We had about an 8 car convoy that left customs together. It’s a solid 6 hour drive to Ashgabat – the capital – from Turkmembashi where the port is. No one thought we’d make it all the way there without resting, but the only plan we had at the moment was to head east and figure it out along the way. The sun started coming up and for the first time for a lot of us we saw legitimate sand dunes. Turkmenistan is basically a whole bunch of nothing. Regardless it was cool to see the sunrise, and for that matter the moon set behind us. It’s pretty crazy because of some optical elusion as it hits the horizon it looks like it starts to compress into a rectangle. Trippy. That was about the first time we switched out drivers.
For me the biggest problem we had at the moment was water, and to certain extent food. We had run out of water hours ago and had busted out the life straw so we could drink whatever water we could find. Quite convenient that life straw. I have a feeling there were a few kids that filled up their bottles from the tap at the border building, and I also have a feeling they had a stomach issue for the next day or so. The Austrian team Freewheelin was leading the way and they eventually found a convenience store type thing along the way. Once we entered Romania it really got difficult to spot stores or restaurants, your best bet is to look for some Coca-Cola sign somewhere. Even when we pulled in it didn’t feel like a store, but when we walked in it was absolute heaven. One thing I haven’t mentioned before is the lack of refrigeration in most of where we’ve been. That little shop in nowhere Turkmenistan was the first time we’d seen legitimate fridges in a very long time. They even had working freezers with ice cream!!! It’s kinda weird to think about the things we expect as normal (and I’m sure as shit glad they are) because something as simple as a cold bottle of water is such a treat. When you have no a/c and are driving around places like Turkey with the windows down it’s only a matter of time before something that was even moderately cold is warm. And no one likes to drink warm water except for weirdos. Sorry, by warm I mean so hot you could probably cook ramen noodles. It SUCKS.
Ashgabat is weird because the hotels don’t exactly care for guests. If you show up too late in the day they will tell you that they don’t have rooms. The big place to meet there is called the Grand Turkmen Hotel, which isn’t exactly grand but it’s supposed to have wi-fi which is incredibly rare. Anywhere in Europe, Turkey, normal countries will have free wi-fi in a cafe. Turkmenistan being a dictatorship and all they don’t really have much access to the internet. More on that in a minute. At this point I think our convoy had dwindled down to 6 or so teams. When we got there the room was a little more expensive that we thought they would be ($109/night) but whatever, we were drenched in sweat and they had a pool and wi-fi. So we checked in. Turns out that very day they were shocking the pool so it was green and un-swimmable, and the wi-fi sucks. General word of advice is to have a VPN for your phone or computer if you’re going to be visiting a country with limited internet. The internet was actually so slow that the VPN’s wouldn’t work. At this point I think we had been out of contact with family and such for about 4 days, and the Turkmen government blocks Facebook, WhatsApp, most apps in the Google/Apple store, everything. We were there for an hour before we were able to get a message out to people. NOTE TO FUTURE RALLIERS IF IT STILLS EXISTS:: There’s an app in the android store you can download called Psiphon and it will let your phone portal through their stupid restrictions.
Anywho everyone showered up and decided to rest or not. Interesting thing about Turkmenistan, if you get money from an ATM you will get an exchange rate of approx 3.5 manat per USD. However the official rate is supposed to be higher, and there happened to be a little shop in the hotel that sold water and beer and such, and the woman running it would give you 6.6:1. That’s near double how far your money goes. Crazy. There were quite a few teams that were staying at the hotel and there was a consensus to meet downstairs around 7 and go check out the city a bit. 7 came around and there were at least 10 people or so downstairs exchanging stories. It was hot as fuck outside so I decided against walking around for fun. One of the other rallyers didn’t want to either, so we walked over to a restaurant to have a beer. Never met the guy before, he was Australian and pretty cool. We chatted for a bit before everyone showed up at the restaurant. Here’s another weird thing about Turkmenistan. There’s a curfew. At 10pm the restaurant literally turned off all the lights on the patio so if you were eating you had to do it in the dark, and figure out how to pay your bill in the dark too.
At this point we had become pretty good friends with a British team, two brothers Chris and Rich Birch. Great dudes. They had wandered around earlier in the day and found some random hole in the wall place that served beer so they led us there. When we got there it was empty and clearly closing, but we decided to go in and see what happened. For the most part the owner and the guys running the place spoke no English but they were cool with us having a beer or two, as long as we left before 11. At some point I got up and tried to talk to the bar people. Turns out one knew some English because he lived in Brooklyn shortly. I have no idea what we talked about but that went on. The owner eventually got uncomfortable with us being there because of the curfew thing. I don’t think he had a problem with us there at all, but the rules are super strict and he didn’t want to get in trouble I imagine. Fair enough. Super awesome though, we asked for a few beers to-go and they filled up a few empty liter bottles of beer from the tap. I’m not sure they even charged us. Cool people.
Back at the lobby of the hotel there were still a few teams up so we hung out for a bit exchanging stories and what not. I’m not sure when it happened but someone discovered that there was a club downstairs so some went down to check it out. This is really weird. It’s literally a bar filled with prostitutes. I should mention something else we had heard earlier in the day. It’s illegal to have pre-marital sex, and it’s illegal to have sex from someone who isn’t from Turkmenistan. So at this hotel, the biggest in the city, underneath it, is a club where it is common knowledge in the city where you can go find a hooker. In the year 2017 there’s a country where almost everything is illegal, yet it’s literally easier to find a hooker than it is to use the internet. Turkmenistan is a weird place.
