So this time Ian got to choose the trip as I'd taken us to Kenya (again) in January.
His interest in the Silk Road - particularly Samarkand - goes back a long, long way and not just to Joanna Lumley's TV series, although that was certainly watchable TV. It was further piqued during our Grand Tour of Turkey in 2023 and as we're now in the "where else shall we go whilst we still can" mood we checked out VJV's trip.
There's only 1 direct flight from London to Uzbekistan but Qatar Airways flies there from Doha and as we'd often mentioned doing a stopover there it seemed an ideal opportunity. So we arranged the flights to include a 1 night stop on the way out followed by 3 nights plus a city tour on the return leg all for a very reasonably price as Visit Qatar is most anxious to increase tourism. Sadly the Orange One's decision to start a war in the region put paid to those plans but we were able to get a full refund and luckily could book with Turkish Airlines via Istanbul (albeit missing lounge access and having to pay extra for seat selection.
One small bonus was that we could fly from Gatwick rather than Heathrow and so we treated ourselves to a pay lounge. Club Rooms South was very nice, with waiter service and a peaceful atmosphere and our waiter was very proactive in refilling our glasses. My only slight moan was that we were only allowed access a strict 3 hours to the minute before our flight.
We paid for extra leg room but to be honest looking around no one looked particularly cramped but it did mean that we were first in line for the food service.
I don't remember taking this picture and presumably it is somewhere in the Alps, although interestingly Google Reverse Image Lookup states it to be Mount Everest. Unlikely, I feel, as Uzbekistan is well west of the Himalayas
We only had a 2hr layover in Istanbul and initially I was concerned this wouldn't be long enough as the airport is huge but in actual fact we navigated it fairly quickly and even had time to stop for something to eat - probably the most expensive burger and chips ever sold at a whopping €39 plus they stuffed us on the currency conversion and then declared their system to be broken so they couldn't refund me. The second leg wasn't as good in terms of service but time passed fairly quickly and we arrived in Tashkent at the ungodly hour of 04:45.
Whilst Ian waited for our cases to come through I turned on my phone and hoped the preloaded E-Sim would work - it didn't! There were various stands selling e-sims so I decided to just buy a new one and trust Airalo refunded me except my Visa credit card got refused, so did Ian's and they didn't take cash. Fortunately we also had the Mastercard credit card which was accepted. When I got my phone working I saw messages from Halifax wanting me to confirm that the transactions weren't fraudulent - how ridiculous, how could I confirm when I didn't have a working phone!
Anyway we duly met up with the other 4 people on our flight and headed for the hotel. We had about 6 hours before meeting up with the guide for a tour of the city but instead of having a quick sleep I spent the time on the phone sorting out the credit card and we then had breakfast.
There are 16 in the group and all seem quite pleasant. Our guide Farik is quite young, speaks perfect English and appears competent and knowledgeable.