The Turkmen and Turkmenbashi of Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan by far the strangest country I have visited on this trip.

Ashgabat, (city of love in Arabic) strange and beautiful Ashgabat, built from oil and gas revenues, expensive looking, my last stop.

Every street corner turned in Ashgabat presents you with a sight to be hold.

Fountains and white marble everywhere, golden domed palaces, a golden giant statue of the Turkmenbashi (leader of the Turkmen), a massive book sculpture of the Turkmenbashi's book Ruhnama (The Book of the Soul) that used to open it's pages, "the engine is broken" a rocket ship thermometer, golden 5 headed eagle statues, the worlds largest enclosed Ferris wheel "the engine is broken", 5 massive golden stallion Akhal-Teke Turkmen race horses, a golden baby Turkmenbashi balancing on the horns of a giant bull, the worlds largest 7 point star doubling as a TV station, a giant Turkmenbashi statue that follows the sun "the engine is broken", buildings shaped like books,

a giant sphere in a cube that doubles as city hall and changes colour at night, the world's 4th largest flag pole, the arch of neutrality where Turkembashi looks like Batman...I could go on, the list is endless!

Grandiose some would say, Las Vegas esque others would say, like a child's (who has too much money) playground, but in between the sites the city is like a ghost town, where are the people walking the streets?

Police everywhere, on the streets, stopping traffic, guarding the monuments in glass boxes, at the airport telling us off for playing a card game with Gnomes. "in our country it is forbidden to play cards in public"

We did a day bus tour of the sites, for to walk between would have taken ages. Then we did a similar night tour of the same sites which was shorter, part fuelled by vodka and included drunken handstands outside the the worlds largest enclosed Ferris wheel, which the guide alleged was disrespectful because it was a religious site!!! Honestly!

So we managed to hit the top 3 sites in Turkmenistan, including Ashgabat.

Minarets and turquoise -tiled mausoleums in Konye-Urgench camping right next to a UNESCO world heritage monument was the 1st.

And then one of the highlights of my trip. The Darvaza gas crater in the lunar landscapes of the Karakum desert. 

AKA The Door to Hell. If hell exists the gateway has to be in Darvaza.

We approached at night, in large part due the 5 hours it took us to cover the last 7km, where for the 1st (and possibly last) time we took the 2 wheel drive, 18 ton, truck to the crater with us. Working in 2 teams of 8 with 6 sand mats we sweated, laboured and toiled, digging the wheels out, bending the mats back in to shape, gradually progressing through the sand dunes.

Was it worth it?! I'd have done it twice over and more.

Magnificent, stunning, absolutely amazing, we rounded the corner in the truck and the cone of light radiating upwards is the 1st thing that catches the eye. Then as you get closer you see the flames and can feel the heat radiating from below, then the sound of gas escaping and the smell of ever so slightly noxious fumes.

In 1971 a soviet gas exploration drilling rig collapsed leaving a crater 70m wide. Worried about the poisonous gases the bright idea was to burn the gas, believing it would take days to burn it self out. So in went the match, up went the flames and almost 50 years later it's still burning! 

3 Geocaches at Darvaza, including a "First to Find" that was published 2-3 months ago. Not many Geocachers come to Turkmenistan and less to the gas crater, it seems. The 5 hours through the sand definitely meant I had to earn this one.

So what did I miss the most?

Well toilets for sure and when we had them, being able to put paper down them.

Drinking tap water, I missed being able to do that and having to rely on bottles.

Supermarkets, I'm stunned by having a selection of the same product, various sizes and brands rather than just 1 size and 1 brand.

Of course, fast wifi, wherever you go.

Through mountains and deserts and to the old shores of fast disappearing seas and the old cities of fallen empires, the silk road was awesome!

The jewel of the silk road Uzbekistan

Tashkent as a 1st stop and there's something that makes me feel at home in a big city and in Tashkent I did. Tashkent means city of stone, is a modern city, the people are friendly (you can hail any car to use as a taxi), it has it's own metro, heavily policed, I might add and the things that mostly struck me on my 1st day in Uzbekistan was

1.) How friendly and nice people are. On our first day we asked a little boy for directions to a mosque and his brother actually drove us the short distance and then offered us dinner as well.
2.) You soon learn the phrase 'phat stacks' a reference to the fact that we are all millionaires as there are 7000 som to the pound and the lowest bills are 5000 (about 80p) so you have to carry wads of money even when just going out for  abeer and bite to eat.

Visually stunning! Can there be a more spectacualr sight than the Registan, samarkand?! The colours, the tiles, the paint, the bricks are all set off when the light hits. Breath taking. I thought it was good at twilight, but the sunset and dusk are only surpassed by the night time when the lights are turned on and the Registan comes alive. This is after the Uzbek propaganda light show which was actually quite good as they projected on to the outside of the Registan.
Every corner turned presents you with a more spectacualr view than the last. Magical mosques, minarets, mausaleums and madressas in turquoise, blue, gold and green.

Bukhara was similar, but complete with stories of Khans throwing people off minarets. (sometimes in sacks, sometimes not)  and 'bug pits' with snakes, rats and scorpions where prioners were held. Here e tayed in a 'luxury' hotel complete with bar and swimming pool.

Buh camping led us to Moynaq where I had a crash course in star photography from Aussie Dave amongst the ship graveyards where the Aral sea used to be,

before one of the worst man made ecological disasters ever happened. He also set up a slackline between 2 of the ships, which is like a tightrope and no, I'm not very good at it!

Bush camping oustide a massive silk road fort caravanserai led us to Khiva, my current location complete with the usual mosques, minarets, mausaleums and madressas and a grisly history of slave caravans, barbaric cruelty and terrible dessert journeys. The Khan's here threw people from minarets, but also in to sacks with wild animals!

On a final note as I'm not currently feeling the greatest.
'Pissing out of my arse', 'bum wee', 'mud butt' 'D&V' (diarrhoea and vomiting, or just D) and 'not farting with confidence' are all great terms I have heard on this trip for traveller's diarrhoea. Defined as the passage of more than 3 watery bowel actions within 24 hours, plus at least 1 other sympton.
Well for the 3rd time on this trip, I've definely got that impending feeling of doom in my guts so on that bombshell I will end it there as we head to the trange and unique Turkmenistan, tomorrow.

Does a Kazakh bear sh*t in the woods in Kazakhstan?

Sadly, Kazakhstan was an all too brief affair as with a transit Visa we only had 5 days to traverse the South. That we said we managed to succesfully answer the above question at the Aksu-Zhabagyly nature reserve!

On the night we arrived, my buddy Tony and I went for short walk a we often do to work up an appetite, sop we headed naturally upwards to check out the view and accidentally stumbled in to the Aksu-Zhabagyly nature reserve when we spotted a very fresh USO  Unidentified Steaming Pile on the ground. We aren't natural trackers, but we know sheep, cow, rabbit, horse and even yak droppings and this was certainly none of those. And then we got to thinking are their bears around? Does it belong to a bear?
Shortly afterwards a rustle in the bushes and the path running out gave us 2 good reasons to swiftly turn round and head straight back the way we came.
Asking our friend from Alaska and the guide the next day (whilst on a 7 hour hike we saw more droppings and 3 snakes) confirmed that they were bear droppings and yes a Kazakh bear does indeed sh*t in the woods!

I have developed a slight addiction on this drop to watermelon and nutmeg. Apparently it's not a commonly done thing so must just be my family, but definitely I have an adddiction to freshly cut watermelon with lashings of nutmeg and I'm taking others down with me. This only briefly disapeared when my ice cream addiction temporarily took over, but now it's back with a vengence!

Bush camping in Kazakhstan (and Uzbekistan for that matter) has afforded us some of the finest starry night skies that I have ever seen. Apparently teh square of pegasus is a good indication of ho good. If you can see more than 4 stars inside it's good for star gazing. Well I counted 14 the other day, so it's just amazing. I have been working hard on my naming of constellations.

So another bush camp later led us to Uzbekistan, the jewel of the silk road.

Immense Kyrgyzstan!

Kyrgyzstan is immense. If I have to choose one word I choose immense. I could choose many more, beautiful, scenic, rugged, stunning, mountainous, jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, but if you give me just one word it's immense!

The skies are full of mountains, birds of prey, cloudscapes and starscapes, everywhere you look.

Kyrgyz comes from kyrk which means 40 after ther 40 Kyrgyz tribes, each represented by a flame on the national flag.

After speaking with my friend Tony (on the trip) I think 'Kyrrrgyzzzzz' sounds much better in a Scouse accent! 

So I landed in Bishkek (Derived from peshagakh, meaning below the mountains) the capital of Kyrgyzstan in the middle of the night, slept at the airport and met up with the good people at http://www.oasisoverland.co.uk/ and a mixed bag of Brits, Kiwis, Ozzies, Dutch and Belgians , slightly jet-lagged.

Ala-Archa was a 1st port of call where we did a day trek in the atmospheric fog to Ratsek, an alpine hut and back in the rain, missing out on some of the views. 

Little did I know that Kyrgystan was to turn in to something of a trekking holiday, with 3/4 day treks and almost a short hike every day. Totally unplanned, but I travel prepared and certainly no complaints from me. Every extra ridge gained offers yet another stunning view of the mountains. We trekked/walked  in the Kyrgyz Ala-too, the Kumgey Ala-too, the central Tian Shan and the Fergana mountain ranges by my reckoning. 

Back to Bishkek and then on to impressive Lake Issuk-Kol the world's 2nd largest Alpine lake after Titicaca in South America, LAke Titicaca last visited by me in 2005. More trekking before an unexpected attempt to be the 'first to find' FTF on a Geocache https://www.geocaching.com/guide/default.aspx in Jeti Oghuz.

Without a doubt, the toughest FTF that I think I have gone for and accordingly the longest un-found (it had been avaialble for 10months) I had ever gone for.

Around a 20mile round trip, without map, following an old borrowed GPS, 2 hours in torrential rain and 2 more, eventually led us to the wrong side of the river.

There was no way we were giving up now so venturing up-river where the glacial cold river split in to 3 I waded across all 3 with boots on. Yes I admit I was scared and you would have been too if you'd seen the pace and temperature of the river. Look ahead, not at the water and feel with your feet, that seemed to work, as I made it across.

So ariving at the cache I located it in after around 5mins searching and after being placed 10 months ago, someone beat us by 4 days!!!

Yes it was worth the walk as without this cache we would never have attempted this distance.

A lift from a Kyrgyz horseman for around a quid, back across the river and we begun the descent back to base. My 1st cache in Kyrgyzstan, an extreme one, meant to take 2 days, but completed in 1, well worth the effort!

There was eagle hunting in 'eagle hunter valley' where we watched an eagle take a live rabbit and got to hold the eagle. At several Kgs they are heavier than they look!

There was the well-earned homestay and Yurt visits where we stayed with Kyrgyz families and I was slightly ill. On the way to the yurts there was the impromptu snowman building and snowball fight on a high pass on the way to lake Song-Kol.

There was the re-creating of The Ashes where I whacked some tricky Aussie spin bowling out of the park. At over 3000m possibly the world's highest cricket match at that time.

Then there was Ulak Tartysh which is like a 2 aside rugby match, mounted brawl (on horses) using a recently deceased Goat. (sans. head and feet)

The object of the game was to score a try on a matt a few feet across. Unbelievable skill and stamina involved you have to pretty tough as there were several horse headbutts, to riders.

Amazing fitness as there is an almost constant wrestle for the ball or rather goat.

A multitude of silk road ruins including the jaw-dropping Tash Rasbat, a stone  fortress caravanserai from the 15th century and an amazing night for star gazing, eventually led to us back to Bishkek and a full complete circle around what had fast become one of my favourite countries in the world. Immense Kyrgyzstan! Now on to Kazakhstan...

DaveW in the Stans starts here!