In early September I made a trip to another "stan", namely Turkmenistan. I have somehow become infatuated by the Stans and am on a quest to visit them all. To visit Turkmenistan I had to arrange a tour. Unaccompanied and free-roaming travel is not allowed in Turkmenistan. To get a visa you first need a letter of invitation. This can be obtained by a tour operator in Turkmenistan and with it you can then get a visa to enter the country. I contacted a company called Wild Frontiers in the UK and told them where I wanted to go in Turkmenistan - Ashgabat, Merv, Urgench, Turkmenbashi, etc. They put together a tour with a Turkmenistan Tour Company and they then got me my letter of invitation.
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| The Airport Control Tower, Ashgabat |
I flew into Ashgabat, the capital, on Turkish Airlines by way of Istanbul. Turkish Airlines fly to more countries than any other airline and the departure board in Istanbul airport is a wonder to behold - so many obscure and unheard of destinations.
I arrived in Ashgabat in the early hours of the morning. The airport looked most impressive - very modern with a large number of gates. There were very few planes present however. Signs of building for the future when we will all be flocking to Turkmenistan for our holidays or delusions of grandeur.
The first thing I had to do on arrival was to get a Covid test. The entire plane walked from the plane into a large hall where there were two or three desks set up with nurses preparing the tests. The protocol was likely to pay your $35 for the test, have your test administered by a nurse and then add your name to a list so they could track test results to names. However there was no real instruction and little control of the proceedings. I, along with many others, signed my name on a list and then had my test whilst others took the test and then signed their names. There could have been no correlation between the order of tests taken and the names on the list. What is more the test was most ineffectual. I sat down in front of the nurse in preparation for swabbing my nose and she barely touched the tip of my nose. It was a quite farcical operation. They obviously did not want to have the complication of a positive test.
I then had to present my letter of invitation and pay $99 to get my visa. It was all pretty straightforward but there was a fair bit of queueing at different desks. There was an electronic gate for ePassports and iris recognition scans, fingerprints and photographs. After all that I was finally able to pass through customs and out of the airport where I found my guide brandishing a card with my name on it. That is always encouraging when you find your guide and they can take you out past the horde of taxi drivers hovering around the airport exit. I was whisked us away through the brightly lit, empty streets to my hotel in the center of the city, the very fine Divan Hotel.
It was past 3:00 am when I got to my room and it had been a long day of travel. I slept until 8:00 and then went down for breakfast before meeting my guide for a tour around the city. The first thing I noticed was the fact that everything near the center of the town is new and nearly everything is white marble clad. The roads were relatively free of any traffic, and there were almost no pedestrians on the streets. That gave it all a very sterile appearance.
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| Modern "Elite" Apartments, Ashgabat |
We drive along wide city streets lined with block after block of white marble apartments - elite apartments as my guide calls them. At intersections or roundabouts there are huge elaborate ornamental structures. All the cars are white and apparently there is a law that in Ashgabat, if you want a car then it has to be a white car. Also if you have a dirty car you will be fined, and if you have an accident you must fix any damage to your car's body.
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| Gypjak Mosque |
We drive quite a way out of town to the Gypjak Mosque, a large very modern mosque built in 2004. It is quite an impressive structure but apparently because it is so far out of town it is very underutilised. There was hardly anyone there when I was there. It is the resting place of Saparmurat Niyazov, the first president of the independent state of Turkmenistan.
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| President Niyazov and Famiy Members' Tomb |
Mr Niyazov is an interesting character - he was the head of the Communist Party in Soviet Turkmenistan who, when the Soviet Union dissolved, became President. He was an egotistical, megalomaniacal dictator who imposed all sorts of eccentricities on the country. He assumed the name of Turkmenbashi which means the leader of all Turkmen. He had literally thousands of golden statues of himself installed across the country, he wrote a book, the Ruhnama, describing how to have a good Turkmen life that all citizens were required to read. There were questions about the Rukhnama on the driving test. He renamed the days of the week and the months of the year to weird things like his name, Turkmenbashi, his mother's name, the title of his book. He didn't care for dogs so he outlawed them. Of course, he also siphoned off a vast amounts of money into his and his family's accounts. Unfortunately for him he died of a heart attack in 2006.
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| Halk Hakdasy Memorial Park |
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| Young Niyazov Emerging from the Earthquake |
After visiting the Mosque we drove to the Halk Hakydasy Memorial Park. This is an area with a collection of memorials to those Turkmen and Russians lost in various wars and in the 1948 earthquake which decimated the city. There is an interesting monument to the earthquake depicting the earth balanced on a bull's horns with President Niyazov as a child, in glistening gold, crawling out from the rubble of the earthquake. Again we were the only visitors to the park. It was deserted except for the pair of soldiers standing to attention next to the war memorial.
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| The Wedding Palace |
We then went to another bizarre building - a wedding palace. In my humble opinion, it is quite ugly and over the top but they seem to like it. It is available for rent for weddings and bar mitzvahs and other celebrations. We went inside to view the over the top splendor. Chandeliered halls, wedding dresses for hire, photo opportunities beneath a portrait of the current president.
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| President No 2 on his horse |
They really like their impressive monuments - we drove past a statue of the second president, Mr Berdimuhamedow, riding a golden horse in the fashion of Peter the Great's statue in St Petersburg. Berdimuhamedow was another leader that created a bit of a personality cult around him and he continued many of Niyazov's eccentric practices.
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| The Arch of Neutrality |
Then there was the impressive Arch of Neutrality celebrating their declaration as a neutral state. On top is a golden figure of Niyazov with kind of a superman's cape.
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| Independence Arch |
Another monument was the Independence Arch celebrating their independence as a country.
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| Turkmen Wedding Party |
In front of the Independence Arch there was a wedding party having photos taken. They didn't seem to mind me snapping a photo too. The poor bride was completely covered from head to toe. One can only imagine what she was thinking - hopefully she was having a good time too.
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| The Ruhnana Monument |
We next visited a memorial to Niyazov's book, the Rukhnana. Apparently this used to articulate and it would open up to different pages of the "great" book and the text would be recited. Today it seemed to be out of order.
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| Ertugral Gazy Mosque |
We then visited one more mosque before a late lunch, this was the Ertugral Gazy Mosque. It is closer to the center of town and much more popular. It was prayer time so we waited outside until prayer was over before entering. It was a more modest mosque than the Gypjak Mosque, and I found it much more interesting.
After lunch of lentil soup (which I seemed to exist on while in Turkmenistan), I went back to the hotel for a much needed rest.
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| The Divan Hotel - front door's are locked |
Later on I went out for a walk and discovered that the front door to my hotel was locked. Apparently the most impressive front entrance to the hotel is closed and everyone has to enter through the back entrance. This being a large hotel, the back entrance is a long way away, particularly if you are carrying bags as hotel guests tend to do. The excuse for this was for security - apparently the Presidential Palace is not far from the main entrance and you wouldn't want people wandering around on the streets outside.
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| The Wedding Chapel at night |
In the evening we went for a ride around the city. Everywhere was well illuminated and all the major monuments and buildings were lit up with colored lights. The Wedding Chapel was even uglier when illuminated at night that it was in the daytime.
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| Spaceship Hotel at night |
The next morning I checked out of the hotel in preparation for our drive to the city of Mary. When paying my bill the clerk at the front desk suggested that it would be expensive to pay with a credit card. The credit card would be charged at the official rate of exchange which was 3.5 manat to the US dollar. The black market rate that she offered me was 19 manat to the dollar. Fortunately, I had quite a few dollar bills so I didn't use my credit card at all while I was in Turkmenistan.
We set off for Mary in the east of the country near the Uzbekistan border in a nice Nissan Armada with the guide Ata and a new driver Arthur. Arthur was Ukrainian.
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| Seyit Jamal Shrine |
Our first stop on the way was the Shrine of Seyit Jamal, some 10 miles east of Ashgabat. This shrine was built in the 1400's but was severely damaged in the 1948 earthquake. The ruins are preserved but not renovated.
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| Tile Ornamentation Seyit Jamal Shrine |
There are some nice examples of blue tile work amongst the ruins.
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| Abiwert |
Moving further east we next stopped at Abiwert. Abiwert was once a major settlement during the Sassanid empire (6th Century BC until 700 CE). It was pretty much leveled by one of the sons of Genghis Khan. There was not much left to see - the original structures were mainly built from mud bricks, and the area is an earthquake zone so after a few earthquakes and a lot of rain to wash away the mud, there is little to see except a series of rounded walls and mounds. There were, however, lots of small fragments of pottery lying around in the soil.
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| The Giant Yurt Concert Hall, Mary |
We continued west and had lunch in the small town of Teja and then continued on to Mary. Just outside Mary there was a very large yurt like structure. It was a concert hall. My guide talked his way into the inside where there was some sort of circus going on. We sat and watched a lady climb into a box and have swords stuck into her. Somehow she seemed to escape unscathed.
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| The Modern Mosque, Mary |
In Mary, we visited yet another modern mosque before checking into our hotel to relax for a while. I walked out in the late afternoon and explored the adjacent area to the hotel. There were the same impressive modern buildings as Ashgabat - a library, a theater, University buildings, a market and statues of President Niyazov. The Murghab River flowed nearby the hotel.
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| Market, Mary |
I was impressed by the students - even from a young age the males are dressed in black trousers, white shirts, ties and little Turkmen skull caps. The female students also were smartly dressed in long green or red tunics and similar skull caps.
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| One of many golden statues of President Niyazov |
In the evening we went for dinner in a Russian restaurant. It had quite an extensive menu and rather than one big room there were lots of little rooms each with a table and a few chairs. I believe I had lentil soup again - it was becoming my favorite dish.
The next morning, after a very mediocre breakfast in the hotel, we drove some 30 km further west to the ancient city of Merv. Back in the 12th Century this Silk Road City was likely the largest city in the world. However, being laid waste to by the Mongol Hordes and being built with mud bricks in an earthquake zone, it has not survived too well and today there is not a lot left to see. It is, however, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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| Greater Kyz Qala |
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| Lesser Kyz Qala |
There were a few structures left to look at. The first ones we visited were two fortresses named Greater and Lesser Kyz Qala. The Greater Kyz Qala had columnar corrugated walls that gave it a quite impressive appearance. The Lesser one was so severely eroded that it was hard to imagine what it might have been like.
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| Mausolea of Muhammed's Standard Bearers |
At another location there was a mausoleum of one of Muhammed's standard bearers. The mausoleum was fairly intact and although the first structure was built in the 7th century additions had been made during the Timurid period (15th century). Even though there were not any current day settlements in the proximate area the graveyard did contain some more recent (current day) graves of both Russians and Turkmen.
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| The once mighty walls of Merv |
We drove around the area and visited the city walls. Again these were quite eroded but one did get a sense of how impressive they must have been. All around the adjacent area there were purple colored Tamarisk bushes which made for a nice splash of color in the desert landscape.
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| The Citadel |
The next location was the circular citadel fortress which was the oldest part of the complex. We climbed to the top of the walls for a good view of the now severely eroded structure and the surrounding area. Whilst we were there we were joined by three young boys. They had learned to beg from the tourists and since we were one of the only tourist groups there I gave them a few manat each. The guide said they were Baluchistani boys who were from local families that herded camels.
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| Baluchistani Boys, the Citadel, Merv |
There were quite a few camel in the area - all of them dromodarys. They smelt really bad.,
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| Tomb of Hadja Yusuf Hamadami |
We next visited the tomb of Hadja Yusuf Hamadami and its associated mosque. Yusuf Hamadami was a Sufi teacher in the 11th and 12th century. Surprisingly there were quite a few tourists or perhaps religious pilgrims at the site.
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| Mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar |
The final stop was the most impressive structure of them all, the Mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar. This 12th Century structure has survived quite well. Apparently because it was built from superior fired bricks and the fact that the locals were reluctant to pilfer bricks from such a prestigious mausoleum it has survived. It is a wonderful structure that sits out on its own amid the vast area of what was once the vibrant city of Merv and which now is just desert with a few hillocks here and there.
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| Russian Orthodox Church, Mary |
We then drove back to Mary where we visited a rather nice Russian Orthodox Cathedral. Built in 1902 it is still in use today. There were some beautiful icons and paintings inside, even if they were a little gory in their depictions of what happened to Jesus at the end of his life.
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| MIG Fighter Jet |
Just down the street from the Cathedral was a MIG Jet fighter mounted on a pole in front of a military school. The street was really quite a small back street so it was surprising to see such a military monument there.
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| President Berdimuhamedow and his people |
We then paid a visit to the Mary History Museum. There were a lot of artifacts found in the Merv area and then an entire room devoted to the 2nd President of the Nation, Mr Berdimuhamedow. The President riding a horse, the president hunting, the president playing sport. The presidents of Turkmenistan have all been masters of self promotion.
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| Mary Airport |
In the mid afternoon we drove to the airport for our flight from Mary back to Ashgabat. It was a short, less than 1 hour, flight back to Ashgabat on Turkmenistan Airlines. The tickets for locals are quite cheap, but for me, a tourist, they were over double the price. In Ashgabat our driver once again met us and ferried us to the hotel.
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| Lenin Statue, Ashgabat |
The next morning I had some free time in Ashgabat so I set off to walk to see the Lenin statue. It was quite a nice statue of the Vladimir with nice Turkmen carpet designs around the base of the statue.
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| Bus Shelter |
I couldn't help but notice the luxurious bus stops in Ashgabat - air conditioned and equipped with a TV/Video screen. A little bit excessive but that's Ashgabat for you.
There were soldiers around all the more significant buildings in the area and they would get excited and turn me back if I walked in front of some buildings or into a park where I wasn't allowed. They took offence at me taking pictures in some areas even sending some semi-official guy after me and watching while I deleted the picture from my phone. It was all a little strange as there didn't seem to be any great logic or rigor to what they were doing.
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| The road through the Karakum Desert |
In the afternoon I was picked up at the hotel by the guide, Ata, and a different driver, Toyly and we set off to drive across the Karakum desert towards the north and Darvaza. As we left Ashgabat there was a large parking lot. I learned that it was not possible to bring a car registered outside of Ashgabat into the city. If you live outside Ashgabat and you want to visit with your car, you must leave your car in one of these perimeter parking lots and travel into the city on a bus or taxi. How weird is that?
We stopped for a break at a gas station and I wandered around the area - it was an oasis of litter in the middle of a relatively featureless but otherwise unpolluted desert.
The road deteriorated as we got further away from Ashgabat. It was mostly quite drivable but there were parts that were significantly pot holed.
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| Camels on the road |
There were lots of camels, all dromedaries, often wandering down the road. Fortunately they are calm animals and they don't make sudden moves that would cause them to get hit by a car. I was told they were all domesticated and owned by somebody somewhere. They wander relatively freely, grazing on the desert vegetation, only coming back to their owner every now and again for water.
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| Sinkhole |
We stop first at a couple of minor sinkholes on the way to the major one that is our destination, The first had water in the bottom with gas bubbling up through it. The area was fenced off but more for the protection of the wandering camels than for human protection. It is quite possible that camels aren't the smartest of animals. The next sinkhole was larger and dry in the bottom but it had flares of burning gas here and there.
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| The Gates of Hell |
We then left the road and drove several miles on a dirt track to the larger burning gas sinkhole, the so-called Gates of Hell. This was quite amazing - a fairly large crater 230 ft in diameter, 100 ft deep, with a lot of burning gas in the bottom. When the wind blew in your face it was seriously hot. Like being next to a very large gas barbecue.
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| Yours truly at the Gates of Hell |
This remarkable feature was created in either the 60's or 70's (why they don't know for certain I don't know) by a gas drilling operation that went bad. The crater collapsed and the rig fell in the hole and the gas started flowing. The gas was ignited to avoid poisoning the surrounding air in the belief that it would quickly burn out. Alas it has been burning ever since. It is quite the environmental disaster in these times of climate change. It has however become a tourist destination with a yurt camp set up nearby and plenty of space to camp.
We set up camp behind a nearby hill and I spent an hour or so wandering around while the driver and guide cooked dinner. Since the best time to view the gas crater is in the evening and night time, this was the busiest tourist destination I visited whilst I was in Turkmenistan. Everyone showed up in the evening and either stayed in the yurts or camped in the surrounding hills.
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| Sunrise at the Gas Crater |
I had a comfortable night in the tent and was awoken near dawn by the chatter of a group of nearby noisy Chinese (I think) tourists camping nearby. I got up and climbed up the hill to view the crater in the early morning light. It was a beautiful sight despite it being an environmental disaster.
We broke camp after breakfast and set off on the 5 hour drive to our next stop, Urgench. The road was quite rough and the progress was slow. There were lots of camels roaming around but they seem to coexist quite well with cars and trucks on the highway.
As we neared Urgench, there was signs of more water availability with the occasional canal and water channel. The land became greener and there were signs of agriculture too (cotton and rice). We had left the Karakum Desert behind.
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| Schoolchildren |
It was nice to see the schoolchildren even in the remote village locations all dressed smartly in their uniforms going to school.
The area we were visiting was called Konye Urgench. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Konye means old. The New Urgench is over the border in Uzbekistan. The mighty Amu Darya River that once flowed through Konye Urgench changed its course and moved further east and the town of Urgench moved with it to what now is a different country.
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| Turabeg Khanum Mausoleum |
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| Interior of Turabeg Khanum Mausoleum |
Our first stop in Konye Urgench was at the Turabeg Khanum Mausoleum. This is the mausoleum of the wife of Kutlug Timur who ruled this area in the early 14th century. It has a most impressive mosaic interior domed ceiling. The exterior of this grand structure also has nice blue tile ornamentation. It has been preserved but not fully restored which is all the better in my thinking.
Next was the Seyit Ahmet Mausoleum. This building had been more fully restored.
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| Kutlug Timur Minaret |
We walked on to the most impressive structure at Konye Urgench, the Kutlug Timur Minaret. This is an impressive 1320 ft tall and was once, in the 14th century, the tallest man made structure in the world. It is truly an impressive sight. The muezzin who climbed to the top to issue the call to prayer must have been quite fit.
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| Sutan Tekes Mausoleum |
Moving on we next visited the Sultan Tekes Mausoleum. This had an unusual conical dome.
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| The Il Arslam Mausoleum |
The Il Arslam mausoleum nearby had an even more unusual 12 sided pyramid dome.
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| The base of the Mamum Minaret |
There was the base of a minaret, the Mamum Minaret, that was the oldest structure at the site being built in 1011. It was felled by an earthquake.
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| The Caravanserai Gate, Konye Urgench |
After all the quite wonderful structures the Caravanserai Gate was rather tame and I was getting tired of viewing these structures in the heat of the day.
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| Nejameddin Kubra Mausoleum |
We moved on to an adjacent village where there was another pair of Mausoleums - the Nejameddin Kubra Mausoleum and Sultan Ali Mausoleum. The site of the Nejameddin Mausoleum was located where the unfortunate Najameddin's head fell when he was beheaded by the Mongols.
We then drove to Dashoguz and our hotel. It was another fine large hotel with hardly any guests in it. We had a late lunch at the hotel and an afternoon nap. In the early evening I walked into the center of Dashoguz to see if I could see anything interesting. It was a little disappointing. There was little of interest and it seemed to be almost devoid of shops or businesses - quite soulless.
The next day, we had a late morning flight to Turkmenbashi. Another driver and car appeared at the hotel and took us to the airport. The driver that drove us from Ashgabat to Dashoguz had apparently already set off back to Ashgabat.
Turkmenbashi is on the shores of the Caspian Sea. It is the largest port in Turkmenistan and the terminus of the Trans Caspian Railway. In the Soviet era it was called Krasnovodsk but the first president of Turkmenistan, Mr Niyazov, decided it would be better named after him, so he called it Turkmenbashi, which means Head of all Turkmens. Finally here was a city with a much more Soviet character to it. There were many more Soviet style buildings and not so much new or marble clad development. I found it much more interesting.
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| Turkmenbashi Market |
Our first stop was at the central market where we walked around. You could buy nearly everything you might need there. The most interesting thing for me was the fish market where there were lots of ugly sturgeon for sale along with caviar and sturgeon oil. I quite liked the Turkmen hats that both the men and women wear so I bought a couple. Of course on my big head they looked pretty stupid, but then they didn't look that much better on a normal sized head. They were nicely embroidered though.
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| Smart Schoolboys at the market |
At the market I was openly approached to change money on the street which I thought was a bit bold. It is supposed to be illegal. They were also offering 19 manat to the US $ there.
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| Sturgeon for sale |
After lunch we set off to drive the 100 or so miles east to the Yangykala Canyon where we were going to camp. The road, of course, deteriorated as we got further away from Turkmenbashi but as it deteriorated the landscape grew more and more wonderful. The hills on either side of the flat wide expanse of valley we were driving across were spectacular colorful sedimentary formations. The camels were again quite common, again walking calmly along the road at times. We also saw a few small herds of wild horses - they looked very sad and skinny.
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| Camels on the road to Yangykala Canyon |
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| Yangykala Canyon |
We turned off the main road and wound our way up the hillside to the plateau on top of the canyon. The road then continued along the spine of the canyon to the end where there was a spectacular view over the surrounding countryside. I found this area to be just incredible - like Arizona and Southern Utah but even more colorful and magnificent. Beautiful bands of pink, yellow, red and orange sandstone. On the ground there were also many small pieces of a black, heavy mineral - it could be hematite (as a one-time geologist I should know what it is). Yangykala translates from the Turkmen language to "fire fortress". It is a most appropriate name.
We found a spot for camp that was a little sheltered from the wind and, while the driver and guide set up camp and started cooking, I roamed around the on top of the canyon taking way too many pictures of the sunset over the colorful canyon walls. A magical place and for me the highlight of the trip.
The driver cooked a quite wonderful chicken stew over a small fire and we dined just after sunset. It got quite windy and cold so I retired to the tent for the night.
After a reasonable night's sleep (there was a lot of wind and a lot of flapping of the tent walls), I got up just before dawn and was again amazed at the wonderful location we were in. What is more wonderful is that we were the only people around for many miles. There was perhaps one person with 2 or 3 camels way below on the valley floor, though that may have been wishful thinking given the distance and my eyes.
After breakfast we struck camp and drove down from our mountain perch to the valley floor once more and our way back to Turkmenbashi. We were on the road by 7:30 just as a shower of rain started. It was not long lasting but it freshened the air.
On the way back we did a little side diversion to yet another mausoleum, the Mausoleum of Hasan Gozli Ata. It is apparently a relatively popular pilgrimage site and many people make the trek here to pray at the site. It wasn't particularly inspiring compared to some of the others that I saw but it was perhaps the most interesting thing in the 100 mile drive back to Turkmenbashi. The associated cemetery was perhaps more appealing. In Turkmenistan they have the habit of tying pieces of cloth to a gravestone or a wooden post in the gravesite when they pay it a visit. As a result the graveyard was a spooky assemblage of pieces of tattered cloth in various stages of decay flapping in the wind above nearly every gravesite.
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| Russian Orthodox Church, Turkmenbashi |
Back in Turkmenbashi we paid a visit the Russian Orthodox church. Always an interesting place.
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| Turkmenbashi Railway Station |
The Russian Railway Station from the Czarist era was also quite beautiful. Turkmenbashi is the western end of the Trans Caspian Railroad that could once take you to Tashkent and beyond. In Soviet times there were daily trains to Moscow. Now I think the only passenger service is to Ashgabat.
There was also a war memorial to those who died in World War II. In particular it was a memorial to the father of President Niyazov who died in WWII.
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| Hotel Carlak, Turkmenbashi |
Our hotel was the Hotel Carlak (carlak means seagull). The reception was particularly old Soviet school in that they seemed to be most unwelcoming, most unhelpful and definitely uncaring. As with every other hotel in the country there were very few guests.
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| Another Niyazov statue in Turkmenbashi |
After lunch in the hotel and a short nap to get back some energy, I went out for a walk around town. There were many old Soviet style buildings which gave the town an older more historical feel to it. There were at least a couple of gold painted statues of President Niyazov and an interesting monument of a fisherman wrestling a huge sturgeon.
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| Fisherman with Sturgeon, Turkmenbashi |
In the hotel that night there were over 300 TV channels available, but the only English speaking channel was the Japanese station, NHK TV. Usually you can find an English news program or a subtitled movie, but not in the Carlak Hotel.
The next morning, a Sunday morning, we had yet another driver, who gave us a tour of the city. The first stop was the Oil Refinery, an important part of any tourist's list of highlights and something they are quite proud of. From there we went to the port which had recently been modernized. It looked like it was the usual case of Turkmenistan over-designing and over-building a larger port facility than was really needed. There were no ships in the port, there were no railway engines on the train lines, and there were precious few people around.
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| The Caspian Sea beach in Awaza |
We then went over to Awaza, the new resort town that the second president, Mr Berdimuhamedow, had initiated. It lies on the edge of the Caspian, just north of Turkmenbashi, and there are some 36 large modern hotels there, built in the last 10 or so years to cater for the hordes of tourists that were once expected to descend on the place. Unfortunately the Caspian Sea is not particularly warm or attractive and the season for sitting on the beach is perhaps only 3 months long at the most. This being September it was already getting cool so we were definitely in the off season. Consequently it does not appear to be particularly well used. I had seen videos on YouTube describing this large resort where no one stays and I had thought that it might be interesting to stay there. Unfortunately as a foreign tourist I was not allowed to stay there.
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| Hotels in Awaza |
You cannot drive your car into Awaza, only Awaza cars and taxis are allowed in the resort. So we left our driver at a large parking lot at the entrance to the resort area and continued in a taxi. A strange process but one of many anomalies about this strange country.
We were given a tour of several hotel complexes and we got to walk along the beach for a while. Pretty much everywhere was deserted. After 5 or 6 extravagant hotels I had had enough and we left the resort and returned to the parking lot to find our driver who had been patiently waiting.
We paid one last visit to a Japanese Prisoner of War memorial that was on the way to the airport. Not a remarkable memorial but it passed the time before our plane left for Ashgabat.
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| The Falcon roof on the Ashgabat Airport |
I was able to get a nice picture of the airport terminal in Ashgabat. It is in the form of a falcon. Of course it is in the mandatory white and it sits on top of a terminal that is perhaps a little large for the amount of traffic there.
In Ashgabat we (the guide Ata and me) were met by a driver and taken to the National Museum. There were free guided tours of the museum and we joined one with a couple from Australia. There are a lot of wonderful artifacts that have been found in Turkmenistan over it's long history of settlement. While most of the early buildings being made of mud bricks had a relatively short life, there were lots of precious and beautiful things buried in all that mud and rubble - pottery, silver and gold jewelry, etc.
There were so many things in the museum from the places I had visited like Merv and Urgenche. Particularly interesting were the rhytons that have been recovered from Merv. These are horn shaped drinking vessels for serving wine and they had beautiful ornamentation.
Outside the museum there was a huge flagpole, once the tallest in the world but now relegated to a lesser position. They like their flag and flagpoles in the stans. Nearly every country I have visited in the area has a gigantic flagpole.
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| The fully enclosed Ferris Wheel |
Leaving the museum we passed an immense disk shaped structure. It was a fully enclosed ferris wheel. I am not sure why you would enclose the entire ferris wheel rather than just the compartments but there it was, quite a structure.
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| Nisa |
We then drove to another historical site and a UNESCO site just outside Ashgabat, the Parthian settlement of Nisa. The site is quite modest compared to Merv and Urgenche but interesting all the same. It was thought to be the residence of the Parthian kings in the 250 BC time period. Alas it was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1st century BC. Like all similar sites in Turkmenistan it was built of mud and it has not fared well.
This was the last part of my Turkmenistan journey. I went back to the hotel for dinner and then prepared for my flight out. I was picked up around 1:00 am and taken to the airport for my 3:30 am flight to Istanbul and then on to London.
Turkmenistan is not the most spectacular country in the world but it has some interesting sights and it certainly has some very quirky rules and behaviour. It was thoroughly enjoyable.
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