoy some luxury on this trip by staying at a hotel, one night in Khiva and two in Bukhara. Wise decision as it was also extremely hot, but let’s explore some historic towns now…
Khiva
Couple of hundred years back, Khiva was famous as the place to be if you want to trade with slaves, but nowadays for its architecture and buildings. With that in mind, we were surprised how touristic it is, lot of dealers selling their cheap souvenirs in the streets, many stores right in front of the famous buildings. Difficult to catch a photo without them, but even more difficult to enjoy the atmosphere and get a sense of history. Somehow more like Disney Land; unfortunately!
So if you get there, use the early morning hours, as you will have the city nearly for yourself. Early morning was easy for us, as we booked us in for an old caravanserai, which is nowadays a hotel, directly next to the old town of Khiva.
Bukhara
With that kind of experience we were sceptic on our upcoming time in Bukhara especially as we had two nights booked, but what a difference. No additional entrance fees to enter the historic centre, nicely integrated bazar type of souvenir stores and just a relaxing atmosphere. A lovely place to relax, enjoy the local food and like in our case, get your laundry done.
One thing we always love to visit and spent our time on, are the local bazars. All the fresh products and the local street food with the different smells and tastes. Always a good place to taste the local kitchen, and even more important stock-up our food storage for the coming days. Even more important to stock-up now, as we are planning to head North to the Lake Aydarkol, a bit off the standard tourist route, but more on this in the coming blog.
Still hope you will enjoy the bazar photos as much as we enjoyed our shopping there.
So our favorite of the famous towns in Uzbekistan so far visited is clearly Bukhara, but if you have a chance to get here, just do so and enjoy.
