Kans on the Road: First glimpses of Uzbekistan

At check-in. Another first for luggage tags.

This is the plane - a Boeing 767.

Then on board, This was my seat - all alone in the middle of the cabin. The only seat in the plane where people walk in front of you!

I got this pic with mild difficulty. I brought out my camera and the stewardess told me "no photos, no video". I said this wasn't video, so she put her finger in the air to indicate "just one".

BL's recline wasn't working so they mover her to another seat. Fortunately there was one other unoccupied seat. We discovered later that BL missed the last snack because she was asleep.

There were a few traveller's tales at Tashkent Airport. A celebrated sports team was returning to a brass band welcome. But the local English nor my Uzbek were sufficient to figure out which sport. BL thought is was the Asian Games, despite the word Olympics having been said. When English is a second language, you have to flexible in your interpretations!

We were spared the immigration hassles I had read about, by Business Class having a dedicated bus, immigration and baggage retrieval. (There are no aerobridges at Tashkent Airport - it doesn't rain anyway so who needs them?)

Then we wanted to go to the main airport to change money and get a taxi. We were assigned a "helper", who took me to a money change stall. It all looked official. They only changed a few currencies, (not including AU or SG) so I decided to change GBP. One note was rejected because it was torn. But otherwise, all went well.

Then the taxi! Our helper couldn't find one, so delivered us to this man in a tiny car who wanted US$10. Oh well, weak bargaining position. We gave the helper a 200 som note but his English was good enough to indicate this was not enough and he wanted 3000 som. On the way to the hotel, BL worked out that was only one SG$ - maybe even less! Hardly qualifies as a rip-off!

Our US$10 driver wasn't sure where our hotel was, even which hotel, despite having shown him the name on the booking. I heard him asking another car on the way. But City Palace seemed to mean something, so he took us to a hotel called City Palace. It was very grand. And for once I needed a hard copy of my booking - the concierge couldn't find it on his system and then told me it was not this hotel!

So another wait and and 15,000 som later, and a proper taxi, we got to our hotel, Lotte City Palace. I made sure the driver saw the address in Russian script and this seemed to work. The first driver may not have been particularly literate.

We had dinner on the roof top restaurant. Very pleasant. The prices looked daunting until we worked out that you just divide by 6,000. This is a minor under-estimate, but good enough.

Just to let you know, this is GBP40 in som (minus a couple of notes).