Last updated on 04 January, 2019 at 10:29 am
Maybe you ask yourself: How to go to Uzbekistan? How does the border crossing and obtaining a visa in Uzbekistan work? How to travel in Uzbekistan? How to pay in Uzbekistan? Well then we have the answer to all your questions right here in our travel tips and advice for Uzbekistan.
Located on the Silk Road, Uzbekistan has been able to take advantage of the trading to build magnificent mosques and madrasas (Islamic schools), most of which are classified or protected by UNESCO.
Still very closed until recently, the country is slowly opening up since a new president was elected in 2016. This president is putting in place many reforms to reopen the country to the world. Not being too touristy yet, it is an ideal time to visit Uzbekistan before hordes of tourists invade it and denature it a little.
Entering Uzbekistan
Visa
Since recently, Uzbekistan has offered an e-visa in addition to the standard visa procedure. The webpage works very badly as it is still in beta mode. I have never been able to fill the form from Switzerland even though I tried on Windows and Mac with several browsers … However, it worked from Kyrgyzstan – but still was no easy task. You’ll receive an e-mail once the answer for the visa application is obtained. Then simply download and print the visa and present it to the customs. The e-visas were accepted without flinching, customs officers seemed to be used to the document, at least in Penjikent – the border we crossed.
I also read that the visa requirement could be revoked for French citizens soon. To be confirmed. If you have any information regarding this, do not hesitate to comment below.
Uzbek border crossing
The Uzbek border crossing is a widely reported subject online. Indeed, a lot of pharmaceutical products are prohibited in the country, so you can’t take them with you. You also have to declare the money you bring with you when entering the country. Once you leave the country, the amount of money should be less, to prove that you spent money in the country and haven’t been working. Keep with you the registration cards that the hotels provide for each night, they will be checked once you leave the country and prove that you did not stay illegally at a local’s place (couch surfing is forbidden). After all we read, we expected a long border crossing and a lot of checks.
For us, none of this checks happened.
For both entering and leaving the country, everything went quickly and easily. Leaving the country, hotel registration cards were not even requested.
Want to know the whole story around our Uzbek border crossing? Click here to read about our trip to Samarkand.
Our itinerary in Uzbekistan
We travelled to Uzbekistan coming from Dushanbe in Tajikistan. We visited four cities, namely: Samarkand, Boukhara, Khiva before crossing the whole country and finish our trip by the capital, Tashkent. We spent in total 12 days in the country. If you plan to go up to the Aral sea, you will need one or two additional days.
Samarkand
We started by visiting Samarkand. The main monuments of the city can be enjoyed during the day as well as after the sunset. The proximity between the monuments allows you to travel all by foot.
Registan, Gour Emir, Mosquée Bibi-Khanym and Shah-i-Zinda are the main monuments that should absolutely be visited.
We stayed in Samarkand for two nights before taking a train to Bukhara in the evening of the third day.
Boukhara
More touristy than Samarkand, Bukhara is also worth the trip. The place in front of the Kalon mosque with its minaret is splendid. The Lyab-i Hauz place is very friendly to sip a beer a tea.
After two days in Bukhara, we took a night train to Khiva, located close to the Turkmen border.
Khiva
Frozen in time, the historic center of Khiva is surrounded by ramparts giving the impression that we are still in the golden age of the Silk Road. All the historical monuments are located inside these ramparts and have been transformed for the most of them into a museum.
We also spent two days in Khiva before taking another night train to Tashkent, the capital, where our Uzbek journey ended.
Tashkent
We spent three nights in Tashkent. The monuments are here distributed throughout the city, so it will be difficult for you to visit without transportation. Fortunately, the metro system is efficient and will allow you to travel the greater distances for a small fee.
Money, or bundles of Uzbek soms
Until recently, a bag was needed to transport the bundles of cash you just exchanged. Indeed, with a rate of about 1 Swiss franc or 1$ for 8’000 soms and 1 € for 9’400 soms, you quickly ended up with one million soms in 10’000 bills (a bundle of 100 notes!). Fortunately, they recently issued 50’000 soms note which is drastically reducing the size of the bundles. Apparently the 100’000 soms note will soon be introduced.
In order to counter inflation, street money exchange has been banned since September 2017 and the street rate, which was more interesting at the time, is now equal to the official rate. Therefore you have to go to a bank to exchange dollars for soms. However, some hotels may still agree to exchange a little money to help you out.
Be careful to use all your soms before leaving the country. We found nowhere to change our soms for dollars. I have to admit, however, that we started looking to exchange the cash we had left a little bit late.. If you have experience confirming or denying this, do not hesitate to comment to guide other travelers.
Communications
The WiFi is generally very slow throughout the country. There is, however, a good mobile network even for data.
We took a SIM card from the operator Beeline. The package was 4GB and 100 minutes of conversation for 50’000 soms (6 CHF, 6 $ or 5.30 €). You can check your balance by sending a code from your phone. Be sure to write it down and check the package and amount of data before leaving. It will save you from some bad surprises… For us, once in Khiva even though the cell phone showed that we only used about 2GB, we apparently had used all the data already and there was nothing we could do about it, so we had to buy a new package…
Transportation - Taking the train in Uzbekistan
In Uzbekistan, the train is a very good option to travel between cities. There are two kinds of trains: slow trains and fast trains.
Slow trains
Slow trains are night trains that date from the USSR time and would deserve a little refreshment. You can travel in a “Platzkart”, an open wagon with berths that could remind you of a night bus – there are no compartments or doors. Of course this is the cheapest option, if you don’t mind being around a lot of people or maybe having noisy neighbors I think this would be perfectly fine. The other option is a private compartment for either four (Kupe) or two people (Lyux), even if we have never seen the latter – probably there were sold out. If you book a Kupe, remember to specify whether you prefer the top or bottom bunks. Personally, we travelled in a Kupe twice, once we were on our own – thanks to a little bribe… (read more about this funny story in our article about “Backpacking in Khiva”), the other time we were with just one lady in an upper bunk.
Fast trains
Fast trains are modern and fast to the point where our Swiss trains have trouble keeping up the comparison. It’s almost like being on a plane. There are three classes in these trains, normally the 3rd class is without AC, the 2nd class is with AC and the first class with only two seats. We read that the second offers the best value for money. We did not test the other two for comparison but the second class is comfortable, there is a lot of leg-space and it is superior to our second class in Switzerland.
The food in the Uzbek trains
The food they serve in the train (mainly breakfast), can be a bit expensive, choice is very limited and taste is, well, let’s say okay. So better bring your own food for the long journey.
How to buy a train ticket in Uzbekistan?
To buy a ticket, you can either go to the train station or in a sales office in town. In order to be sure to have a seat, tickets must be booked 1-2 days in advance.You must have your passports with you for booking.
It is essential to ask to see the tickets before giving the money to the sales clerk because they systematically try to sell you additional but useless tickets! In Samarkand, we paid more than the price on the ticket and were given two more tickets we didn’t know what they were for. As we asked the sales clerk she took both tickets away and gave us one that granted us access to the VIP lounge at the train station… The other two times we bought a ticket, we would have paid 10’000 and 20’000 soms too much for these tickets (we still don’t know their use or if there is any). When we asked to see the tickets first, the price went down and the sales clerk removed those handwritten tickets from our passports.
If someone knows what they write on the tickets or what they’re for, PLEASE let us know in the comments, as we would be so excited to finally know!
