Highlights

Not many travellers have places like Bishkek on their list – their loss! To crack the ancient Silk Road, you’ve got to leave the tourist trail in the rear-view mirror.

See the curious residue of severe Soviet-era architecture in Tashkent, where even the metro stations are fitted out with chandeliers and marble arches.

Grab a beer with the locals in the restaurant car of the overnight train to Almaty, watching the vast steppe glide past from the window.

Get a taste of nomadic life when you spend the evening in a yurt camp on the edge of the world’s second-largest alpine lake in the world, Issyk-Kul.

Feel your jaw drop when you see the massive mosques, mausoleums and minarets of Samarkand, many of which feature finely detailed mosaics.

You will visit the following places:

Tashkent

Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was 2.1 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million. Due to the destruction of most of the ancient city during the 1917 revolution and later to the 1966 earthquake, little remains of Tashkent's traditional architectural heritage. Tashkent is, however, rich in museums and Soviet-era monuments.

Bishkek

Bishkek formerly Pishpek and Frunze, is the capital and the largest city of Kyrgyzstan. Bishkek is also the administrative centre of Chuy Province which surrounds the city, even though the city itself is not part of the province but rather a province-level unit of Kyrgyzstan. The name is thought to derive from a Kyrgyz word for a churn used to make fermented mare's milk (kumis), the Kyrgyz national drink. Founded in 1825 as the Kyrgyz-Khokand fortress of "Bishkek", then, in 1862, named as the Russian fortress Pishpek in 1926 the city was renamed Frunze, after the Bolshevik military leader Mikhail Frunze. In 1991, the Kyrgyz parliament restored the city's historical name.

Almaty

Almaty, formerly known as Alma-Ata and Verny, is the largest city in Kazakhstan. The city used to be the former capital of the country, until 1997 when it moved to Astana. Being a financial and cultural center of Central Asia, Almaty boasts moderately-sized tourist and expatriate communities and it is a hustling and bustling place to be. The word Almaty literally means ''city of apple trees'', and because of its relatively mild climate, it has a wide range of apple trees. It is a wonderful gateway to this undiscovered and distinctive country. Kazakh people are very kind and welcoming, and you will be pleasantly surprised by the hospitality.