Darwaza Gas Crater & the Karakum Desert

Turkmenistan's unfortunate reputation for being a country of mysteries and of bad judgement wasn't really helped in 1971 a group of scientists decided to set fire to the gas crater at Darwaza in order to burn off the remaining gas supply. Spoiler: It didn't work and it's been burning ever since, which creates the world's biggest camp fire, and an excellent spot in the middle of the desert to stop for the night.

Our driver was exceptionally efficient and we got there in only about 4 hours, with a stop for fuel, where we were amazed/horrified to discover that fuel in Turkmenistan is subsidised by the government. It costs 1.5 manat per litre - which is about 6p using the real exchange rate (the government fix it at 3.5/$ but it's more like 18/$), and which means that it's cheaper than *water*.

There are hundreds of gas craters all over the Karakum desert, so we stopped at a few, which are mostly mildly terrifying huge holes in the ground, some with water in them, and some with little fires.

Of course the pièce de resistance is the Darwaza gas crater which is an even bigger hole with an even bigger fire and a powerful dizzying smell which you probably shouldn't breathe in too deeply. It is spectacular, even more so during the night, when it constitutes a huge gassy bonfire. There were a surprisingly large number of people there, with a big group of very noisy shouting Chinese tourists, and a German man who to our absolute delight walked around dramatically shushing them and shaking his head.

Luckily we weren't staying in the yurt camp with them, and were given our own little yurt over the dunes in the middle of nowhere, which was very peaceful with beautiful stars. It was also incredibly cosy and comfortable, despite the fact that it gets so cold in the desert, and actually beat most of the (very solid) beds we've slept in across Central Asia.

Early start the next morning and we were repeatedly warned that the road from Darwaza to Kunya Urgench was "all the way bumpy" so we were psyching ourselves up for a bad day but thanks to some underpromising and overdelivering and some extraordinarily fast and skilful driving, we made it to the border in 5 hours, with a lot of camels on the way for extra encouragement, and surprisingly "smoothly".Read more