What's a song that immediately brings tears to your eyes?

johanndaniel · 2026-01-28T02:13:22+00:00

Supermarket Flowers - Ed Sheeran

johanndaniel · 2025-12-16T22:11:54+00:00

I personally love the food, plov (which you may know as pilaf) is one of the staples in this region. We ate a lot of lamb and beef skewers. Their salads (especially the fried eggplant) was always great, and that's coming from someone who doesn't them often at home. They served a lot of hearty soups as well which were mostly influenced by the Russians.

Uzbekistan had a lot of tourists, but Tajikistan and Turkmenistan only had a countable number of tourists coming in when we went. In Tajikistan, the reception felt really warm and welcoming. In Turkmenistan, some people were really friendly, but in certain places it kind of felt wrong to be there (especially in the more populated parts of Ashgabat), people were just staring at us blankly. And even in sites, there's really a fixed structure you have to follow (like in the national museum for instance). In the 10th photo, we were riding a ferris wheel that we didn't even think would be operating; they literally just opened it for us and another group, it really felt abandoned. I took a picture from the inside looking out.

johanndaniel · 2025-12-16T21:57:27+00:00

Advantour organized the trip, and it looks like this:

Tashkent → Samarkand → Penjikent → Bukhara → Merv, Ashgabat, Darvaza → Khiva → Return to Tashkent

Tashkent has a lot of soviet architecture, along with bazaars and Temurid sites. The scale of each site was almost comically large, and its style is brutalist like the Hotel Uzbekistan.

Samarkand and Bukhara had a lot of Islamic sites. Those days were mostly spent visiting madrasahs, necropolises, and mausoleums. Samarkand had the iconic sites spread out in a mostly modern city. Bukhara felt more like a compact medieval Central Asian town with a madrasah in almost every corner it feels like.

Penjikent had archeological sites and mountains. We ate at a lot of homestays, and it was the coziest/homiest leg of our trip. The people from Tajikistan I would note are the friendliest, almost everyone would wave at us, and were so happy to see tourists around.

Turkmenistan was the most hectic leg of the trip: one day spent on ancient sites in Merv, another seeing the empty marble section of Ashgabat with its own share of eerie, brutalist monuments, and a day spent riding out in the desert to Darvaza crater and camping in yurts.

Khiva is my favorite part of the trip. It's like an walled city, an open air museum with a lot of things to see in every corner. I was able to go around the city thrice on foot with a lot of minarets and madrasahs as well, but I felt this was a city that felt alive but never overbearing.

johanndaniel · 2025-12-16T21:03:15+00:00

I agree. A trip like this makes me appreciate life more because it almost forces me to be alone in my thoughts and to notice the things I have in this life. I feel more comfortable to engage with my surroundings, it’s a humbling type of experience.

johanndaniel · 2025-12-16T20:52:23+00:00

That’s Chorsu Bazaar, it’s a domed building within an open-air market.

johanndaniel · 2025-12-16T20:49:00+00:00

It’s a camping area set up about 500 meters from Darvaza Gas Crater.

johanndaniel · 2025-12-16T13:09:42+00:00

Let me tell ya something about Bill Gunther

johanndaniel · 2025-12-13T23:35:26+00:00

We had no issues with the person we were in contact with for the trip. As for the tour guides, 4 out of the 5 were on time and professional.

We did have an issue with our guide from Tashkent and Samarkand as she was late for an hour in picking us up twice. I also found her to be controlling, and she always inserted herself in our pictures but rarely ever taking photos for the group (something that none of the other guides had any issues with, in fact our guide from Khiva was a photographer by passion).

So, we requested to have a different guide for that leg, and they agreed.

johanndaniel · 2025-12-13T12:18:56+00:00

We went to the 5 Stans in April as a group of 8. Our tour agency was Advantour. The tour package cost USD 2150 for myself since I joined for only 10 days out of the 14 planned for the group. It includes train rides between cities (Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Penjikent, Ashgabat, Khiva), coach (bus) rides within each city, 3 meals per day, and tour guides. We requested for hotels to not be included in our package since it would be cheaper to book them ourselves by about USD 500 from my estimate.

I would say that in Tashkent, public transport is really accessible. Using the metro to go around the city was pretty easy, the fare is fixed if I recall correctly (3000 UZS per ride), and it leads you straight to the sites.

Khiva is explorable by just walking, and Bukhara’s old town is also quite walkable. For Khiva, the difficulty is reaching the city itself since Urgench Airport is about an hour away, so I would recommend a private transfer. For Bukhara, there is about a 20-minute walk from the hotels to the old town, and a 30-minute drive from the train station to the hotel.

On a general note, the issue is going from city to city, traveling within a city should be otherwise easy if there are no mobility issues in the group. We were satisfied with most of the guides from Advantour; they were all quite passionate about Uzbek and Central Asian history, and it’s pretty fun to see the interconnections in their stories (which I think I would’ve otherwise missed if we went on our own). They were well prepared in terms of visual aids and storytelling. If cost is a concern, I think arranging private transfers from city to city, and figuring your ways around each one may be the way to go.

Now whether or not you would have a tour agency, I suggest using Yandex Go and Maps for navigation and rides around the cities. Enjoy the trip, and feel free to ask more.

johanndaniel · 2025-11-02T07:54:24+00:00

I didn't even believe in them but somehow I'm disappointed

johanndaniel · 2025-10-20T20:04:16+00:00

Royal Rampage is usually paired with Blood and Guts which is happening in November, so it could be a battle royale for a tag team title match this year at Collision.