DAY TEN:
Bukhara 1-Khiva Uzbekistan Railways Train# 125FA
Type: Slow-Speed Sleeper
Class: 2nd Class, Kupe
Seat: 17
Car: 4
A few minutes after midnight our train pulled into the 2nd track in the station. After it arrived workers appeared to go around to all the wheels and tap them with a stick. Wheeltapping allows them to determine if a wheel is damaged based on the noise caused by tapping the wheel with a stick. This was my first time seeing wheel tapping occur so it was quite interesting.
With the train being on the 2nd platform we had to cross through the train on the 1st track as there is no walkway to get across the tracks.
Once onboard you will find a very narrow corridor with rooms along one side. There are also hot water heaters at the ends of the cars.
Hot water heater
We were lucky and had our entire room to ourselves for the trip. I didn't take a ton of pictures as I wanted to get to sleep as quickly as possible, but the room was okay, but a tad dirty and quite small. It was also extremely hot. These old soviet trains lack air conditioning and while that might not be a problem for some routes, it absolutely is for summer routes in Uzbekistan. Even with the window open and the train moving it was insanely hot.
Upon waking up we noticed that everything was seemingly covered in a thin layer of sand. It quickly became apparent that Uzbekistan has quite a lot of sand and traveling through a desert with an open window to help with the high temperatures has the unintended result of allowing sand to enter the car and cover
everything. Be warned.
Khiva's station is pretty nice and was practically empty when our train arrived close to 08:00. Yandex does not work for taxis in Khiva, but there are taxi drivers outside the station who would love your business. However, we decided to walk to our hotel inside the city walls as it wasn't too far from the station.
Our hotel (Hotel Arkanchi)
We had booked a triple room at the Hotel Arkanchi for our one night stay in Khiva. The hotel's location is excellent as it is located within the ancient city walls of Khiva. They were also able to prepare a room for us at 08:00 and allow for early check-in at no extra cost, so no complaints in that department.
The room itself was pretty nice. The only real complain I have is with the AC. Although the room does indeed have AC it was very finicky. I could only get it to work for short durations after which it would turn off and just act as a fan. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but I believe that is the intended behavior of the unit. Otherwise it was a pretty nice place to stay.
After changing our sand covered cloths we started our tour for the day.
First up, the Kalta Minor Minaret. This minaret is in most photos I've seen of Khiva and the bright blue color is stunning. It was supposed to be taller, but construction stopped leaving it with the flat top you can see below.
As you can see in the above image there is a structure attached to the minaret. That structure used to be a madrassa, but is now a hotel (Orient Star Khiva). Each of the classrooms are now hotel rooms. Certainly would make for an interesting place to stay.
Hotel room
More of Khiva!
City walls
Juma Mosque
Stone Palace (Tash Khauli)
Khiva has a dish local to the city called Shivit Oshi which are green colored dill noodles. They were pretty good. Worth trying if you are in the region.
Shivit Oshi
After lunch we continued to explore the city on our own. Here are some pictures.
As we were walking around I thought I heard music and after some searching (this proved to be very difficult) we were able to track down the source.
Traditional music! Wonderful!
Not far away we saw someone making bread using a tandoor oven.
With the sun quickly setting we went for dinner at a place called Terrassa Cafe & Restaurant that was right off the square we were in. The food was good, but the views were amazing.
With the sun having set it began to cool down making it a perfect time to wander around the city.
