The Five Stans of Central Asia

Hi Victoria,
Can I firstly send my gratitude to yourself and all of the tour operators for an outstanding tour. From the moment I was picked up at the airport to being dropped off everything ran so smoothly. That is down to the fantastic organisation of your team.
Secondly the tour guides and drivers were highly professional and went over and above the call of duty with their assitance and information.

Furthermore the hotels were of an excellent standard that provided great welcomes.
I have no hesitation recommending this tour to friends and family. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you require any further information or assistance.
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Тhe trip was fantastic and I could not of asked for more. Each country was unique in its own right but my personal highlights were the unusual nature of Turkmenistan, the amazing 7 lakes of Tajikistan, the nature of Kurdistan and both the history and warm and kind nature of the people of Uzbekistan. Personally I was sad to leave Uzbekistan as I enjoyed it so much.

Again when you book a trip of this nature you don't know what to expect but it was so well organised and all of our needs were met. I can probably speak on behalf of the group but everyone thoroughly enjoyed the trip. The trip was value for money and we fitted in so much. The danger can be making the trip too long but personally speaking after two weeks your concentration can wane. So in that respectacular I feel this particular tour has the balance of cost, activities and time spent travelling to perfection.

Hi Victoria

Here is our review of the tour: thank you so much again and we do enjoyed our trip in Central Asia especially Uzbekistan.

Planning/Booking process
A significant amount of time was spent with Victoria planning, fine tuning the trip and making numerous adjustments in particular with the itinerary and hotels. Victoria was accommodating and helpful - always reassuring that she was trying her best to get the work done. She is an asset to the travel industry and overall it was a pleasure to work with her and will definitely use her services again when we travel in the region again.

Almaty
Our guide Ansar was excellent. Young, charming and very friendly, he was always trying his best to ensure all the needs of the group were looked after. He was extremely polite and his smiling and generally positive attitude was very good. Everyone enjoyed his company and his knowledge on Khazak culture and people was very good. We learnt a lot about his country and more importantly, his enthusiasm for showing us around was great.

Hotel Rixos was very nice - a large hotel with very comfortable rooms and in a good location. Breakfast was also excellent and we enjoyed our stay here.

The sights in Almaty were interesting and we had no idea the weather would be so cold and in a few instances, were not prepared for the weather as we did not bring enough warm clothing. Perhaps this is one area where advance warning could be given to the group to let them know to bring sufficient warm clothing.

Kyrgyzstan
Crossing the border was made easy as Ansar followed us all the way through - it was nice to have him there as it was re-assuring to know the procedures and to understand what was to be expected. Ansar handed us over to our next guide Timur.

Timur was nice enough - he was knowledgeable and friendly. Our daily program was all arranged and he did his best to ensure we followed the program. He seemed pre-occupied with personal issues (his car apparently had broken down).

Solutel Hotel was fine. New and located in safe area, it was acceptable. Meals were easily self arranged as the location was close to several nice restaurants. Timur took us for lunch on our last day to a great local eatery - ended up being one of our best & cheapest meals.

The flight to Tashkent was fine but the arrival was chaotic as those travelling Business class and those on economy class arrived at different terminals. The representative who was supposed to meet us was at neither location on our arrival and we waited over 30 minutes to finally meet him (after calls to Victoria to find out what was happening). This was not a nice welcome to Tashkent and we were all tired and hungry and arrived at the Hyatt Hotel late (after the club lounge stopped serving any food) so it was not the best situation. However, we met up with Victoria and our guide Faruk the next day and things improved and Victoria made a nice offer of giving us a free wine tasting in Samarkand as an apology for the mix up - and this was much appreciated by the group.

Faruk was also knowledgeable and seemed experienced at handling tour groups - however he brought us to supposed “master-class” factories or craftsmen which were not interesting. We did not get to see any real demonstrations of crafts work and it was all simply uninteresting sale pitches. But it was obviously the usual thing for tourists to be brought to such places - we were bored by this. The only interesting place was the carpet factory where a few of us ended up buying carpets.

From here - we went to Bukhara and Samarkand and enjoyed this very much. The sights and things we saw were excellent.

In Bukhara - Our Hotel Amulet was excellent. Small, cosy and service was very good. Breakfast was simple but one of the best we had. It was a different atmosphere and we enjoyed staying there.

In Samarkand, Platane hotel was also fine. The restaurant was excellent and we had one of our best meals on our trip here. However breakfast was not so good and the waitstaff serving breakfast are different from the night crew serving dinner. The breakfast staff are not good - indifferent and chaotic service - they simply were not interested in what they were doing. The dinner staff were excellent and knew exactly what they were doing.

We were dropped off by Faruk at the border with Turkmenistan and the situation at the border could have been better. Faruk did not brief us on the complicated procedures (taking a bus from where we were dropped off to the border and then again another bus to the Turkmenistan immigration control. It was chaotic and we basically had to arrange all this ourselves. It would have been nice to have been briefed on what to expect and how much to pay for the bus etc. Fortunately we managed to navigate our way through all this and it was a relief to meet Olga at the Turkemenistan checkpoint where she took everything in control and arranged for our visa on arrival ad ensured we could go through in a special queue. It took us just over 2 hours to clear the immigration and customs checkpoint and arrive in Turkmenistan.

Turkmenistan
We loved that the buses in Turkmenistan were all large and luxurious.

Overall Olga is an excellent guide - she was informative and very knowledgeable and it was obvious she was well experienced in handling tourists and ensuring we did the right thing.

The hotel in Ashgabat seemed nice but did not function well. It was luxurious and decor very grand but service and food was not so good. It was a pity we could not stay at our 1st choice (Yldyz Hotel).

Olga managed our time very well and we got to see all the sights as suggested. She also managed our meals well and took us to places that we enjoyed.

Uzbekistan
By far - this was the best country. All cities were impressive : Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. We loved the hotel in Khiva - staying in the madrassa was unique but we were not happy with the rooms given to us initially. We were allocated twin rooms on the ground floor. The rooms were dark and small. Whereas rooms on 2nd floor were double rooms, bigger, brighter and even had a small balcony at the back of the room. Apparently Faruk made the change with reception instructing them we wanted twin rooms instead of double rooms (the bookings were all double rooms and not twin rooms). I was lucky enough to change to a 2nd floor room later but one room changed to 2nd floor only on next day and another one, no chance to change to 2nd floor due to fully occupied - so some of us are very disappointed that Faruk just changed our room type which check-in but didn’t ask us while we were just next to him. And when I asked him later why he changed our rooms but he didn’t say sorry.

Overall Faruk was a good guide but several areas could be improved upon. He often made decisions without consulting us; in particular our meals. Perhaps he is used to taking groups who have meals included and therefore everything has to be ordered and set. For our group, our meals are not included and we would have liked to have been consulted before he ordered our meals. Also choice of restaurant would have been nice if he had discussed with us first. We were simply taken to restaurants that obviously all other tourists are taken to as it was obvious we kept bumping into the same people. We would have preferred something more customised and perhaps personal.

On our return to Almaty to catch our international flights home - it was very nice to see Ansar again and thank you for arranging the same guide to meet us & to ensure we were looked after till we checked into our flight. Ansar is a cut above the others and really made our stay special.

Thank you
AARON

Dear Victoria,

I hope you´re fine

Finally, we came back home and had some time to write you some lines... I´d like to congratulate you for the excelent work that has been made for us. Everything happened in a great way, with only few small troubles which are not worth to talk about, once was not your fault...
I´d like to make some compliments to our guides... they were excellent and made everything to make our trip more comfortable, however is necessary to make a special compliment to Mr.Artyom (the best one) and Mr.Iasha from Turkmenistan (the second best)
Thank you for all!!!

Kind regards!!
See ya!!!
Richelmy

"Perfect planning and good service
We used Central Asia Travel for our 3 weeks travel through the 5 Stans in June 2018.
Starting in Almaty and finishing in Ashgabat. The trip was based on a standard package but as long as we were only two travelers CTA was helpful with modifications all the way. Everything worked pr the plan and so many thanks to Victoria in Tashkent that made this trip possible. Thanks also to the many guides and drivers on the route.
Ivar, Norway"
https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g293968-d1217665-r592889678-Central_Asia_Travel-Tashkent_Tashkent_Province.html#