Tashkent to Samarkand by high-speed train, and a morning with no plan

I reached the gate at Tashkent station 25 minutes before my train on Tuesday 12 May. When I worked a ticket counter I told passengers 45, so I was 20 minutes short of my own rule. The bag scanner, the ticket check and the walk to my carriage used 19 of the 25. I sat down in seat 14 with six minutes to spare and my heart going.

That was the first of four mistakes on the first leg of a nine-night trip through Uzbekistan in May 2026: Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara, all by train. I am from Almaty, and I sold rail tickets for six years before I started writing, so I booked this leg the way I would have booked it for a customer. This piece covers the booking, the station, the ride, and one arrival morning in Samarkand that I left empty on purpose. Camille Roux, who reviewed it, asked for my booking screenshots, and I sent them. The basics for the whole country, from visa-free days to the best months, are in our Uzbekistan guide.

I bought the ticket on Tuesday 21 April, 21 days before travel, on the official Uzbekistan Railways site in English. You enter every passenger's passport details and the name has to match the passport, so I copied it from the photo page. The whole booking took 11 minutes, and the first payment failed. My card was declined with a red banner and no explanation. I cleared the basket, tried a second card and it went through. I do not know whether the fault sat with the site or with my bank. I have watched it go both ways from behind a counter.

The Afrosiyob had two classes on offer, economy and business. I took economy for about 250,000 som, around $20. Business was roughly a third more on that date. Both numbers are rounded and move with the date, so check the operator before you plan around them. Slower trains run on the same line for less and take longer, and I did not ride one, so I cannot tell you what they are like.

Six years of ticketing taught me that dates sell out before trains do. In spring and autumn the Afrosiyob fills on certain days, and three weeks out the morning departures I looked at still had more than half their seats free. That is one look on one day in April, so treat it as a data point. I chose a morning departure because it gave me most of a day in Samarkand, picked a window seat, and saved the ticket as a PDF and as a screenshot. Mobile signal near the station was poor when I got there, and I was glad both copies were already on the phone.

Our getting around guide has the wider picture on trains, buses and passes in the region.

I left my hotel in Tashkent with 55 minutes in hand. The ride-hailing taxi cost about 30,000 som, roughly $2.50, and took 30 minutes in morning traffic, which left me 25 minutes at the gate. Tashkent has more than one passenger station, so read the station name on your ticket before you give an address to a driver. I had checked that, and it was the one thing I got right all morning.

At the station I used, there was an eight-minute queue of about 40 people at the bag scanner, a three-minute stop where staff compared my ticket with my passport, and eight minutes of walking to carriage 5. The platform is long and my door was near the far end, about 600 steps from the scanner by my phone. An attendant at the door looked at the ticket on my phone once more before I climbed in.

Seat 14 was a window seat in economy. My 40 L backpack fit in the rack at the end of the carriage, and a shelf above the seats took my daypack. The air conditioning was set low enough that I had my jacket on within 15 minutes, in May. That is my one real complaint about the carriage.

The ride took a little over two hours. By my map the rail line is about 340 km, which puts the average near 150 km/h. The train is a Spanish-built Talgo set rated for 250 km/h. I did not see a speedometer in the carriage, so I cannot tell you what we touched.

The view is flat for the first hour: fields, poplar windbreaks and irrigation canals, then open steppe, then low hills as the line nears Samarkand. If you are choosing a side for the scenery, I could not see any difference between the two. I spent the ride on emails and the rest of my bread, and my phone lost its connection twice in the middle section. Download your maps and your guesthouse address before you board. If you are choosing a SIM for the trip, our connectivity guide covers the options.

I plan most of my trips by the hour, and this one was no exception. The one thing I left empty was the arrival morning in Samarkand, for a practical reason: my guesthouse could not check me in before 2pm, so I had a bag and about four hours with nothing booked. I decided to use that as a test. No list, no ticketed sight, and the map stays in my pocket unless I am lost.

From the station I took a ride-hailing taxi to the guesthouse, about 5 km and 18 minutes. I only had 100,000-som notes from the Tashkent exchange desk, and the fare was 35,000. The driver had no change, and we stopped at a corner shop where I bought a bottle of water to break the note. That cost eight minutes and a bottle I did not need. Small notes are the first thing to collect in Uzbekistan.

The owner took my pack at 10:40 and put it behind the desk without a word about a fee, then poured tea and pointed me toward Siyob Bazaar. It was 1.4 km on foot. I was at the first stalls at 11:05, and the first thing I saw was bread: round Samarkand loaves, thick and flat, stamped in the middle and stacked in domes on the tables. I asked in Russian whether a loaf was fresh. The baker pulled one from under a cloth and said it came from the nine o'clock bake. It cost 7,000 som, about 55 cents, and I ate half of it walking. A dried-apricot seller weighed out 300 grams when I had asked for 100, and I left with all 300 for 30,000 som.

Across the road is the Bibi-Khanym Mosque. I stood in front of its portal for ten minutes and did not go in. A lot of the brick is restoration, and the size of the entrance was enough for one morning. At 11:50 I walked ten minutes uphill to Shah-i-Zinda, a narrow street of tombs with blue-tiled fronts climbing a stairway. A tour group of about 30 had gone in just ahead of me, so I spent 40 minutes going up and down the steps and stepping aside to let groups pass.

By 12:30 my phone said 30°C, and my hat was in the pack behind the guesthouse desk. I walked toward the Registan bareheaded and looked at it from the edge of the plaza for about 15 minutes. I did not buy a ticket. The tiled facades were bright enough that I understood a ticket and a hat were both tomorrow's job. Then I found a courtyard tea house under a mulberry tree and ate plov, a tomato salad and a pot of tea for 65,000 som, about $5. I checked in at 2pm.

The empty morning gave me a map in my head. By 2pm I knew which way the bazaar, the mosque and the Registan sat from one another and where the shade was, and that saved me about 20 minutes the next day when I went to the Registan at opening with a ticket and a hat. It cost me a sunburned forehead and the eight minutes at the corner shop. I would not have found that baker with a list.

• I arrived at the station 25 minutes before departure when my own rule is 45. The scanner queue and the walk took 19 minutes, and I boarded with six to spare.

• I carried only 100,000-som notes. Change was a problem in the first taxi, and again at the bazaar for the 7,000-som loaf.

• I left my hat in my pack on the one morning it mattered. The phone said 30°C by 12:30.

• I booked this leg three weeks ahead and the Samarkand to Bukhara leg only five days ahead. Economy was gone on the departure I wanted, so I took a later one and lost the first Bukhara morning. I know the rule, and I have written it on a hundred tickets.

In spring or autumn, book the Afrosiyob at least three weeks ahead, longer for a weekend, and book the next leg the same day. Economy was fine for me. Check the station name on the ticket, have a screenshot saved and be at the gate 45 minutes before departure, not 25.

Leave your first Samarkand morning empty only under three conditions: your guesthouse has confirmed by message that it will hold your bag, you have small notes, and the Registan is booked for the next morning. If you have a single day in Samarkand, skip my method and walk to the Registan first thing, before the heat, then add the bazaar. Our Uzbekistan guide lists the best months, and our visas and entry pages explain how to check the rules for your passport, including the registration that hotels handle for you.

For another Asian rail trip with a different problem, a timetable that thins out to a few trains a day, read Haruki Sato's guide to a week on Tohoku's local trains.

Fares and times above are rounded from the dates I traveled, so confirm them with the railway before you book.