TURKMENISTAN

Location: Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
Speed: 0 MPH
Status: 5* hotel, living it up!

We woke up at 05:30 had showers and hit the road for 06:30 for the Turkmen border.

The roads were great, shame about the nutty drivers! Iranians seem to think they can squeeze four lanes into two and over take on blind bends in lorries and coaches!

En route we stopped to get the ambulance passenger seat welded. When we turned a corner a couple of days ago the whole seat came off it’s mountings. A friendly Iranian chap put a stop to it by welding it back onto it’s frame using a bolt to bolster it.

It was hot at 40 degrees, we drove all day meeting up with some other rally vehicles. We made the border at 16:50 to guards saying it was closed. We pushed though and made the passport check as it was being locked down; damn! It would reopen again at 08:00 in the morning, so we found a spot to camp.

We ended up in a car park next to the lorry park. Stu and Russ got the awning out, we pitched our tents, drank lots of tea and watched a film. Much to our surprise it was a fairly good nights sleep, the air was a lot cooler as we were so high up (around 2500 feet).

We had a really productive evening. After clearing the ambulance out and anti-bacterial spraying just about everything I decided to have my head shaved. I sported a bin liner and took my hair down to a number two. The heat was too much - it looks shocking, but hey it’ll grow back!

Another highlight of the evening was giving Stu his second antibiotic injection to help the infection in his foot. We filmed the whole thing so will upload it at some point.

We woke up and hit the border for 08:00. The exit of Iran only took two hours with the entry into Turkmenistan taking another one and a half. This process is getting easy now, it requires patience and it’s not finished until you’re at least a mile or two into the next country! It seems each border is a great excuse for countries to tax you heavily. Turkmenistan wanted $210 for visas then a further $110 to get the ambulance insured. We kept smiling and paid our money.

Driving down the mountains into Ashgabat was a good feeling, our first “stan” under would mark the half way point in the journey to Mongolia as well as the hottest bit.

We found the Grand Turkmen Hotel in the centre of Ashgabat. It was reasonable for a 5* hotel at $70 a night, but they made up for it in drinks with water at around £4 a bottle.

We got local currency which is like monopoly money. For around £40 we got 720,000 Manat. Stu became a Turkmen millionaire for a time! These notes were a little crazy. For a beer we’d have to hand over around 90,000 Manat. By the time you’d counted the notes out your beer had got warm!