Bukhara

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Bukhara is one of the main historical cities of Uzbekistan, with Samarkand and Khiva. We took a night train from Tashkent to Bukhara.

Sleeping Car

We traveled in 3^rd class. Our sleeping car was around 10 open compartments of 6 beds each (3 bunk beds). In the lower bed, you have enough space over your head to sit comfortably. The storage space under the lower bed is pretty secured since it is a box, and you sleep on the cover. People in the upper beds usually sit on the lower beds until it is time to sleep.

I recommend booking the lower beds. Actually, it’s better if you can book the first class, or, even better, the high speed train 😉

In the sleeping car, people make a quick prayer together when the train starts. They share food with people next to them. They drink tea in their own cups, with hot water available for free. The train controller gave us a package with sheets, a pillow case and a face towel when we boarded the train. Before we were supposed to get off the train, we were asked to return them. It’s hard to miss your stop!

We met Otash, a barber from Bukhara, who had the bed above mine. He traveled to Tashkent for medical reasons and was very transparent about it. Almost as soon as we met, he asked us where we were staying in Bukhara, offering to share a cab from the train station to the old city. I must admit I was not comfortable answering that question at that time. Then, we had some good conversations before bedtime. He was one of the few Uzbeks we met who could speak English. We also used Google Translate occasionally. He had an impeccable sense of fashion. The best I have seen in Uzbekistan. He was 30 and had three kids and a barber shop. I am 30 as well, and I have way fewer responsibilities.

The train was delayed by 2 hours, other passengers had never seen that, because it waited for the high speed train which had precedence on a rail segment.

We left the train station with Otash in a taxi he ordered with Yandex Go. He dropped us at our hotel and refused to share the cost. We didn’t have any chance to share the spending as he took off directly, making sure of it.

The Old City

The old city is like an open air museum : the monuments’ density is very high in the south. There are no protecting walls anymore.

I really enjoyed the square surrounded by Kalyan Minaret, Kalyan Mosque and Mir-i-Arab Madrasa. When we arrived, we wandered in the city, and we were naturally drawn to the Kaylan Minaret dominating other buildings. When Genghis Khan conquered the city, he destroyed the Kalon Mosque, but left the Minaret intact because it could be used as an observation tower.

When I entered the Kalyan Mosque, I was wearing shorts. I did not see the guy selling tickets, so he was pretty angry because I was entering without paying and without decent clothes. In my defense, I was coming from Turkey where all the mosques are free, and you can enter the courtyard without wearing anything special, and he was very into a conversation with a group of girls.

My other favorite spot is between the Ulugh Beg Madrasa and the Abdulaziz Khan Madrasa.

We spent quite a lot of time in the area around Divan-Beghi, a small artificial pond. There are many restaurants and cafés, including Joy, our favorite. Many locals come here to take wedding pictures or simply chill.

The Ark of Bukhara is a fortress with several tiny museums inside. Soviet bombings have largely destroyed it. The exterior has been renovated and look nice, but, inside, there is nothing interesting really. Is it worth paying to go inside? Maybe, only if it is very cheap for you. The museums are really disappointing. However, the view you have on the Kalyan Minaret and the Kalyan Mosque is enjoyable.

Hotel

We stayed in an exceptional family guest house (Hotel Mironshox) in the South of the old city. Except that during the check-in, they tried to make us cancel the Booking reservation by proposing a better price. We refused because it was safer for us not to do so.

The hotel had just opened for more than one year. It was way newer than the places where we used to stay during this trip. The project of converting a family house to a guest house started before the COVID-19 pandemic and had been postponed a couple of times.

The room was large, there was a table and a chair. As I am writing these lines in Pushkar (India), I sit on the bed with the laptop on my knees, therefore being comfortably seated feels like luxury.

The breakfast was excellent. Actually, the best we got in Uzbekistan. It could even compete with the good meals we had. We mostly interacted with the 20-year-old son, who was very nice and attentive to details. This family represents well what I feel about Uzbek people.

Restaurants

When we travel, we like to go to many restaurants to taste different kind of food. In Uzbekistan, we soon realized all restaurants were serving pretty much the same thing with a few exceptions. So we often came back to the same places.

We really enjoyed Joy chaikhana lounge, everything we ordered was tasty and well-prepared. It is also a beautiful place, inside the old city, close to our hotel.

Otash recommended us two restaurants. The first one, Kafe Chorbakr Temurota, which is too far from the old city to go there by foot, is specialized in grilled meat. We had incredible skewers and their specialty : some delicious roasted lamb. I don’t know if it is spit-roasted like Méchoui, even if the kitchen was open, I could only see the skewers being cooked. The second restaurant, The Plov, mostly serves the two main versions of the national dish: the Samarkand plov and the Bukhara plov. The plovs we ate there were good, but not really better than what we had in other places.