From Bukhara, Uzbekistan to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan

So this morning we were up early, packed and ready to leave Bukhara and head to the border. We drove about two hours, and finally came to the border. When we got there, one of the tour agents had gone ahead with our passports to get the process of leaving Uzbekistan started. He told us that at the present time, the guards were "loyal" to us (translation: had been bought off), which greatly reduced our time we had to wait it still took over an hour to fill out customs forms, pass through customs, then pass through immigration to get our exit stamp, but eventually we got that all done. Normally, you have to walk about a half a mile through the neutral zone until you reach Turkmenistan's section of the neutral zone, but the "loyal" guards let us take the bus to that point. There was then a shuttle on the Turkmenistan border that drove the next half a mile to the Turkmenistan border station. Since it was a nice day and I had been sitting on the bus or waiting in a line all morning, I decided to walk that distance pulling my bag behind me.

When we got to the Turkmenistan border station, we met up with Gozel, our guide while in Turkmenistan. She had taught most of the immigration officers English, and since there is a respect for teachers in this country, she was basically able to boss them all around to bulldoze our way through the customs and immigration process. The whole process from the start at the Uzbekistan side to the finish on the Turkmenistan side took about two hours and fifteen minutes. Apparently, this was a new record for Gary, our tour leader, who has done this particular border crossing approximately twenty times.

On the bus and through with the immigration process, we headed to Turkmenabad (the "d" at the end makes a "t" sound). Along the way, we had to cross a pontoon bridge, and since it wasn't safe enough for us to be on the bus when it crossed, we had to walk the third of a mile or so to the other side. We then rejoined our bus and drove to the restaurant for lunch. After lunch, we received news that since the President of Turkmenistan was flying through that airport that afternoon, our flight had been delayed by four hours, so instead of having a 7pm flight, we now had an 11:20pm flight. Gozel told us, "Even God doesn't know what going to happen tomorrow in Turkmenistan." She has already become one of my favorite guides we've had on this trip...

So, we hung out at the restaurant for a bit. There were a bunch of younger people (late teens, early twenties) working there, and they all were very eager to communicate with us. The problem is that my Russian is not very good, and neither is their English, so we definitely had a language barrier that was pretty impossible to cross. After hanging out for a bit, we decided to take a trip to the local market. That was where we got our first real taste of the people here, and let me just tell you that they are the smilingest, happiest group of folks I've ever met!


My new friends (the one wearing the scarf wanted to marry me):


After our market excursion, we headed back to the restaurant, where some exchange students had come to meet with us and talk to us about their experiences in the States, and to also tell us about their country (Turkmenistan). This country has an extremely interesting history of governance (more in tomorrow's blog), and these kids were really great. It was a very good experience, and everyone on the trip agreed that we were happy the flight was delayed, otherwise we would have just had to spend the afternoon in the airport waiting for our flight.

After the talk, we had dinner and then headed to the airport for our domestic flight to Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan. Airports in developing nations are always a treat, and this airport was no exception. The whole process of checking in took about an hour, and then we got to wait in a hot, stuffy departure "lounge" for about an our and a alf before our flight finally boarded. The flight only lasted about 45 minutes, and the lighted skyline was worth the price of the ticket alone.


We collected our bags, piled into the bus, and drove to our hotel. This city is incredible, and I was glad to get to see it all lit up at night (I don't want to talk too much more about Ashgabat, because you really wouldn't believe me without pictures anyway... I'll save this for tomorrow's blog!). We checked into the hotel, and since it was almost 2am at this point, went straight to sleep.


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