Turkmenistan Day 3

The Mosque

The next morning I was awakened pretty early to a noise coming from a loudspeaker across the street. For a moment I did not know what the hell the sound was until I realized it was the early morning call to prayer at the city mosque. I had traveled through Muslim nations before, so it did not cause much concern. I got up and headed downstairs to the breakfast room. I was pretty disappointed as the food was awful and the instant coffee tasted worse than anything I’d ever tried.

After returning to my room I gathered my stuff and went down to the lobby to wait for my guide and driver. While waiting I struck up an interesting conversation with two American women. I was rather shocked to meet up with American tourists in Turkmenistan, as the only Americans I had seen so far were Americans associated with big oil. It turns out they were traveling together through Turkmenistan on a tour and were heading to Iran that morning. And, I thought I was brave! As an American obtaining the proper paperwork to enter Iran is a difficult process at best, near impossible at worst! Eventually my guide and driver showed up and I wished the pair a safe and interesting journey through Iran.

Me in front of the ancient city of Merv

My day would be a full one with about four to five different stops. Our first stop was  the ancient UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization) sight, ancient Merv. Luckily Merv was not located out a three-hour bumpy, muddy road, but a bit closer to town.

A mausoleum for a martyr in Merv 

We arrived in Merv early where we toured the entire sight and I learned tons of new information about all the ancient features and the meticulous restoration of this spectacular monument by archaeologists. It was absolutely amazing what they had done and how they were able to mix the ancient with the new. As a child I had always been fascinated by archaeology and wanted to grow up to be like Indiana Jones. I could not think of anything cooler than digging up ancient sights or trekking through a jungle in Southeast Asia to find some temple abandoned long ago. I’m sure there are a lot of down sides to being an archaeologist, but it still intrigues me to this day!

Anyway, Merv was absolutely stunning and had so many cultural monuments it was hard to wrap my mind around everything the guide said. I had wished he would have provided me with some written material about our visit, but alas I’ve had to rely on my memory and web pages to try to understand this ancient monument.

Mr. President taking the first cut!

Next stop, back into town to visit the Turkmen National Museum. My guide was eager to show me the entire museum exhibits. He knew the place quite well since he took tourists there all the time. I must admit when it comes to guides showing me around museums or galleries I quickly become really bored and very tired. I knew this would be a marathon tour, so I debated just how I should approach my guide about going it alone through the museum. When we arrived at the museum I told him it would be a lot more beneficial if I were able to take in all the “great and awesome” exhibits by myself!

He was a bit shocked at first that I would pass up the opportunity to hear him lecture about such awesome exhibits as the history of Turkmen national oil companies or the now deceased President For Life Turkmenbashi’s rough draft of his rambling, million page manifesto, Ruhnama, written out by hand! How could I miss such an opportunity? Eventually after a few minutes of negotiations he agreed to let me go alone. Praise be Allah (basically Thank God in the Muslim World), I was free!  

So, off I went on my solo trip through the museum. Nothing caught my eye except a picture of the current president dressed from head to toe in bright green scrubs and gloves readying for surgery…… Wait….. this guy is not only the President but also a surgeon? I flashed back to a segment I had heard on American TV that the current Turkmen President would celebrate the opening of a new hospital by taking the first cut……….as in the first cut on the first patient. Supposedly, he used to be a dentist, but I don’t think he was a surgeon. Surgeon, dentist, same thing right? But I suppose there is a difference between filling a cavity and say opening up a person’s chest for open-heart surgery!? Hell if I knew since I’m not a doctor or dentist. Maybe those skills are interchangeable? Unlikely, but then again this was Turkmenistan!

Having finished my express tour through the museum, it was time for lunch. Our driver knew a great local teahouse (sort of like the local diner, tavern, etc..) to eat and recommended we stop there for lunch. No worries I thought, I’m cool with wherever they wanted to eat. Plus, unlike the US where you have endless choices of fast food on every corner, this was really our only option. We walked into the café, sat down and I examined the menu. There was the usual assortment of weird meats, shishgabobs, etc… Nothing was looking too good, but I was really hungry. I finally found a good noodle stew called Lagman. I had eaten this before while in Central Asia, plus my host family/friends in Russia were from Kazakhstan and always served it for dinners. I’d be fine I assumed! But, of course never ASSUME or it makes an [ASS] out of [U] and [ME.]! I should’ve thought of that before I started my soup. Oh well!

While waiting for lunch to come, my driver wanted to know a bit more about me asking in Russian “Stiv (Steve)……………..are you married?” I responded “no”. He was shocked, and then preceded to ask how old I was? I answered I was 36. He nearly had a heart attack (let’s hope the President wouldn’t work on him) and nearly dropped his cigarette and cup of tea on the ground! He could not believe it, saying, “36 and not married, your mother must not be happy!” Luckily, my mother is cool with my marital status. Before I had to mount a defense to why at the ripe old age of 36 I was not married, our lunch came.

The noodle soup was ok, nothing spectacular! We finished our lunch and I had a decision to make. Did I want to go out another dirt road for about an hour one-way to visit The Talhatan Baba Mosque? The guide explained the mosque was nothing spectacular, but that it was included in my itinerary so it wouldn’t cost me anything extra. Having just survived the rough road out to Mashguz the other day, I decided it was best to punt and conserve my energy.

The main bazzar in Mary.

However, this left a gigantic gaping hole in my day as the flight back to Ashgabat was not until late that night, giving me approximately eight to nine hours to kill in a rather boring city. We killed about an hour at the local bazar/market, which is like a gigantic one stop shopping mall. My guide found some cool DVD music videos and some other great stuff. I however was starting to feel real, real tired! It was natural to get a bit tired after a long day of sightseeing and socializing, but for some reason I was feeling much worse than your usual tired after a long day! I suddenly start to feel hot, chilled, dazed and just downright awful. I could not imagine sitting around for six hours in this condition!!

A Russian Orthodox Church we stopped at after lunch.

Recognizing that I was feeling pretty ill, plus the fact that the flight back to Ashgabat wasn’t for another whopping seven hours, I felt it’d be best to pull off the road and refuel! Luckily, my guide helped me find a small hotel in town that was willing to only charge me $20 for a half-day use of a room!

Turkmenistan Airlines

I was convinced that four to five hours of rest would completely recharge me and I’d be more than ready to face the cluster f*ck that was the Mary Airport and Turkmenistan Airlines. Unfortunately……………………………………… Stay tuned to find out whether I made it back to Ashgabat or wound up in a Turkmen hospital where President Mälikgulyýewiç Berdimuhamedow would come in and operate on me : ) !!