Final Chapter in Central Asia - Turkmenistan

Kenneth and I walked across our final border in Central Asia on 7 August 2009 from Uzbekistan into the most closed country in Central Asia, namely Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan is the only Central Asian country where joining a tour is compulsory unless you opt for the 5 day transit visa at the border which does not come with a guarantee that you will actual get the visa.

Despite being expensive, in hindsight, we are actually glad to have joined a tour as it was a whole lot more relaxing than travelling independently and having to work things out for ourselves - pretty much what we have been doing for all the other Central Asian countries. Whilst haggling can be fun at times, most of the times when you are tired or it is late and dark, it becomes quite a chore.

Firstly, I'll say that Uzbekistan was a wonderful place if you appreciate architecture. The three ancient and glorious cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva have the most magnificent Islamic Central Asian architecture with azure blue mosaics representing eras of rich history. We enjoyed visiting the chaikhanas (traditional tea houses) sitting cross legged on a raised tea bed with a small table in front of us on which we ate from. We are now quite good at ordering chai (local green tea), shashlyk, plov (delicious rice cooked with meat and vegies in cottonseed oil), laghman (hand pulled noodles which originally came from the Ughyurs), dimlama etc. Uzbekistan also spoils one for choice with its Uzbek style B&Bs set in a traditional home around a courtyard. We experienced quite a few of these as we moved around Uzbekistan. We also got to catch the local high speed train, the Sharq from Tashkent to Bukhara over 7 hours... it was a breeze after the Chinese train experience but their local movies are screened so LOUD on the train that even my ipod on full volume could not drown out the annoying banter. *sigh*

In terms of natural beauty and being able to experience living with real local families, I'd have to say Tajikistan still takes the cake.

We are now with a tour in Turkmenistan and travelling with a 19 year old Swiss girl, Frances whose maturity level is closer to that of a 30 year old, having been through quite a bit in her young life. She is travelling for 5 months and will be starting uni in Switzerland in 3 weeks. We actually happened to meet 3 weeks ago in Osh, Kyrgzstan when a group of backpackers called out to Kenneth and me to join them for dinner. I happened to sit beside Frances and soon we discovered that we'd be on the same tour in Turkmenistan. The Central Asian backpacking world is a small one and we keep bumping into people we met a month to 3 weeks ago and feel like old friends connecting up again in a different country! We arranged to meet Frances 2 days before our scheduled crossing into Turkmenistan at a little provincial town called Nukus in Uzbekistan which is the town just before the border. We successfully met up and the following morning, we caught a taxi to the border. The ride took about 40 minutes. Our guide was 1.5 hours late because her flight to meet us was delayed apparently. Other than that disconcerting start to Turkmenistan (the borders are always bit hairy to hang around at with military around holding big machine guns) we enjoyed the privilege of being guided through this country which we have discovered is very rich in gas! Turkmenistan probably gets the least tourists in all of Central Asia because it is so difficult to obtain a visa and because you have to join a tour which can be expensive. Our tourguide was an Armenian lady, 'Mrs Angela' who was born in Ashgabat. She spoke very good English but I still struggled with some of the Russian expressions and jokes. But she was vivacious, very friendly and gave us some good laughs aside from her run down on the Turkmen culture and historical significance to some sites we visitsed. We visited some sites in an ancient town and then we drive on 'the road to hell' towards the gas craters. I had no idea what a gas crater is until my time in Karakum Desert of Turkmenistan! Basically the gas was being mined and some of the areas where mining took place collapsed our in the middle of the desert (Turkmenistan is 85% desert!) creating a big deep hole in the desert. We visited 3 carters - one burning on fire, one bubbling with mud and one bubbling with gassy water! Pretty incredible! We spent last night camping out in the deserts under surreal moonscapes and made our own shaslyks and bbqed the meat and vegies served with non (the local bread) and their beautifully smoked cheese. Absolutely delicious!

The heat in Turkmenistan during this peak summer period was quite terrible though. It must have been about 45+ deg each day we were in Turkmenistan but I hear it can get up to 50 deg in the capital, Ashgabat some summers! I felt like a human shahlyk myself while out in the desert espcially! The wonderful thing out there was being amongst wild camels!

Ashgabat itself is an ultra modern 'marble city' of about 800,000. The roads and buildings are massive, in-laid with marble and expensive building materials. As Mrs Angela pointed out, the Turkmen leaders are not reknown for their modesty. A stark contrast to the villages and small townchips out in the Karakum Desert which we passed. Life must be unbelievably harsh out there in the desert. Just 2.5 days of desert and I've had enough! However, the evenings are beautiful in the desert, especially at sunset.

With this, we bid Central Asia, its curious cultures, hospitable people and stunning landscpes goodbye and cast our eyes across the Caspian Sea on the next mysterious region to be explored, the region of Caucasus where our new adventures are to begin when we disembark a cargo ferry at the port of Baku, Azerbaijan.