Remember Ashgabat?

The artist strikes again! Here is Floris' artistic impession of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan's capital.

You will notice: the white buildings, the golden-domes palaces and ministeries, the parks, the two very weird monuments ("Arch of Neutrality" and "Independence and Peace Monument", which looks like a giant toilet-plunjer) and the numerous golden statues of Turkmenbasi. Also note the complete lack of people in the streets!

Crossing to Iran at Badgiran border post

Crossing the border between Turkmenistan and Iran was the second big cultural frontier on our trip after the China-Kyrgyzstan border (well, Uighurs of Xinjian were in a way also an odd one out). Border officials were once more very polite and friendly on the Turkmenistan side, making this country's borders maybe the nicest one so far to cross. Hanna of course had to cover her head before entering the gate separating the two border posts. Iranian side was also easy; no questions asked, no papers to fill, no money asked and the customs officials seemed to be having a lunch break so no luggage search either (which kind of made us regret for not having stocked up on cheap vodka on Turkmen side).

On the Iranian side we were offered a ride to Mashhad by a charming Iranian businessman returning to Tehran from his company's side office in Ashgabat - there are no direct flights between these two cities so he could only fly to Mashhad. He had been living in Sweden for ten years and we had interesting discussion about life in contemporary Iran. We stopped to have lunch, and he absolutely refused to let us pay our part: "But you are my guests! It is my pleasure!" A warm welcome to Iran, indeed. On arriving in Mashhad, he once more showed us what hospitality means and insisted in paying for the taxi - our resistance was futile.

Just as we got out of the taxi, we bumped into an Iranian lady we had met at the Turkmenistan Embassy in Tashkent: an unbelievable coincidence! She brought us to the hotel where she stayed: a simple but comfortable room on walking distance of the Holy Shire of Imam Reza. She was travelling alone for a year through a great deal of Asian countries, including Afghanistan. With a background and the experience of having worked for over twenty years in the banking sector, she monitors the social and economic situation on a geopolitical level through travels and through living and communicating with the local people (she speaks a staggering 12 languages). With that information, she writes reports for "people with a lot of money, who wish to secure their wealth", thus working as a high-value, low-profile financial advisor. She definitely was one of the most interesting people we met so far!

New pictures and updated trip tracker

Now we're in Iran, we finally have some time to take it easy. Internet access is not a problem here it seems (as opposed to many places in Central Asia), so we managed to upload some more pictures from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
The pictures are unedited and not all of them are great, but they do to give an impression at least.

The trip tracker is also updated to our current location after a long downtime due to Uzbek internet censorship.

Hope you'll enjoy it!

Turkmenistan: the 3 day transit visa dash

As soon as we got out of the taxi from the border in Turkmenabat, we were (as usually) besieged by taxi drivers. Diverting them by asking if there's a toilet nearby only helped for a minute or so: negotiations were soon undertaking in the (by the way not so inviting) toilets.

Finally, we got a taxi to Ashgabat for 30 USD, which is a fair enough price. The driver was taking his wife to the international airport (she was going on business to Istanbul), and thus acted as an impromptu taxi driver for the day. And why not? It was a pleasant drive across an endless desert, but we had a nice conversation (in "travel Russian", mixed with some local words and a lot of body language) and we ate some nice chicken on the way.

Arriving late in Ashgabat was not really a problem: it's a well-lit city and we easily found our way to the guesthouse we had in mind. Dobranow guesthouse: 20 USD, breakfast and dinner included, nice family: good deal!

The next day, we walked around the city. It is one of the more insane places in the world: Ashgabat is a very modern city, with loads of white marble apartment blocks, impressive palaces, ministries and monuments, golden domes on palaces and theatres - and of course loads of golden statues of the former president Niyazov.
One of the craziest monuments ever must be the "Arch of Neutrality": a 50 m 3-legged concrete arch with a 12 m high golden statue of the president on top. Most interestingly, the statue rotates so that the president always faces the sunlight. Madness.

There are some other crazy sights: a pyramid shaped shopping mall cum waterfall, a 80 m high monument to the independence which resembles a plunger (one of those things you use to unclog a toilet) and an earthquake monument where the golden baby Niyazov sits on top of the world, supported by a bull.

We learned that Turkmenistan is really a weird place. Gas, electricity and water are for free, resulting in people leaving their gas stoves burning all day, leaving lights on as they please and toilets and showers with constant running water being the norm. The plus side is that having a hot shower is a common luxury, but the Turkmen people obviously have never heard of Global Warming...

The streets of Ashgabat are impressively empty: on big lanes and in parks, there are no other people than the ever-present police (friendly police towards us foreigners, but still: they're literally on every corner) - and in parks there are loads of gardeners tending the flowers and mowing the lawns.

However, all people we met were very friendly: bus drivers, post office clerks, shopkeepers, policemen and other officials - but maybe that's mainly because they're utterly unaccustomed to meeting foreigners: Turkmenistan is a very closed country, listed only one place ahead of North-Korea in political unfreedom.

Crossing into Turkmenistan: the Farab border

In Bukhara, the day before we left the country, we asked around how much a shared taxi to the border (ca. 150 km) would cost. Starting prices were as high as 50 USD, but went down to 30 USD after another tiring negotiation.

Luckily, we had no need for a taxi the next morning as there was a cheap marschrutka taking us to Olot for 2000 som each (less than 2 USD)... In Olot, we took a taxi for the remainder of our sums: an overpriced 8000 sum but there was little option but to take it. Reaching the actual Uzbek border post at Farab involved walking across 2 km of desert, doable on an October morning but still quite hot.

The Uzbek customs was a bit slow but easy enough: we filled out a customs declaration, copying the information of the sheet we filled out when entering. Our details were noted down by another official and we got our exit stamps: that was that.

Another 15 minute walk brought us to the Turkmen border post: a very helpful, surprisingly friendly and straightforward business. We filled out some forms, handed over our passports for inspection and were asked to pay 10 USD entry fee and 2 USD bank fee - some sort of institutionalised bribery, but we got our entry stamps in no time.

It was an easy crossing, but the onward transportation was a bit more problematic. We took a taxi for 10 USD each, which we tought was going to Ashgabat (600 km) - a good and reasonable deal we thought, as gas is dirt cheap in Turkmenistan. When we were in the car however, and about 2 km down the road, we were told the car was only going to Turkmenabat (30 km) for that price. Confusion, some disagreements with the Russian co-passengers but we decided to stay in the car and see what would happen.
Upon arriving, we payed 10 USD for the two of us, still too much but in that kind of situation, you often have little choice...

Turkmenistan, here we come!

Ladies and Gentlemen: "We've got it!"

Obtaining the visa hasn't been easy: it took us 5 visits to the embassy, 8 hours of queueing and waiting in hot sunshine and cold showers and a total of 80 USD, but we finally got our transit visas for the "North Korea of Central Asia".

It's only a 3-day transit visa, so actually seeing something in Ashgabat will have to be in an unusual rush, but we're very happy with this as this means that we will reach our aim of crossing overland!

The Turkmenistan Visa

The only visa we weren't able to get in Shanghai (apart from those after Iran, which should present no problems) is the Turkmen visa. The guidebook and other travellers assured us that Tashkent is the best bet to get a transit visa.

We went to the embassy early in the morning to put our name on a waiting list: we thought we were there at 7 a.m., but that turned out to be 6 a.m. as our watches were still on Kazakh time. Listed as number 10, we were urged to come back to apply for the visa at 11 a.m.

Of course, this list used by the Uzbek guards turned out to be little more than a joke: the only real way of getting in the embassy is paying them (we heard 10 USD) or just being very patient. We opted for the last option, meaning we queued outside for over 1,5 hour in a blazing midday sun.

Other people had different strategies, the best of which was the one used by an elderly Uzbek woman: she used her full weight and her impressive bozom to literally brush the rather embarrassed guards aside. The guards didn't really know what to do with such a theatre, and she did manage to get in before us.

About 15 minutes before closing, we managed to get inside the embassy as well and we frantically started filling out those long-awaited application forms. We applied for a 5 day transit visa, entering on the 9th of October. According to our application, we will stay in some of the best hotels the country has to offer (Grand Turkmen Hotel and Ashgabat Palace or something of that sort) and use mainly taxis for transportation. We will take the southern transit route (Bukhara-Turkmenabat-Mary-Ashgabat). Just after we handed over our forms, 2 copies of our passport and 2 passport pictures, the office closed - even as there were still people filling out forms. Moreover, there were people who didn't manage to get in at all.

Next week, we are going back for another day of queueing and waiting - and hopefully also actually getting that visa.