August 5, 2000: Central Asia (Turkmenistan) after the turmenish custom took their time with our backpacks, we finally arrived at the port (cargo port). the port is about 10 km out of turkmenbashi and we didn't know how to get there, if there was a bus or train or what. and communications turned out to be a serious problem as people didn't speak english any longer. and did you ever try to read this russian signs? the only transport seemed to be a truck ride with one of the waiting 15 trucks. without any spoken word we finally managed to find a driver who would take us to asgabat. as the truck drivers didn't know themselves when they would start, our driver sent us for a nap to the cabin of his german mercedes. we agreed with great pleasure! we started in the middle of the night and as we opened our eyes the next morning we were in the middle of the desert and saw the first camels. after some stops at police checkpoints (they all received some "black money") and a long 600 km drive through the desert we arrived at the huge oasis ashgabat, the capitol of turmenistan with 500'000 citizens. this city was everything we never imagined. no sandy roads and camels - but large alleys with great buildings, monuments and parade places all over. and on every corner there was a picture of the turkmenish president, turmenbashi (he must be kind of crazy), as a sign of his all over existing power. totally different was the bazaar in the desert some miles out off the city. we were impressed by all the traders with their coloured scarfs. you find everything on these markets - from fruits to camelmilk and carpets, even tv's and some motor parts. in hour hotel (hotel means we were in a six bed room) we met a young turkman, he told us a lot about the special turkmenish traditions. it is a fact, that a man is allowed to be married with up to 12 women. he has to be a wealthy man as he has to pay about usd 1000 per woman. all women wear the already known scarfs, get married by the age of 20 and usually born 3 childs. expect the russian women, they have their own traditions. the prices you have to pay for different things are very uncommon: a double room in a hotel is from usd 25 up, a melon is about 10 cents and a transit busride less than 1 cent. the monthly incoming is about usd 50. we just can't imagine how people can afford a car or a house. there has to be lot of corruption... (ever heard about the russian mafia?) we went on to the old town merw. merw used to be capitol of the "seldschuken" empire in the 11th and 12th century. during djingis khan's crossroads in central asia all these cities were burned down to the ground, residents were murdered and the only thing left were some ruins. on our busride from ashgabad to old merv we met a local who organised everything from a hotel to a tour and invited us to his place for the next day. we were dining another time like kings and had very interesting conversation with him. finally he joined us to tschardschou, which is about a 3 hours drive from old merw. at tschardschou, he helped us to get tickets for the nighttrain to urgentsch (uzbekistan) - without his helping hand we couldn’t manage that, you have to know russian! boarding the train, we were inspected by two uzbekistan women. after a few helpless tries in russian conversation, they accepted us like their own childs and feed us until we couldn't eat anymore. they even wanted to invite us to their place. it wasn't easy to make ourselves understandable, but finally they knew that we were on the road for another city - so we just received all the rest of the food for our further travel on to uzbekistan. .

back in Bairam Ali with a local family