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Our
time in Uzbekistan has gone but all too quickly
and if truth be told we’d love to stay for
longer but with our Turkmen visa dates fixed in
stone and only being a 5-day transit we have no
choice but to leave. We were both anxious about
the border crossing into Turkmenistan.
We
tucked into the breakfast and coffee served up
in the food room at Sasha and Sons and on the
bikes with the help of the GPS found our way out
of the labyrinth that is old Bukhara. We’d
paid a taxi 6,000 to help us out of town whilst
at the same time finding us some good fuel. We
needed to top up the crap we’re using right
now with some 91 octane.
South
of town we followed a beaten up orange Lada and
rode on patchy tar out of the suburbs and into
farm land. Swaths of tall marshy yellow grass
to our left are pushed by the biting cold wind,
their movement rhythmical, swaying back and forth
like waves in the sea. The steel grey sky does
little to remove the anxiety we feel as we ride
closer to the border. A large hand painted sign
in white wash on a wall simply reads ‘Turkmenistan’
and a large arrow directs us left at a junction.
The border is a mile ahead but to our right the
long low hillside is covered in heads tones and
mausoleums. Thousand of plaques and now decrepit
brick structures stretch as far as we can see.
As if on cue from a movie director a shaft of
orange sunlight bursts through the clouds and
lights a small part of the cemetery. We can see
20 or so people attending a grave, heads bowed
and some holding hands. We momentarily forget
just how cold we are.
At
the border we easily checked out of Uzbekistan
and nervously inched towards the Turkmen side.
The Uzbek customs control guard didn’t want
to be bothered with searching us and so just asked
us to point out what we had were (that was a relief!)
and after double-checking how much cash we still
had on us we were able to leave. (note: never
never get your money out to actually show them
how much you have on entry or exit!)
ON
the Turkmen side our passports were quickly scanned
by the young looking guards in their tired hand
me down uniforms.
Past
them we ride on another 50 feet, large slabs of
cracked and now tilted concrete make up the road
and the compound looks bizarrely familiar. And
then it hits me, it’s a disused fuel station.
A few low wooden shacks that once held tools acts
as the vehicle inspection area and the larger
squat tin building that sits under the heavy looking
lofty roof was once the cashier’s room.
An
outstretched arm from a Kalashnikov-toting guard
points us towards the small dirty shack to our
left. Old glass had been set in the wooden frames
with concrete and layers of what was once paint
peels off the decaying chip board walls. Inside
we again handed over our passports and with a
round faced official in civvies we started to
complete the process of fee calculation. Like
so many before him his set about his task with
all the deliberation and concentration of a president
signing a peace accord. It’s fucking painful
to watch as he checks our documents and then fills
in the necessary information, his hands leading
his eyes from section to slow section and all
the while we’re thinking, “shit and
this is just the first, he’s got Lisa’s
bike to do yet, we’re going to be here for
hours”.
Fuel
in Turkmen is dirt cheap, heavily subsidized by
the government, but at the end of the first slowly
completed process we were issued very clear and
official documents which listed the fees in Turkmen
and English. Here’s what we paid as listed
on the vehicle entry permit:
Vehicle
disinfection - $1
Entry and transit passage - $15
Compensation of fuel coast - $24
3rd party liability insurance - $15
Processing documents - $5
Total
- $60
An
additional $2 was paid for processing
Over
at the passport control we handed over our passports
and were directed to the small kiosk which acts
as a bank. At the kiosk we paid the $60 for the
vehicle plus the $2 fee and then $10 per person
for entry plus another $2 bank fee total paid
$74 per person
OK,
expensive when you consider that these fees are
on top of the monies we’ve already paid
for the visa’s but still a lot less than
we heard and expected.
Walking
back to the bikes a few shouts from guards directed
us to the low grey metal container that now housed
‘vehicle customs’. Inside we shook
the warm hands of the official and set about repeating
all the information we’d just gone over
with the vehicle permit issue official. At least
the small welded furnace was making us warmer.
We
thought we were done and so donned our helmets
and gloves, preparing to mount the bikes a long
loud “yo” caught our attention and
the waiving arm of the soldier half leaning out
of the only building we hadn’t entered corrected
that misunderstanding. Another customs division,
well, I say division, 3 bored and tired looking
guards in a blank white washed room with a poster
of the president hanging from a wall. The bright
guilt frame so out of place in this drab environment.
We’ve
learnt that age is an important social factor
in Central Asia, especially when it comes to the
age of you wife. Flicking through our passports
and noting our respective birth dates, the guard
pointed at Lisa speaking to me and said in English
“shister, shister”. “Nyet, nyet”
I replied “id already explained twice pointing
at my wedding ring that Lisa was my wife. “Nyet
Jheena, wife” I continued. The guard looked
incredulous. He and his colleague then counted
out the year’s difference between our birth
dates on their fingers and then looked back at
me for further confirmation of what I was saying.
Men here simply don’t marry older women.
Why would you. You must have a young wife to look
after you and bear you many children. I’d
been told weeks earlier in Kazakhstan. “Here
to marry an old woman (he’d meant ‘older’
women) is impossible.
Lisa catching the looks on their faces –
smiled and said ‘yes, I’m 7 years
– ‘sem’ – older’.
They looked at us both incredulously.
We
were through by midday and headed south.
Patchy
and rutted tar warped and battered by weather
and heavy trucks lasted for 30 miles and then
.bliss. Unbelievably wide smooth and new tar was
to keep us company for the next 200 miles. We
really couldn’t believe it. The poor condition
of the road that had left the border was what
we had expected for the entire trip across the
Karakum desert.
As
dusk set in we took a small sandy track that would
lead us 4 miles out to the Darvaza gas craters,
after riding a mile and finding the sand getting
thicker and deeper and the light fading fast,
we called it a day. Riding in thick sand in the
pitch black just sounded daft. We were tired and
experienced enough to know better and so finding
a clearer area off the track we pitched the tent
and slept fitfully, the heavy trucks bumping close
by went on through the night.
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