Day 8

After breakfast we started our ride to Turkmenistan.  It was a 2 hour ride over the worst roads.  Bus speed never exceeded 30 mph.  Finally at the Uzbek border they checked our passports 4 times before the allowed us to take a hike towards Turkmenistan.  A mini bus took us (for $1 each) for a short hop to the Turkmenistan immigration.  This was the most laborious process.  The border crossing process took 2 hours.  Our passports were examined 5 times and we were fingerprinted and photographed and charged $73 each. Some bags were opened and checked.  Only 2 packs of cigarettes are allowed and medicines are scrutinized. Another minibus took us across the plaza to our coach (for $1 ea).  Our first impressions of Turkmenistan were favorable.  Nice roads and clean. The country is rich with oil and gas. Our guide told us that health care and education are free and up to a few years ago so was  gas, water, electricity, gasoline and rent.  Now there are nominal charges. Her 3 bedroom apt with 2 TVs, 2 refrig, and air condition is $60 a year.  Gas and electricity are a couple dollars a month, gasoline is $1 a gallon.  People used to leave the gas in the kitchen on all the time since gas was free but it costs money to buy matches. The buildings in the city had marble facades. She told us it costs $8 million to marble a building. After lunch we started our 4 hour ride to our destination. Once out of the city, the road got terrible. It was miles of desert and nothing but pot holes.  We did see packs of goats, sheep, camels, and cattle. After 4 hours of pot holes we arrived at an archeological excavation of the ancient city of Merv, which was one of the largest and most important cities of the Silk Road until it got destroyed by Ghenghis Khan .  After 20 minutes of visiting we entered an old mosque/palace.  Then a sand storm arrived. We managed to get back to the bus and set off to the restaurant.  The city (Mary) is not pretty. Our hotel (hotel Mary) is nice from the outside. In the lobby while registering everything went dark. This has happened more 4 times in the room, and it was frightening.  We have an 8am flight in the morning and will be glad to leave. The building is beautiful but the hotel is terrible. No water, no phone, no tissues, no coffee, dirty windows, bad breakfast.  And they charged $2 per person to leave.