Le Meridien Tashkent Palace Hotel

... because the train would make violent and sudden stops. That was true, so true that I almost rolled out of my bunk on several occasions.<br><br> I had a dinner I had brought with me, my kimchee, almonds, meringue, and bread. My roomie shared his honey with me for the bread and I shared my food with him but he didn't want any kimchee. Imagine that.<br><br> He fell ...

... side to side as she would say, &#8220;You see on your left, the building of finance, and on your right is the ministry of the interior, and on your left is the university which is no longer used as a university but is an office building, and on your right . . .&#8221; I am fairly sure I could not identify any of these buildings at this point.<br><br> We stopped first at the applied arts museum which had many of ...

... to another lady who speaks a tiny bit more English. A chattering in Turkish and then the second clerk says, "the flight is not going." After a bit more English and an offer of $250, I figured out she meant the flight was full and they were offering me money to take the flight tomorrow. Hmmm. Quite tempting but not sure if they would be able to get my bag back from the hold and I am supposed to have ...

... thing like getting more money turns out to be a challenge. No ATMs in the city, so VISA card. It takes me an hour to find the NBU bank and when waiting in line at cabinet nr.11 on the first floor, the woman tells me the machine as been put at a big hotel in the center! Ahhh, so all the way back again. To girls show me their best smile. What is the exchange rate? 1 dollar = 1512 sum. What!!!! We got 1860 sum on the black market before, so this feels like a ripp-off! Smiling ...

... de Silk road hun waar verkochten. Zonder moeite lopen we hier de hele dag rond. In Bukhara zijn ze duidelijk gewend aan toeristen. Jongens met kaarten om te verkopen rennen naar ons toe, guards willen geld voor speciale uitkijkpunten en entreegelden voor toeristen hebben een extra 0 achter het locale bedrag. What reminds me! Ik heb een prijsvraag voor de lezers thuis. Eens kijken wie het in 1 keer goed raadt. De vraag is: wat is de meest gestelde vraag van de locale bevolking aan mij en ...

... jeep, and deserted landscape, mountain peaks and fascinating how the people can survive in this area. You cross mountain passes approx. 4000-4500 meters. We didn't have a good start entering into Tajikistan. The border control - two drunken guards - wanted to have some money from us. When we said (or tried to explain) that we don't pay, they forced us to take all our luggage out of the car. This was reason enough to pay them a bribe ...

... be watched by you. These lakes are situated near Sary-Chelek lake, and there are Kile-Kel, Iry-Kel and Kara-Suu, and one more lake &#8211; Kara-Tokoy which extends at the uppers of the river of the same name from another side of Chatkal ridge, and we are going to be there having gone across Ashuu-Ter pass which is quite high &#8211; its altitude is 3368m. So, you can imagine how the highest peak of Chatkal ridge &#8211; Chatkal peak (4503m) &#8211; is going to look from ...

... country was going to be a laborious task &#8211; we spent the first hour on the ground going from large hotel to large hotel trying to withdraw money. ATMs in Uzbekistan only give out a maximum of $12 USD at a time (when they have money at all) and at this rate that was only just going to cover our taxi fare. The alternative was to get a cash advance on our Visa cards (with a 4% charge) and then change the US dollars into Uzbek som. After trying another couple of ...