Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Albania Day 8: Bukhara to Samarkand

We had a leisurely morning, lingering over tea and taking one last walk through the old town.

We went to our favorite breakfast/ coffee place. We arrived at 10:50, but we weren’t waited on until after 11 and the waiter said the breakfast ends at 11. So I was not able to get my wonderful spinach omelette that I had eaten on other occasions here. They also were out of black tea. I settled for a chicken Galette and it was pretty great.

The Bukhara train station is about half an hour outside the city, because when the railway was being built in the late 19th century, Bukhara was an important center of Islamic learning, and religious leaders strongly opposed bringing the railway—and the foreigners who would arrive on it—into the sacred city. Bukhara had been a major Silk Road trading center for centuries, so foreigners were certainly nothing new. But the railway was different: it represented growing Russian control and made it much easier for Russian officials, soldiers and settlers to enter the city. According to UNESCO, some even described the railway as the work of the Devil, and engineers were threatened with violence if they tried to bring the tracks into Bukhara. It’s a little inconvenient for us tourists.

We had to allow plenty of extra time to order our taxi because sometimes it goes very smoothly, and sometimes it’s absolutely crazy. You use an app similar to Uber, but at the last minute, the app may tell you they can’t pick you up where you are and that you need to go to a different location. The problem is, it’s never exactly clear where that new pickup point is. So you end up texting back and forth with the driver, using Google Translate to try to figure out where to meet. Sometimes the driver just gives up, and you have to start all over again with a new taxi.

This time it wasn’t too bad and we made it to the beautiful train station with plenty of time. The Russians knew how to build train stations.

Now, a third of the way through our trip, my head is about to explode. Just as we get comfortable in one city, it’s time to move on. We’re starting from scratch in Samarkand: a new Airbnb, a new neighborhood, a new grocery store to find, and new places to eat. We don’t even know where to stand to catch a taxi.

Traveling is so good for your mind—it’s like a constant puzzle to solve: new customs to learn, new routines to figure out, and new ways to make yourself understood in a foreign language. It’s a lot.

But I’m happy, and I’m ready for the new challenge.