Ashgabat, Turkmenistan

GETTING TO ASHGABAT: Going through the Istanbul airport, person after person after person asked us to carry parcels and bags through the checkpoints to get on the plane to Ashgabat. I don’t think that it was for any suspicious reason – I suspect that people from surrounding countries travel to Istanbul, shop like crazy, go WAY over their baggage/carry-on weight limit and don’t want to pay overage fees. When we checked in, some families had every single member (especially the women dressed in bright Turkmen clothing) loaded up with a cart towering with boxes.

Everyone (politely) pushed and shoved their way on and off the bus to get to the plane. For all the initial craziness, we all settled in quite quickly. The Airbus 340 was modern and clean. THhe staff was friendly and helpful. There was plenty of storage space. We all got blankets and pillows (with pillow cases!). To top it off, food and drinks were free. This must be what it was like to have been flying 20 years ago at home!

It took about 2 hours to pay the landing fee, clear customs, grab our baggage and get out the door. Thank heavens, a car from the tour company was waiting for us! We got to the hotel at about 5:30 am. That gave us a whole 3 hours to sleep before we meet up with some our fellow travelers.

TOLKUCHKA: We ate a hearty breakfast of pizza and hot dogs in stewed tomatoes – just like Momma used to make! A few of use decided to grab a taxi to the Tolkuchka Bazaar. It is an extremely modern and massive series of buildings packed with food, carpets and more scarves then you ever imagined existed.

The first impression of Ahsgabat is that it is very modern, clean and somewhat surreal. The buildings are all white marble in a heavy, monumental Soviet style. Ashgabat was razed in a massive earthquake in 1948 so pretty much everything is new – more about that later.