Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan is the consultation where hepatitis A enables the entire trip. You cannot do the Silk Road properly without the chaikhanas, the bazaar samsa, the plov cooked in hundred-liter kazans — and that experience is exactly the exposure profile the vaccine exists for. Hep A first, typhoid close behind, and the tap-water rule is absolute: bottled everywhere, Tashkent included. I'd add a standby azithromycin prescription, the preferred travelers'-diarrhea treatment in Central Asia.

Visa-free entry since January 2026 has produced a genuine tourism surge, and the medical infrastructure has not caught up outside the capital. Tashkent International Clinic — the embassy-recommended facility, English-speaking, 24/7 — is the anchor; Samarkand and Bukhara offer basic care, and Khiva essentially none, so carry your medications for the full route and treat the high-speed rail back to Tashkent as part of your medical plan. Anything complex evacuates to Istanbul or Dubai, four hours either way. The practical layer: register within three days (hotels do it automatically), declare currency over roughly $8,400 on entry, use officially marked taxis or Yandex — Uber doesn't operate — and expect Tashkent's winter air to bother asthmatics. It's a seismically active zone, and one of the safest, most rewarding destinations in Central Asia.