Blogs from Dashoguz, Turkmenistan, Asia
May 7th 2010
Turkmenistan is a strange little country in so many ways. From the Caspian Sea port of Turkmenbashi we head to the capital Ashgabat then spend 2 days driving across the Karakum desert to the Uzbekistan border. Ashgabat is all grand white marble buildings topped with golden domes Presidential Palaces surrounded by rose gardens and manicured walkways. Wide avenues lined with white marble public buildings with names out of 1984; The Ministry of Fairness, the Arch of Neutrality. Its all very ostentatious and impressive. But its also very sterile and unreal, where are the people? The everyday people going about their everyday lives? There is just nobody around. The only place we see any life is in the Russian market where there are local smiley faces selling all sorts of things. Its the cleanest, neatest, tidiest market ... read more
April 22nd 2007
From Tolkuchka Bazaar we drove for hours and camped somewhere in the desert, pitched our tents and we started cooking our meal, come night time Ata came back with this big tractor thing that transported us that night to the Darvasa gas sraters, it is better to view it at night as it would seem more dramatic, the trip to get there is very uncomfortable, bumpy ride, got there and was really impressive sight, after about more than half an hour we try to get back to the camp but got lost many times, the truck plowing through everything in sight, the wooden fence in front we were hanging on to broke and me and Noel got thrown in the back I have to grab and hold on to Angus' leg, until we got back safely ... read more
September 24th 2001
A long day transfering from Urgench to Ashgabat. Leaving our hotel early morning we go in our spiffy blue Intourist bus towards the nearby border checkpoint crossing into Turkmenistan. West of Urgench we encounter some cotton fields typical for the region and jump off to have a closer inspection. There's not much action here, a few farmers can be see harvesting in the middle of the field. The sight of our group of tourists mucking about in the field raises a few eyebrows. We chat a bit with a 25-year old cotton picker called Rashid before departing towards the border. Shoista recalls memories from her univeristy days; students are regularily sent into the fields during harvesting season to pick cotton. Not everyone is as ambitious though, some clever minds would simply go slacking in the fields ... read more
