Day 101/012/103 Ashgabat, Turkmenistan

I am continuing to have gut problems, beside the obvious need to take crap’s frequently, it is also really wearing me down.  Totally exhausted from the riding, hence took a taxi into Ashgabat a day early to try to recover.  This continuing gut problem is getting very annoying and is getting me down.  Further discussions with our medic today about options.  I didn’t miss much on the ride today as dead flat, hot, and really nothing to see.

An interesting observation:  There is a “free for all” version of Uber Taxi here and essentially everywhere since China.  One simply stands on the side of the road/street with your hand out, cars immediately stop, you negotiate a price for where you are going and away you go.  Typical fare is about $2 or less around town, more from way out in the country.  Everyone uses this system, including very attractive, very well dressed young ladies - being picked up and dropped off anywhere.  Talking to locals, they consider it very safe.  Could you image an attractive young lady catching a ride this way from Vancouver to Hope!  Although we are now in a serious Muslim country and women are restricted in dress, it appears they are very safe on the streets.

Spend half of today dealing with getting an Iran Visa.  Once we figured out the process, it wasn't that bad (the process seems to change every year).  This year it was:  i) go to the Iran Embassy have them do an initial check of paperwork and tell us how much it would cost (different for each country), ii) via taxi go to the bank of Iran and give them the required amount (in Euro's), then with that receipt, iii) back via taxi to the Iran Embassy to file the paperwork.  Just to keep things moving, the Embassy is only open from 9:30 to 12:00.  

The embassy “waiting room”:

Also to make things interesting, the border where we were going to cross into Iran is closed, so busses are being arranged to a crossing some 100km away, with additional busses arranged for the Iranian side to get us to where we are supposed to be.  I'm impressed with the organization/"roll with it", skills of the TDA staff. 

There are interesting rules in this country, such as no smoking anywhere in public ( a good thing), also one must keep your car washed - one of the TDA trucks was fined today because it was dirty. And you are not allowed to take photos of also anything - bridges, government buildings, gas stations, etc.,

Ashgabat is not a major tourist centre.  The Lonely Planet guide book states that "..only the insane or deeply unfortunate would find themselves in Ashgabat in July or August..." - it is stupid hot.  That could explain why there are only 10,000 tourists a year visiting.  To put that in perspective, Whistler has 30,000 to 40,000 visitors on a good day.

On the other hand there are police checks everywhere, probably every 10km along the highway.  They usually ignore bicycles, but I was stopped by one guy in the middle of nowhere.  He was just finishing dealing with a car and I noticed the handshake where a money exchange took place.  After about 10 minutes of trying to tell me he wanted money for some made up infraction and me playing the dumb tourist not understanding, he gave up and I cycled away.  All part of the tourist experience.

Location map:

Day 100 to Graveyard Camp, Turkmenistan, 120km, 8,536 to date, dead flat.

Much of the day was spent riding just north of the Iranian border - one could see several Iranian flags only a couple km to the south.  We are riding along the southern part of the Karakum Desert - I noticed that the spell checker changed Karakum to Karakul in a couple earlier posts.

The camp is at the site of very old ruins (1,000yrs+ old??), all sorts of pottery bits lying around.

Day 98/99 to Canal Camp, Turkmenistan, 125km, 8,416 to date, dead flat.

Rest Day Mary, then a flat, but hot, relatively easy day to a camp in the middle of nowhere.

Another statue in Mary:

A good part of the day was riding along the Karakum Canal, one of the longest irrigation and water supply canals in the world (1,375km).  It enables the extensive agriculture of southern Turkmenistan, but with negative consequences for the Aral Sea.

This “store” was on the side of the road probably 30km from any other person.  The design and workmanship were excellent, I would  have bought one of the children’s outfits if I had had a reason.