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Date of the journey:- November 2019
Distance travelled:- 281 miles
The next destination on our epic travel adventure was Bukhara. We chose to travel there by train. There is only a limited train service running to Khiva train station. Therefore, our train journey was to begin from the next city of Urgench.
Train tickets were booked using the Russian booking portal Tutu.ru. We found this the easiest site to use. Pre-booking train tickets is essential if you want a seat or bed on a specific train as they sell out quickly.
The tickets cost 97,500 Som per person for the train scheduled to depart at 1618 hrs and arrive in Bukhara at 2233hrs.
To get to the Urgench train station, we took the electric trolley bus from the Khiva terminus. This was located on the northern edge of the Itchan Kala fortress. East of its North gate. Basically, walk out of the North gate, turn right, and follow the road to the corner of the city wall. This is where the trolley bus terminus is.
The buses depart every 30 minutes. The journey takes about an hour to get to Urgench. The cost of the bus was 1500 Som per person.
The bus doesn’t go all the way to the train station. We departed just before the bus turned to go over the river in Urgench. From there it was a 30-minute walk to the train station.
Entry to the train station was through a security checkpoint. All bags were required to go through a scanner. Passports and tickets were checked as well.
The train journey went very quickly. We were in a 6 seat compartment with two Uzbek local men. Despite the language barrier, they shared their food and vodka with us. We taught them how to play Uno in return.
The train actually arrived at Bukhara 1 train station at 2245 hrs. The station is in Kogon which is a 15 min drive away.
As it was late we got a taxi for 30,000 Som from the train station to our accommodation. Guesthouse Khalima booked through Booking.com.