I was pleasantly surprised with my ride through Uzbekistan. Crossing the border was a little bit of a challenge due to the fact that the first 3 places that I tried to cross weren’t allowing vehicles through. I ended up having to drive about an hour out of the way to get to the right crossing and then an hour back to Tashkent. Border formalities went smooth and the total process took about 3 hours. The stops in Uzbekistan were Tashkent, Samarkand, Zamin National Park, and Termiz.

I’ll start were I ended in Termiz which is right on the border with Afghanistan. The hotel I was staying at was a family run business so everyone was very friendly and more than helpful when I was looking for things to do. They ended up calling a retired professor turned tour guide for me and we sat together for an hour discussing all of the local sites and places to go see. One of the final places I visited was this place called Kampur Tepe. It is seriously the most amazing archeological sites I’ve ever been to. If you look at my pictures you can see all the old pottery still laying around the site, huge old clay pots buried in the ground I assume were used for wine storage and such, as well as the remains of old mud walls dating back to the time when Alexander the Great settled it.

Uzbekistanis were also some very friendly people. I went to go get my motorcycle washed while in Termiz and the guys did a great job of it. Tried to pay them and they weren’t having it, so after about 5 minutes of trying to give them money I finally gave up. To top it off, one of the guys, David, followed me back to my hotel and insisted I come out to dinner with him. David has lived and worked in Uzbekistan most of his life but is originally from Albania. He took me to one of his buddy’s restaurants and we had a huge spread of Uzbek and Albanian food. Of course he wouldn’t let me pay for that either!

The other towns I visited didn’t stand out too much for me. I went to their markets, saw some of the old sites but mostly just hung around doing things like going swimming and out to eat instead of searching out historical sites.