In the Cambodian beach resort of Sihanoukville, we put together our latest podcast. This time we talk more about Central Asia - the amazing Lake Song Kol in Kyrgyzstan, our favourite and not-so-favourite parts of the region and what to bring. Plus we have an interview with Greg, a Hungarian cycling the Silk Road who made us a great vegetarian breakfast. And we tell you why it’s important to know how to say ‘I am a carrot’ in Russian. Or you could read the blog of Hirsch, the cyclist who introduced us to this important phrase!

 

 Standard Podcast [37:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

“Any carpets? Drugs? Guns?”

We shook our heads and giggled. The thought of carrying a carpet or a rifle on our bike tour was oddly funny to us. The guard smiled too. “We’ll search your bags, just to make sure there’s nothing dangerous.”

Turkmenistan was trying to be thorough as we made our way through their customs formalities and towards the Uzbekistan border post. They turned out to be quite soft in the end. The bag check never materialised and when an official came over to berate us for not registering with authorities after five days (something we checked with the Tehran embassy and were told we definitely did not need to do), he immediately backed off when we said we were sure of our position.

A few minutes later the exit stamp was in our passports and we were on our way, past the last smiling picture of Niyazov and across no-man’s land to the Uzbekistan frontier. Several families were pushing their belongings on carts between border posts and  for perhaps the first time ever we caught people enviously eyeing our relatively speedy and efficient bicycles. The deluxe mode of transport! The Uzbek officials were efficient and friendly, helping us to fill out a customs form entirely in Russian and then speeding us through the rest of the process. All told, it took us just over an hour to leave Turkmenistan and enter Uzbekistan. (more…)

The Turkmenabad hotel was a little pricey for our tastes so we moved on this morning but not before we stopped to watch a few women in the kitchen preparing samsas for a nearby restaurant, putting chopping beef and onions into pastry, brushing the dough with chicken fat and baking the delicious looking treats for about 30 minutes. Food to drool over!

When we finally tore ourselves away from the kitchen it was off to the market to spend our remaining manat. As usual, we caused a stir and several children and adults alike gathered around Andrew to pepper him with questions in Russian while Friedel did the shopping. It was hard to figure out what to buy because we didn’t have much money left and needed to make sure we got the right things to last us until Uzbekistan. It took about four trips in and out of the market, checking prices, discussing what we wanted most and then running back in to make the purchase before we’d spent the very last of our coins and notes.

To give you an idea of how far money goes here, for about $3 U.S. we bought three large rounds of bread, a large bag of carrots, a few mixed cucumbers and tomatoes, a large tin of sardines, pickles and a small portion of a prepared salad.

After our shopping, we set off the road to Uzbekistan, across a bumpy and unstable floating bridge which forms yet another part of the main road through Turkmenistan. They collect a toll for crossing it (not from cyclists) but it still looks like it might give up at any moment and traffic drives all over the bridge, trying to avoid the worst parts. This country must be such a joke among truckers. Its transport links seem to be falling to pieces everywhere we look. What a shame because the Turkmen people are lovely. They deserve a better government.

We stopped in a quiet place to read for a few hours but wind and threatening rain sent us off to look for a campsite before long and we had to search for a while in the heavily cultivated fields. Finally we found a spot at the end of a track and we were glad to get into the warmth of our tent. We heard on the radio that snow – yes snow!! – in London had forced many flights to be cancelled and we wondered if this was the same cool weather pushing through Turkmenistan. It was certainly a world away from what we’d seen over the past week.

Turkmenistan’s cities are the most bizarre of our trip so far.

Today we arrived in Turkmenabad, the country’s second biggest city. When we reached Mary a few days earlier we found it oddly deserted so this time we were hoping for a bit of life on the streets. We cycled down a long boulevard, wide and reasonably modern with a string of government buildings in white, polished stone. A larger-than-life statue of Turkmenistan’s dearly departed dictator sat in front of each one. He died in late 2006 but so numerous are the pictures and sculptures of Niyazov, with no sign of Turkmenistan’s current president, you could be forgiven for wondering if he died at all.

After going several kilometers and never seeing a sign or more than a solitary shop, we started to wonder just where the centre was. We stopped to ask directions from a group of taxi drivers. “Centre?” we said, speaking first in English and then using broken Russian. “Da,” they replied, pointing to the ground beneath them. Here, right here, they seemed to be saying but all we saw running off the boulevard was a string of Soviet apartment blocks with flaking paint, sagging shutters, rusting satellite dishes and a few depressed citizens outside smoking cigarettes.

It turned out this was the centre and our hotel was in one of these vintage buildings. Not long afterwards a slim woman with streaks of red in her blond hair was showing us to our suite in Hotel Lebapgurlushyk. Yes, here in Turkmenistan $25 U.S. buys you a real three-room hotel suite. Before you get too jealous, it’s hardly the Ritz with fading, ripped wallpaper, flaking paint and dusty sofas. Still, it’s almost certainly the only suite we’ll be able to afford on our travels so we’ll just close our eyes and bask in our imagined glory. To be honest, we thought the price was inflated compared to what we’ve paid elsewhere in Turkmenistan, and at five times the going rate for Turkmen citizens, but our choices were limited. This hotel seems to be the only game in town at the moment and they seem to know that. Anyway, the shower was hot and after a few days in the desert that was all that really mattered.

Later, we set out once again to try to find some excitement in Turkmenabad. Every street was almost empty. Once in a while we’d stumble across a Turkmenbashi Bank on one block, a cafe a few hundred meters away, but you could hardly call it a lively atmosphere. Eating out is cheap here so we wandered into a dark restaurant for a meal that ran us all of $7 U.S for bread, a starter, main course, drinks and a tip. With Russian music videos booming away in the background, most of the tables empty and barely enough light to see what we were eating, our big night out in Turkmenistan felt just like the city of Turkmenabad itself; certainly memorable, easy on the wallet but more than a little strange!

It’s a long haul through the desert that covers about ninety percent of Turkmenistan. We’re just on day four of our seven-day transit visa but already we’re a bit tired of the endless sand dunes and the wind that never quite seems to blow on our backs. The barren landscape is punctuated only by the occasional cafe or small village. You have to wonder just what people do for entertainment here in these remote outposts, where there’s quite literally nothing for at least 100km in any direction. We had our morning break at the sole cafe in our day’s path, enjoying a pot of tea and a bowl of mutton soup for Friedel. It may not sound too appealing but after Iran’s lack of cuisine, hearty soups with lots of flavour and a potato or two thrown in are a real culinary highlight! Who knows if we’ll still feel so loving towards mutton after three months in Central Asia but for now we’re enjoying the change immensely. Originally we thought we’d stop for the night at a cafe in Repetek but tales from other travellers of drunk truck drivers and dirty accomodation changed our mind. Instead we managed to drag our bikes behind a sand dune and pitched our tent in a dip in the landscape.

That evening we cooked supper using a Soviet sausage that was as hard as a rock. It was like that when we bought it on our first day in Turkmenistan and hadn’t changed since. Take a look at this hammer of a sausage: