(Last Updated on Aug 18, 2024)

A trip to Central Asia was part of our plan for 2020. The itinerary included Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It was a 15-16 day plan (like our usual summer breaks) with a lot of travel to remote and local places. Little did we know that our lives would change completely before we actually ended up making the trip.

For starters, the world shut down for almost 2 years due to the pandemic. While we could never have guessed that it would take so long for the world to return to normalcy, we did figure out that travel would be impacted for atleast 6-7 months. So, we squeezed in a tiny vacation to Seychelles and got back just 8 days before India announced its lockdown. The more important change was that we had a new travel companion – our baby P! He would turn two in July 2023. This would be his second international trip (we had visited Turkey when he was 1 year and 4 months old).

Considering the new dynamics, we decided to take it slow and threw out the old itinerary. It was impossible to cover all 4 countries of Central Asia in that much time and we decided to focus on Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The plan was to spend 7-8 days in Uzbekistan and the another 3 days exploring the Almaty region of Kazakhstan. We’ll cover the itinerary in a later blog. Right now, let’s dive right into Day 1!

Day 1

We were super excited about this trip – the last trip we had gone on was a group trip (not really our style) and we did not get the freedom to explore like we usually do. This one was a typical “FridgeMagnet Tales” style trip where we had planned everything from A to Z on our own. The first day was majorly travel – an Air India flight from Bangalore to Delhi and an Uzbekistan Airways one from Delhi to Tashkent.

We woke up at 3:30am to get ready and leave by 4:30am. As I was getting ready and ticking the last few things off the checklist, Nam was trying to fetch the boarding pass to activate Digiyatra – the new tech-enabled check-in facility using which we could get quicker entry to the airport and a fast-tracked security check. I realised that I too did not have the boarding passes handy (as the PNR usually suffices to print the boarding pass at the airport kiosk) and went to the Air India website to download it. But it showed an error. When I checked the flight status, the website said the flight was cancelled!

To add some more context,
Departure from Bangalore: 7 AM
Arrival at Delhi: 9:45 AM
Next flight from Delhi: 1:45 PM
We had to reach the Delhi airport Terminal 3 by at least 12pm.

We immediately called Air India customer support and they confirmed that the flight was indeed cancelled. The only other flight available was one at 9pm in the night. That was clearly not an option for us. We were staring at a possibility of the entire trip getting cancelled and a lot of money going down the drain. Thankfully, all those hours spent reading productivity and mental model books kicked in at this very moment. Both Nam and I were both unnaturally calm and started looking at our options.

There was a Vistara flight at 8am. It was costing close to 1L for 2 adults + 1 infant for one way in economy class! The situation was so dire that we went ahead with the booking. But at the payment step, we came to know that the flight had only 1 seat available. We needed 2. No go! Next, we looked at options to reach Mumbai and then to Delhi. There was one Indigo flight at 7am but that was also sold out. All the flights via Mumbai would only take us there by 1pm which was too late for us. So, we ended up with no options to reach Delhi on time.

On this trip, we were joined by my parents and sister. My parents were on their way from Kochi to Delhi and sister from Mumbai to Delhi. The plan was to meet at the Delhi airport and travel together from there. It seemed unlikely that we would reach Delhi on time for our connecting flight. So, I dropped a quick note to them that they should continue their flight to Tashkent and we would figure out a way to get there. Worst case scenario, they would have to do the trip without us.

Next plan – how to salvage the Central Asia trip. We had to get to Tashkent somehow. Even if it would be a day late. We found an option of going to Delhi, taking Air Arabia to Sharjah and then onwards to Tashkent. That would mean a 15 hour journey with long layovers but we could reach Tashkent the next day and join our family.

So, we booked the Air Arabia flight from Delhi onwards. Then we looked for a flight to get to Delhi and found an Indigo flight at 10:40am – that seemed to work out well for us as the Air Arabia flight was late in the evening. As we got to the booking page, we thought of checking for other options of Indigo and suddenly a new flight popped up – a direct flight from Bangalore to Delhi at 8am! This was not there initially and it looked like there were some last minute cancellations on Indigo. This would get us to Delhi T1 at 10:45am. Which meant that we would have to rush to T3 soon.

We immediately booked it. But we were unable to checkin – we had a fear that in this confusion, the plane was overbooked and we would not get seats. So, our current plan was – get to the airport ASAP and attempt to take the Indigo flight. If they allow us to checkin, then cancel the Air Arabia flight (luckily we had booked a flight with cancellation included – so we would not lose the entire 65k).

We got to the airport, checked-in, had a decent breakfast at the lounge and reached our boarding gate. We cancelled the Air Arabia flight and might get most of the money back as credits (atleast as per their website, we should get it soon). Update: we did get the credits. The process was super easy and we used the credits for our Georgia, Armenia trips.

We were now counting on the Indigo flight to be on time. Which wasn’t to be.

The flight which was scheduled to leave at 8am took off only at 9am. Which meant we would land at around 12pm at T1 and needed to rush to T3 for our 1:45 onward flight. We hoped for the best!

Meanwhile, our family had arrived at Delhi and were trying to get through immigration. But the officials insisted on a hard copy of the e-visa (All prints and currency were with us). In the entire terminal, not a single person could help with prints of the visa. One person agreed for 50 rupees per print but would only do it once his manager would walk away from the area (he was trying to make a quick buck). As you can imagine, they were also extremely stressed at how things were going.
TIP: If you are travelling from different locations, it’s best for each person to carry their own set of documents and currency.

Our flight took off at 9am and we landed at 11:15am – it was an Airbus 321. As luck would have it, the plane stopped really far away from the terminal and it took a long time for the bus to reach the arrival area. Once there, it took close to 15 mins for our bags to arrive! I recalled all the instances where the bags would already be in their nth rotation by the time we reached the belt! Parth was enjoying this entire adrenaline rush – he was shouting “Amma running running” as Nam and I ran across the terminal.

I called my sister to check their status. They had completed their check-in and were waiting for us. She said that the final check-in time was 12:35pm. We collected our bags and exited T1 at 11:50. We booked an Ola cab which the app said would take 2 mins. We called the driver and he confirmed the same. 5 mins later, he didn’t move and on calling again, he says he doesn’t want to go anymore! So, we ran back to the terminal and booked a prepaid cab. And finally at 12:15, we reached T3! After all the ups and downs, we thought we finally made it for our flight.

At the checkin counter, there was some access issue that took another 10 mins to resolve and in that confusion, the lady there almost sent out our bags without the luggage tags! Once that was resolved, we met our family and proceeded for immigration. Parth was happy – he had been saying – gimme Ammumma Appuppa (read: give me my grandparents, I want to play with them) – right from the time we landed at Delhi. So, our Central Asia trip was on!

We had a comfortable flight from Delhi to Tashkent on Uzbekistan airways – it was a Boeing Dreamliner. The safety briefing video was really cool – it was an entire movie in itself with people wearing traditional clothes in ancient Silk Road settings with famous Uzbek places in the background. For example, the wear seat-belt showed a guy sitting on a double-humped camel putting on his seat-belt. The flight time was 2 hours and 15 mins.

Right after immigration, we exchanged currency – surprisingly we got a very good rate at the airport – almost the best rate we got during the entire trip! At the time of our travel, 1 INR = 138 UZS (Uzbekistani Som). We used the cash to buy 2 SIM cards – mainly to enable cab booking on Yandex. There were two providers – UCell and Beeline. There was a huge rush at the Beeline counter while no one seemed to bother about UCell. We asked one person standing in the crowd for the Beeline SIM why people were preferring that. Apparently the speed was better. We wanted to get done soon and reach our room. So we bought 2 sim cards of UCell. It ended up being slow but it did the job of sending whatsapp msgs and booking cabs.

We stepped outside the airport terminal into sweltering heat of 38 degrees at 5:30pm. The owner and host of the homestay, Mr. Botir had come to pick us up in his Chevrolet Cobalt. Uzbekistan is full of Chevrolet cars – it is estimated to have a market share of more than 90%! This is because the cars are manufactured within the country and there are heavy taxes imposed on imported models.

As we were walking towards the car, he handed over his phone to me and his daughter was on the line. She was our Uzbek to English translator as Mr. Botir did not know English. She told us that there was an electricity issue and there would be no AC for 2 hours. We said it would be fine as long as the power comes back in 2 hours. After a 15 mins drive, we were there. The entire area was full of under-construction buildings and it seemed like a newly developing area. There was also an under construction metro line along the road. On one row stood a set of finished homes – one of which was our homestay. All houses had huge doors – made to accommodate cars, and a smaller one for people to walk through.

It was dark inside due to the transformer issue but luckily it wasn’t as hot as it was outside. There was cold water in the pipes and we freshened up. After some planning, discussion and a rapidly depleting phone battery, we decided to ask our host if they could take us somewhere. We didn’t have anything planned for the day originally as we were hoping to just stay indoors, rest and relax before the next morning flight.

We sat outside in their backyard waiting for Mr. Botir to return home. While we waited, Mrs. Botir brought us some fresh plums and apricots. They were delicious!! Juicy and sweet, it was unlike the plums and apricots we normally get in India.

Soon, our host arrived and he took us to a place called Fayz Cafe. It was right on the ring road. The place had a bunch of sprays going off right at its entrance – it was meant to offer relief from the heat – we would see a lot more of this throughout our trip. On the way inside, we saw an entire line of kebabs being grilled. We ordered some manti (dumplings), fries, grilled “caucasian” chicken, kompot (a red juice drink that everyone had on their table), Greek salad and tea. Everything tasted good – the veggies were fresh and so was the meat. Parth was off playing with all the waiters and waitresses. So much so, that when I was walking around with him, I could hear them call “Parth, Parth!”. The sun set around 8pm.

Our host was kind enough to wait around till we finished dinner. He then offered to take us to Magic City – the Tashkent equivalent of Disneyland. We decided to skip it and instead asked him to take us to a supermarket. We wanted to stock up on plums and apricots – hoping that we’d get something similar to what we had at the homestay. We went to a supermarket called Korzinka.

On the way, Mr. Botir told us about his kids – one kid in the US, another in Korea and the others in Uzbekistan. He mentioned the movies he’d seen of Raj Kapoor – something that a lot of people remember when they see Indians! We bought a lot of plums, some apricots (they didn’t look so fresh), yogurt and some freshly baked Uzbek bread.

We got back home and, to our shock, saw that the entire road was in pitch darkness. The transformer had not been fixed yet and we were staring at a possibility of spending the night in darkness. Our weird streak of luck was continuing and we asked our host to put us up in a nearby hotel as we couldn’t manage an infant in this situation. Especially with an early morning flight the next day. We spent a good 15-20 mins figuring out what to do next and we agreed to move to some Ada hotel nearby. Just as I stepped into the house to get our bags, the lights came on! We all had a mini celebration – our hosts especially! They were relieved they didn’t have to turn us away.

So, after a long long day that started with a cancelled flight, a lucky break that got us seats on another flight, an alternate flight booked via Sharjah (which we didn’t end up using), delayed flight, cancelled cab, rushed checkin and a dark house, our Central Asia trip was already an adventure. We really hoped that things would only get better from here onwards. Finally, we were in Uzbekistan – Country #30!

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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