Turkmenistan

Article by: Peter Broomfield, January 2007

Prepare to be wined and dined until you burst, and if you are invited to a wedding - look out!

Where else in the 'Stans can you celebrate Melon Day? Or better yet, Water is a Grain of Gold Day? Where can you sleep near the rim of a burning gas crater or sink into the cool waters of an underground lake? Certainly no other Central Asian dictator can match the ego of the late Turkmenbashi, whose crowning legacy is a 12m-tall gold statue of himself that revolves to face the sun. You'd be hard pressed to find another 'Stan so downright bizarre.

Turkmenistan's eccentricities grab headlines but there is much more on offer. History buffs will salivate over the numerous archaeological sites to explore - so little of it tainted by tourists. Ancient stones and bits of pottery lie scattered around the ruins of Merv and Konye-Urgench, seemingly untouched since the Mongol blitzkrieg some 800 years ago.

If it's natural beauty you crave then landscapes don't get anymore mystifying than Turkmenistan. The Yangykala Canyon looks like Arizona without helicopter tours while the bulging dunes and craters of the Karakum Desert bear a striking resemblance to a science fiction planet - less the aliens.

The capital Ashgabat is also home to one of the great Central Asian spectacles - the Tolkuchka Bazaar, where the sheep are driven off in motorcycle sidecars, Komatsu cranes lift truculent camels and men with wispy white beards barter for fuzzy telpek hats. Ashgabat itself is truly mind-boggling - who else but the former dictator Niyazov could have possibly conceived a city that crosses the architectual styles of Las Vegas and Pyongyang?

Getting between these places epitomises every reason a traveller goes to Central Asia; road trips bring the sight of shaggy camels wandering across the highway, plus the occasional off-road foray through the wild expanses of nowhere. Along the way travellers may spot a zemzen (an iguana with attitude), sleep under the stars or wind up in Turkmen yurt, grubbing down on some slow-roasted goat's head.

The real treat of the country is the people, whose untiring hospitality borders on the compulsive. It's hard to get used to the custom of shaking hands with random people passing on the street, but by the end of the trip it's almost second nature. Entering a Turkmen home is all the more culturally shocking. Prepare to be wined and dined until you burst, and if you are invited to a wedding - look out! You'll be waltzing all night long.

Politically, Turkmenistan is something of a throwback to the days of Khrushchev. Bugged hotel rooms, police checkpoints and aliases are part of the territory, which is great for anyone fond of 007 films. Certainly none of this is ordinary, but frankly I've never put much stock in the ordinary: I'll take extraordinary Turkmenistan any day.