The Silk Route

What is the Silk Road - there is not one "Silk Road" but a myriad of routes that were used to take merchandise from China to Europe. Our journey touched but a small part of this route (portion in green above) but it made me aware of the vast distances that had to be travelled and the climates from high mountain passes to open deserts. We toyed between taking a more luxurious tour with Audley Travel, but which flew over difficult stretches of terrain and this one that we finally booked with Wild Frontiers.

Our 3 week holiday was with Wild Frontiers . Overall I enjoyed it, but there were some issues - click links for a fuller story on each

• the poorness of some of the transport - Uzbekistan in particular supplied clapped out old buses in places with too many of us crammed into transport that did not have enough seats or legroom in other places - my feeling is that Wild Frontiers had negotiated such prices that the ground operators were damned if they were going to supply proper transport. An apology would have helped, none was offered.
• the bad local guides - none of our guides were informed. I accept that the British tour leader needs a local guide to organise and translate, but surely these guides should also have had a grounding in real local history, not just offer us myths, legends and spin.
• the tunnel of death - others have had issues with this tunnel. Bottom line is if you want to get from Kashgar to Samarkand by road, then you have to go through this tunnel.

The good points were

• The route was interesting and well thought out
• The organisation of the group leader, Amanda Drake, was very good.
• Accommodation varied between "interesting" and "good", and food was "average", but better than we had expected in Central Asia.
• Overall the experience was outstanding and the two boys certainly enjoyed their holiday too. I will be able to bore people at dinner parties for years to come about my adventures in Central Asia

The journey is given in detail by following the links below which give a description and photos of each stage

Day 1 and 2: Join tour in Bishkek from Turkey

Day 3 and 4 : On to Son Kul

Day 5 and 6: On to Tash Rabat

Day 7 and 8 and 9: On to Kashgar

Day 10: On to Lenin Peak Base Camp

Day 11: On to Osh

Day 12: On to Kokand

Day 13: On to Khodjent

Day 14 and 15: On to Fan Mountains

Day 16: On to Dushanbe

Day 17 and 18 : On to Samarkand

Day 19 and 20: On to Bukhara

Day 21: On to Khiva

Day 22: On to Tashkent and home

The group we were with - some photos of the people involved

Our Itinerary

Holidays