It’s not very often where I start a day at 1:30 in the morning but today was that day.

After only a few hours in Bishkek yesterday afternoon, we packed up and check out in the wee hours of the morning.

Let’s be honest, it wasn’t even morning yet – it was still night.

I tried to get a few hours sleep last night but I was pretty much running on maybe 1 hour of sleep.

Why so early you say?

Well, today’s the day we make our way towards the Turkmenistan leg of this trip and that starts by us getting to the Uzbek border town of Khiva.

And our first flight was leaving at the ungodly hour of 5am.

Up at 1:30am

I was up before my alarm went off simply because I didn’t really sleep last night.

Nathan, on the other hand, was still snoozing so I decided to let him sleep a little more while I got myself packed up and freshened up in the bathroom.

A little while later I could hear someone violently throwing up outside the bathroom door.

My first thought was “oh God, please don’t let that be Nathan”.

My second thought was “please tell me you made it to the bathroom across the hall and didn’t just leave a mess in the hallway outside my door”.

Thankfully, both my prayers were answered as this poor girl stood there telling me she had been sick all night and asking me whether it was safe to drink the water.

Um, no, it’s definately not safe to drink the water and somebody had told her it was.

Brutal!

Poor girl.

Anyway, after that bit of excitement, I nudged Nathan out of bed a little while later and 45 minutes later we were both packed up and ready for our taxi ride to the airport.

Flight #1: Bishkek to Tashkent

If you’re asking why I had to be up at 1:30 in the morning for a 5am flight – well, there’s time to get ready, a 45 minute ride to the airport, and the old “arrive 2 hours before departure” thing going on.

For one of only a handful of times the last few years, I wasn’t allowed to do online checkin for this first flight.

So, instead of just walking straight to the security and immigration area, we had to wait in a 40 minute line at the checkin desk instead.

Bleh.

At least we were early so there was no panic despite what a dude in the neighboring line thought as he freaked out a the poor agent behind the desk.

Dude, we’re all checking in for the same flight.   There are people behind you and over an hour til we leave.   Take it easy my dude.

The other thing that sucks with having to go to the checkin counter is that they weigh your bags and make you squeeze them into that little square cage doo-hickey thingy to make sure your bag meets their cabin bag standards.

Thankfully my bag just barely squeezed in the metal cage and, despite my bag weighing 10.4kg on an 8kg limit, it somehow was overlooked and I was sent on my way.

Phew.

At just before 5am we were off into the air on a short 1 hour flight over to Tashkent.

Along with a one hour time zone change, we literally landed at the exact same time we took off.

We landed at the international terminal but our next flight was leaving from the domestic terminal.

Problem is that the other terminal is a good 3km walk away from the terminal we landed in.

Thank God I looked this up beforehand and was fully ready to tackle this mini barrier by booking a Yandex (their version of Uber) for the 10 minute ride over to the other terminal.

Flight #2: Tashkent to Khiva

The second flight wasn’t for another 90 minutes so we had time again to go through the process of security without any stress.

Even with an online checkin for this flight we were still turned away at security as we were told we needed a paper ticket.

Luckily I noticed a little machine next to the the long line of people at the checkin counter.

Sure enough, we were able to print out physical paper copies of our boarding passes without too much fuss.

Nice try but we conquered you this time.

At 7:30am we were off into the morning skies again.

This second flight was a tad longer at 90 minutes and would take us from the capital city of Tashkent to a much smaller airport in Urgench.

How small is the airport?

Because it was a domestic flight there was no immigration or security on our arrival so after we landed we entered the terminal building and walked about 20 feet straight out into the street.

Our journey wasn’t over yet though as we had to take another Yandex for an hour to reach our final destination of the day, Khiva.

One day in Khiva

Khiva is a border town in the far northwest of Uzbekistan where the Turkmenistan lies about an hour away.

Today, though, it was our home for the day.

We arrived at our guesthouse inside the old walled city at just after 10am.

It’s crazy to think that we’d already done so much today and it still wasn’t even noon.

Now, I’m not saying waking up at 1:30 in the morning is the way to go but, damn, it was nice to accomplish so much before noon.

Our guesthouse is really someone’s home and he just rents out his rooms to visiting travelers.

Atahan, the owner of the guesthouse, is a gregarious Uzbek who speaks Russian.

Through the magic of Google Translate we were able to have a full conversation with him while we sat down to a welcome tea with him.

He loves old school jazz music which was playing non stop in the main room of the house.

After chatting for a bit, Nathan and I headed into the old town to explore and get a bite to eat.

The town reminds me alot of Dubrovnik although this one feels more touristy as it’s filled with guesthouses, restaurants, and souvenir shops.

I can get behind souvenir sales but when they’re everywhere including inside the actual buildings we’re supposed to explore, it’s a bit too much.

As for lunch, well, I may have overindulged a tad bit.

Seriously, I gotta get my eating in order when I get back home cause I can’t be having these big meals all the time.

We shared a plate of pumpkin topped with cream cheese and beets cause, well, it looked different and interesting and I like those qualities.

My main meal was a platter of three different types of plov which is rice and meat.

Pretty damn good if I gotta be honest but just too much food as I felt bloated and tired afterwards.

By 2pm I was fading fast so we went back to our guesthouse to just nap for the rest of the afternoon.

And, honestly, that was the end of my day.

I spent the next few hours in bed and then blogging and around 9pm Nathan went out and grabbed some dinner for us to takeaway.

Honestly, that’s pretty much how I envisioned this day going when I had planned it last month.

With a 5am flight there’s really not much you can do but just adapt to it and try to get your sleep when you can.

Tomorrow morning, we along with four others, are going over the Turkmenistan border and starting a three day tour of this mysterious country.

There’s the gates of hell and the majestic white city awaiting us and I simply can’t wait!

Programming Note: I’ll be in an internet dead zone in Turkmenistan the next few days so there won’t be any blogs during that time.   Expect a batch of them when I cross the border again in a few days.   Cheers!