We drove for the Turkmenistan border on Friday 9th of August. We came up with the cunning plan of getting to the border before everyone else, in the hope of being let through in a giffy. But alas, it would not be so. We left our hotel at 4:30 AM and arrived at the border at 7:30. Really happy with ourselves, we were the first in line as the border only opened at 8. We were quickly through the Iranian side of the border, and were now looking an old, run-down, but pristinely clean, immigrations and customs building on the Turkmen side of the border.
Then things started to turn sour. We handed in our passports and Letter of Invitation, and then we waited. Aaaand waited…. Aaaaand waited some more. In the end it took us just short of 7 hours to get through the border, for now apparent reason other than the customs agents wanted it so. Oh, and it also ended up costing us $450 for our visas, mandatory “bank fees”, import license for “From the Heart” and a few other surcharges.
Finally in Turkmenistan we drove for Ashgabat, an utterly weird city: white marble buildings everywhere, exceptionally clean streets, and impressive monuments dedicated to the dictator, but very sterile. We saw many workers walking along the side of the road sweeping sand of the tarmac (IN THE MIDDLE OF A DESERT!!!!). Many of the Turkmens looked at us like we were the first westerners they’d ever seen in real life – which might very well be true. Apparently almost 20% of the tourists admitted to Turkmenistan each year are Mongol Ralliers!
From Ashgabat we drove for the Gates of Hell – a massive fire pit in the middle of the Karakum Desert. Always time optimistic, we didn’t quite make the drive before the sun set, so “From the Heart” had to firstly overcome a lot of potholes, and secondly wrestle sand dunes and plenty of gravel on the last 8 km to the crater (the last bit in the dark). A convoy of 4 other rally team joined us, and we ended up helping each other for the last bit. The Gates of Hell were exactly as impressive as we’d hoped. We enjoyed the first cold beer since we left Armenia, and cooked a simple dinner on our primus right next to the humongous fire crater.
The following morning we left early for Nukus. We quickly realized that that was indeed a good idea. The first bit of road was OK – plenty of potholes to avoid, but nothing to intimidating, and we could still make progress at a reasonable speed. That stopped rather abruptly. The last 80 km towards the border, was by far the worst roads we’ve driven on the Rally so far! And if you’ve seen our posts from the Georgian road, you would know that we’re talking about a seriously shitty road. We were snailing our way forward, doing at most 15-20 kph, and more often than not we found ourselves on the local dirt track next to the tarmac because it was smoother. 5 hours later we’d made it across, and crossed into Uzbekistan without any problems.
When it comes to travelling over deserts , the jeeps are the best options