Our next destination was Termiz, a medium-sized city on the Afghan border in the far south. We could have gone there by bus from Samarkand, since it’s only 4 hours south of Sakhrisabz, but we had limited time before the fixed date of our entry into Turkmenistan. So we decided to take a break from the pounding of our overland travel and take an airplane.

Uzbekistan Airways is far more professional than Tajik Air, and although some of the flights were on the same Russian Antonov turboprops, at least the seats were in good repair. Several of the flights, though, were on modern 757s and they were quite enjoyable despite the closely packed seats.

The only difficulty was changing planes in Tashkent. Flight connections with checked-through luggage are not supported, since few people would want to fly from one provincial city to another. So we had to pick up our bags, haul them 500 meters to the domestic departure terminal, and check them in again. Fortunately, our flights were on time and we made our connection.