Turkmenistan
Some fun facts:
The President for Life adopted the name Turkmenbashi, which means father of all Turkmen. He then renamed a city and the month of January 'Turkmenbashi' after himself and renamed the month of April and the word for bread 'Gurbansoltan Eje', his mothers name. He banned lip syncing, long hair, video games and gold teeth. He also built a 15m gold statue of himself that rotates to face the sun. He died in 2006 and apparently a few of his more outrageous doings have since been undone.
A reasonably smooth border crossing saw us entering from Iran just in time for the hottest part of the day. We rode in 45 degree heat into the capital, Ashgabat. The huge marble city juts out of the middle of the desert and looks like something from another planet. The five lane immaculate streets, lined with massive white marble buildings were nearly empty. The cheapest hotel we could find was out in the edge of town but it's neighbour had a pool and cold beer, which we made the most of.
We then rode in more scorching heat to Mary, where we were denied rooms at multiple hotels as they apparently don't allow foreigners to stay. With only a couple of hotels available to us, we found that they fix the prices at ridiculous rates for tourists. This, in addition to a general feeling of being less than welcome, led us to blasting through the rest of the country the next day to cross the border into Uzbekistan.
The President for Life adopted the name Turkmenbashi, which means father of all Turkmen. He then renamed a city and the month of January 'Turkmenbashi' after himself and renamed the month of April and the word for bread 'Gurbansoltan Eje', his mothers name. He banned lip syncing, long hair, video games and gold teeth. He also built a 15m gold statue of himself that rotates to face the sun. He died in 2006 and apparently a few of his more outrageous doings have since been undone.
A reasonably smooth border crossing saw us entering from Iran just in time for the hottest part of the day. We rode in 45 degree heat into the capital, Ashgabat. The huge marble city juts out of the middle of the desert and looks like something from another planet. The five lane immaculate streets, lined with massive white marble buildings were nearly empty. The cheapest hotel we could find was out in the edge of town but it's neighbour had a pool and cold beer, which we made the most of.
We then rode in more scorching heat to Mary, where we were denied rooms at multiple hotels as they apparently don't allow foreigners to stay. With only a couple of hotels available to us, we found that they fix the prices at ridiculous rates for tourists. This, in addition to a general feeling of being less than welcome, led us to blasting through the rest of the country the next day to cross the border into Uzbekistan.
Trying to find shade for a quick drink..
One of the many Mongol Rally cars we've seen along the way
HOT!!
