KAZAKHSTAN + UZBEKISTAN
WINTER NEW YEAR.

The day belongs to Almaty. We start at the Green Bazaar, a Soviet-era trading hall stacked with dried fruits. From there into Panfilov Park, snow on the war memorial and the eternal flame still burning. The afternoon highlight is the Zenkov Cathedral, one of the tallest wooden buildings on the planet, built in 1907 without a single nail. We close the day with a Russian dinner, pelmeni and borscht, the way the city has eaten for a century.

Morning, we point the coach east and drive five hours into the Tian Shan foothills toward Saty, a wooden Kazakh village above the snowline. After lunch, we trek to Kolsai Lake 1, sitting at 1,818 metres, its surface frozen pale under the winter sky. Back at the homestay there's a wood-fired banya, the Russian sauna ritual, sweat in the steam, plunge into the snow, repeat. It's optional and paid separately, not part of the trip price. Dinner at the family table, then dombra music by the fireplace.

Today, the two most photographed places in Kazakhstan. Morning at Kaindy Lake, where a 1911 earthquake drowned a forest of spruce trees, and the trunks still spear up out of the now-frozen turquoise surface. In summer divers swim between them. In winter you walk on the ice and look down. Afternoon at Charyn Canyon, the quieter cousin of the Grand Canyon, red sandstone walls dusted with snow, surreal at golden hour. Long drive back to Almaty, where we close the day at a stolovaya, a Soviet-style canteen, hot pelmeni and kompot on metal trays.

Cable car up to Shymbulak, high above Almaty at 2,260 metres. An optional banya in the evening, paid separately, then dinner is Georgian: khachapuri, the cheese-bread boat with a runny yolk in the middle, khinkali, the soup dumpling, and kebab.

New Year's Eve is the big night of the year here, bigger than Christmas. A slow Almaty morning, coffee, brunch, then a couple of hours for local shopping. Pick up Kazakh felt souvenirs, leather, dried fruits, vodka if that is your thing. Afternoon, cable car up to Kok-Tobe, the hill that gives Almaty its skyline view. The Christmas market is in full swing, a Beatles statue is somehow there, and the sun sets over the white Tian Shan range. Back down for the moment everyone came for, New Year's Eve at Republic Square, fireworks at the stroke of midnight, the crowd in big coats and big smiles. After the countdown, into an Almaty club to dance into 2027.

A slow start, brunch at the hotel, last walk around the city centre. If you booked the seven-day trip, the coach takes you to the airport for your flight home, and you leave with snow in your phone roll. If you are carrying on, it is a short hop to Tashkent instead, with the same group you just saw the new year in with. You land in a different country and a different century. Dinner, then an early night, because tomorrow starts properly.

A day in Tashkent with a local guide, and we start underground. The metro is Soviet-era, every station designed differently, marble and chandeliers. It was built to double as a nuclear shelter and kept so secret that photographing it was illegal until 2018. Then the Hast Imam complex, the religious heart of the city, where the library holds what's said to be the oldest Quran in the world.

Chorsu Bazaar next, the heart of everyday life in Tashkent, with stalls of fresh produce, spices, dried fruits, nuts, sweets and handmade goods. We stop at a traditional baker to watch non, the Uzbek bread, come out of a clay oven, and if there's time you can have a go at making it yourself.

We finish with six Uzbek tastings, including samsa, manti, xanim (Uzbek pasta), fresh bread and plov, and the story behind each one.

Morning on the Afrosiyob, the high-speed train, 250 kilometres an hour with a heated carriage, a restaurant car and a window seat. Two and a quarter hours later you are in Samarkand. We start at Gur-e-Amir, Timur's tomb, because nothing else in this city makes sense until you know who he was. Then Bibi-Khanym, and straight into Siab Bazaar next door for stamped Samarkand bread while it is still warm, which in January it needs to be. The Registan by late afternoon, and here is the winter dividend: it is dark by half five, so the floodlights come on while you are still standing there rather than three hours after dinner.

Shah-i-Zinda first, a narrow corridor of tiled mausoleums climbing a hillside. In summer you would queue for it. In January you will have it to yourself, and tilework against snow is a better photograph than tilework against a coach party. A short train down the line and Bukhara is a different animal to Samarkand, lower, older, browner, and lived in rather than looked at.

We walk the trading domes on foot, the jewellers' dome, the cap makers' dome, the money changers' dome, all built as Silk Road crossroads in the 1500s, all still full of people trading, and all of them roofed, which in January matters more than you would think. Poi Kalyan in the afternoon and the minaret Genghis Khan is said to have refused to knock down. Later, Lyab-i-Hauz, where the pool from 1620 freezes over under four-hundred-year-old mulberry trees, and we go into one of the chaikhanas on its edge for green tea.

Then plov, with local hosts in and around Bukhara. You watch the rice, carrots, onions, meat, chickpeas and spices go into a big kazan, the cauldron at the centre of Uzbek weddings and family gatherings, and while it cooks, the hosts tell you why this dish matters so much here. Ask them anything and take all the photos you want. When it's ready it's served fresh, often with salads, bread and tea, depending on the day.

Evening, we leave Bukhara for Tashkent, and the last night of the trip is there.

Out of Tashkent, and home. Khayr.