Balkan

We headed back to the glitzy Ashgabat airport for an internal flight on Turkmenistan Airlines to Turkmenbashy on the Caspian Sea. We visited a Japanese POW memorial, a small Museum of Turkmenistan, and a seaside theme park with some interesting statues. Everywhere you go in Turkmenistan there are large portraits of either the current president or the previous president, who "coincidentally" happen to be father and son. These portraits are often huge, and often framed in carpet as there is a long history of carpet making in Turkmenistan.
After a night in Turkmenbashy we hopped into some more 4x4s and headed into the desert once again to visit the awe inspiring Yangy Kala canyons. These are a series of canyons and ancient sea beds unlike anything I'd ever seen before. The drivers started up a fire and we had a good local lunch at the top overlooking the incredible view, which was great except for the 42°C heat and zero shade! After lunch we headed to Balkanabat where we were stopping for a night. This was supposed to be an uneventful stopover in an admittedly retro hotel, but as we went out for dinner there seemed to be a hardcore party going on in the next room. After we'd eaten the waiters invited us to join the party, which turned out to be the women celebrating a wedding, so we joined around 200 Turkmen women on the dancefloor partying in their traditional dress to very modern tunes! Most of the people in Turkmenistan still wear their traditional clothing so we must have looked quite strange to them. It was definitely a highlight of the trip for us.
In the morning we moved on to Nohur, a traditional village in the mountains towards the Iranian border where we spent the night in a homestay. The culture in Nohur is quite distinct from the rest of Turkmenistan as being so remote they avoided soviet influence. They have their own traditions from pre-islamic days such as attaching rams skulls to graves, as they are sacred animals that are believed to fight off evil spirits and guide the souls to heaven. There is a centuries old tree at the heart of the village with a hollow that fits several people. This tree is a bit of a pilgrimage site for local people and we saw many people visiting it. At the homestay we had a great home cooked dinner of soup and plov (a central Asian version of pilau or biryani), and more delicious melon. We then spent the evening watching the stars which were really clear that far up in the mountains, we even saw the Space X satellite train which was a bit creepy, it looked like a moving snake of stars.
On the way back to Ashgabat we stopped at another pilgrimage site of the shrine of Paraw Bibi, according to legend a beautiful and virtuous woman who disappeared into the mountain when invaders were coming for her, preserving her purity. Turkmen make pilgrimage to the site of her disappearance for fertility and a cure for insanity. At the base of the hill there is a facility for the pilgrims to rest and eat, which we visited and had the chance to meet some of the pilgrims who were very curious and welcoming, insisted on giving us food and wanted selfies.
We also stopped at a large cave with a hot spring pool at the bottom which supposedly has many health benefits. It all looked a bit murky to me so I gave that one a miss...
Finally we visited Nisa, a UNESCO site of a Parthian Fortress from 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD, and then a horse farm where we saw another display of Turkmen horses, and a very cute puppy of a Central Asian Shepherd Dog.
Due to the strict regime, tourists need to be supervised by a guide at all times while in Turkmenistan. However I was allowed to get an overnight train without a guide from Ashgabat to the Uzbekistan border. I had the chance to meet local people on the train, who happily insisted on sharing their food and tried to make conversation with me in a mix of their basic English and my basic Russian. There was one teenage boy in the next carriage with perfect English that mostly wanted to talk to me about how much he loved Billie Eilish! The next morning I was picked up at the train station by my compulsory guide, made a quick stop at Konye Urgench, an important archeological site on the old Silk Road dating from the 11th to the 16th century. Then I was dropped at the border to head to Uzbekistan...Read more