Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Khiva¨Suzani¨Centre¨
CARPeTS
(Pahlavon Mahmud;
h
9am-7pm)
The British
Council and Operation Mercy helped this
centre get its wings in 2004. The now-
independent centre churns out marvellous
handmade silk and
adras
creations.
and Bukhara from the Koy-Darvoza gate, east of
the ichon-Qala.
There's no train station or airport in Khiva
itself, but nearby Urgench has both. See the
Urgench section for details of connections from
there. Note that it's not currently possible to buy
tickets for lights from Urgench in Khiva.
8
Information
While most hotels have wi-i, it tends to be highly
unreliable, so if this is important to you, check
it's working before checking in. otherwise the
Malika Kheivak hotel's restaurant was the only
wi-i hotspot when we visited. There are plenty
of black-market money changers around; ask at
the Tourist information oice or just head to the
Dekhon Bazaar. Bring plenty of cash to Khiva - if
the MasterCard ATM in the Asia hotel isn't work-
ing, then the nearest place to get a cash advance
is the National Bank of Uzbekistan in Urgench.
Asia Hotel
(
%
375 81 98; Yakubov) has an
infrequently working Asaka Bank ATM machine
that accepts MasterCard.
Post & Telephone Office
(Amir Timur 23;
h
9am-7pm Mon-Sat) Located 650m north of
the North gate.
Tourist Information Office
(
%
375 69 28;
www.khivamuseum.uz; Pahlavon Mahmoud;
h
9am-7pm) offers internet access (3000S
per hour), changes money, organises tours
and guides for both Khiva itself and to the
fortresses of Khorezm (US$7 per hour or
US$30 per day) and sells maps and informa-
tion booklets. english is spoken and staff seem
genuinely interested in helping. An additional
useful service for non-Russian speakers is the
organisation of taxis to Bukhara and Nukus, as
well as the purchase of train tickets.
KARAKALPAKSTAN
If you're attracted to desolation, you'll
love the Republic of Karakalpakstan. The
Karakalpaks, who today number only about
400,000 of the republic's 1.2 million popu-
lation (there are almost as many Kazakhs),
are a formerly nomadic and fishing people
who are struggling to recapture a sense of
national identity after being collectivised or
urbanised in Soviet times. Karakalpak, the
official language of the republic, is Turkic,
close to Kazakh and less so to Uzbek.
The destruction of the Aral Sea has ren-
dered Karakalpakstan one of Uzbekistan's
most depressed regions. The capital, Nukus,
feels half deserted, and a drive into outlying
areas reveals a region of dying towns and
blighted landscapes. In a cruel irony, Ka-
rakalpaks have been forced to embrace the
devil in the sense that cotton - the very crop
that devastated the Aral Sea in the first place
- is now one of the region's main industries.
The long-running government practice of
forcing state workers and school children
into the cotton fields is alive and well here,
as any autumn jaunt into the Karakalpak
countryside will prove.
For all the indignities it has suffered,
the Aral has been generous in defeat, yield-
ing vast oil and gas reserves in its dried-up
seabed. Unfortunately, the spoils so far have
been divided between Chinese investors
and their Tashkent-based patrons, with lit-
tle trickling down to the people of Karaka-
lpakstan.
8
Getting¨There¨&¨Away
You can travel between Urgench and Khiva by
shared taxi
(3000S, 20 minutes), leaving from
the stand by the trolleybus stop, just outside the
North gate. The interminable
trolleybus
(600S,
1½ hours) is another option.
if you're heading east to Bukhara, your best
bet is a shared taxi from Urgench. The Tourist
information oice may be able to match you with
other travellers for this trip, and alternatively
can arrange taxi services to Bukhara direct from
Khiva (70,000/280,000S per place/taxi). A taxi
to Nukus can be picked up in Urgench (20,000S
per place, 1½ hours), or the Tourist information
oice can order you a pricey one (195,000S
for up to four people, 2 hours) direct from your
Khiva hotel. it's worth asking your guesthouse if
they can arrange a cheaper one.
A couple of late-morning and early-afternoon
private buses per day depart when full to
Tashkent (50,000S, 21 hours) via Samarkand
Nukus (No'kis)
%
61 / POP 260,000
The isolated, Soviet creation of Nukus is
definitely one of Uzbekistan's least appeal-
ing cities and gets few visitors relative to its
attractive Silk Road cousins. However, as the
gateway to the fast-disappearing Aral Sea
and home to the remarkable Savitsky Muse-
um - one of the best collections of Soviet art
in the world - there is actually a reason to
