Rye Bread and Hagelslag

  Beautiful poppy fields of Kazakhstan     Before we head over to the second country we are visiting during our silk road trip, let's talk Uzbeks first. Neither of us had ever been to Central Asia, and for me (Bart) it was the first time visiting a mostly Muslim country, so I didn't really know what to expect. We prepared by bringing long sleeved clothes (for Mosque visits) and saying we are married, but none of this seemed necessary. Most people practice Islam, but fairly loosely, and most importantly, they take the important parts of the religion and don't linger on the stupid, little, aged details. Barely any women covered their heads in scarfs, especially in the cities, and we could enter mosques without problem. But above all, we found that people in Uzbekistan are very warm, generous and inviting, often offering food or help. They were interested in these two funny looking, white (one more than the other) tourists and even if they didn't speak Eng...

We knew our first two days would be tiring, but man I'm exhausted right now. Writing a first update during the hottest time of day from our airconditioned hotel room in amazing Bukhara. Snow and cold, that's how Helsinki looked like the week before we left, and that's how Moscow looked like when we arrived there after the first stage of our long travel day. We had a 5+ hour overlay at the capital of our Russian neighbors, after which our slightly delayed flight (in a Boeing 747, where we could choose from many movies and shows to watch) would bring us to Tashkent, at 3 in the morning. This is where it got a bit nerve wrecking: obtaining our Visa. Since Finland doesn't have an Uzbek embassy, we had to get it on arrival. We had all the paperwork, but the rules are not so clear, and this isn't Finland anymore, you never know. When we arrived at passport control, the 24/7 visa section was closed... Passport-checking-guy told us to wait. After everyone from the p...

Hey! After a lot of planning and arranging, our first big trip in a way too long time will soon start: our adventure on the silk road! From May 11th - June 3rd we'll be traveling to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, exploring these lesser known but incredibly intriguing countries by plane, train, marshrutka , camel and horseback! For those interested, we'll try to keep you updated a bit through this blog. It's a pretty unconventional holiday destination, but I'm sure you'll be easily convinced that there is a lot of awesome and beautiful things to be experienced on the old silk road, once you see the first pictures.. It'll depend a bit on available internet and how much time we have if the updates are frequent. Of course if people are interested, we can always show what we see and do on our vacation later, through this blog. Maria & Bart