Whistle Stop Tour of Turkmenistan
Friday, June 11, 2010
Tuesday 9th June
We’re now into section two of the trip: 32 days to get from Turkmenistan to Kyrgystan before section 3: China. New section, new jobs (for me at least) and new cook groups. Taylor is still on roof crew and probably will be for the rest of the trip, Darrell has been replaced by Ben with the hope of bulking him up a bit – not sure who weighs more the tents or Ben. I’ve passed on my duties on the bar to Kylie (sorry) and am now replacing Joy as the Truck Walla. My job so far has involved collecting money for visas, birthdays and a tip for our Turkmenistan guide, but will extend to sorting out bills when we eat out in a group and anything else the crew throw at me. Maggs and Mike have been replaced by Simon and Roberta in our cook group and our first meal prepared together was pasta and really tasty!
We checked into our fancy pants hotel for our first night in Ashgabat. Took a wander round the city in search of food and ended up back in the hotel with Kylie, Neill, Alice, Mike, Darrell, Roberta, Heather and Ben for a slap up meal. Ashgabat is an extremely clean city, there’s no one to be found on the streets apart from police who tell you not to take photographs and follow you to make sure you are causing no harm to their city. There’s also a curfew of 11pm so if you’re out partying you need to get a taxi home or walk and face a night in jail – none of the group risked the latter.
The next day we headed for the Sunday Market. You can find everything here from camels and cows to carpets and spare car parts. Unfortunately we didn’t see any flying camels (camels being hoisted onto the back of a truck) that Pete promised us, but we did see plenty of camels, and all sorts of other livestock. We then headed into the main part of the market which sold just about everything, stocked up on the essentials and avoided the sour camel’s milk which was on sale. It wasn’t long before we left for Ashgabat in search for some shade. The heat has increased dramatically; at least 45οC with 40% humidity so we chilled out in the air conditioned room for the afternoon and enjoyed a group meal at the local British pub.
The next morning we set off for our final bushcamp in Turkmenistan and everything went a bit sour. Taylor and Barry were suffering from heat stroke and having to face a long drive and there’s no escape from the sun. We took it steady and Taylor was beaten by 20 mins as the first to throw up in the truck, upset in his failings he did one better and threw up out the truck and managed to spray a few fellow passengers along the way (apologies again to them).
After an extremely hard drive through the desert we arrived at camp and sat the invalids together in the shade of the truck with flat coke and rehydration salted water – something not to be forgotten on a trip like this, the flavoured ones are the best! We all chilled out in the shade of the truck before starting dinner of shepherds pie and salad and were later picked up by a local to take us over some sand dunes to the Darvaza gas crater which has been burning for nearly 40 years. Taylor and Barry feeling a little better joined us. The locals have renamed this "The Door to Hell" and looking at the photos you can see for yourself why.
An early start the next day for the Uzbekistan border and Taylor and Barry are looking much better – still not 100% but they are drinking plenty of water so no need to worry (mums).
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