The Five Stans of The Silk Road

Both tour leaders were very good. The itinerary was very good ... we saw and experienced so much! The tour group was fragmented and poor ... the worst group of people that I have travelled with. In particular one person on the tour refused to speak with or acknowledge me and one of the others on the tour, bringing all of the charm of a spiteful girls playground to the experience. A tour group is a transient and fascinating experience in social balance. Even if you don't get on with people there has to be a recognition that making the experience uncomfortable for other people on the tour is not acceptable.

Rif was absolutely brilliant - one of the best tour leaders I have ever had. He was invaluable - patient, understanding, genuine, an excellent communicator, funny, so knowledgable, very approachable and really went above and beyond to do everything in his power to give us the best experience possible. He genuinely engaged with every person on the tour to learn about us as people, listened to any feedback, was earnest and so transparent about any situation. I really appreciate the effort Rif put into the tour, because it certainly didn't go unnoticed. If we were faced with any difficulties as a group, Rif would do whatever he could with no hesitation to do what was in his power to manage or rectify the situation. He was also absolutely BRILLIANT with managing and navigating the difficult and uncomfortable interactions between our Uzbek local guide and our group (details below). I also really appreciated the transparent way Rif organised the tipping kitty. Tipping is not something we do in Australia, so I always find that a difficult thing to navigate so he significantly relieved me of some stress by managing this on our behalf. When I revisit Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan I hope to have the opportunity to meet him again. Our local guide in Tajikistan, Rahmat was also brilliant. It was incredible how well he engaged with our group, especially since we unfortunately only had him for four nights. He was incredible with his explanations of different locations we visited, and gave us an invaluable insight into his country. Unfortunately the local tour guide we had in Uzbekistan, Sanjar, was very difficult. I have been to over fifty countries, done many tours with Explore's competitors, and I have never had such difficulties with a tour guide who blamed all his indiscretions on us not understanding Uzbek culture. Credit where due, he has a very high level of knowledge about Uzbekistan and a very good grasp of English, however the entire time in the country felt like we were there to indulge him, with him essentially holding us captive with his deep analysis of history or his experiences to the point of us regularly missing out on our scheduled free time until Rif intervened. The amount of information was of such a level that I can honestly say I've retained next to nothing about Uzbekistan. Again, when Rif spoke to him to tell him to present the information more succinctly he did seem to improve a little bit. He made several jokes in both Samarkand and Bukhara about bad driving on the roads due to female drivers, and when it was made clear that the tour group did not enjoy the joke, he said, "You don't go into a cathedral and criticise how they practice, you're in Uzbekistan, this is a local joke." When I spoke to Rif to express my distaste of the joke as it had been made several times at this point, Sanjar's response was "I think you're all just hot and tired, but I'm sorry for any misunderstanding." I understand different cultures have different attitudes about gender, however he needs to recognise his international audience may not share his values and may actually find them offensive. Also in Bukhara, one of the tour members made a benign comparison to the fanfare around a VIP visit to the city compared to her experience at home, to which he got angry and appeared to berate her for about ten minutes in front of everyone about how you should never compare experiences between different countries. He also spoke almost non-stop for the eight hour bus ride between Bukhara and Khiva. Rif had to intervene to tell him to give us a break. Sanjar specifically spoke on marriage and disciplining women for approximately two hours during the bus ride. He also treated us like naughty school children, sometimes clapping or clicking near our faces if he didn't think we were paying enough attention to his monologues. Sanjar was also rude to some of the locals and other tourists. We entered a museum in Khiva where he told us to sit down, turned off the TV playing an informative video other tourists were watching making them leave, and told the women working at the museum to 'Shush'. This was frankly embarrassing to walk in with him and treat other people including locals this way. I believe he was made to apologise to the museum employees before leaving. On the final dinner and receiving his tip, he said, "I know we had some misunderstandings in Samarkand and Bukhara, and I think you forgive me, and I forgive you." I'm not sure what he felt the need to forgive us for, but that comment was certainly not appreciated given the negative impact he had on the entire group's time in the country. This experience was such a shame as Uzbekistan was the country I was looking forward to most at the start of the tour, and the week there just ended up being entirely uncomfortable for the duration of our time there. Evgenia was also brilliant. I think we would have had some issues navigating the border without her, though I know she had some issues with organising our visas at the border as other guides who were waiting for the group had started the process before we were able to arrive from the Uzbek border. I really appreciated Evgenia's communication, she was so friendly and willing to help with everything within her power. I would also like to note that every single driver was absolutely brilliant in navigating sometimes challenging roads. Generally speaking the accommodation was good, though the hotel in Dushanbe was probably the worst of all the hotels we stayed in. I would also like to note too that while the sleeping bag at the gas crater was appreciated, I don't think laundering them once a month is frequent enough.

Rif was an excellent tour leader and got on fantastically with all the group. He made the trip in part. Tajikistan and Turkmenistan guides were excellent too. 4 hours to cross from Uzbekistan to Turkmenistan, be warned, and USD140 pp. I have to wonder whether the Turkmenistan section is worthwhile. The crater’s fires are diminishing and the 460km road from the border to Ashgabat is truly awful. Hotels reasonable apart from Shumon hotel in Dushanbe which I would recommend changing. Having said all that we all enjoyed the tour, especially Kyrgistan where we were more in countryside and interacted more with local people.

The trip was well organised and managed, but it is a lot of travel over multiple terrains and as a result can be quite gruelling.

The leader was excellent, caring and very helpful. Easy to talk to and always trying his best to satisfy the group. We recommend him very highly. The worse experience we had in Turkmenistan, starting immediately after crossing the borders with Uzbekistan, being kept on the border for 5 hours waiting for the bus and being pushed out by the locals. Then the border was closed for the boarder staff’s lunch for the other 1.5 hours. All experience was massy, chaotic and lengthy. Then there was a very long trip through the desert on a so bad dirty and dangerous road with cars driving in all directions trying to avoid the deep holes in the surface. We arrived so late at the camp after sunset., around 9:30 pm, where was so cold, dark and windy, the food was horrible and we were sleeping in the dirty, sandy tents in the dirty sleeping bags instead of the yurts, there was no clean toilet to use. I think that the experience of Turkmenistan should be skipped as there was nothing interesting to see there. The white city, Ashgabat was so artificial that I would not recommend anyone to go there. There was no good feeling about this city. I think that this country can be easily missed all together and the trip could be extended by the longer stay in Uzbekistan and Kazachstan. The other thing that we were so upset about was our arrival to the Bishkek Airport on the early morning at about 2 am on 22/09. We booked and paid for an additional night - 21-22 /09/25 at the hotel and for the transfer from the airport to the hotel for 4 people but the transfer never arrived. We were left stranded and alone at the airport in the middle of the night not able to get to the hotel. Thankfully to another kind and helpful Explorer’s participant who arrived from USA we were taken to the same hotel. It turned out that nobody from Explorer company knew or was aware of our earlier arrival even though it was confirmed by our agent here in Melbourne. Definitely we were not happy customers on that night. There were other problems relating to food shortages and quality causing all participants to have gastrointestinal issues some more severe than others. I feel that for this amount of money we paid for our trip the conditions should be of a much higher standards.