Tashkent. Day 16

 Another transit day. And although the actual transit didn't take that long, it shaped the whole day. So a bit boring, and you can skip this post if you'd like.

The pleasant bit was that we had most of the day off - because being a tourist feels like a kind of job. Checkout wasn't until midday, so we had a late breakfast and mooched about. When we eventually checked out we left our bags and walked the few minutes to the Siab Bazaar. A pretty normal kind of market. There was tourist stuff and cheap clothes, whatever, around the edge. In the middle the stalls had stacks of tea, or nuts, fruit and vegetables, everything.


I will mention there are tourist stalls absolutely everywhere, around and inside every potential tourist attraction, selling the same stuff. They are you to buy stuff but in a half-hearted way and don't pursue you. The currency is a hassle; $1 USD is worth 11,600 som. So every note is thousands of som and you have to read them carefully and count the zeros. At a glance, 2000 som looks like 20000 som and 10000 som looks like 100000 som. It would help if they divided everything by 1000 and started again.
We wandered back along Tashkent Street (a historic caravan route, now a pedestrian mall (other than the electric golf carts) selling tourists stuff).


We hung around the hotel until we were picked up at 3pm and went to the Afrosiyab Museum where they have artifacts from the earliest, pre-Islam, Sogdian settlement. This was fine.
Then finally to the train station for the 5.40pm high speed train to Tashkent. This takes just over 2 hours and goes up to 250km/h. Not sure why we didn't use it from Khiva and Bukhara unless it was logistics about taking the bus with us. The first hour we were on a broad plain with distant mountains to the south. The last hour we were in the dark. The whole thing was a bit boring but not difficult or uncomfortable.

Then 20 minutes in yet another bus and now we're in the Hyatt Regency, which is standard and could be anywhere in the world.

Location: 1 A, Navoiy shoh ko'chasi, Тоshkent, Toshkent, Uzbekistan

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