The weirdest place so far

On seeing the Turkmenistan coastline from the Caspian Sea it was very desert looking.  I felt well & truly in Asia.  A proper desert with Camels instead of cattle wandering about the road side.  It’s mostly desert & seems to contain only 1 ‘surfaced’ road heading east.  This road was no improvement from any travelled on so far – in fact it was worse.

 

 

The weather was boiling.

Bush camps in the desert were good.

We had to register as aliens in the nearest town on entry.

On driving to the capital Ashgabat we went swimming in a cave containing hot water.  However, there also turned out to be bats in the cave along with bat poo & cockroaches.  Another ‘experience’ along with the manta “And we paid for this”.

 

The weirdest was yet to come.  Ashgabat.  The roads across the country are hardly surfaced.  The capital has marble road markings!  All buildings are white marble.  It looks grand like Dubai – but the place seems empty.  No internet.  Police & army everywhere.  Many gold statues of the 1^st president who called himself Turkmenbashi.  Many of the group got told off by police for walking in the wrong place & crossing the road in the wrong place.  There were no cash machines.  Still, no places to spend money.  We only found 2 restaurants & 2 coffee shops.  It felt like we had been placed in the City Of London on a Sunday & were yet to discover The West End & Soho – but it did not exist.  The whole capital was just a façade.  The only other people in the hotel were the cleaners & reception.  No restaurant or bar – just a small corner shop type place by the entrance.

 We had a mini bus tour of the city on Sat 25^th May.  Only took half a day as it was just a monument tour – that’s all it could be.  Even the cable car was weird as it was miles out the city.  There was CCTV everywhere.  There was a floodlit concrete path along the mountain side 25KM long called The Walk of Health that our guide called The Walk of Death in the 38 degree heat that day & it was not yet summer!  Still, I managed to do some hand washing that dried on the balcony (which I was not supposed to do-against the rules).

 

Morning of Sun 26^th we went to Tolkuchka Bazaar ‘Asia’s largest market’ which was like a large UK market that also sold livestock including camels.

We got to bush camp early as the truck needed a good clean.  There were lots of jobs.  We all picked out a piece of paper from a frying pan containing a job.  I got the fridge.  The spilt can of beer etc on the rubber mat at the bottom was lovely!

 

That evening we went to hell!  The weirdest thing of all in this weird empty country.  A gas crater in the desert.  It’s actually called The Darvaza Gas Crater.  The crazy Soviets went digging for oil in the 1950’s & for some reason set the exploration on fire – it’s still burning!

To sum up Turkmenistan:

Many camels

Restricted movement

Red tape everywhere