(Last Updated on Apr 6, 2024)

After an 8 hour train journey, we arrived at Bukhara. As detailed in the previous blog, most of it was through the desert (as you can see in the map below). The train journey was hot and tiring but we were really looking forward to our stay at Bukhara.

Bukhara has been a center for trade and culture for over 5000 years and a key city of the Persian empire. It is considered one of the oldest cities in Central Asia itself and the old part of it has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Under the rule of Amir Timur, it became a major religious center. Spelled Buxoro in Uzbek, it is today the seventh-largest city of Uzbekistan in terms of population. There are many monuments in Bukhara which stand testimony to the cultural behemoth that the city used to be. And in this blog, we will be exploring this beautiful city. We continue our journey on Day 3 from the Khiva blog.

Day 3

We tried booking two Yandex taxis (yes, Yandex was finally working!) to get into the city. The Bukhara railway station is in an area called Kagan and is around 13km from the city center. It was costing us 28k som per taxi. One guy at the station offered to take us in one car for 50k som and we agreed because it was working out cheaper than 2 cabs – also because it was really hot outside and we wanted to get out of it ASAP!

As we drove down to the old town area, we could see a giant cloud-like thing in the sky that was extending all the way down to the horizon. Our cab driver told us that it was a dust storm and it was moving towards us really fast. At the next intersection, it hit us. As we waited at the traffic signal, we could see the dust waves buffeting in from the road on the right and crossing over to the left. It was as if the roads were channels and there was water gushing along one of them! A very unique experience and we were glad that the storm decided to move in a direction different than us.

It took about 20 mins to reach the Lyabi Hauz area where our hotel, As-Salam Boutique Hotel was located. We did not have anything on our agenda for the day. A good dinner would be perfectly fine.

We decided to try out Ayvan restaurant nearby – apparently it was tough to get a table there and reservations were needed on most days. We thought we’d walk in and check – if we got a table, we’d eat. Or else book a table for the next day. Luckily, we managed to get a table – probably because it was off-season. Our waiter explained to us that the name Ayvan means balcony in Persian and this hotel and restaurant was once the home of a Jewish trader. It was done up very beautifully and it looked very royal! The food was on the fancy and pricey side, but definitely worth it. Every trip has one place where we don’t limit our budgets much – this was our place for this trip.

We had basil lemonade, watermelon juice, French fries, toasted garlic bread, veal roulette, chicken cutlets, sheesh kebab, veg stew (yummy!), Carbonara pasta and finished it off with some apple juice and panna cotta.

We walked around a bit people watching – there were families out for their late evening walks (now that the sun had gone down), kids playing on remote control cars, people eating ice cream and juices ,sitting around the fountain – it was a very relaxed and beautiful evening scene (reminded us of Hanoi).

We got back to our room and slept. Thankfully we did not have to pack our bags for the next day as we would be staying here for 2 nights!

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Day 4
We woke up by 6 and decided to go to the Bukhara farmers market (Kolkhoznyy Rynok). We generally love visiting the local markets to see and sample some of the local produce – we were really looking forward to the seasonal fruits!

We took a cab (Yandex) and reached the market. It was still opening up when we reached around 7am.

It was organized very well – one section for fruits, separate ones for vegetables, spices, breads, meat, milk and milk products, honey, tea, plastics, artificial flowers and more stuff. What struck us the most was how organized it was and how clean they had kept it. Markets in India are usually a mix of smells – part of which comes from the rotting waste of fruits and vegetables. Meat shops are typically the “stinkiest” of them all. But here, every section we walked into, we could smell the fresh scent of the produce only! We bought a big basket full of strawberries and a pastry.

After exploring all the different sections, we took another cab to the famous Po-i-Kalyan complex. Yandex shows all possible routes to their drivers – even the ones that don’t come up on Google maps. We found that the accuracy of Google maps was a bit poor especially with respect to walking routes. Our Yandex driver took us through the narrowest of roads till we reached a set of stairs. Apparently this was the closest that a cab could go to the complex and we had to walk the last bit. He indicated that he couldn’t go any further by signally a giant X with crossed arms.

The complex was beautiful! With a mosque on one side and a madrassah on the other and a tall minaret in the middle, it was the perfect set of monuments for a photograph. We walked around, took a lot of pics and walked back to our room. If you love the pics you see in this blog, do check out our Instagram highlights for more videos and re-live the trip with us!

We realised that most of the tourist places in Bukhara could be covered by foot. We made note of some souvenir stores which we wanted to visit later.

We then had breakfast at our hotel (yes, all of this happened before 8:30am) and decided to go out for sightseeing a bit. The fountains at Lyabi Haus were on and it was quite refreshing in the heat. There were floating miniatures of Chor Minor, Po-i-Kalyan and the madrassahs in the tank. There were also some geese/ducks wading their way around the tank – even they were chilling. Parth loved this sight. In his words – “Udha dumma….Ducky utkanthu chwimming chwimming” (Water falling, ducks swimming in the water). He was really enjoying every bit of this trip – especially the strawberries that we had picked up from the market!

We reached the covered markets near Hotel Asia and did a fair bit of souvenir shopping – loading up on the figurines of old men with watermelons and Uzbek breads.

Parth managed to secure a chocolate wafer from the owner of the souvenir shop. He kept calling their daughter akka (sister in our language) and the owner told us that akka is what they call their older brothers and appa is what they call their sisters. He tried saying appa but then stuck to akka itself – I guess appa didn’t make sense to him. The sun was getting strong and it was already past 1:30pm. So we decided to skip sight seeing for now and go straight for lunch.

We stepped into Old Bukhara restaurant for lunch. We had a delicious meal of lagman (hand cut noodles), plov, khachapuri (a Georgian dish), chicken shish kebab and lemonade which was ended with apple strudel wand ice cream. And it was quite economical too. Another good thing about this restaurant was that it had an AC room – perfect for the summer time!

Afternoon meant nap time – we all slept for a couple of hours. This was something that was markedly different from all our previous trips. Earlier, we used to jam pack our days with sightseeing and eating. Now, we wanted to take it slower, relax and spend more time at each place. Both approaches have their pros and cons. But, both made perfect sense and fulfilled what we wanted at each point in time.

We stepped out around 6pm and went to the Ulug’bek madrassah. Who is Ulug’bek? This a name you will come across at multiple points in Uzbekistan. Ulug’bek was one of the smartest minds of his time (in the 1300s) – he was an astronomer, mathematician, scientist, poet and historian. His work in astronomy was revolutionary and the observatory he built in Samarkand gave insight into the precise measurements of the earth’s axis and the astronomical year – he calculated the length of a year (365 days, 6 hours, 10 mins, 8 seconds) with an error rate of only 58 seconds! Sadly, he doesn’t get the credit due to him (like Galileo who came long after his time) possibly because of where he was from and the fact that successors in his kingdom did not leave a lot of evidence behind. Being a scientific revolutionary usually attracts the wrath of religious fundamentalists. Ulug’bek was passionate about education – his beautiful madrassahs in Bukhara and Samarkand were set up to educate and enlighten people.

The madrassah in Bukhara was undergoing renovation when we visited it. It seemed more ancient than all the others we had seen so far. We were charged 5k som per person to enter it but there was absolutely nothing to see inside it. Not wanting a repeat of this, we skipped entering the Abdulaziz Khan madrassah. That one looked very unique from the outside in terms of design and colors used on its facade.

We were in the mood for some tea and walked to the Silk Road Teahouse which we saw on the way. As luck would have it, it was closed. We came to the Oriental tea house which was closed too. Apparently, they all wrap up by 7pm! Finally, we stepped into Cafe Wishbone (A German bakery!) and had coffee, lemon cake and walnut pie.

We then walked back to the Po-i-Kalyan complex. Luckily, the mosque was open and we could enter it. It was gigantic inside and Parth went crazy. He ran from one corner to another shrieking in delight! His voice echoed off the walls of the mosque. A solitary tree stood inside the complex which added to its mystique. We got a lot of amazing photos from inside the mosque (Instagram highlights). We also got to witness the majesty of the square in the evening light. It was almost 8pm but the sun was showing no sign of setting.

For dinner, we decided to go to The Chalet which was right outside our hotel. That’s when we remembered that the minaret at Po-i-Kalyan would be lit right now. We took an electric auto/taxi thing and went back to the square. Parth was delighted to sit in it!

We took some photos of the lit up square and walked back to the restaurant. Dinner was nice – water was being sprayed from above, Parth had slept comfortably, there was a violinist playing music.

We ordered some Moroccan tea (delicious tea with whole spices and oranges in it), lamb shashlik, manti, grilled vegetables and Sicilian tomato soup. It was a pleasant day. We covered a lot. And also got to rest during the day.

Day 5
We started the day slightly later at 7am. We decided to visit a couple of places before breakfast.

First we walked to Chor Minor. It was around 500m from our hotel. We had to walk through many residential neighborhoods and suddenly the monument popped out of nowhere. The minarets looked very peculiar with four of them ending in domes on top.

It looked even weirder as we had seen the Charminar in Hyderabad which had pointy tops. And to our surprise, there was a photo of the Hyderabad Charminar hung there as well – the Hyderabad one was built more than 200 years before this one in Bukhara and is said to have served as an inspiration!

The courtyard next to the monument was full of fruit trees – apples, cherries, apricots, grapevines and mulberries. Parth tried hard to get his hands onto some of those fruits but couldn’t succeed.

We booked cabs and then went to the Bukhara Ark fortress. The route took us through tiny streets in Bukhara. I noticed yellow pipes running along the sides of buildings. There were also many drains running on the sides and sometimes even the middle of the road!

We soon reached the Ark. The Ark is a fortress where the entire town used to take refuge in times of war. It also contained the royal palace. We climbed all the way up and saw the throne room, stables and other rooms where ambassadors from other countries and kingdoms were welcomed in the past. There was a small museum at the highest point with maps of how the territory changed its form over the years.

It was almost 9am and we wanted to get back before breakfast ended. We ran around looking for a currency exchange as we had run out of Soms. I found a bank but there was a long line inside and looking at the speed with which things were moving, I would have to wait there for atleast an hour more! So, we skipped that, took a cab and got back to the hotel. Tip: Keep a little extra currency than you plan to use – just in case.

We had a nice breakfast of fruits (mainly watermelon, musk melon, apricots and cherries), different types of pastries (filled with cheese, grape leaf, meat and jam – all separate. It would be weird to have all these inside one pastry!), boiled eggs, cheese and pancakes. Parth slept right after that. Nam and I went out looking for a currency exchange place. We found a tourist information centre and the lady told us to go inside Asia Hotel Bukhara. We found it weird but followed what she said and stepped inside the hotel and asked the security guard.

He showed us the way inside and told us to go to the basement and walk down the corridor there. And sure enough, there was a proper functioning currency exchange there. In the basement of a hotel! With no boards anywhere! We converted a little extra just in case we went overboard with some expenses. We handed over 3 notes of hundred dollars and got back more than 70 notes in som. On the way back, we stopped near the Lyabi Hauz fountain and had ice creams.

We got back to our room, packed our stuff and checked out. We left the bags in the lobby and went to the Old Bukhara restaurant once again for lunch. We reordered the plov, lagman, khachapuri and berries lemonade. We also ordered the samosa and lamb shish kebab this time. Everything was excellent! Definitely a must-visit if you visit Bukhara!

It was time for us to leave now. We walked back to our hotel, got our bags and left for the Bukhara station. It had been an amazing stay and we would love to come back here – especially when the weather is better and we can sit outside all day!

If you started on this blog, you can read the earlier blog on Khiva here.

Do subscribe to the blog – it makes us happy to see that you are enjoying the read! And for all the photos and videos, check out our highlights on Instagram.

Check out our other Uzbekistan blogs here:

• The Roughest Start We’ve Ever Faced – a cancelled flight, a delayed one and many other challenges kicked off our trip to Central Asia
• Time Traveling in Khiva – A Hidden Treasure of Uzbekistan
• Enchanting Bukhara – A Treasure of the Silk Road. Join us as we explore this oasis
• Samarkand – Where History and Beauty Converge
• Tashkent Tales – The Uzbek “Metro” Capital
• The Uzbek itinerary – plan your perfect trip to Uzbekistan