The day started well. We were up at 5am ready for our driver to take us to Tashkent airport for a 7am flight. The hotel was to provide us lunch packs as we had a very busy day ahead of us. Unfortunately the staff at the City Palace were a forgetful lot and the lunch packs were nowhere to be seen.
The hotel was otherwise a pretty good experience. The room was on the 11th floor and had a grand view of Tashkent, and the staff did their best to help us any way they could.
We finally got airborne around 7:30 and landed in Urgench where our new driver was waiting in his luxury van to take us into the Kyzyl-Kum desert. Fortunately the van was well sprung as we bounced from pothole to pothole the entire 90 minutes to the first stop, the Ayuz Q’ala fort.
Ayuz Q’ala dates back to the 2nd century B.C. and it was fascinating to be able to walk around it and imagine how people had lived there 2000 odd years ago.
From there it was back to the potholes for another 30 minutes to go to the Toprak Q’ala fort. This one was much more well-preserved and dates back to the 3rd century A.D. We could really see exactly where the fort residents lived.
From there it was a quick lunch stop. The food is a little bit difficult to get used to here (dumplings in an unidentified white liquid) but we’ve since learned what to look for.
Back to the potholes again, this time for 2 hours to get us to the ancient walled town of Khiva. There were audible intakes of breath from the group as we caught our first glimpse of the old town, surrounded by the “Itchan Kala”, the 4th century B.C. inner wall. As we couldn’t take the van inside the walls, a porter came and took our bags to our hotel while we walked a short distance to our hotel inside the wall. The hotel itself, Orient Star is an old “Madrassa”, or place of learning.
Words failed us. The town is spectacularly beautiful and has a huge depth of history.
Amazing photos 😄