Termez Buddhist Heritage Trail

You are met at Tashkent International Airport and transferred to your hotel for check-in at noon. In the afternoon your guide takes you to the State Museum of History of Uzbekistan, whose collection of Zoroastrian and Buddhist material from the south sets up everything you will see later in the week. You continue to the excavated mound of Ming Urik, the core of the earliest Tashkent, then into the old city for Chorsu Bazaar, finishing at Amir Timur Square. Overnight in Tashkent.

This morning you transfer to the domestic terminal for the flight south to Termez (661 km, two hours), where a driver and guide meet you. Sightseeing begins straight away in one of the oldest cities in Central Asia: the Kokildor-Ota Khanaka, the fortress of Kyrk-Kyz, once a summer residence of the Samanid rulers, and the Sultan Saodat ensemble, a long row of mausoleums built for the descendants of the Termez sayyids. You end at the Zurmala Tower, the brick core of a Buddhist stupa standing alone in the fields. Overnight in Termez.

A full day among the Buddhist sites. You start at Kara-Tepe, a monastery of rock-cut cells and courtyards dug into the sandstone hills above the Amu Darya, then move to Fayaz-Tepe, the temple and stupa complex whose famous limestone triad now sits in Tashkent. You continue to the mausoleum of Al-Hakim at-Termezi, the Sufi scholar buried on the riverbank, and close the day in the Termez Archaeology Museum, where the finds from every site you have walked are laid out in order. Overnight in Termez.

You drive north-east out of the city to Kampyr-Tepe (35 km, one hour), a Greco-Bactrian fortress on a bluff above the dried course of the Amu Darya that some identify with the Alexandria on the Oxus. From there you continue to the Jarkurgan Minaret (30 km, 50 minutes), an eleventh-century tower of fluted brick unlike anything else in the country. Driving back you take in the Surkhan oasis and views of the Friendship Bridge across to Afghanistan. Overnight in Termez.

After breakfast you leave Termez and drive north over the mountains to Samarkand (375 km, about five and a half hours), a road that climbs out of the cotton country of the Surkhandarya and crosses high passes with tea stops along the way. You arrive in the late afternoon and check in. If time allows, your guide walks you to the Gur-Emir Mausoleum, the resting place of Timur, which is at its best under the evening lights. Overnight in Samarkand.

Your last morning is spent on the highlights of Samarkand: the three madrasahs of Registan Square, the towering remains of the Bibi-Khanum Mosque and the Afrasiab Museum, where the seventh-century murals of the ambassadors give you a picture of the region before Islam. In the afternoon you transfer to the station for the Afrosiyob high-speed train to Tashkent, arriving in a little over two hours, and continue to your hotel or to the airport. End of the Termez Buddhist Heritage Trail.