Uzbek Travel Agent Recommendation & some travel tips.

[Swiss-Austrian-Pair]

Dear all

We (Austrian, m 35 & Swiss, f 36) have just returned from our individually arranged 2-week holiday to Uzbekistan.
From very helpful pre-trip advise to instant feedback for any questions we had, up to the buying of train tickets to prechanged Soum for our US dollars for personal delivery to us at the B & B in Tashkent... all worked out perfectly fine and was carried out by Aliya Japarova from Shahina Biznes Travel in Tashkent.

We can only highly recommend her services and honesty and would like to thank her for having contributed to a wonderful holiday.

Some travel tips for Uzbekistan:

-always change US dollars in as high a denomination as possible (through your hotel, travel agent,... on the black market)

-never ever change at the official rate, which is more than 2 times lower! (we met people who did so at the airport)

-make sure to get that flight from Urgench (Khiva) to Buchara on Uzbekistan airways at 21h50 in the evening. it gives you another full day in Khiva and saves you having to drive the distance for about 8 hours on potholed roads with absolutely no sights at all during that drive (all the people we met who did this trip, did not like it)

-if you go for longer drives and hire a driver, make sure the car also has buckles for the backseat seatbelts, because mostly they do not, as seatbelts in Uzbekistran are justa bit of decoration and only used by drivers, when they approach checkpoints.

-at Uzbek hotels: always pay at the official UZB bank rate (US 1 = 2900 Soum) for your hotel night in Soum, that saves you more than 100% over the price, when you would have paid in dollars. Hotels MUST by law accept payment in Soum. (B & B's must not). So, in our case, a US 75,- room turned out to cost us only about US 32,- (we paid in Soum).

-by all means: get a guide at the savitsky museum in Nukus, they are very good, and worth the US 2,-/Person.

-bring your own toilet paper (if you wish). The Uzbek one isn't really a toilet paper, as we are used to it AND on all public toilets (at sights, in restaurants,...) there's a 99% that there is NO toilet paper there.

cheers
Michael & Patrizia

[steven]

Thanks for the tips and the lovely comments, I will be sure to let Aliya know about it!

For others reading this, you can contact her here: http://caravanistan.com/tour_operator/s ... ravel-ltd/