I was very eager to visit the Russian Orthodox Cathedral I had driven by on my first day. Slightly more familiar with Tashkent now I knew it was near the main train station. I planned to take the metro there to visit as I had freetime this morning (see previous entry)After leaving Tashkent Metro station I had to navigate my way to the church which was just under a ten minute walk. There were many trams doing a loop turn just across from the station. In the distan...

PHOTOGRAPHY IS NOT PERMITTED INSIDE THE TASHKENT METRO OR OF STATIONS *** ALL IMAGES ARE TAKEN FROM GOOGLE IMAGES AND ARE NOT MY ORIGINALS ***My last Friday morning in Tashkent I had freetime until I checked out at noon when my guide would be arriving. I wanted to use this time to ride the metro and visit the Russian Orthodox Church back by Tashkent Station.First I needed to exchange another $10 so went to the hotels bank counter. After that I went outdoors t...

This afternoon I was finally heading back to Tashkent for my last full day before my flight back to Korea. Rather than driving back from Samarkand, one of the reasons I chose this tour company was because it was going to be by express train.I like to experience different types of trains in various countries and was curious to try one in Central Asia. I was expecting an old Soviet era type car but was told it was a modern high speed train built by the Spanish.I'd ...

I sort of had a spare day in Samarkand as the Asiana flights to Seoul ran every Friday so I had 8 days to do the 7 day tour. My agent had given me half a day freetime today and an afternoon of extra sightseeing that other tours don't normally do before the evening express train back to Tashkent.First I needed to exchange money before I checked out of the hotel at noon so exchanged another $15 for 31 x 1000 Som notes. My guide and driver returned at noon so we hea...

Next on the afternoons tour was a visit to a paper mill which we had been debating whether we should goto or not. As we still had plenty of time before my 5pm train to Tashkent we drove the short distance here.It was somewhat comedic watching the performance as I arrived. It takes about five people to man the operation with the guide narrating me thru. They were probably all sitting playing cards and had to rush to their positions and make it look as though the m...