You learn a lot of things from travelling–about other cultures, habits, and different outlooks on life. I learned a lot when I went to the “Stans”, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. These are all former Soviet republics, just recently opened to tourism. We tried to go to Tajikistan, we got to the border, we could see Tajikistan on the other side, but due to SARS, the customs people all came out in masks and gloves and wouldn’t let us in. Since we were counting countries, we were all disappointed.

In flying from Los Angeles, I was torn, which way to fly, what makes the most sense? With a 12 to 14 hour time change, it would be just as easy to fly through Tokyo as through Frankfurt, so I thought. Unfortunately, there are few connections from Tokyo or Beijing into Ashkabat, Turkmenistan or out of Almaty, Kazakhstan, so the best way was through Frankfurt with United and Lufthansa. Turkish Airlines is also an excellent choice and much cheaper, I had very good luck with them. Also, with SARS, many of the borders had been closed out of China and flights were cancelled.

I started out from Los Angeles, flying into Frankfurt and connecting to a Turkish Airlines flight into Istanbul, then on to Ashkabat. With the time change and hours of flying, it was 35 hours from LAX to ASB. The plane was delayed leaving LAX, so by the time we got to Frankfurt, with changing terminals from one end to the other, I missed the Turkish plane to Istanbul, it was pulling out as I ran to the gate. I went to the Lufthansa desk, I had to get on a plane to Istanbul and I knew there was a Lufthansa flight leaving later, so I got on it and arrived in Istanbul for a 5 hour wait for the flight to Turkmenistan.

Istanbul has a very modern airport and nice facilities, and they accept Euros. The Turkish lira was about 1.7 million to 1 so I got their paper money to collect and was a multi-millionaire in the process!

TURKMENISTAN

We arrived in Ashkabad at 3:30 am, from Istanbul to Ashkabad is like flying from LA to New York so we all file off the plane and into the immigration area. With all my countries, I have never seen anything like this. There is one line, there is one desk, they have special carboned sheets of paper they have to fill our for each person, only with a blue pen, then checked off another sheet, then you must pay $10, then they fill out a card, only with another type of blue pen, then they can’t find the blue pen, and they process each person very, very slowly. It was all Turkish workers except for 2 Russian ladies and me, so they let the Russian ladies go as they don’t need visas, and the rest of us stand there. I can’t speak Turkish, or Turkmen, they don’t speak English, I show that I have a visa already, so does everyone else, they just motion me back in the line. So eventually, the guys start paying the guys in the front to put in their passports too, but an immigration guys sees this, says for everyone to hand in their passports, we all rush to do so, mine is the odd one, they put it on the bottom! After flying for 2 days I imagine being stuck here for 4 hours or more, the people meeting me will go home, I will be stranded in Turkmenistan if I ever get in!! So after a few minutes they say “dama” which I must be woman, I say yes and they motion me to go, handed me a bunch of papers and off I go, I have arrived! But no, this gets me through the first step to another line, a nice guy checks me off on a piece of paper (they are expecting me), fills out yet another form, stamp and stamp and off I go, I find my suitcase, I see an exit, no no, they motion, go over to this desk for customs, they x-ray my bags, then open one, they look and look , they give me a form, then to a lady who looks at all this, opens my other bag, checks how many rolls of film I have, looks at my video camera, writes it all down, and lets me go. So 2 _ hours later I arrive at the hotel, what a relief!

There are 4 of us in our Bestways tour group–we didn’t know each other before arriving in Central Asia, but 3 of us were from southern California. Marion, a retired teacher from Ojai, Steve, a librarian IT specialist from Los Angeles, myself, and Mary, a United Airlines flight attendant based in London who brought a lot of spice to the group!

In Turkmenistan the official rate is 5200 Manat to the dollar, the unofficial rate is 18,500. Things were very cheap either way, but I got my money at the unofficial rate all the time.

The Nissa Hotel was tremendous, very modern, very clean, and a fantastic view of the city from the window. The restaurant serves the best Italian food I have ever eaten outside of Italy, and we got a stipend so we could try different things in our price range. It was probably the best food we had the entire trip.

We visited the Carpet Museum with tremendous carpets from all over the country. They are planning a big festival and competition so there are new and old carpets on display. You hear about various kinds of carpets but the most famous are really from Turkmenistan and the prices are much better than the neighboring countries. A TV crew was taping a segment for the evening news and asked us if we would like to be interviewed, yes of course! This was quite new for Marion but I had a great time and we said how much we liked the country and so on, that the carpets were beautiful etc. Yes, we would recommend our friends to come and we are enjoying our stay. Our guide translated for us and added something about the glorious president, I am sure it was important for him to do that.

One thing I noticed was the Turkmen women, they are all so elegant and have a regal bearing, their posture, their hair always put up in an elegant way, their dresses–whether a teenager or a grandmother, everywhere I noticed the dignified aura of the Turkmen woman.

I am learning a lot about the culture when I visit a country from watching the news on television. Even if I don’t understand the language, I see what is important to them, what kind of other TV shows they have, you can tell a lot about the openness of a country this way. There was a lot of coverage of the Independence day celebration held yesterday, tons of video of the President, called Turkmenbashi, lots of reports on his daily activities, a section where they read from his green book of knowledge and wisdom called the Ruhnama (Revival), describing his point of view on a variety of subjects, and some dancers and singers extolling his virtues with a very large picture of him in the background.

I took a walk to the Presidential Palace, the Parliament building, a lovely pedestrian promenade where people would look at me and smile but never hassle, never ask for money, never try to sell something, the culture is too dignified. There are very few private cars, many crowded buses, and small apartments from the Soviet era. There are lovely fountains, the weather is perfect, and I was free to take photos anywhere. There are lots of policemen on the streets but they would just smile, I would smile back and keep walking!

I went up in the Arch of Independence, with a gold statue of Turkmenbashi on the top that rotates throughout the day in the direction of the sun and took tremendous photos of the city.

I also visited the Earthquake Memorial from the 1948 disaster where most of Ashkabad was destroyed,

the War Memorial to those who served in World War II,

Congress Hall, and various buildings around Ashkabad, where people were walking, couples were strolling, and such a nice, quiet atmosphere.

I saw Meg Ryan in “Kate and Leopold” dubbed in Russian, more news on Turkmenbashi, and brushed up my Cyrillic reading the cities and temperatures on the weather report.

The next day we visited the Talkuchka Market, a huge Sunday market where you can buy everything from tires to needles to videotapes to carpets to camels.

It was founded in 1881 and is the center of activity for the entire country, with music and food and everywhere people greeting us and saying hello. I saw license plates from all over Turkmenistan here today. One thing you don’t see in the Stans, anywhere, is license plates from neighboring countries, people don’t drive and vacation or visit relatives from one country to the other. In each Stan I asked why, they said it was either too expensive to visit or they would take the bus. Gasoline is 2 cents US a liter or 8 cents a gallon, I wish I could take some home! Teachers make about $200 per month. Our driver is a mechanical engineer, but he drives part time to meet the tourists, he was very nice and helpful. The women run the market, and do much of the trading and dealing.

There are roads linking the entire country, but tourists fly from one section of the country to the other, as it is very far and very cheap for us to go.

We then visited the Nissa Fortress, from the Roman empire 300BC-300AD, part of the Parthian empire, a stopover point for Roman prisoners before they went to Merv afterwards. The ziggurat related to those in Ur, Babylon, and Iran (all neighbors). The aristocrats lived inside the walls, while the common people lived outside, and only came inside in case of attack. Unfortunately, many of the excavations were re-buried in the 1948 earthquake, and some things were looted, but archeological teams still work on the site.

We also visited the Olympic stadium with 40,000 seats, named for the President, the Ruhnama monument with a huge statue of the book which opens and closes several times per day,

and the Independence monument, with a big tower and a gold statue of the President on the top, with his slogan Halk, Watan, Turkmenbashi (People, Nation, me (Turkmenbashi.)

There is also a boulevard “strip”of hotels in different shapes and with neon lights, very much like Las Vegas, but most only have 20 rooms each and are empty.

The President built the museum from his own funds, so they say, as well as orphanages. The 5 stars in the flag are for the 5 wilayats (provinces), there are also 5 tribes, 5 is a very important number for them.

The President is also the head of all Turkmens around the world, no matter which country they live in. One good thing he has done is to quit smoking, so smoking is forbidden in many public places, which is great for a tourist like me, used to living in a society where people don’t smoke! Gas, electricity and water are all free. He even renamed the months of the year, which everyone is required to follow.

The Independence Monuments are incredible, most of the statues are of the President, usually in gold, but there is still one Lenin Statue. There is also a wonderful statue of Magtumguly, the father of Turkmen literature, something even more than a Shakespeare to English-speaking people, lived 1733-ca. 1800.

They have beautiful shopping centers and opulent buildings but the people don’t live so well, the apartments looked very simple and there are very few cars. The usual wage for a TV reporter is $180 a month, a guide makes about $10 a day, which is not a lot of money.

We also visited the Ertogul Gazy Mosque, the main mosque in town, which was lovely–I felt I was not properly dressed to enter but they said it was fine, so we sat in the men’s section, just absorbing the beauty of the arches, the architecture. Only 3 people were there even at prayer time.

We also visited Merv, which is a short plane flight on a former Aeroflot Antonov propeller plane. We did get a chocolate bar and water on the flight, more than most US airlines!! We had to circle abruptly and go around to land again; we later found out a military plane cut in front of us and you have to let them go. Merv was settled from the 5th Century C.E. and has been Buddhist, Christian, Zoroastrian, Seljuk, Sufis, with Islam coming in between the 10th and 12th centuries with Arabic calligraphy found from the 12th century. The legend is that Scheherazade told her stories here, as caravans moved along the Silk Route. Many religions lived here together until the Mongols came and killed millions. It is amazing to think we are only 4 hours from the Afghan border. This part of Turkmenistan was the most southern part of the former USSR, latitude 38 North, 58 East.

Islam is the state religion of Turkmenistan but they produce wine, the women wear short sleeves, I asked about the drinking and several people laughed and said, “well, we were also Russian”, and they are just as likely to toast Ramadan with vodka as with dates and water. Most mosques also have a Ruhnama room, where you can study the book of Turkmenbashi, which would certainly be a shock for most Muslims who usually just study the Qu’ran. The Sultan Sanjar area has 10 ft. (3m) walls which protected the old city from attack.

We also visited the town of Mary (pronounced Mar-IH) with beautiful buildings and they were practicing for a folk dance performance on TV with beautiful, colorful costumes and always a photo of the President in the background. The museum is also very good with a lot of artifacts and specimens of the life there.

We ate wonderful food in Turkmenistan, even in the smallest towns. We also flew to Dashoguz, in the far north of the country, a Boeing 727 this time. They have no women pilots and the pilots are mostly Russian. From Dashoguz you can fly to Moscow, Tashkent, even though it is a very small town, but it is a crossroads.

We crossed the Karakum desert and landed in the rain, with a huge swarm of people all being checked by the police since it is on the border with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. One advantage in taking a tour is they have all our permits and we have someone to speak on our behalf to the police, which is very helpful in a place like this.

We were very lucky with the weather on this trip, though, because by the time get got to Konya Urgench, the rain had stopped. It was the capital of the ancient state of Khorezm, which now encompasses Konya (old) Urgench in Turkmenistan and Urgench in Uzbekistan, all the way to Khiva. This was a prime land of the Mongols, Timur (Tamerlane) and Genghis Khan.

This is just one example of the artificial borders of the Soviet Republics, drawn in 1925, which split tribes, families, towns in two. During Soviet times, it was free to travel and the republics all depended on each other, now with independence, it has made the situation more tense with visas required and few western trading partners for their goods.

The Urgench area is part of the Silk Route, in use from the 1st century BC through the 9th century AD, with every 50 km a caravanserai, a hotel/stable complex for overnight travelers. The Silk Route was used for other goods through the 1500s when sea routes were developed after the discovery of the Americas.

Konye Urgench has the highest minaret in Central Asia, called Kutluq Timur, 62m tall (about 200 feet), with the turquoise on the domes mostly unrestored.

Some do have blue tiles, and you see inclined ladders on the graves so their spirits can climb to heaven.

When the ladder is all the way to the ground, tradition declares that their spirits have arrived in heaven.

One interesting thing in this area is there are many Korean restaurants and a large Korean population. We had a spectacular lunch of dumplings, soup with beef, salad, at a Korean restaurant, refugees to the Soviet Union from the Korean War on the North Korean side.

The peacock symbol is used for the Khorezm kings and looks a lot like the NBC Peacock, and there are hills full of white prayer flags which reminded me of Nepal and Bhutan.

Another interesting thing about the people is that so many have gold teeth. It is not necessarily for dental problems but more likely for fashion, they like the way it looks! The children here are also very sweet, they come up and look and smile, sometimes they say hello, and some want to practice the English they learn from the Peace Corps workers in the area. Many students can enter the university, some go to Russia to study, or to Kazakhstan, and some of the embassies have scholarships for local students.

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