Since our last update we have travelled eastwards through Uzbekistan's Kyzylkum Desert, stopping at the famous Silk Road cities of Khiv, Bukhara and Samarkand to admire the turquoise tiled domes and towering minarets of Timurid and Shaybandid mosques and medrassas.
The staggering number of French, Italian and Spanish tour groups swamping these small sites made us feel rather les adventurous than we might have hoped in Central Asia's 'bad boy' republic, but we did manage to hitch a ride in the back of a transit van from Nukus to Khiva to slightly make up for this!
Our stay in Samarkand was prolongued by a nasty attack of food poisoning which had both of us out for a few days, but we are now happily on the road again, having spent the last week in Tajikistan.
Our introduction to this poorest, most remote part of the 'Stans' was not good. We had to bribe the border guard to let us into the country (because he chose to fabricate a problem with Ross' visa) and then later we were charged a huge premium (because we were foreigners) and put on a bus which stopped 10km short of the destination we had paid for.
However, since then things have improved dramatically. We were rescued from the roadside by a friendly local who found us a bus going the last 10 km then another villager on the bus invited us to have dinner and stay at his house. We spent the next 4 days trekking in the beautiful Fan Mountains, with a donkey to carry our bags, surrounded by snow capped peaks and turquoise lakes. In every village we passed, locals waved a friendly welcome and invited us to stop for a cup of tea or even lunch with them. Camping higher up cooking was by collecting wood and making a camp fire, a first for us! We met a lovely man from Duschanbe who invited us to travel back with him and stay in his home. In fact we have been in Tajikistan for a week and have not yet paid for a nights accommodation.
From here we begin our adventure to the Pamirs, which will take us along the highest road in the world and to the remotest part of the country. No internet access here, so when we write next, we will (hopefully) be in Kyrgystan.
Friday, 29 August 2008
Wednesday, 13 August 2008
Turkmenistan
Our introduction into Central Asian bureaucracy was swift in coming. It took us 2.5 hrs to cross the border into Turkmenistan without any problems. We have spent the last week travelling with a guide, which is a condition of being granted a visa in Turkmenistan. This is a way of travelling we are not used to but the air-conditioned 4x4 came in handy as the average daytime temperature was between 40 and 45 degrees, the hottest day in the desert was pushing 50.
Our whistle stop tour included several ancient sites, one of which dated back to 3,000 BC this was in start contrast to our time in the capital, which is all about bling! Most of the significant revenue from oil and gas sales seem to have gone on an astounding building project, which has transformed Ashgabat to a city of white marble buildings, mostly housing government departments. The piece de resistance is the gold statue of the ex-president on top of an arch, which rotates to ensure that it is always facing the sun. This combined with the deserted streets gave the feel of a model town or film set, all be it a very impressive one.
After Ashgabat we headed off into the desert and spent the night camping next to the Davarsa gas crater. Noone knows how it was set on fire, burning enough gas to fill to supply a town of 30,000 every day. Although not great for the environment this was truly spectacular, you feel you are standing at the gates of hell.
We are now in Uzbekistan and have decided to take a trip to Moynac, which used to be a thriving fishing port, but now stands in a desert 150 km from the sea. The sea has dried up due to the soviet initiative to divert the river water which supplied it into canals, which continues to irrigate coton fields in Turkmenistan's desert.
After a few more days of this heat we will head to the cooler climates in the mountains.
Our whistle stop tour included several ancient sites, one of which dated back to 3,000 BC this was in start contrast to our time in the capital, which is all about bling! Most of the significant revenue from oil and gas sales seem to have gone on an astounding building project, which has transformed Ashgabat to a city of white marble buildings, mostly housing government departments. The piece de resistance is the gold statue of the ex-president on top of an arch, which rotates to ensure that it is always facing the sun. This combined with the deserted streets gave the feel of a model town or film set, all be it a very impressive one.
After Ashgabat we headed off into the desert and spent the night camping next to the Davarsa gas crater. Noone knows how it was set on fire, burning enough gas to fill to supply a town of 30,000 every day. Although not great for the environment this was truly spectacular, you feel you are standing at the gates of hell.
We are now in Uzbekistan and have decided to take a trip to Moynac, which used to be a thriving fishing port, but now stands in a desert 150 km from the sea. The sea has dried up due to the soviet initiative to divert the river water which supplied it into canals, which continues to irrigate coton fields in Turkmenistan's desert.
After a few more days of this heat we will head to the cooler climates in the mountains.
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
Iran - Heat, Politics and unbelievable kindness
The two weeks in Iran flew by, we have so many stories that we can't possibly tell them all but the overwhelming memories will be of unbelievable generosity and kindness of everyone we met. For the first four days of our trip we did not take our wallet out of our pocket as Iranians saw us as guests in their country and refused to let us pay for anything while we were with them - even one of the shop keepers in the bazaar let us have something for free when he found out we were from London.
Every five minutes we were asked whether we were married and if we had children, if not why not and when will we have them. Answering all of these questions is both amusing and hard as we haven't even discussed them ourselves yet..... we just made it up as we went along, depending on who we were speaking to!
In any discussion the serious questions of religion and politics are never far away, especially with young Iranian men, who are concerned about the future of their country and the image of it that is portrayed in the world media. We found nothing but kindness, generosity and tolerance of others. We felt more welcome and safer there than most other countries we have travelled in.
There is also a fun light hearted side of Iran. Every evening on the train to Iran the restaurant car was full of people singing and dancing and the girls that we met prefer to talk about boys and fashion rather than politics. One amusing incident involved one of our friends running down the street away from the 'fashion police' as she was walking in a brightly coloured coat and loads of make-up. When we met up the next evening she was looking a lot more conservative!
While meeting the people was the highlight there was no shortage of cultural and historical sights to see, so rich and mixed has been the history of Persia and then Iran. Visiting these places is made more poignant by the fact that the history impacts so emotionally on the present.
We wish we had been able to spend more time there but visa restrictions mean that we needed to be in Turkmenistan sooner than we would have liked.
Every five minutes we were asked whether we were married and if we had children, if not why not and when will we have them. Answering all of these questions is both amusing and hard as we haven't even discussed them ourselves yet..... we just made it up as we went along, depending on who we were speaking to!
In any discussion the serious questions of religion and politics are never far away, especially with young Iranian men, who are concerned about the future of their country and the image of it that is portrayed in the world media. We found nothing but kindness, generosity and tolerance of others. We felt more welcome and safer there than most other countries we have travelled in.
There is also a fun light hearted side of Iran. Every evening on the train to Iran the restaurant car was full of people singing and dancing and the girls that we met prefer to talk about boys and fashion rather than politics. One amusing incident involved one of our friends running down the street away from the 'fashion police' as she was walking in a brightly coloured coat and loads of make-up. When we met up the next evening she was looking a lot more conservative!
While meeting the people was the highlight there was no shortage of cultural and historical sights to see, so rich and mixed has been the history of Persia and then Iran. Visiting these places is made more poignant by the fact that the history impacts so emotionally on the present.
We wish we had been able to spend more time there but visa restrictions mean that we needed to be in Turkmenistan sooner than we would have liked.
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