The border to Turkmenistan has opening hours, we arrive one hour after it opens in the morning. This means we line up in a row behind huge amounts of carpets, pillows and a lot of other stuff. Nevertheless the Iranian part is done quickly, we only need to show our passports 5 times and unload everything for the Xray scanner. As we id not get the visa in advance, but only letters of invitation instead, we have to do some uncomplicated detours. Afterwards our panniers get scanned again, everything ok. Still they want us to unpack them all – but leave the order to us. So we start with the most boring stuff, as slow as possible. We notice dumbfounded views to the remaining 10 bags, soon afterwards they decide, they have seen enough and tell us “welcome to Turkmenistan”. We leave the building and enjoy the view to the serpentine street leading downhill. We had been looking forward to riding for the last two days climbing up... One last information of the soldiers: We are not allowed to cycle but have to go by bus, because the next 35km belong to the border. We try not to understand, discuss, and cry – it doesn’t help. 10 minutes later and 20 Manat less we sit in the bus to Asgabat. When we reach the city, they let us out and we cycle on the 8 lane street, with almost no cars, into the city.
As we got transit visa valid for 5 days only and we need to make more than 600km we decide to go by train. This way we gain time for some sightseeing, with which we start in Asgabat. The country has lots of gas, a democratic dictator and plenty of policemen. We look from one to the next on our walks through the city. Without checking in advance we start to search for a hotel and accidently do a sightseeing tour on the way. The city looks very new and modern, some monuments and a gigantic sports complex , which was constructed for the Asiagames some years ago, stand out. During the night, everything glows in crazy colours – we enjoy the view from the roof of the most expensive, luxury hotel of the city – and the manager offers us a huge discount. Unfortunately we had checked into the supposedly cheapest one.
It was surprisingly uncomlpicated to buy the train tickets. On our way to the train station we go shopping and get invited from the supermarket to a family party – delicious food and some interesting information, perfect.
After 12 hours in the very comfortable sleeper cabin we crossed the whole country and arrive in Turkmenabat. Moni leaves the train with toothache and so we start to look for a dentist. We have no idea how, but we end up in a military hospital. The porter gives us a permit and we are escorted to a desntist. Only there everyone starts to wonder how we even got inside – we have no idea. Still they find an eglish-speaking doctor to translate, Moni gets treated and receives some pills. Nobody asks for money. We are very grateful and without pain we start to visit the city: There is not much to see except for one huge museum. Afterwards we look for a campsite close to a river for our last night in Turkmenistan. We join some workers in the evening – who start laughing when they hear we exchanged our money in a bank... According to them we could have burned our money, on the balck market you get about 5 times more. And we wondered all the time how expensinve everything is in Turkmenistan...
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