Caravanistan

We are two Australians who applied for a single entry last month - LOI cost us US$42 per person processed by Topchan Hostel in Tashkent. Just have to email them and transfer the money and they can start processing, so easy enough to do on the road. It took 10 working days so apply with plenty of tim...

Confirming that all hotels in Uzbek ask for payment in dollars. One place even had the government law on a piece of paper behind the reception just in case you tried to argue. We tried to pay (part of) the rate in som at two places. One used the same black market rate they had used to sell dollars t...

We went for rabies vaccination but not encephalitis. The logic being that rabies is 100% fatal if contracted and you're not near a hospital that can treat it. Wheras encephalitis is both pretty rare and even if contracted has only (ha!) a 10-20% chance of permanent issues. Pretty awful of course but...

Day 29 to Bukhara Days 30 and 31 in Bukhara day 32 and 33 in Smarkand Day 34 to Tashkent day 35 fly out of Tashkent Does this plan look solid? My main doubt is if it is worth not doing the Issyk-Kul lake area. Another alternative to this plan would be to skip the Pamir and to only Kyrgyzstan and Uz...

We did a day trip to Mati Si and Danxia last month - didn't do Binggou but we had enough time to come back to Zhangye for lunch plus about two hours rest back at the hostel in the early afternoon before heading out to Danxia. Depends of course what time of year you go as to how late the sun sets, bu...

We have just received word from our recipients in the U.K. that our carpet has arrived (already!!) in good condition and without being charged any import tax by the U.K. :D Considering they told us it might take a month (this was the normal service, not EMS) we are super pleased and couldn't have as...

Firstly, apologies if there is already a thread - I searched but couldn't find one. So I thought I'd update on getting your Iran Visa in Tashkent as the last information is from 2015 and we weren't sure how much was still relevant. Embassy staff are still very friendly and helpful, speak excellent E...

I ended up shipping the carpet with Kazpost in Shymkent as it was a bit cheaper than Kyrgyzstan and seemed reliable enough (well fingers crossed, we will see if it turns up!). Will let you know what I see as we continue through Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran - although I suspect my partner might ...

So after being quoted a price of around US$190 to ship a 9kg carpet from Bishkek (not much cheaper than the small village), we found an online calculator for Kazpost in Kazakhstan that quoted us a price of about US$108 - so if that was right it seemed like enough of a savings to justify carting it a...

Hey all, didn't see this posted anywhere else but thought I'd update for those who are considering Kyrgyz visits around the same time in future years. We thought June, being summer, would be very clearly within season for doing some walks/treks in Kyrgyzstan (and we encountered many other travellers...