Hi all,
I am Italian, living in Czech Republic and my gf is Kazakh. We'd like to to have a trip in Central Asia in June - August, duration a couple of days less than one month.
The plan is to fly to Tashkent where the flights are cheaper, going to Almaty, spending there about 10 days, coming back to Tashkent, going to Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva, visiting the ship graveyard in Muynaq and t hen eventually coming back to Tashkent.
We would like to get as much information as we can about visas (my gf should need no Visa, while I should get a double entry for UZ and single entry to KZ..how much do they cost? do they expire?) and transfers, mainy we don't have clear whether it's better to take a train or a bus to going to Almaty from Tashkent and back.
Please avoid also mentioning internal flights / KZ - UZ flights because we are looking just for getting around by bus/train or taxi as last options.
Thank you all in advance!
Central Asia - Uzbekistan - Kazakhstan
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Suggest you buy a copy of Lonely Planet "Central Asia". You might also look for the Odyssey country guides.
For visa info your best sources are the embassy web sites.
For train info you could try seat61.com.
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I went to Kazakhstan last year. I live in Germany so my experience may be a little different than yours for getting a Kazakh visa. I had to schedule an appointment with the Kazakh Consular to hand deliver my passport, application, and biometric photo. They gave me a bill with their banking info and I had to transfer the visa application fee to their account and return with a receipt of payment so they could begin the visa processing. I was told to come back in one week and pick up my passport. My passport was a single entry and valid for two weeks.
You should check with the Kazakh Embassy in Prague fore their procedure and fees: http://www.kazembassy.cz/
Good luck. I really enjoyed my time in Kazakhstan.