While popular tourist magnets, such as Australia or New Zealand, excel at self promotion, other equally deserving destinations fare less well in the image stakes; they may be a little of the beaten track, have suffered from poor leadership, or simply have failed to sufficiently promote their own attractions...
The Basics Country: Uzbekistan Where is it?: Uzbekistan is central Asia, north of Afghanistan. Why do people go here?: Although it offers the famous silk road and could be a huge tourist draw, Uzbekistan is a nightmare for independent travelers, as the state run tourism agencies controls your entire experience. If you can escape without [...]
Visas I applied for the visas myself which turned out, in the case of the Russian visa, to be a mistake. The Uzbekistan Embassy in Washington is now offering a multi-entry visa to US citizens without a letter of support. Mine cost $45 and took a little better than one week to process. For the [...]
Travel Agents I used a number of travel agents and can recommend them all. I used Academservice of Moscow (E-mail: acs@acase.ru) for my Moscow hotels – the Moskva and Novotel. They supplied the support letter for the Russian visa application after I faxed them my credit card number. I also asked them to send a [...]
Hotels The Moskva ($48 per night) in Moscow was an aging soviet giant, slightly run down, but very well located. It was just off Red Square and near the metro and shopping. It’s easy to get lost in it – it was a long walk from the entrance to the elevators. I received about 6-8 [...]
A Small Visa Problem – Wednesday, September 13 I was on my way home from Uzbekistan via Moscow. At the airport the immigration official asked to see my Russian visa. When I showed it to him he frowned. “I think,” he said slowly, “your Russian visa has expired.” I wasn’t exactly sure how that could [...]
The road to Tim and Samarkand – Thursday, September 7 Laura wanted to stop in Tim on the way to Samarkand and that created a couple of problems. First, Tim wasn’t exactly on the way to Samarkand and the side trip would add hours to our journey. More importantly, none of us were sure exactly [...]
Samarkand – Friday, September 8 I started my sightseeing early the next morning: first I stopped at the bazaar to take some more pictures. The best one was of a line of women selling handmade brooms. In the background loomed the huge blue-domes of the Bibi-Khanym mosque which sits on the south edge of the [...]
Bukhara – Monday, September 4 Shortly after arriving in Bukhara I went looking for the Char Minar. I had seen pictures of this building in my travel guide and it seemed like a good place to start my sightseeing. It was only about a 10-minute walk from my hotel. The day was hot – the [...]
Tashkent – Sunday, September 3 The overnight flight from Moscow left me feeling dopey. At the Tashkent airport I saw people filling out a form, but I was in a hurry and got in the customs line without one. When I got to the front the agent looked at me and asked, “Declaration? Where is [...]
While popular tourist magnets, such as Australia or New Zealand, excel at self promotion, other equally deserving destinations fare less well in the image stakes; they may be a little of the beaten track, have suffered from poor leadership, or simply have failed to sufficiently promote their own attractions...
