Desert Dillights

After our luxury Odyssey cruise it was back to reality with a long drive to Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan. We’ve said it before, but a country that has oil coming out of its ears and a seemingly endless budget to purchase marble from Iran, Italy & Turkey, they could do a better job of building roads outside the capital. Bring in the Chinese if you have to. We bumped along for a full day, stopping for a quick lunch and also a truck wash. Vehicles can be fined in the capital for being dirty so we pressure hosed the last of the Georgian soil from the sand mats and Azeri mud volcanoes from the tyres.

Reaching the other side of the Caspian Sea is where we really start to feel far from home, differences are more evident, the majority of the people wearing traditional dress and sporting rows of gold teeth. Familiarities disappear and even in the capital McDonalds and KFC have not yet moved in and probably won’t, there is very little Western influence or advertising. Our local guide Gurban took us on a tour of the city the next morning in a luxury air-conditioned coach. An optional excursion yet it felt like a government issue tour, parading the tourists from marble monument to pristine apartment block lined boulevard with little sign of real life. They are impressive and sometimes beautiful buildings, built by European construction companies, celebrating the country’s independence and neutrality, or merely a ferris wheel encased in marble with arcade below.

The pristine streets of Ashgabat

Water bowsers spray the road clean

The Arch of Neutrality

With gold statue of past president Niyazov

Views from the top

Monument to the independence of Turkmenistan - aka "the plunger"

New apartment blocks

Ferris wheel

View out from the ferris wheel

A final stop was at the Marriage Palace, also known as the ‘Palace of Happiness’. Built by the president as a gift to the people. A gaudy, gold and marble of course, grand building, perched on a hill overlooking the city, it can cater for up to seven weddings at a time, everything under one roof, dress shops galore and photographers to choose from.

The Marriage Palace

Inside the palace

That was one side to Ashgabat, if you look a little further out you will find low rise buildings and homes, no marble in sight, small restaurants and shops, children playing in small parks and teenagers roller blading in the early evening. Young students eager to practice their English and stop you for a chat. A quirk of Ashgabat is the taxi system; with very few official taxis anyone can stop and offer a reasonable fare. It takes a bit of confidence to step into the road, put your hand out and wave down any old car but it is a safe practice that works and offers another way to engage with the local people, even if language is a barrier. Saying through the window “Ruski bazarri?” will usually get you to the Russian market.

Maggie & Anita at the Sunday Market (Tolkuchka Bazaar)

Recently purchased lambs

Fresh salad at the Russian Bazaar

I spy Iain

Taxi back tot he hotel with complimentary music video channel playing Will-I-Am

Our hotel, also home to the British and German embassies, did have a rather nice swimming pool we could enjoy a cooling afternoon dip, the only thing our cruise had been missing.

Wonderful hotel pool

After lunch the next day we headed north across the Karakum desert, stopping to buy bread in a town called Jerbent. The largest place marked on the map between Ashgabat and the border, approximately 600km worth of desert. It was a surprisingly small village, battling to keep the desert back, definitely the other side of the coin from Ashgabat. Two Aksakal’s, meaning “white beards” or revered elders wandered past, pausing to shake hands and be photographed with our very own white beard David.

More pristine roads leaving Ashgabat

Tom posing

Bread stop in Jerbent

No marble (or porcelain) here

Meeting of the "white beards"

The sandy streets of Jerbent

Yurt living in the desert

Back to the main road *sigh

Another jaw dropping sight in Turkmenistan that evening as we camped near the burning gas crater at Darvasa. A soviet experiment gone wrong, drilling for oil and gas in the area nearly fifty years ago, they abandoned several drilling sights. All collapsed and gradually widening, one filled with water, the next bubbling mud and the piece de resistance of cock ups, the fire crater. Fearing the gas pouring out would poison the atmosphere it was set alight with a plan to burn it off, yet it continues to burn. An exciting four-wheel drive jeep ride shuttled us from camp through the soft sand and we saw the light fade over the crater, the flames brightening as the sky darkened. Three touring Czech motorcylclists who had abandoned an attempt to ride there joined us for home made burgers cooked on the fire and then hitched a lift up in a truck.

The burning gas crater

Judy masks some morning toast directly on the still-hot embers

A desert dweller off to his morning work

Scraggly camels

Continuing on through the desert to the border we were searched as thoroughly on the way out as on the way in. Hopping back onto the truck to drive through no man’s land, we then went through the Uzbekistan entry formalities, a look through the passport and a thunk thunk as the stamp was brought down on the visa. We were saved another baggage search due to the x-ray scanner apparently not working, or perhaps just not switched on. We met our local guide Mirza who would join us for the next 11 days and also take us on a tour of each of the Silk Road cities, a wealth of knowledge and experience. He immediately got off on the right foot with an enthusiastic welcome to the country and sharing of information and stories.

In Khiva we stayed in the historic heart of the town and the first night the group went for their first taste of Uzbek cuisine to a ‘home’ restaurant, which was very well received. As long as you like dill that is. It must be practically sacred the amount that is used in the cooking. A soup would arrive with so much dill floating in it, looking like cut grass, and a bit more on the top for luck. Omelettes at breakfast laced with dill, dillicious!

Mirza’s tour of the sights was thorough and interesting, taking us back to the time of the Khan’s, invaders, slave trade and the Great Game. The shopping also began here, knitted slippers, embroidered silks and woodwork start to fill our bags.

Entrance gates to old Khiva the "Ichon-Kala"

Plan of the city

Hels in front of the unfinished minaret

Mirza, our local guide, on tour

Juma Mosque with 218 wooden columns

Zoroastrian tiles in the brickwork

Mirza trying to keep our concentration while ladies temptingly display their scarves

Ross and his latest doppelgänger

Some more naughty ladies sneakily having a photo with the visitors

A Khivan wedding

Beautiful embroidery for sale

A lovely spot to spend an afternoon

Khiva from the top of a minaret

From the Karakum to the Qizilqum deserts as we ventured on to our next silk road city, Bukhara. The road improved in recent years and a much shorter journey than it used to be. Worth remembering it is especially shorter than when it would have been travelled by caravans of camels and traders. To pass the time our eyes scanned and occasionally spotted a desert squirrel or two, and fox (albeit run over) proving there is life in the desert.

The desert attempting to reclaim the road to Bukhara

Kebab lunch stop en route

Bukhara is where the bags are now really bulging and credit cards taking a beating. Silk carpets have been indulged in, decorative plates and bowls and some tailored clothing made from the local silk. Our stay coincided with the annual three-day Silk and Spice Festival, with stalls popping up displaying tempting wares and noisy, colourful processions and celebrations through the town.

With enough ancient sites to fill days of touring Mirza narrowed it down to the major, must sees, the Ark, mosques and mausoleums, some choosing to see more the next day out of town with the Emir’s summer palace.

Bukhara

Ismail Samani Mausoleum

Lunch on the tour

Parade through Bukhara

Shops galore for the Silk & Spice festival

Rogs helping Sue part with her money

Dancing in the streets

A man pedalling bread

Bukharan wedding couple

Bukhara by night

A traditional beer snack, snake fish

Anita & Sue

The beautiful breakfast room at our hotel

The crew had some fun transferring diesel across from the reserve tank to the running tank. Diesel is not readily available in Uzbekistan and most vehicles are converted to liquid petroleum gas, recognisable by rows of tanks on the roofs of buses and in the boots of cars and taxis. The small electric pump giving up the ghost after a few minutes they resorted to spending two hours getting a sun tan siphoning 180 litres via 10 litre jerry cans, thanks to last year’s wine drinkers for those, they are now assigned to the diesel moving department.

Hels siphoning diesel

Bukharan puppet and theatre show

Jackie engrossed in her book, no wait, she's taking a photo!

Now in Samarkand, we are enjoying day after day of 40 degrees Celsius dry heat. The crew finally decided it was time, and remembered, to give out the Odyssey trip t-shirts, the group has earned their stripes, reaching the near half-way point in the trip, time is flying!