When my husband first broached the idea of going on a trip to Uzbekistan I laughed and thought it was a ridiculous idea. I dismissed the notion but he kept insisting. Over and over again he kept bringing up the idea of travelling to this unusual country, then in November 2014 I began to show more of an interest.
Researching the country I began to stumble across endless reams of intriguing blue domes and the faces of interesting people. The idea became more normal, more exciting, I warmed to it and then through my heart into signing up to a 12 day tour of Uzbekistan.
Over the coming weeks and months we read and reread the itinerary and got very excited. The response from our friends, family and colleagues was not that of excitement but trepidation and hilarity. We found ourselves justifying our trip to anyone or everyone but that didn’t take away from our countdown.
April 2015 finally came round, we had gathered everything we needed, squeezed our clothes in two backpacks and decanted shower gel and shampoo in 100ml bottles (we always take toiletries in hand luggage due to my fear of lost luggage.)
We packed everything up into the car and made our way to Heathrow airport, parked the car and made our way to Terminal 4 to meet our tour guide Amelia and our travel companions.
We flew from London Heathrow into Tashkent, Uzbekistan arriving on a sunny Saturday morning. The heat hits you when you leave the aeroplane whenever you land in hotter climes, I love that feeling of being somewhere new let alone somewhere warm. I have a distant hatred of cold climates.
Flying is not a natural thing for me, I find the air conditioning too cold then too hot, it dries my skin my nose and my eyes out and considering it was a night flight and needed to sleep I got 0 hours. It seemed like that was the same across the board – likely caused by a distinct lack of legroom but that’s flying for you! After a few hours kip in our hotel everyone was fighting fit and ready for the coming days!
Happy Travelling!
Up Next from Uzbekistan:
Tashkent to Samarkand – 25th April
What else we have been up to: