Sue's Travels: Silk Road - 7 June 2009

After Breakfast, we left Khiva to head to the Turkmenistan border. We dropped Bora and Ernest at the airport in Uzbekistan to head to Tashkent. Sanam helped us fill out the paperwork to leave Uzbekistan. One of the group lost the form that we were told to keep for departure. Eventually we were able leave Uzbekistan and enter Turkmenistan. The luggage had to be unloaded and sent through a scanner. Then we get into a mini-bus which took us across the border. This is where Sanam left us. Our luggage was carried across the border in a cart. Turkmenistan processing was a hassle because there were several steps that we had to go up and I was unable to carry my suitcase up those steps. I asked one of the guards to help me and he did. Fortunately we were met by our guide, who had spent two years in the U.S and consequently spoke excellent English. I had to take my luggage over some rough concrete, which damaged the wheels. We finally loaded into a mini-bus and were driven to the restaurant for lunch. Since we had a long wait for our flight, Igor (our guide) took us to the local bazaar which is not for tourists, but I found it interesting. We stuck out like aliens from Mars, but I found it interesting. We then headed for the airport where we were able to get on a slightly earlier flight so that we arrived in Ashgabad with time to register in the hotel before going to dinner. It turns out that there was a mistake somewhere and two doubles and two singles had been reserved instead of one double and four singles. Once it became obvious that the situation was not going to be fixed. I immediately suggested that Bette and I share a room to which Bette acquiesced considering the alternative.

Handling our luggage particularly now that I have a third bag is proving to be a problem for me.

We headed out to dinner at a fairly nice restaurant and also went for a short walk in the “park of Love” since Ashgabad is the City of Love (in Arabic). We got a short city tour on the way back to the hotel.