- Getting there / away
We travelled to Samarkand on the Sharq from Bukhara; it left at around 8am from memory and was about £3 in second class. A taxi from the train station to the centre of Samarkand was about 5,000 sum.
On leaving Samarkand, we took a taxi to the Tajik border for 30,000 sum (about £15 and roughly 40 minutes)
- Accommodation
We stayed at the Malika Prime Samarkand, which was well placed for the Registan and was quite good value. Booked through Advantour. It was relatively pricey for the region - $80 for a twin room per night – and while the room was nice enough, it had a couple of bugbears, such as the plug sockets hanging out of the wall! A decent enough breakfast was included, and it has a great roof terrace.
- Eating
Avoid the guidebook recommendation for Lyabi-Gor at ALL COSTS. The worst meal we ate in Central Asia, and this was something which all the other tourists we met agreed with. An awful, awful restaurant which may well have prolonged the illness we picked up in Bukhara.
When we eventually felt that we could stomach food again we headed to the Venezia Italian restaurant and bulked up on decent pizza at low prices.
We also tried out the Registan restaurant, just opposite the Registan itself. This had opened only the night before we tried it out (we could still smell paint) and served up perfectly acceptable kebabs and plov.
- Drinking
Beer and vodka available at the Venezia but we didn’t really investigate drinking any further.
- Sights
We met a fellow traveler in the hotel who had booked a tour guide for the day and tagged along on this, which was a great idea. The guide was an Uzbek girl called Victoria, who often does tours with the Explore agency, and she was excellent.
We took in the Registan, Ulugbek Medressa, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, Shah-I-Zinda, and the Tilla-Kari Medressa, to name but a few. The tour lasted about six hours; unfortunately our co-traveller wouldn’t tell us how much it cost and thus we had to treat her to chocolates in recompense! I would definitely recommend a guide for Samarkand to get the most out of the place.
- Money
Cash advances are available at the National Bank of Uzbekistan, near Venezia restaurant, but bear in mind this closes at 4pm.
