Khiva. Day 8
After several days in Ashgabat we changed city - and country today. This meant being out of our room at 4am to take a bus to the airport and the 6am flight to the town of Dasugoz on the other side of Turkmenistan. It was only a 50 minute flight so although it was cramped it passed quickly enough. We were then taken to a hotel for a basic breakfast before being bussed to the border. There was quite a bit of rigmarole next. Showing people our passports - every guard wanted to see them, though it wasn't clear why. I lost count but we showed 7 or 8 people our passports. Having our bags x-rayed by both countries (not clear why Turkmenistan cared, as we were leaving). After the Turkmenistan customs we boarded a bus to drive the 1km to the Uzbek side and deposited 100 metres short of the building, to drag our bags across the tarmac. Extremely dreary, in our tired state, but not actually hard. Then onto a good, big bus for the hour's drive through cotton fields to Khiva. There were ...