Mary and Turkmenabad

18th and 19th May 2019

Mary and Turkmenabad

 

Time to get out of the country but still a long way to go. First stop was Mary. On the way we visited what we thought was a ruin of an ancient Mosque that had been badly hit by the earthquake and had been left there as a memorial. However our guide/driver just said that it had fallen down because it was old. The romance of it. We also visited a ruined mud wall Silk Road city. There was no one about, you could pick up shards of pottery - it was both bizarre and eerie at the same time. As a country they just haven't got their act together on this yet.

 

The road was feeling long and we were glad to get to Mary. There had been another butterfly massacre on the way; Turkmen Red Admirals. Not sure whether it is a host, swarm or whatever for butterflies or whether you could say that they were dropping like flies? But there were a lot of them which makes you think where the right level lies; does Turkmenistan have a lot, or we too few?

 

The road is quite boring otherwise. Somewhat like the great plains in America or the Outback in Australia; long straight roads with not much happening except police men with radar pistols and rifles. The speed limit is 90km/h, then of course the control check points, where it is quite clear they don't know what to do with us. They would like to do us for something but they are a bit taxed by the idea that we smile, shake their hands, say hello in English and don't have any Turkmen.

 

We were battling the clouds again and got hit on the last 20km into Mary. The roads weren't good enough to even ride at 90km/h.  We thought Turkmenistan would be all desert but lots of it were quite green.  Lakes and rivers were passing through the desert. Our driver/ guide said that it rained throughout April and that was why the desert was green. That evening we ate in a cafe in a park down by a river - the usual with some beetroot thrown it - but we could have been anywhere in Europe apart from the language - even the girls were wearing jeans with torn knees and not the obligatory red and green dresses. There were even reddy brown cars. This is not Ashgabat!

 

Following day we visited Merv in the morning. An absolutely massive mud wall city site with not that much left standing except for some of the walls. Apparently the place was doing so well for itself during the days of the early Silk Road that Genghis popped down from time to time, emptied the shop and killed everyone - one history book says it must have been one of the biggest massacres know to mankind.

 

Boring ride in the afternoon to Turkmenabad with quite bad roads; very bad for the Harley - shake, rattle and please keep rolling along. Only noticed one bit that has fallen off and it looks like the headlight might be no more!.