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Published: October 20th 2014
Bukhara October 18 2014
We have re-entered Plant Earth today having passed through the Farob-Alat border crossing from Turkmenistan to Uzbekistan. There was air on Planet Turkmenistan and it would have made a great place for Captain Kirk and the Starship Enterprise to have visited all those years ago. We met some lovely people and it was undoubtably a cultural experience. Our journey through the country served its purpose because we are now in Uzbekistan without having flown anywhere yet.
The cultural experience is seeing a total State run apparatus in action which is so incongruous with any modern Western society. When you are not used to it, it is mind boggling.
One of our tour representatives made an interesting comment. She said, "Compared to Moscow Turkmen speak more from the heart so I like it here". People from the English provinces would probably make to same comparison with London. As with any travel experience it is difficult to get to the position of validating such comments. They just don't notice the general way of things as being any different.
What you do see that is so shocking to
surely any Westerner is the complete lack of any sense of customer (service). No one in Turkmentistan tried to sell us anything. Why bother? It is more important that they are seen by the State to be doing procedures correctly. Take for example our visit to a government owned LP recommended carpet shop in Ashgabat. The young assistant was talking to us at first whilst the manager dealt with two other gentlemen. After a short time she suddenly ran off on a brief errand for her manager. When she came back she said, "Please can you come back later because our controllers are here!" It was clearly a stressful time and they did not want customers getting in the way.
On another occasion I saw a stressed policeman on the street being questioned by two other policeman inspectors, clipboards in hand.
Last night at our hotel in the desert 85km from anywhere (we had been kicked out of our hotel in the nearest town, Mary, because the President was visiting that day) our guide had to press hard to get them to serve us a meal in the restaurant. All hotels in Turkmenistan are
State run and bugged and it was easier for them not to serve us as we were the only guests. We got some simple food in the end.
Locals just see this as part of every day life. Just like the fact that gas and water is free for domestic consumption and electricity bills are around $20 per year.
So our first experience of Turkmenistan was the 8 hour drive across the West Karakura desert to Ashgabat with our Russian driver, Andre. It is as close as I will probably ever get to driving on the moon! The road was good in places, badly rutted in places and non existent in others. When we were on a six lane highway there were no other cars. Camels (they are all domesticated) strolled along the sides of the highway and often across it. Occasionally sand was drifting across the highway like snow does in the Mid West. Because we were late getting to Turkmenbashi we did not stop at any sites and barrelled on to Ashgabat as fast as the car would go.
It was dark by the time we got to Ashgabat
and it appeared out of the desert like Las Vagas without the casinos. White marble buildings, many of them ministries, military buildings or monuments, abound often with coloured lights. It makes Baku look like a well established city.
This is partly due to the city having been level by a Richter scale 9 earthquake in 1948. Two thirds of the citizens lost their lives. It has been rebuilt several times since then. The few maps we had were out of date. And the building continues depending on the whim of the President. It not clear what goes on in most of the buildings and it seems most are built to satisfy egos rather than having a specific need. A whole massive block is currently being redeveloped with the construction of several arenas for the world fighting (karate, boxing etc etc) championships in 2017.
On the first night the hotel we were supposed to be in had been taken over by a State delegation so we were put in the Chandy Bil, one of 28 hotels put in along a street some years ago on instructions from up high with no supporting infrastructure. It was
Hotel in Ashgabat
Note how door can not close because of the size of the bed!outside town and the hotel had no restaurant. Our breakfast was bought in from another hotel. I think there was one other guest staying. The hotel and room looked fine and the lack of quality in every aspect was easily exposed on closer inspection. But the staff did not mind if no one stayed. They were kind enough to phone for a take out pizza which we eat on the bed.
The next day the tour company moved us to a central hotel. We had a large suite and apparently the furniture had come from a suite in a five star hotel. It was comical because the bedroom door could not shut because the large bed was in the way. It did not matter. There was also a desk and chair in the room so getting around the bed was difficult to. On the first day there was no hot water!
We did some food shopping in the well presented 'Russian Bazaar' nearby. In the afternoon we had decided to go to a cable car to the South of the city towards the Iranian border. Eventually I found a taxi to flag down who
said he wanted 50 manat (£13) for the journey which we knew was outrageous (the guide book says 20 manats for the two way journey). He was not worried about helping us and drove off.
At this point a lady saw us looking perplexed and spoke to us in perfect English, 'Could she help?'. We explained that we understood official taxis were not good and she agreed. We told her where we wanted to go and the next thing we knew she had offered to take us 'Just let me lock up my shop'. Anya was fantastic. She drove us the 10km to the cable car ride and then prearranged an unofficial taxi (a driver and a car) with a guy there to get us home (20manats). She gave her phone number in case we had issues.
Anya had done an MBA in London. She preferred the English from the countryside to Londoners. She saw the young in London as decadent, living for the present with no sense of family. She preferred Turkmenistan. She had opened a small toddler clothes shop as she was bored at home with her young kids. The shop didn't
With our guide Adil
Note how flat most of Turkmenistan is. It is 80% desert. seem to have (m)any customers. It didn't seem to matter.
The cable car epitomised Turkmenistan. We seemed to be the only visitors. Anya had thought at first it would not be open. It was in the middle of no where with no infrastructure at its base. It was a 3.5km 20 minute ride up the mountain outside Ashgabat and cost 2 manats each (50p). The views were fantastic. Below the city was spread out before you surrounded by desert. The pockets of where people actually lived could be seen around the white marble monstrosities.
At the top was a restaurant. It had no guests and I am sure it had had none all day. We bought a pot of tea.
On the first part of the journey back we did not pass a single car even though much was on a six lane highway. It was only when we got well into the city that the traffic suddenly built up. The whole experience was positively surreal.
That evening we went looking for a restaurant although a bar next door looked a good option. We ended up there because
The oldest part of Merv
This was the original 500BC settlement. The perimeter wall was 35 metres high and surrounded 10 hectares. It is now 25 metres high from erosion and the inner city level increasing. Inside the perimeter there are 12 archeological layers going down 7m. during our city wandering we could not find any others. The ones is the guidebook we looked for we could not find or had been knocked down since to make way for another white marble monument. Why did we bother. The bar served good barbecued lamb and local beer (Zip).
The next day we took a bus to the main bazaar. Standing on the bus gives one time to observe the people. It was crowded with women going to the bazaar.
The typical Turkman dress for women is a colourful scarf bundling up the hair in a symmetric turban tied above the hairline and suspended off the back of the head. They wear a long dress cut to their figure often in the national colours: green or dark red. There is an embroidered border around the neck and front. The older women often have a jewelled broach below the neck. It is very striking. The Russian women on the other hand dress in European fashions.
The bazaar we were going to was new. It was on a massive site with several areas like aircraft hangers housing clothing, material, hardware, carpets etc.
the thing was it soulless. It was also way out of town in the middle of the desert. It was interesting to walk around observing the people and just did not have the variety of an old world bazaar. Incredibly at one point a security guard told us not to take pictures even though we did not have the camera out!
Back in town we bought food for lunch and dinner and postcards. The latter were not easy to find and at $1 a piece the most expensive we have encountered. We then went to the Gran Turkmen Hotel and found we could get free Wifi. At least they did not block the BBC website.
Over both days were saw large numbers of students in track suits carrying a fold up seat and a roll of flags. We correctly surmised that they were coming to and from their practice routines for independent day celebrations on October 26th, 10 days hence.
The next morning we met our new driver, Camaron, at 8am. He was due to drive us to the city of Mary. The problem was that the President was opening up
A watch man at Merv returning to his house from the loo
He showed us his house - one room with multiple carpets on the floor the new Bazaar and a hotel in Mary. We did stop at some sites along the way, the ruins at Aliverd being particularly impressive. All roads from the South of the city of Mary were closed to traffic. So we drove on a big arc around the city on rough sometimes dirt roads. This was the only way we could get to the ancient city of Merv to the North.
We paid extra to get an English speaking guide. Adil was a Russian teacher when he was not guiding. You do need a guide at Merv. The city used to rival Bagdad and Damascus. It is unique in that each time it grew the original settlement was maintained so you can see its development from 500BC to the 12th century. In 1223 the leaders of the city incurred the roth of the Monguls and they slaughter the 300,000 inhabitants. The city never recovered despite it being the seat of learning of many scholars of the period.
It was getting late and we headed into the desert to our hotel. At the hotel Alec from Stan Tours took over our care. He was driving us to the border at Farob. The problem was that the President was visiting Turkmenabat that day and the only road through would closed from 3am to around lunchtime. We set off from the hotel at 1pm and still had to wait at the state border until 2pm before they opened the road. We finally got to the border at 4.30pm. It is just an amasing way to run a country. It was just normal life for the locals.
Alec smoothed our passage for the first few stages of the border crossing. In all I countered that we had to show our passports 9 nights to get out of Turkmenistan and into Uzbekistan. We also had to walk a km and then when first in Uzbekistan take a bus through the 'neutral zone' for another km. All steps in the process progressed without incident. All officials were very polite. Uzbekistan customs were only interested in tablets and they check our complete first aid kit to make sure no banned products were present. I have discovered that if you have old smelly flip flops in the top of your bag they never want to look any further.
We finally got through to the Uzbekistan side at 5.45pm. There were two taxis waiting for prey and at that time of day we had no bargaining power. The fare to Bukhara, an hour's drive away, was $50.
When we got to our guesthouse in Bukhara the owner said, 'you must be Jeremy and Jane, welcome'. What a relief, we had missed being regarded as a valued customer over the previous week. Our re-entry from Planet Turkmenistan was complete.
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Magda
non-member comment
Amazing country
It was a fascinating story... never heard of Turkmenistan too much and now I truly start to envy you all that non-European experiences on your journey.