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Back in Uzbekistan after one week in Turkmenistan, so here’s a recap of the highlights:
– Turkmenistan in itself is pretty impressive, but big thanks to Ben & Eilidh from Young Pioneer Tours for making this week an unforgettable experience! We’ve done everything from a night-drive of neon-lit white marble monuments; attending Turkmenistan’s Independence Day celebrations; eating roasted Siberian brown bear at the restaurant of a 5-star hotel; viewed horse races from seats just below the Turkmen President; been interviewed for Turkmen TV; camped in the desert next to a burning natural gas crater; swam in underground lakes; slept in a homestay in the mountains near the Iranian border; seen colorful canyons; overnighted in empty, but glamorous Caspian Sea beach resorts and last, but not least, we were the honorary guests at an event promoting tourism in Turkmenistan, with several ministers and religious leaders in attendance.
ASHGABAT
– Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, is a peculiar mix between Las Vegas of Pyongyang, with the Guinness World Record for the largest amount of white marble buildings in relation to city size. It has the most world records of any city on the planet, yet its buildings have been built at a breakneck pace over the last decade while the population hasn’t increased equally fast, so some neighborhoods are quiet, and almost feels abandoned. The world’s largest indoor ferris wheel is in Ashgabat, but they had to turn it on for our tour group, normally it just sits still with no visitors. Ashgabat is also a place with spontaneous road closures whenever the president decides to leave his home. At night the city turns into a neon circus, with the two pictures included here being the Arch of Neutrality, and the Palace of Happiness (a large complex devoted to wedding parties). As part of Turkmenistan’s Independence Day celebrations, we watched a concert/performance at a sports stadium, as well as horse racing at a racetrack, with the President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov also in attendance.
DOOR TO HELL
– Outside of Ashgabat, the desert country is completely different, best accessed with 4WD vehicles, with endless highways that see more camels than cars. Four hours north of Ashgabat is the Darwaza Gas Crater, popularly known as the “Door to Hell”. As a result of a failed Soviet Union natural gas exploration in 1971, the crater’s natural gas has been burning ever since. It’s best seen at night, so we camped in tents nearby, with home-cooked “plov” (Central Asian dish) for dinner in a nearby yurt.
– We had a chance to go for a swim in the Kow Ata underground lakes, with thermal waters that are good for your health – that is if you can withstand the stinging sulphuric smell from the large amount of bat poop. The caves are home to the largest colony of bats in Central Asia.
TRADITIONAL HOMESTAY
– In the village of Nokhur, close to the Iranian border, we spent a night in a homestay in the house of one of the local families. It’s an interesting place because while the vast majority of Turkmenistan are non-practising Muslims, particularly following the secular regime of the Soviet Union, the village of Nokhur is very religious and ethnically different from the rest of Turkmenistan.
– After a long drive towards the Caspian Sea port of Turkmenbashi and a night in a local hotel, we headed out to the Yangykala Canyon, a colorful canyon display of red, orange and white cliffs in the absolute middle of nowhere.
VIP Guests at TURKMENistan’s prime BEACH RESOrt
– We stayed a night at a glitzy hotel in Awaza, the Caspian Sea beach resort that is the ambitious dream of Turkmenistan’s Ministry of Tourism. Empty streets lined with numerous resort hotels in all sorts of neon lighting, very few of them actually open and only a couple of hotels with actual guests. The hotel restaurant was unprepared for the “huge” number of guests, as it had six tables to serve including our three, but still managed to take two (!!!) hours to bring out appetizers, and three-and-a-half for the main courses. Awaza is a ghost town, having been built to house hundreds of thousands of tourists, despite having no permanent residents on what used to be barren land on the coast. We were seemingly the only actual tourists in the entire city, but there were a few hundred visitors for a tourism fair meant to promote tourism in Turkmenistan, with speeches from ministers and dance performances by local students. We were the “honorary tourists”, and were ushered around for photo opportunities and TV interviews, but we were given plenty of goodie bags with unique souvenirs and t-shirts. Interestingly, you can deduce the number of tourists from a stamp on your visa. I entered Turkmenistan on the 25th of October, and I was the 5484th visitor registered in 2017 so far. For a country with a population of over 5 million people, that’s very few.
– It’s a country of contrasts, where incredible white marble structures line empty streets. Government office buildings are designed to look like the fields they represent, with examples such as the Ministry of Education being a large book-shaped building, a large globe on top of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Horses (yes, horses) having neon-green horses projected in galloping motion across its facade at night. The country is so rich on natural resources that the government completely subsidizes water, electricity and heating, and vehicle owners can get large amounts of petrol for free per month. Outside of major cities however, the Turkmen people live in tribal villages, some of which with no running water or electricity.
– The country certainly rivals North Korea for one of the weirdest places I have visited, but most of all it wasn’t easy saying goodbye to a pair of amazing guides and twenty-odd like-minded travelers who formed a fantastic group for helping to digest the unbelievable experience that is Turkmenistan. It was an incredible week with a great group of people, a trip that I will remember forever. I can highly recommend traveling to Turkmenistan, one of the least-visited countries in the world, particularly if you like a holiday in a country like no other.
Originally posted on my private Facebook account on November 1, 2017.
