Air Baltic and Uzbekistan
Most of the time my travel planning goes something like this: 1. decide where I want to go; followed by 2. find appropriate flights – but sometimes I end up doing it backwards. I flew Air Baltic back from St Petersburg to London (via Riga), as it was by far the cheapest flight available, and ended up signing up for their mailing list, because who doesn’t like being bombarded by details of cheap flights to random destinations on a near-daily basis? Exciting finds:
- Irritatingly enough, there doesn’t seem to be any information about this available on their website, but according to the emails they sent me, and also this site, Air Baltic is launching a Baltic Pass, allowing passengers who buy an Air Baltic flight to Riga, Tallinn, Liepaja or Vilnius from outside the Baltic countries to purchase flights between those cities for 35 euros. It’s a deal I’m unlikely to take advantage of myself, as a) I visited Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 2005, and, barring a trip to Lithuania for my 30th birthday next June (of which more later, possibly), I’m not planning a trip back in the near future; and b) it’s easy enough, if you’ve got the time, to bus between the cities included, and I generally believe that Flying Is Cheating – but for people wanting a brisk jaunt around the Baltic countries, it’s a very good deal indeed [insert global warming-related disclaimer here].
- More excitingly from my own point of view is Air Baltic’s selection of destinations. Following my xmas trip to Budapest, I am in the rather frightening position of having NO PLANNED TRAVEL, which inevitably sends my brain into travel-planning overdrive, eager to latch onto intriguing options: I’ve long had a hankering after Tbilisi, but it’s the cheap flights on offer to Tashkent that really excite me.
Uzbekistan! I visited Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan way, way back in 1998 (nearly 10 years ago, which is frightening), and I’ve often been regretful that I didn’t make it to Uzbekistan on that trip. Tashkent itself doesn’t excite me that much (other than the fact that it’s the only Central Asian city to have an underground rail system, fact fans), but its proximity to places like Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva certainly does (and, as I have just seen from the website I’m linking, Shakhrisabz), and the Ferghana Valley. And, OK, “proximity” may be taking things a bit far, but it seems that the 356km between Tashkent and Samarkand can be travelled in under four hours, which is rather impressive. (Incidentally, I have to say that I love the fact that the Uzbekistan railway has a blog.)
As ever, this is just one of multiple trips that I am considering for 2008, dependent on multiple factors including employment and PhD funding and the like. But it’s a good one to think about.
Uzbekistan. Quality bits, in order of decreasing loveliness:
Bukhara
Samarkand (oh, the Registan)
Khiva
The museum /gallery in Nukus
Shakrisabz
Less quality in order of increasing grimness:
Ferghana Valley
Uzbek authorities
Uzbek border crossings
Nukus
Getting giardia in Nukus, or maybe the Ferghana Valley
Tashkent airport
Tashkent
Tbilisi is nice though.
JEB
November 27, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Oooh, Bukhara above Samarkand? An interesting and contraversial choice! Was that down to the monuments/sights, or just the general feel of the town?
And wait, getting giardia was BETTER than Tashkent airport? Good lord. (Heh – I just typoed that as ‘Trashkent’, which may be appropraiet). That said, airports can improve enormously in a very short amount of time – flying into Baku in January 2000, the airport was nice and shiny and new (despite the fact that the customs desk consisted of an old door across two oil barrels) but people who’d arrived just a couple of months before had very very different stories.
hypermobility
November 28, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Tashkent airport: it varies. The new international terminal is quite nice. Bring indivudual US$ bills to buy anything (like water, beer) though.
The domestic bit is interesting. Arrival at 23h involved being dumped at on the tarmac (where our luggage was piled) next to a gate out of the airport. You walk out into the arms of the scrum of taxi drivers. Lovely. And this is apparently normal practice.
Bukhara has many more mosques, sites etc than Samarkand (even if the Registan is maybe the most impressive single site). But the old town in Bukhara is more extensive and photogenic, and better shopping (I had a wonderful 2 days bargaining for my carpet). And generally a nicer feel.
BTW I am amused that this blog is currently a conversation between the two of us…
John Bedford
November 28, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Hahahah! I am also amused, though unsurprised, given that you are the only person I know who is as interested in this sort of stuff as I am. I’m going to try and start publicising the blog a bit more in the new year, once I’ve got a good lot of information here already – at present, it’s only LJ people who know about it.
Frankly, I’d probably keep writing here even if no one was reading, that’s how obsessive I am. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have that pesky social consience and could just go and work in the travel industry, like I evidently want to…
hypermobility
November 28, 2007 at 3:40 pm
You don’t want to work in travel. You just want to travel. Surely. Like me.
It is a very good thing for me that you exist. At least one person on the planet actually understands.
On the blog, I approve. I wonder whether I should do something similar as I have such a vast collection of travel tips, anecdotes and general stuff in my head.
JEB
November 28, 2007 at 6:44 pm
You would be more than welcome to contribute articles to this blog – I’m actually very keep to encourage guest-writers and collaborators. Interested?
hypermobility
November 29, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Thanks – I would be interested. I could cut-and-paste the summary from my South America trip for a start.
How exciting!
John Bedford
December 4, 2007 at 11:21 am
That would be awesome! Email me?
hypermobility
December 4, 2007 at 11:27 am
Wilco but I need to be at home.
John Bedford
December 4, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Ditto, and given that as of last night Virgin had cut off our internet, it may take me a while to receive…
hypermobility
December 4, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Sent last night. Good luck with Virgin. I found them pretty poor when I had them in the UK. I went to Pipex who were good but they have been taken over now, I think. It is surreal when you are actually happy to use Belgacom (although, man, do you pay for it).
John Bedford
December 5, 2007 at 10:41 am
Fab. Still no internet as of last night, sadly. Don’t think that pipex exist any more – I used to be with ntl, but they were swallowed up by the Virgin conglomerate.
hypermobility
December 5, 2007 at 10:56 am
Hello
Can you make a flight from Tashkent Uzbekistan to Atlanta Georgia? What is the best price? The best price I can find is right at 940 USD. The flight can be toward the end of Janurary, which ever day has the
best price. Please contact me if you can direct me in the best money saving route ,
Thanks
William
William
December 9, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Hi William,
Bear in mind that I am not a travel agent, just a rtandom person with an interest in travel, but from a bit of research it looks like your deal is a good one – breaking the journey down into portions, I’ve found flights for the end of January from Tashkent to Riga for US$213 (Air Baltic), Riga to London for £67.70 (Air Baltic), London to New York for £223.80 (Aer Lingus) and NY – Atlanta for £58 (Delta), which may work out slighlt cheaper than US$940, but not by much, and the inconvenience would probably make up for the difference. Sorry!
hypermobility
December 10, 2007 at 11:54 am
Hi there,
Interesting site. I am planning on a trip from Ulan Baatar to Almaty, Tashkent, Baku and on further west.
What I canot figure is, is it possible to get from Tashkent via train (preferrably) to the western Kazhak border? The furthest I can find is Kungrad and I am not even sure I can get there by train (I can see a train track on the Google map) I am waiting for some maps and books I odered and hopefully that will help.
Also if you have any nformation of how I can get from Aqtau (Kzhakstan) to Baku via a ferry, that would be make my day. There is some “rumor” of a non-reliable ferry. I have some extensive experience kayaking too so maybe I can buy a Kayak in Aqtau and make my way across? (just kidding)
The Airbaltic site is a great resource. Thanks for the tip.
Looking forward to your repl
Anton
March 9, 2008 at 6:07 am
Hi Anton, I’m afraid that my central Asia experience is too far in the past to be of much help in this regard. Re. trains, the only thing I can think of is just playing around on poezda.net, which might have information on trains that run from Tashkent westwards, and also poking around on seat61.com, which is just an excellent resource for train travel in general.
Regarding the ferry, that’s likely to be ever trickier. Back when I was in Baku (2000) there were similarly unsubstantiated rumours of ferries from Baku to various points east, but they never seemed to have a publicly available timetable. My guess is that if you turned up in Aqtau, you’d have a fairly good chance of being able to get onto some sort of boat going to Baku, but that does rather depend on how long you’re prepared to hang about in Aqtau, and how much Russian you speak. You may want to ask about it on the lonelyplanet.com forums, if you haven’t already, as there’s always a chance there’ll be someone there who’s done the trip recently and that’s the most reliable advice you’re likely to find, I would’ve thought.
Good luck!
hypermobility
March 10, 2008 at 12:01 pm
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Border Crossing Stats » Air Baltic and Uzbekistan Hypermobility
March 10, 2008 at 8:23 pm