Welcome to Episode 8 of my “Travel Tales From Beyond The Brochure” podcast.
This episode is dedicated to the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan – a place famous for the Silk Road, the ‘Great Game’ (where Britain and Russia vied for supremacy in Asia in the 1700s and 1800s), and Soviet architecture and mismanagement (Aral Sea). A place where the names evoke a sense of the mystery and exotic in British ears (Bukhara, Tamerlane, Samarkhand etc). Yet despite all this, it’s a place people don’t know much about. This will all soon change, as you will hear.
I talk about:
* How not to die in Lebanon
* Toxic Masculinity
* The Uzbek Som, and its lack of value at the time of my visit
* Quirky accommodation, and the lack of party-party backpackers
* Central Asian food (I hope you like onion)
* Transport across Uzbekistan, including the ‘Share Taxi’ concept, and what happens if you catch the slow bus
* The administration and registration I had to go through, which you may not have to
* Crossing the border by land
* The Aral Sea and The Great Game
Again there is no “lesser-known destination of the week” this week, as the whole pod is a ‘lesser known destination’.
You can listen via the feed above, or via Spotify, or on your podcast app of choice 🙂 Let me know if it isn’t, by the way, and I’ll see what I can do.
As always, if you have anything to say about the topic, or indeed about my podcasting in general, leave a comment or let me know. There is a Facebook group for my podcast that you’re free to join: Click here!
Contributions in this podcast came from:
* Amy at ‘The Non Backpacker’
* Laura & Matt from ‘Two Stay Wild’
* and Sophie, from ‘Maximum Exposure’, who literally wrote the book on it!
[This pod was issued early in February but due to my own ineptitude, I am only now able to post the link to it on my blog…]