Home, sweet home
We arrived home safely from Turkmenistan yesterday after a long flight via Baku and Frankfurt.
It was an incredible place - lots of enormous marble-and-gold-clad buildings, hundreds of fountains (Turkmenbashi, the mad-but-in-a-nice(ish)-way dictator wants the capital, Ashgabat, to have more fountains than St Petersburg, despite it laying on the edge of the desert) and even a revolving gold statue of said Turkmenbashi on top of a 75-metre tower.
On the first day, we were arrested by the former KGB and detained for two hours because we took a photo of one of those marble edifices. I have to confess I was rather nervous as none of the officers spoke English. Our camera was confiscated but at least we weren't beaten up in a back alley, or deprived of our money, or sent down the salt mines for two years!
Luckily, we had a camcorder with us that also took still photos, so we were able to record our visit!
We went to a horse stud farm, saw the countryside around Ashgabat, visited ancient ruins, a mad market and generally got a feel for the place. We had a guide with us, Catherine, which made the whole trip easier.
I am hoping to make a website of both Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and will post details as soon as it is finished. They were really interesting places to visit.
But the next holiday, hopefully, will be a week in Majorca, or similar, lazing about on a beach, with no secret police following us about!
It was an incredible place - lots of enormous marble-and-gold-clad buildings, hundreds of fountains (Turkmenbashi, the mad-but-in-a-nice(ish)-way dictator wants the capital, Ashgabat, to have more fountains than St Petersburg, despite it laying on the edge of the desert) and even a revolving gold statue of said Turkmenbashi on top of a 75-metre tower.
On the first day, we were arrested by the former KGB and detained for two hours because we took a photo of one of those marble edifices. I have to confess I was rather nervous as none of the officers spoke English. Our camera was confiscated but at least we weren't beaten up in a back alley, or deprived of our money, or sent down the salt mines for two years!
Luckily, we had a camcorder with us that also took still photos, so we were able to record our visit!
We went to a horse stud farm, saw the countryside around Ashgabat, visited ancient ruins, a mad market and generally got a feel for the place. We had a guide with us, Catherine, which made the whole trip easier.
I am hoping to make a website of both Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and will post details as soon as it is finished. They were really interesting places to visit.
But the next holiday, hopefully, will be a week in Majorca, or similar, lazing about on a beach, with no secret police following us about!
posted by The WyeBird @ 3:14 pm
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