Welcome back to yet another trip report as I try to cope with a big backlog writing and editing the pictures of some recent trips – which is seemingly getting worse by the month as I somehow manage to travel more than I have spare time to work on these trip reports.
At the end of October last year I had a week-long holiday which I wanted to use for mileage run purposes. I managed to match by Flying Blue platinum status to gold status (or 'Elite' as they simply call it) at Turkish Airlines' Miles&Smiles programme. It was much-needed as I was longing back to having status again on Star Alliance. I previously held Aegean Gold – but I wasn't able to retain it when the stricter re-qualification requirements introduced a few years ago to the once infamously easy-to-get status coincided with a personal low-turn in travels when I moved from Greece to Romania and started a new job. As for two years I had no spare time and no money to travel due to the move it meant that I dropped back all the way from Aegean Miles+Bonus Gold to Blue. Ouch.
Having settled into my new job and home I could have easily regained my old status with Aegean Airlines but I opted to switch to Turkish for 3 reasons:
- Keeping status is as easy as with Aegean Airlines in general
- I could again get back to gold instantly instead of having to work up from the bottom
- My new route pattern sees lots of flights in lower booking classes on Turkish and the lowest booking classes don't even credit a single mile to Aegean
The Turkish Airlines status match offer was quite fair and all very simple to arrange. One email with a picture of my platinum Flying Blue card and print screen of the online statement was enough. The matched TK gold card trial period is 4 months, in which you need to take at least 1 international flight on Turkish Airlines metal irrespective of booking class. The trial period is then extended for 8 months and regarded valid for one year in total. If you earn 15,000 status miles in Turkish Airlines international flights in the first year of the Elite membership, it will be extended for one year, and thus will be valid for two years in total and will follow the normal re-qualification rules from that moment on.
For years I desperately wanted to explore Central Asia – there is just something intriguing about the place, being so far away from the oceans, the silk road history, the scenery ranging from desert to huge mountain ranges, the ancient empires from Alexander the Great to Tamerlane, the Great Game, Soviet occupation, the sheer obscurity nowadays of many of the places. It's a backwater globally – but what a fantastic backwater it is!
I had set my eyes on Uzbekistan as Turkmenistan was too difficult visa-wise and I didn't think it was the best time of the year for Kazakhstan, nor for the mountainous countries of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (another time for sure!). An extra intriguing factor was that Uzbekistan liberalised its visa system last summer allowing visitors from many countries to apply for one online as part of a pilot project. It took me half a day to file it as the website was still in its infancy. First it didn't want to accept my uploaded passport picture for some reason due to extremely low maximum dpi/resolution it could handle, then after finally having managed to convert and Photoshop the picture into something which the automatic system did accept the payment page gave problems. Only at the ninth attempt to pay did my transaction proceed and I received a message I would get confirmation in three days. Within two days, I received an email with the visa in PDF. Even though it took half a day it's miles better than before when you required an LOI and needed to file in person at an embassy. I expect that the initial bugs in the system will soon be tackled making it a much smoother experience. I'm by no means a big computer expert but those without internet and computer skills at all might seriously struggle to get their picture uploaded and fitting to the idiotic requirements - you certainly need to have some savviness for it!
Then it was time to book my flights. Needless to say, they needed to be on TK metal – and Turkish operates multiple daily flights to both Tashkent and Samarkand. Yet I had immense difficulties pricing out a cheap return ticket, whether from my home airport of OTP or any of the major European airports I can reach cheaply and easily with a positioning flight on a low-cost carrier. However, I was able to find a cheap enough one-way ticket from nearby Chisinau in Moldova (KIV) – which at 300USD was half the price of a one-way from OTP. Positioning to Chisinau to take my first flight is super easy as its just an overnight train ride away – despite the extra effort worth the savings of 250 USD after paying the train ticket in a private compartment.
With the Turkish Airlines flight requirement fulfilled, I had more flexibility to shop around for the inbound flight back home. Flights the days I needed it were outrageously priced from Uzbekistan no matter which airline – but just across the border from Tashkent in the Kazakh city of Shymkent I found a good Aeroflot deal which would take me via Moscow Sheremetyevo back to Bucharest (220 euro). On a map, the flights look like this:
With the flights set I could now focus on my Uzbek itinerary. I would arrive on a Saturday morning in Tashkent after a brutal red-eye. Giving the Uzbek capital a full day, I would head to Samarkand for two full days, Bukhara for two full days, and one day in Khiva – the destination the deepest away in the country. From Khiva I would backtrack by overnight train back to Tashkent. After arrival back in Tashkent in the early morning exactly a week later on a Saturday, I would then somehow make my way to Shymkent in Kazakhstan where I would spend a full day before flying home. On a map, that looks like this:
Highlights to look forward to in this trip report include:
- Exploring a bit of Moldova
- A much appreciated op-up from Y to J on Turkish
- Tashkent's colourful and bustling Chorsu Bazaar
- Awe-inspiring Samarkand with its fabulous Registan and beautiful mausoleums
- Bukhara with its intriguing history and ancient madrassas
- The remote and fully walled desert city of Khiva and its infamous slave-trading past
- Journeys on Uzbekistan Railways' brand new high speed trains as well as some ancient Soviet sleepers
- Excellent Uzbek food, from mouthwatering shashliks to copious amounts of plov
INDEX OF THIS TRIP REPORT:
1.
Bucharest Gara de Nord to Chisinau by overnight train
2.
Exploring the capital of Moldova: Chisinau
3.
Chisinau day trips to the Mileștii Mici winery and Transnistria
4. To follow..
5. To follow..