Turkmenistan is a bizarre country, in my opinion the most mysterious one we’re visiting. Xenophobia runs very deep in the Turkmen government, which makes it a very difficult country to visit. The pathological state paranoia translates to extremely rigorous visa channels. We (and everyone doing the Mongol Rally and going through Turkmenistan) applied for our Turkmen visa in March and only obtained authorization last week – we were already considering alternatives of travel. Just for context, only 5 years ago ballet and listening to music in your car were prohibited by law.
After spending over 5 hours at the border with 3 other teams, we finally crossed into Turkmenistan. The previous day we were at an altitude of over 1900m, and we were steadily descending into a gigantic desert through a magnificent road. And then we saw it, Ashgabat. Sprawling in the middle of pure emptiness was the most bizarre and opulent city I had ever seen. With more fountains than Las Vegas and enough marble buildings to sustain the world’s marble industry, The City of Love (Arabic for Ashgabat), lay in front of our eyes. Soon we were all marbled. Enrique exclaimed “if an alien were to see this, they would easily think this is the center of the Earth”. I couldn’t come up with something better to describe what my eyes were seeing.
Gigantic marble structures, blue domes, fountains making fascinating patterns, and gold statues are an understatement. Yet, the city had an even more bizarre feeling to it. The streets were mainly empty and paroled by the police and the army. People wouldn’t laugh, our hotel and the restaurant we went to were bugged, and the entire affair had a very somber feeling to it. I wondered through the city to try and take some photos but our research was confirmed: photographs of buildings in Ashgabat was forbidden. I asked the surrounding officers for permission but it was constantly denied.
We ran into a couple of more Mongol Rally teams and set up to Turkmenabat, the border town between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, the next morning. I was sad to leave Ashgabat since I wasn’t really able to explore the city (and also because the 20 meter statue of Niyazov, Turkmenistan’s previous president and man responsible for the city’s opulence, which used to stand on top of a 50 meter arc and turn with the sun had been demolished a few years back).
We started driving and soon ran into the worst road so far, connecting Ashgabat and Mary. With our sumpguard constantly scratching against the pavement and the car bouncing up and down, we now have more rattling sounds than we’d like. Some we know what they are, but most we really have no idea, although we each have our theories. With such a horrible highway and police officers stopping us for bribes every couple of kilometers, we weren’t able to make it all the way into Turkmenabat. Scared of driving in the dark, we took a side road into the desert making sure we wouldn’t get stuck in the dunes, and set up camp. This is when we realized we had forgotten something rather essential – mosquito repellent. Soon we had hundreds of mosquitos and ants feasting on our exotic mexican blood but there was little we could do. Andres set up a fire which drove some away, but it was still pretty bad. Both of my hands are itching as I type this. Our efforts to find mosquito repellent in this side of the world have been in vain so far.
Bribes in Turkmenistan
In chronological order – seems like we learned something
$40USD to the first set of police officers that stopped us in Turkmenistan
$9USD to the second set of police officers that stopped us in Turkmenistan
A signed photograph of yours truly to the third set of police officers that stopped us in Turkmenistan
In my opinion, the key to getting away with bribes is keeping composure, smile a lot, and play dumb tourist. The last officer I bribed was laughing very hard when I was telling him the days of the week in my horribly poor Turkmen. It was worth the shot and it worked!