We checked in with Air Astana at 2:15 am for the 4:15 am flight to Almaty, Kazakhstan. The flight was uneventful, landing at 4:10 am with the time zone changes. Then we had a 5 ½ hour layover where we stretched out on benches to try to sleep. Looking through the duty free shops didn’t help the time fly any faster. We took off at 9:45 am bound for Tashkent, Uzbekistan. We flew over the Pamir Massif. If there was any doubt whether we should have tried going overland, the obviously deep snows in the mountains settled it. We were told that there had been record snows this winter, and that the passes were closed.
We arrived in Tashkent at 10:30 am and cleared immigration and customs rather easily. There is an ATM just inside the arrival area which I used. It dispensed $US rather than Soms, the Uzbekistan currency. I later found out that this was one of maybe four ATMs in the country, and they all dispense $US. Until ATMs become widely available, which I understand is in the works, tourists are expected to get money from micro banks that perform the same function
$200 in somsas the ATM, but manually. Changing $US to soms is another issue. I never did find out how to do it legally at the government established exchange rate of 2045 soms/dollar. I just gave all my dollars to the hotel and they brought me soms at 2500 soms/dollar.
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