Day 97 to Mary, Turkmenistan, 77km, 8,291 to date, dead flat.

Easy, dead flat, but hot.  Another two flats today, one caused by glass, the 2nd by a small piece of fine wire - usually from exploded truck tires.  Although the temperature wasn’t too bad whilst riding, as soon as I stopped to repair the flats, I was absolutely pouring in sweat.  Heavily drinking to make up for it, including always having one bottle of re-hydration mix on the bike. 

We are again seeing herds of Camels (one humped version - the two humped versions were back in Mongolia)) in the middle of nowhere, not sure if they are wild or domesticated - using the term domesticated and Camels in the same sentence is  bit of an oxymoron.  

We are now in the city of Mary, Turkmenistan.  Mary is a new version of the old nearby city of Merv.  There is nothing left of Merv other than ruins, now a Unesco World Heritage site.  Merv in its day was known as Marv-i-shahjahan or Merv - Queen of the world.  A major centre of religious study and a lynchpin on the Silk Road, its importance to the commerce and sophistication of Central Asia can not be underestimated.  History says that Chinggis Khan sent a tax collector to collect substantial tax’s - the population didn’t like it and beheaded the tax collector.  Chinggis was not impressed.  Merv was wiped out (slaughtered) by Chinggis Khan’s son. Every person was killed, some 300,000 people.  Merv never recovered.  Messing with tax collectors today brings somewhat similar results…

Some pics from around Mary: 

A WWII war memorial:

This is the typical dress of the local women:

You may have noticed that there is a heavy use of the eight pointed symbol in the architecture  and very common on floor tiles and on sidewalks.  This is a Muslim symbol and is called “Rub el Hizb”, the Jewish symbol is 6 pointed.