Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan

Ashgabat, Turkmenistan

White marble with gold trim!

Onto Azerbaijan and our first port of call was a town called Sheki, famed for their silk production the town is a great stop on the ancient Silk Route. Then we were hit with a totally different landscape which was to be the norm over the next couple of weeks, extreme heat and flat deserts with the harsh realities of desert living on show throughout (loving the camels though)!

After bush camping at the Mud Volcanoes en-route it was off to Baku to pick up Johnny who was joining us there and a couple of nights were spent in the countries ultra-modern capital. The days however were spent waiting…waiting for the Turkmenistan embassy to open… waiting for the bank to process our visa payments to open… waiting for the Turkmenistan embassy to open again…waiting for the ferry to Turkmenistan… waiting for the ferry to leave and finally (having arrived at 8am) and then waiting until our visas kicked in and we were allowed to actually enter Turkmenistan (about 4am)!

Patience was tested but everyone handled it very well with good grace and the overnight ferry ride (about 14 hours) was not the dreaded experience we had all been told nightmare stories about – it was a perfectly fine crossing with us all getting a room to sleep in (and they even sold chips and cold beers)! So we ended up having a great night with the guys from the Mongol rally teams!

Then it was into Turkmenistan (minus Ange and Chris who unfortunately didn’t get their visas in time) and what a ‘different’ country this was! Arid desert was our only view for the next few days but it was certainly an experience like non other, the capital Ashgabat was made completely of white marble with gold trim but had no more traffic than a country village in Dorset on a Sunday afternoon and hardly any people were to bee seen.

Leaving Ashgabat after a couple of days well needed R and R we headed to, what most consider the countries highlight, the Darvaza Gas Craters, more commonly referred to as the ‘Gates of Hell’.It was an incredible sight and one of the best some of us had ever seen!

Having our first taste of sand-matting was a good experience and prepared us for what’s to come in the Gobi desert in Mongolia!

Entering Uzbekistan we were delighted with the old towns and amazing architectural designs and wonderfully preserved buildings and better still we were rejoined by Ange and Chris who had made their way to Khiva to join us.

Darvaza Gas Craters

Bush Camp!

We continued to Bukhara, Central Asia’s holiest city where we spent a couple of days wandering around and then through the red sand desert to arrive at the Silk Route city of Samarkand which has some fantastic sights like the beautiful Registan, Guri Amir Mausoleum and Bibi-Khanym Mosque.

We are currently in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, having spent a couple of nights relaxing and sightseeing before we try for the Pamir Highway this afternoon, having heard so many conflicting stories of whether it’s closed or open at the moment, we have decided to give it a go and see for ourselves if we get in or not, so we are off in a minute to see if we make it past the first check point this afternoon!

Watch this space!

Gates of Hell