Finding ali baba
Trip Start
Jun 18, 2007
1
98
150
Trip End
Ongoing
After a share taxi ride that took 9 hours instead of 6 I finally got to Khiva (hiva) a silk road city that was once a place where one could buy a slave and a camel in the same bazaar. The great thing about khiva was that it was and still is completely surrounded by a huge mud wall. The bad news is that it has been set up as a museum city and as such has been cleaned out of many of the locals and really feels too clean - i want to see some camels and some slaves!
Again there were no tourists at all and indeed all the hotels in inner khiva were closed as they were being renovated - in two weeks it was going to open. Again mosques and blue domes featured heavily so i didn't buy the ticket to see everything the cost of $12 was a bit rich too i thought. However this didn't stop me seeing what I wanted to see - as a quick 500 sum note to the old ladies (40 cents) guarding the sites saw me getting into everything. As a tip for anyone wanting to go, one day is certainly enough but make sure you climb a minaret at sunset as the view is great - just give the ladies 500 sum (minus a ticket) instead of the official tourist rate of 2000 sum.
It was now back to Bukhara and onto Samarkand
Again there were no tourists at all and indeed all the hotels in inner khiva were closed as they were being renovated - in two weeks it was going to open. Again mosques and blue domes featured heavily so i didn't buy the ticket to see everything the cost of $12 was a bit rich too i thought. However this didn't stop me seeing what I wanted to see - as a quick 500 sum note to the old ladies (40 cents) guarding the sites saw me getting into everything. As a tip for anyone wanting to go, one day is certainly enough but make sure you climb a minaret at sunset as the view is great - just give the ladies 500 sum (minus a ticket) instead of the official tourist rate of 2000 sum.
It was now back to Bukhara and onto Samarkand

