Malika Khiva Hotel

... Still I managed it without much more than dirty, dusty pants. We walked quickly around the wall until we could go no further and waited for the sun. It was rather anticlimactic in the end. The sun wasn’t there and then it popped up over the horizon and came up fast, all the dark was light and then there weren’t many colors so not the best of sunrises but fun to be out before the town wakes and before ...

... of years old.<br><br> We check into our hotel which was an old Madrassah or an old school or university for the Islam religion. This particular Madrassah has been used as military barracks and then was turned into a hotel. It is a beautiful place and quite large. It was warm outside but as soon as we walked into our room, it was marvelously cool because the walls are adobe and very, very, very thick. Did I ...

... We make our way to Khiva (Xiba), the first Silk Road place on our visiting-list. And it is amazing: full of madrassas, beautiful tile work, cozy chaighanas (teahouses)! Unfortunately also lots of tourists, souvenir stalls and people who wanna rip us off ;-) Ichan Kala (Old Khiva): In many ways a place to remember!<br><br>After leaving the little village with a car full of melons we make it to Astrakhan, our last Russian stop before we go into Stan-territory, starting with ...

... is not a few, believe me! Fill in this paper, go there, fill in another paper go there and every ten steps we take, another officer asks for our passport and papers, out of curiosity mostly. Busses loaded with men are watching us while waiting in line. We are used to the fact that people are surprised to see 2 traveling ladies and politely we answer all the questions. We see all other cars opening the back of the car and unpack everything they have&#8230;.We keep our fingers crossed ...

The last three weeks, we travelled around in Uzbekistan. It felt a little bit like being back in the civilization as you have the impression that the people are having a better life (this refers to having money to get food...). <br><br>The country is also more touristy, having big group arriving with tour buses at the sights in Samarkand, Buchara or Khiva ...

We left Tashkent after a long day of touring the city with Natasha. Natasha is a rolly-polly perky Russian lady who knows everything, and thus needed to tell us everything. And I mean everything. If you went to sit in the shade she'd have a story in her high-pitched voice to share "And zeese Trreeee vas lovingly planted from a seed in 1956 by zee Russian army, and in 1968, on eets twelfth birthday, zee Russians planted 12 more trrreees to commemorate zee ...

(Jim)<br><br>Unlike most flights I've been on this time the action started after we'd arrived at our destination. As we walked towards the terminal Sim turned to get a photograph of the plane we'd just flown in on, decked out in its Uzbek Airways livery. At that moment a van-load of airport security personnel drove past. We heard the tooting of a car horn and as we looked up noticed a line of angry looking faces peering at us through the window. The front seat passenger ...

Khiva.<br><br>A short domestic flight in an ancient Tupolev 154B (Lockheed Tristar clone), a quick prayer of thanks on arriving at Ugench and a short taxi ride and we had stepped back in time to the ancient city of Khiva. Four days here, when the guide books say one day is enough? Hmmm. Oh well time for rest and washing I suppose.<br><br>So what is Khiva, once one of the evilest places on the Silk Route this is the home of some of the world's largest ...

... Our obliging driver Abdul did however explain to the desk personnel and we checked in with no problems. No sooner did the driver farewell us and disappear than the Check In Svetlana ran over to tell us that there were indeed BIG problems. We could get off at Urgench but our luggage was ticketed to Nukus. There was nothing she could do for us. We would just have to ask the person at the stairs of the plane when we arrived in Urgench to get our luggage off. And what if that person did not ...

Today we left Khiva. We commissioned Mohammed again to drive us to Bukhara so we could get on a night train to Tashkent. Not from our origin we were flagged down by a (yet another) policeman and pulled in behind a waiting vehicle. On our right, sitting in the middle of the road-blocked 'T'-section was an old man dressed in a white lab coat and a white hat which a chef might wear- tight around the ...