Yearly Archives: 2014

Fergana, Uzbekistan

The Fergana valley is the easternmost part of Uzbekistan. It is incredibly rich and fertile farmland and has the highest proportion of ethnic Uzbeks in the country. As we travelled around Uzbekistan we met lots of friendly people and it seemed that, disproportionately, when we asked them where they were from they mentioned one of the cities in the Fergana valley. It is perhaps unsurprising then that here we were overwhelmed by meeting some the most friendly, generous and hospitable people in Uzbekistan – a country that overall we’ve found to be incredibly welcoming!

The beautiful view from the mountain pass between Tashkent and Fergana

To get to Fergana from Nukus in the far west of the country where our trip to the Aral Sea ended, we needed to go via Tashkent. It’s possible to fly, but we had time and a hankering for the Russian trains that we had experienced over a year earlier near the beginning of this trip so we bought tickets for the overnight train to the capital and were excited to find out that it originated in Saint Petersburg!

Happy to be back in a Russian train

The railways were built during Soviet times and much of the rolling stock dates from that period so it was very similar to how we remembered except that this time the carriage seemed to be full of Uzbeks who’d been shopping in Russia. The guy across the way from us was sharing his bunk with two huge TV sets, and one couple had boxes and boxes of stuff, far more than they could carry.

Sharing a bunk with two brand new TVs – one propped in front of the window and one taped to the bunk above!

After an overnight stay in Tashkent, we then had to navigate the journey to Fergana which turned out to be a bit of a marathon. First we had to get a mashrutka, or minibus, from Chorsu Bazaar, near our guesthouse, to Kuyluk Bazaar, 20km outside the city, where the shared taxis to the eastern cities congregate. Then we had to find the shared taxis to Fergana (harder than we’d expected), negotiate a price for the trip and wait in a swelteringly hot car while the driver rustled up passengers for the other seats (that’s the shared bit; buses are not permitted on the mountain roads so regular cars are used to move people back and forth).

Andrew surrounded by taxi drivers at Kuyluk Bazaar, at this point we were trying to work out where the shared taxis left from

Eventually we set off, Andrew quickly made friends with the guy sitting next to him, chatting in a combination of broken Russian, broken English, sign language and diagrams. There were numerous stops; we were given a yoghurt drink to try, bought bread from what appeared to be a bread and melon market beside the highway in the middle of nowhere, and met a group of Spanish construction workers at a truck stop ruing the food they had to put up with while working on a new road in the mountains. At the final stop before we reached Fergana city, the driver took us through his home town of Oltiarik where we met his grape farmer friend who cut three massive bunches of grapes straight from the vines and presented them to us. Wow, what a journey!

Shared taxi from Tashkent to Fergana (clockwise from top left): Julie trying a local yoghurt drink; view of the mountains we had to cross; we bought delicious bread from this lady; grape farmers with just one of the three bunches they gave to us

We arrived in Fergana quite late in the afternoon and worn out from all the travelling so we decided to take it easy on the following day. We had a lie-in, ate some of our mountain of grapes for breakfast and then set off to the bazaar to have a look around. It was an interesting place, stuffed with tons of fresh produce as you would expect for a farming area in September.

Fergana Bazaar (clockwise from top left): butcher in the open air; girls selling carrots; huge pumpkins; this cobbler glued the soles of my sandals back together and refused payment

Just as we were trying to work out where to eat lunch, we were approached by a local man. His name was Habib and, during the usual chit-chat, we found out that he learnt his excellent English while working in London for a while before returning home to open a pharmacy and a cafe. He found out that we wanted to try the local plov as we’d been told that Fergana’s version of the national dish was especially good and he set off with us in tow eager that we should only try the best. We were a bit worried that we were messing up his plans for the day but by now we’ve learnt that in these situations we just have to submit. After trying several places and asking advice from a number of locals he settled on a particular restaurant before joining us and paying for our meal! After eating, we assured him that we could manage to make a few purchases in the market without help, and he left us with his phone number and directions to his cafe in case we needed anything.

Fergana’s version of plov is made with brown rice

After lunch we’d intended to explore some more but unfortunately the wind picked up causing a dust storm in the centre of town so we retreated back to our guesthouse

The next morning, we took the bus to the nearby town of Margilon which is the centre of silk production in Uzbekistan, the 3rd largest silk producer in the world. The Lonely Planet informed us that the Kumtepa Bazaar which runs only on Sundays and Thursdays was a good place to get a local vibe and see the silk being sold by the metre. I’m not sure quite what we expected but it certainly wasn’t the massive hive of activity selling everything from leather boots to car tyres to melons that we found.

Melon sellers line the approach road to Kumtepa Bazaar

Before we ventured into the market proper we wandered along the roadside. Firstly because as the minivan had passed we’d seen mountains of melons for sale from the boots of cars and we wanted a closer look, and second because we’d spotted some seriously heavily loaded cars and thought we might find a good vantage point to take some photographs. Most of the cars in Uzbekistan are either small Daewoo Matiz or a Chevrolet saloon model called Nexia, but whenever we’ve seen a car with a heavy load it has always been an old Soviet model, usually a Lada. Here was no exception with massive loads of furniture balanced precariously atop and in the boot.

Laden ladas outside Kumtepa Bazaar

This baker beckoned us into his shop and we watched enthralled as he shaped and baked the bread – you can just see the loaves stuck to the inside of the oven in the background

Finally we entered the central market area. I don’t think too many tourists get out this way because, like the markets that we visited in Bangladesh, people were extremely curious, chatty and welcoming. Like Bangladesh, Uzbekistan is a Muslim country and, in the traditional Muslim culture, it’s not unusual for men to direct all questions to Andrew, want their photo with him and not even shake my hand; all done with extreme respect and courtesy, and occasionally advantageous as while I’m being ignored I can be taking photos of interesting stuff, but still it’s a bit tiresome after a while. In Margilon there were at least as many women vendors as men and probably more women customers and so I got a lot of interest and interaction too.

Julie sharing a joke with the ladies at the entrance to the bazaar. They were selling the traditional hats called Tubeteika or Duppi so of course I had to try one too!

There were just a few aisles dedicated to the silk but it was spectacularly beautiful

Stalls are grouped by the type of goods being sold. One of the first sections that we walked through was selling leather boots

We though we had reached the edge of the bazaar when we rounded a corner to find a huge area devoted to tyres and other spare parts for cars

This lady asked me to take her picture then Andrew made her laugh

There was a big area behind the main market selling the furniture that we’d seen loaded onto cars at the front. Inside we found a carpet section to complete the home decoration.

Having reached the farthest end of the bazaar, we spotted a kebab stand and took a seat set back out of the way for a bite of lunch when a man saw us, stepped into the cafe, smiled and said ‘Samarkand’, remarkably he was one of the friendly local tourists we’d met at Shah-i-Zinda in Samarkand. Excitedly he pulled up a photo of him and his friend with Andrew on his phone while I found the corresponding shot on my camera! Crazy that we could come halfway across the country and meet again by chance. We took another photo to prove the coincidence and turned down his kind offers to take us to his house for food.

At Shah-i-Zinda in Samarkand above, and below at Kumtepa Bazaar in Margilon

We agreed that Kumtepa Bazaar was one of the friendliest and most interesting markets we’ve ever been to, and well worth the long trip from Tashkent.

Tour to the Aral Sea

7 Replies

As well as being well worth a visit for the excellent Savitsky Museum, Nukus is the jumping off point for tours to what remains of the southern Aral Sea. We booked through the Jipek Joli Hotel and they were able to match us up with another couple of travellers to share the cost of the car and driver.

Andrew, Julie, our driver (who Andrew nicknamed Arnie), Tahir and Yin Yee beside our trusty 4×4

The first stop on the tour was just 13km west of Nukus at the Mizdahkan Necropolis which has been used as a burial ground since the 2nd century BCE when the area was the site of a large city. The city was destroyed by Chinggis Khan in the 13th century but burials have continued to the present day. We’d already visited with Jo and seen many of the older and more impressive tombs on the hill top so this time we struck off in a different direction and were surprised to discover some graves marked with Orthodox crosses amongst the much more common Muslim crescent moons.

The Mizdahkan Necropolis stretches across two hills and contains thousands of graves

On our first visit we were given some information by the site’s caretaker delivered in a very inventive display of charades once he realised we don’t speak Russian. His miming of a camel definitely sticks out, but in reality we probably got a lot of the words without necessarily understanding the complexities of the history he was explaining.

Interior of the Mazlum Sulu Khan Mausoleum, a restored subterranean tomb dating from the late 12th century

We noticed that a lot of the graves looked as if they were collapsed or opened up. We speculated that perhaps bodies were removed after a time and spent a lot of time peering down to see if we could get any clues. We later found out that the collapse is a natural settling of the earth over the reeds which are laid above the body so it’s surprising (and lucky!) that we didn’t see any skeletons…

Mizdahkan Necropolis (clockwise from top left): Jo at the entrance to the Mazar of Shamun Nabi; plastic flowers and crescent moons decorate many of the graves; collapsed grave; gravestone with Orthodox cross

An hour or so after getting back into the car we stopped for lunch and met up with the passengers of the other car doing the tour on that day – three Swedish men who do a trip each year with the theme of disasters (last year they visited Chernobyl!), and their local guide. Not long after lunch the surfaced road turned into dirt track, reminding us of the tours we did into the Mongolian countryside.

Bumping over dirt tracks on the Ustyurt Plateau

For the rest of the afternoon we drove over the Ustyurt Plateau, the raised landform which divides the basins of the Caspian and Aral Seas. This was itself once under an ocean and we found shells amongst the strange scrubby desert plants.

Us at the edge of the Ustyurt Plateau

Just off the Ustyurt Plateau lies Lake Sudochie and beside it an abandoned fishing village. The guide told us that this lake was once part of the Aral Sea and, although it had also dried up in the past, it has been artificially recreated by feeding it with a canal from the Amudarya River. It is home to a surprising number of birds, though we couldn’t get a good look at them as we didn’t have any binoculars with us.

Lake Sudochie

The mud walls of an abandoned fishing village beside Lake Sudochie

The Aral Sea was fed by two rivers, the Amudarya in the south and the Syrdarya in the north. In the middle of the 20th century, the Soviet Union decided that the Central Asian area would produce all of the cotton required for the whole of the USSR. As cotton is a very thirsty crop, and the Central Asian deserts and plains are not naturally a particularly wet place, hundreds of kilometres of irrigation channels were constructed to water the plants from the two rivers. Due to evaporation and leakage, these canals were extremely inefficient and up to 75% of the diverted water was being lost. Directly because of this, the Aral Sea, which was once the 4th largest saline lake in the world started to shrink. We arrived at the western shore of the remaining lake just as the sun was starting to go down.

Local men take a rest overlooking the remains of the Aral Sea

As a testament to how fast the lake is shrinking, our guide told us that just two years ago it wasn’t possible to see the other side of the lake, now we could see the yellow line of the shore along the horizon. Those willing to brave the cold, including Andrew, went for a dip in the salty water. As the water’s volume shrinks, the salt becomes more concentrated and currently the Aral Sea has about 150g salt per litre compared to 40g in the Pacific Ocean. This high level of salinity gives you extra buoyancy and it is possible to float with your arms and legs sticking right out of the water.

Andrew floating in the Aral Sea

That night we slept in tents a little way from the lake’s shore. Our driver cooked us a dinner of plov over a campfire while we marvelled at the pitch black sky and the huge number of stars.

The Milky Way stretching across the sky over our campsite

We struggled to get the zipper on our tent to open and close without the zip splitting, but eventually we were both inside and settled into our sleeping bags. Predictably, I found it quite cold during the night while Andrew thought the temperature was verging on too warm. This despite the fact that I had on my fleecy hat, long-sleeved T-shirt, leggings and socks while he was just in shorts…

We woke just after 6am to watch a beautiful red sunrise over the lake

After a breakfast of bread, cheese and salami we set off in the cars, at first driving over the Ustyurt Plateau again, where we stopped to see some old gravestones from Kazakh tribes, before descending onto what was once the seabed and driving towards Moynoq.

Kazakh tribe gravestones from the 16th century

Descending from the Ustyurt Plateau to the former seabed

50 years ago, Moynoq was a thriving fishing town producing 20 million cans of fish per year. Nowadays, it is over 150km from the edge of the Aral Sea. It’s all very well seeing pictures and hearing stories of the lake’s demise but I didn’t really understand it until we’d driven for an entire morning from the edge of the lake to a town which used to be on the lakeside.

Satellite photos documenting the shrinking Aral Sea (from top): 1960, 1970, 1990, 2000, 2009

The most stark reminder of the Aral Sea at Moynoq is a ships’ graveyard. While most of the former fishing fleet has been dismantled for scrap, a few boats have been left to rust in the desert as a reminder of the former industry. To see the rusting ships and look into the distance across miles and miles of desert was incredibly poignant.

Ships’ graveyard at Moynoq

Unfortunately, the effects of this man-made disaster are even more serious than the loss of livelihood for the area. Climactically, the sea used to have a moderating effect meaning that summers are now much hotter and winters much colder. Winds whip up dust storms containing a mixture of salt and sand and depositing them in the atmosphere resulting in accelerated glacier melt on nearby mountains, and serious health impacts for local residents, including respiratory diseases.

In Kazakhstan, where the northern part of the Aral Sea is situated, work has been done to reverse the sea’s shrinkage with significant success and positive impacts to both local people and the environment. Unfortunately, the Uzbekistan government seems more interested in extracting gas from the seabed than seeing it again covered in water and sadly it is likely that it won’t be many years until nothing more is left of the southern Aral Sea.

Gas drilling rigs as we crossed the former Aral seabed

Much of the information I have used about the Aral Sea’s history comes from this excellent article. I highly recommend a read if you’re interested in an in-depth analysis of the impact (thanks to Jo for sharing the link with us).

Savitsky Museum, Nukus, Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan

18 month summary

Countries visited in the last three months (1st July to 30th September)

South Korea, China, Uzbekistan (total visited to date on this trip = 16)

Have you managed to stay within your budget (£70 per day)? And what has been the expense breakdown?

Not quite. Day-to-day expenses haven’t been too high, but three sets of flights, expensive visas for Uzbekistan and travel insurance renewal in September all bumped the total up. Our average daily spend over the three months has been £75.52. Our daily spend to date since we left home has been £70.63.

Accommodation is a little lower than the last two quarters, but still the biggest expense at 30.5% – we found accommodation in China to be very cheap, and moderately priced in South Korea where for half of our stay we rented apartments in Seoul. In Uzbekistan accommodation is expensive compared to other on-the-ground costs, we think because supply is limited by government licensing of hotels and guesthouses, but still not too bad at around £25-30 per night for a double room.
Intercity transportation is next highest at 22.5% – three flights in this quarter (Osaka to Busan, Seoul to Shanghai, and Beijing to Tashkent) account for two-thirds of this amount totalling just over £1000. This cost has been the one of the major factors in our being slightly over budget and is a good reminder to us to travel overland whenever possible.
For the first time, healthcare has been a noticeable amount at 0.8% – fortunately this isn’t due to a decrease in our general well-being although there were a couple of trips to the pharmacy for cough medicine and rehydration sachets. Most of the spend was a pair of glasses for Andrew as he was getting headaches when using his computer for extended periods.
The living expenses category is a much higher percentage than usual at 7.6% – before we left home we bought an 18 month travel insurance policy so we needed to replace that when it expired in September, a new 6 month policy cost us £280. Our wardrobe was also starting to look a bit tired so we replaced our jeans and some T-shirts while we were in Seoul.
Visa spend for the quarter was 3.0% – we got both our Chinese and Uzbekistan visas at the embassies in Tokyo and, while the Chinese application was relatively straightforward and inexpensive, we had to pay a premium for the Uzbekistan one to be ready at the “express” timing of one week rather than two.

What has surprised you most in the last three months of travel?

That the Korean language is written not in characters representing words, but with an alphabet called Hangul. At first glance it looks like it’s made up of thousands of characters like Chinese or Japanese, but it’s actually built from just 24 basic letters arranged in blocks. We got to the point where we could recognise a good few and decode whole words with the aid of a cheat sheet!

Apart from family and friends, what are you missing most about life in the UK?

Julie – A soft bed… Many have been the nights when I have wished for my own comfortable bed in the last few months as the concept of springs and mattresses doesn’t really seem to have caught on in the budget accommodations of China and Uzbekistan. The most extreme example would be the bed we had in Wuhan where it is no exaggeration to say that we may as well have been sleeping on the floor…

Andrew – I’ve really missed driving. It’s not the convenience as we’ve packed pretty light and we love public transport – especially overnight trains – but the enjoyment of motoring and, as we’ve seen quite a few motorbikes and scooters, of riding too. Though I’ll see how I feel about a motorbike when I get back to the British weather..

What’s the most memorable sight that you’ve seen in the last three months?

This is usually a really hard question to answer, but this time we both immediately said the Registan in Samarkand. We were really looking forward to seeing it and had a nagging worry that it might be a let down but it was even better in real life, absolutely jaw-dropping.

Tell us a funny story from the last three months of travel.

In Samarkand we’d met the same portly taxi driver pretty much every day near the Gur-E-Amir Mausoleum offering to take us to Shakhrisabz. The evening before we planned to make the trip we went to seek him out and arrange to meet the following morning. At the mausoleum we didn’t see him in his usual place but Andrew soon spotted a large guy a little way off chatting to another taxi driver. He rushed over to shake his hand and say ‘hello’ but as the man turned we realised it was a different driver… He was so dumbstruck by a random tourist shaking his hand that we were walking off giggling before he recovered himself enough to shout ‘taxi?’ after us!

Who is the person you’ve met that you remember the most from the last three months?

The owner of the Mirzo Guesthouse in Tashkent, Murod. He’s an affable retired history professor who is always keen to have a chat although he doesn’t speak much English (he absolutely pounced on any guests who spoke Russian). When he found out that Julie’s degree is in maths he excitedly told us (mostly via his son Oybek who runs the guesthouse with him and speaks excellent English) about medieval Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, who came from Khiva, and whose name serves as the root for the words algebra and algorithm. When words fail, Mr Mirzo is proficient at communicating through the language of music, liking nothing better than getting out his dutar on an evening and serenading any guests who happen to be about!

Finally, what have you found to be the greatest challenge so far?

More so than on our first trip, we found the language barrier in southern China harder. It’s not that we encountered more Cantonese where our very limited Mandarin didn’t work, it was that our pronunciation made planning our independent travel very difficult on occasion. For example, we were trying to buy our train tickets to Zhangjiajie but the woman behind the counter didn’t have a clue where we wanted to go. It was only after showing it on a map to a student who just happened to be in the queue with us, that we learned how to say it properly! (it’s “Djang-Jar-Jay” in case you’re wondering!)

Khiva, Uzbekistan

Day 1 – A mammoth sightseeing session

First stop, the resplendent Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum

I’m sure you’ll breathe a sign of relief when I say I’m only going to mention our highlights of Khiva, as we managed to see nearly everything on the ticket!

First up was the Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum which isn’t much to look at from the street, but inside it reveals a tranquil courtyard with the main mausoleum straight in front and a room of tombs to the left. As we paused to take photographs, a family of worshippers followed us in with very smartly dressed children. The parents grabbed Julie and Jo for a spontaneous photo shoot..

Jo and Julie roped into a family photograph. This happened to us all quite a bit in Uzbekistan

Pahlavon Mahmud was a poet, philosopher and a wrestler (!), who later became the patron saint of Khiva. The tiling inside the main chamber and of Mahmud’s tomb is exquisite.

Inside Pahlavon Mahmud's mausoleum. Clockwise from top: The main dome (which needs a little seeing-to with a duster); Unmarked tombs of other khas to the west of the main hall; Pahlavon Mahmud's wonderfully tiled sarcophagus and tomb

Inside Pahlavon Mahmud’s mausoleum. Clockwise from top: The main dome (which needs a little seeing-to with a duster); Unmarked tombs of other khans to the west of the main hall; Pahlavon Mahmud’s wonderfully tiled sarcophagus and tomb

After a few more sights we took a break to climb the Islom-Hoja Minaret, the tallest one in Uzbekistan! The stairs inside were narrow and ascended anti-clockwise. The steps were steep which meant it was hard going but only took a little time to reach the viewing platform at the top.

Jo and Julie starting to climb the Islom-Hoja Minaret – Khiva’s newest (built in 1910) and Uzbekistan’s highest at 57m

Khiva from the top of the Islom Hoja Minaret

Having climbed his minaret, we then visited Islom Hoja’s Medressa which is also the Museum of Applied Arts. It seems that they’ve knocked through all of the student and teacher cells on the ground floor to create a long corridor of tiny rooms in which we found a very eclectic exhibition – woodcarvings, metalwork, carpets, clothing, books and stone carvings.

A taste of the variety on display in the Museum of Applied Arts. Clockwise from top-left: Walking through the walls of the medressa; Parcha robes for women (20th century); Stamps (21st century); A part of the ceiling from the Arabkhan mosque (17th century)

Next up we popped our heads into the Photography Museum which had a very impressive collection of old black and white photos of Khiva from the 1920s and 30s, including some exposed onto glass!

A small selection of the framed photographs of old Khiva on display in the Khiva Photography Museum

After we recharged our sightseeing batteries with tasty home-made somsas (triangular pasties about the size of your hand, similar to an Indian samosa but oven baked rather than fried) and copious amounts of tea in a little cafe in the bazaar just outside the East Gate, we tackled the lavishly decorated, massive Tosh Hovli palace – so big it’s in 2 parts!

The sumptuously decorated Tosh Hovli Palace courtyard

Details of the decorations in the Tosh Hovli Palace. Clockwise from top-left: The wooden pillars are just as elaborate as the tiled walls; Ceiling detail; Interior bedroom; Silk scarves for sale in the courtyard

In contrast to the Tosh Hovli Palace where seemingly every internal surface is decorated, our next stop was the Juma Mosque – my favourite of the day..

The underground Juma Mosque with it’s 218 carved wooden pillars was my favourite of the sights in Khiva

Just outside the walls to the north-west is the Isfandiyar Palace. We double-checked the map when we got there as it looked pretty non-descript from the outside and we were the only people there – besides a local guy sitting on the step.

Julie and Jo checking we’re in the right place, and reading up on the Isfandiyar Palace before we enter

But inside awaits the biggest assault to the senses all day..

CAPTION COMPETITION: Julie and Jo exclaiming over the chandelier in the completely over-the-top Isfandiyar Palace. It’s bold and bonkers and we loved it!

Every room overloaded our senses with colour and patterns. Somehow, it made complete sense that the only suitable furniture that wouldn’t cause further clashes would be mirrors..

We’d saved the Kuhna Ark for last because we’d read it was a good vantage point over Khiva at sunset. As we climbed up to the watchtower (which was 2,000 som extra, about 40p) we heard Uzbek pop-music, and found ourselves in the middle of a music video shoot!

Shooting for an Uzbek music video on the Kuhna Ark in Khiva

Dancer posing for us in-between shooting a music video in Khiva, Uzbekistan

Not only was she a great dancer, she was happy to pose for the multitude of tourists in between shots. We don’t know her name, but she was described as “the best” by the crew and, amazingly, we saw her again on the Uzbek MTV when we had dinner later that night!!

I got talking to a smartly dressed guy who was hanging around while the filming was going on, and through an interpreter I found out he was the singer who wrote the song she was dancing to! I haven’t been able to find his track (as I suspect it isn’t yet released), and there’s another famous Uzbek singer called Athambek. From his handwriting, I think his song is called “Noziga Boylaribgoldim” – if you find it please drop it into the comments below. Here’s a photo of Athambek..

Athambek, the Uzbek singer/songwriter I met in Khiva

The Kuhna Ark and city walls of Khiva, Uzbekistan

The Kuhna Ark and city mud walls of Khiva at sunset

Day 2 – Ancient Khorezm Mud Fortresses

As we’d seen pretty much everything on our list the day before, we arranged a 6-hour, half-day taxi tour of Ancient Khorezm. Here’s the introduction from the Lonely Planet..

The Amu-Darya delta, stretching from southeast of Urgench to the Aral Sea, has been inhabited for millennia and was an important oasis long before Urgench or even Khiva were important. The historical name of the delta area, which includes parts of modern-day northern Turkmenistan, was Khorezm.
The ruins of many Khorezmian towns and forts, some well over 2000 years old, still stand east and north of Urgench in southern Karakalpakstan. With help from Unesco, local tourism officials have dubbed this area the ‘Golden Ring of Ancient Khorezm’. The area’s traditional name is Elliq-Qala (Fifty Fortresses). – Lonely Planet, Central Asia, p202

The tour took us to three of the main qalas, starting with the square Kyzyl Qala. We caught a quick glimpse of it just before we turned off the main road and onto a bumpy dirt track, and as we rounded a small hill of dirt, the massive towering mud fortress stood in front of us..

The square Kyzyl Qala still standing after more than 2,000 years. An excellent example as we walked pretty much all the way around it before we found a way in!

Julie, Jo and I exploring Kyzyl Qala fortress. There aren’t any signs, fences or restrictions, which makes it all the more impressive that these fortresses are still in such good condition

Next up was the main temple complex of the Khorezm kings who ruled the area in the 3rd and 4th centuries, the massive Toprak Qala. We found a lot of the rooms were still visible, as were the doorways linking them. Nearby were the modern foundations of a recent excavation team.

Panorama of the massive Toprak Qala, home to the Khorezm kings in the 3rd and 4th centuries

Julie and Jo scaling the remains of Toprak Qala

The final stop on our qala gala were the 3 ruins of the very impressive Ayaz-Qala. Our driver gave us the choice to drive up the hill, walk down and pay an unofficial entry fee levied by the ger camp nearby, or park at the bottom and scale the walls, thereby avoiding the fee – we opted to storm the walls!

Saving the best ’til last – the massive 3-in-1 Ayaz-Qala. There’s a ground-level fort, the raised fort in the middle and main fortress on the edge of the cliff

Julie, Jo and I having scaled the walls of the Ayaz-Qala fortress. This one was our favourite as some of its tunnels were intact and we could crawl through them!

Thank you Khiva, the compact Silk Road city with the adorable stumpy minaret..

Silly poses with the Kalta Minor Minaret, Khiva

Us with the adorable, stumpy icon of Khiva, the Kalta Minor Minaret

P.S. Don’t forget the caption competition!

two year trip

Andrew and Julie's Travelling Adventures