On the road to Ashgabat there were many manned police towers. A stop sign in front of them meant a photo could be taken of the car before it could proceed on its journey. At a police check point just outside the city cars were stopped and their boots checked. Our Landcruiser was stopped but not checked.
The roads into the city were new, clean and dual carriageways. We stopped at a leafy suburb at the Ak Altyn hotel, which in Soviet times was the Sheraton or Hilton. Eilidh (pronounced aylee) and Ben from Young Pioneer Tours were there to meet us. She from Scotland and he from Melbourne. Our room was enormous with two bathrooms, a board table and chandeliers. Eilidh said tour groups had never been given rooms on the lower floors as they were reserved for locals but with so many foreigners in the city for the games all floors were occupied.
The hotel
Ben was able to change our US cash forTurkmen manat through the black market as it is a better rate than the banks.
The hotel had a pool and bar, as well as a garden bar, and karaoke bar. Downstairs was a night club that Ben said was really a hangout for prostitutes. It was closed the whole of our stay for renovations.
There were four or five motor homes in the hotel car park travelling in convoy from Germany and Switzerland. Later a couple of huge overland trucks from Dragoman Tour company arrived with elderly folk joining their tour here and then going on into Iran or Azerbaijan. The tours did not have time to go to the games and were just transiting the country.
The circus building from our hotel window
From our room we could see the circus building and beside us was a small restaurant in the ground floor of an old Soviet residential block. We chose to go there for a pizza and asked if they had beer after finding the prices at the hotel really expensive. Having been told there was a ban on alcohol we were surprised when we were told some was arriving in an hour. On the hour a keg arrived in the boot of a car and we were served an ice cold beer.
The President was a doctor and Minister of Health in the previous government so he has continued the ban on cigarette smoking, set by the previous government. We were advised cigarettes were a good gift for our guides and we were only able to import fourty individual cigarettes each. Elderly smokers who could not stop were able to get a certificate from their doctor allowing them to smoke. There is a huge black market for cigarettes now. Both our tour leaders and our Turkmen minder Nadine, were smokers.
We have had a good start start to the country, being able to use blocked web sites, import cigarettes, drink banned beer, and get money at a better rate than the banks give!
Two Dutch guys, Ben and Coen, joined us one morning and with our leaders and minder we did a sightseeing tour of the city. Ashgabat is often called the White City as it has so many white marble buildings.
Ashgabat was a Russian frontier town on the Trans-Caspian railway. In 1948 the city was levelled by a 9.0 Richter scale earthquake, killing more than two-thirds of the population, about 100,000 people.
There ware now many cranes about the city knocking down old buildings and rebuilding and lots had already been done for the 5th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts games. The games are organised by the Asian branch of the International Olympic committee. To qualify to host the games the city needed to have a million inhabitants so as the city only had half a million residents the city boundary was extended and made it by 23 people! The whole county has a population of between 5.1 and 6. million.
The Earthquake Memorial was built by the previous President as he was made an orphan having lost all his family in the 1948 quake.
We drove to an enormous entertainment and amusement complex where we had a ride on the world's largest indoor Ferris wheel and were the only ones visiting the whole complex.
Andrew managed to persuade everyone that the bumper cars would be a great fun activity for the group, so we were all in. The area was a bit small for all of us and the staff had trouble getting the cars to run continuously. They didn't seem to know how to operate them. The males in our group also raced the video game cars and tried to beat the record for netting basket balls.It was a fun time for sure.
The city from the Ferris wheel
The Monument of Independence, nicknamed The Plunger, is in a beautiful 80,000m2 park. It is surrounded by geometrically laid out paths and trees and flanked by large black and gold statutes of Turkmen heroes and fountains. A golden statue of the previous president, Niyazov, set it all off.
Lots of roads were manned by police and we were constantly being redirected as roads were closed for the games, sometimes turning us in circles. This was probably due to the president or senior officials passing by. The mini van driver and minder Nadine would follow up with shouting at the police and each other. The Turkmen people do not challenge the rules and so don't know what happens if they do, but they certainly get frustrated by them.
Everywhere is spotlessly clean and well laid out and the cleaners and sweepers are the only locals on the streets. It felt like we had the place to ourselves. There were no crowds of tourists at any of the sites we visited.
The four storey Berkarar Mall was amazing.We were ushered through the security checkpoints and into the ornate central court with its marble and golden horse heads.We were able to get goods at the supermarket including NZ gala apples. The small liquor shop that Ben and Eilidh used to visit only stocked juices and soft drinks because of the alcohol ban. There was a huge food court with some of the food chains we saw in Kazakhstan and we enjoyed quiche and pastries at La Tartine, a French cafe. There were lots of brand name shops like Nike, Gucci, Zara and others I am not familiar with. There was a bowling alley, an ice skating rink and another amusement area. It was quite a place and a short stroll from the main stadium for the games.
In the evening we returned to the little garden restaurant by the hotel as the others in our group had found the hotel bar sold beer but it was too expensive. We discovered the restaurant was being renovated but that did not stop us being able to be served and sit in the garden to eat pizza, shashlik, and strogonoff followed by jugs of beer.
The next day we visited the massive Tolkuchka Russian bazaar on the outskirts of the city. It is a place where the locals shop as most would not be able to afford the prices of the Berkarar Mall. It was well laid out selling clothes, whiteware, carpets, fresh vegetables and fruit, children's cribs. toys and bikes. Some days live animals are sold. We bought a hot and cold thermos jug that was stainless steel and made in Japan, for a bargain- US$15. The Turkmen people are very gentle and helpful. They barely acknowledged us as we walked around until we got to the souvenir sellers.
Lenin Park was built in the time of the Russians. and a statue of Lenin sits on an enormous plinth. The park is now called Ashgabat Amusement Park. It is surrounded by trees that are 100 years old. We had a ride on the flying chairs and others enjoyed the rocking pirate ship and were joined by local high school students in their elegant school uniforms. The pop corn and ice cream vendors did well out of our group as we strolled around the grounds checking out the huge dinosaur sculptures.
At 4 pm we left the hotel to be seated for the opening ceremony of the 5th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, due to start at 8.17pm.
The roads into the city were new, clean and dual carriageways. We stopped at a leafy suburb at the Ak Altyn hotel, which in Soviet times was the Sheraton or Hilton. Eilidh (pronounced aylee) and Ben from Young Pioneer Tours were there to meet us. She from Scotland and he from Melbourne. Our room was enormous with two bathrooms, a board table and chandeliers. Eilidh said tour groups had never been given rooms on the lower floors as they were reserved for locals but with so many foreigners in the city for the games all floors were occupied.
The hotelBen was able to change our US cash forTurkmen manat through the black market as it is a better rate than the banks.
The hotel had a pool and bar, as well as a garden bar, and karaoke bar. Downstairs was a night club that Ben said was really a hangout for prostitutes. It was closed the whole of our stay for renovations.
There were four or five motor homes in the hotel car park travelling in convoy from Germany and Switzerland. Later a couple of huge overland trucks from Dragoman Tour company arrived with elderly folk joining their tour here and then going on into Iran or Azerbaijan. The tours did not have time to go to the games and were just transiting the country.
The circus building from our hotel windowFrom our room we could see the circus building and beside us was a small restaurant in the ground floor of an old Soviet residential block. We chose to go there for a pizza and asked if they had beer after finding the prices at the hotel really expensive. Having been told there was a ban on alcohol we were surprised when we were told some was arriving in an hour. On the hour a keg arrived in the boot of a car and we were served an ice cold beer.
The President was a doctor and Minister of Health in the previous government so he has continued the ban on cigarette smoking, set by the previous government. We were advised cigarettes were a good gift for our guides and we were only able to import fourty individual cigarettes each. Elderly smokers who could not stop were able to get a certificate from their doctor allowing them to smoke. There is a huge black market for cigarettes now. Both our tour leaders and our Turkmen minder Nadine, were smokers.
We have had a good start start to the country, being able to use blocked web sites, import cigarettes, drink banned beer, and get money at a better rate than the banks give!
Two Dutch guys, Ben and Coen, joined us one morning and with our leaders and minder we did a sightseeing tour of the city. Ashgabat is often called the White City as it has so many white marble buildings.
Ashgabat was a Russian frontier town on the Trans-Caspian railway. In 1948 the city was levelled by a 9.0 Richter scale earthquake, killing more than two-thirds of the population, about 100,000 people.
There ware now many cranes about the city knocking down old buildings and rebuilding and lots had already been done for the 5th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts games. The games are organised by the Asian branch of the International Olympic committee. To qualify to host the games the city needed to have a million inhabitants so as the city only had half a million residents the city boundary was extended and made it by 23 people! The whole county has a population of between 5.1 and 6. million.
We drove to an enormous entertainment and amusement complex where we had a ride on the world's largest indoor Ferris wheel and were the only ones visiting the whole complex.
Andrew managed to persuade everyone that the bumper cars would be a great fun activity for the group, so we were all in. The area was a bit small for all of us and the staff had trouble getting the cars to run continuously. They didn't seem to know how to operate them. The males in our group also raced the video game cars and tried to beat the record for netting basket balls.It was a fun time for sure.
The city from the Ferris wheel
The Monument of Independence, nicknamed The Plunger, is in a beautiful 80,000m2 park. It is surrounded by geometrically laid out paths and trees and flanked by large black and gold statutes of Turkmen heroes and fountains. A golden statue of the previous president, Niyazov, set it all off.
Lots of roads were manned by police and we were constantly being redirected as roads were closed for the games, sometimes turning us in circles. This was probably due to the president or senior officials passing by. The mini van driver and minder Nadine would follow up with shouting at the police and each other. The Turkmen people do not challenge the rules and so don't know what happens if they do, but they certainly get frustrated by them.
Everywhere is spotlessly clean and well laid out and the cleaners and sweepers are the only locals on the streets. It felt like we had the place to ourselves. There were no crowds of tourists at any of the sites we visited.
The four storey Berkarar Mall was amazing.We were ushered through the security checkpoints and into the ornate central court with its marble and golden horse heads.We were able to get goods at the supermarket including NZ gala apples. The small liquor shop that Ben and Eilidh used to visit only stocked juices and soft drinks because of the alcohol ban. There was a huge food court with some of the food chains we saw in Kazakhstan and we enjoyed quiche and pastries at La Tartine, a French cafe. There were lots of brand name shops like Nike, Gucci, Zara and others I am not familiar with. There was a bowling alley, an ice skating rink and another amusement area. It was quite a place and a short stroll from the main stadium for the games.
In the evening we returned to the little garden restaurant by the hotel as the others in our group had found the hotel bar sold beer but it was too expensive. We discovered the restaurant was being renovated but that did not stop us being able to be served and sit in the garden to eat pizza, shashlik, and strogonoff followed by jugs of beer.
The next day we visited the massive Tolkuchka Russian bazaar on the outskirts of the city. It is a place where the locals shop as most would not be able to afford the prices of the Berkarar Mall. It was well laid out selling clothes, whiteware, carpets, fresh vegetables and fruit, children's cribs. toys and bikes. Some days live animals are sold. We bought a hot and cold thermos jug that was stainless steel and made in Japan, for a bargain- US$15. The Turkmen people are very gentle and helpful. They barely acknowledged us as we walked around until we got to the souvenir sellers.
Lenin Park was built in the time of the Russians. and a statue of Lenin sits on an enormous plinth. The park is now called Ashgabat Amusement Park. It is surrounded by trees that are 100 years old. We had a ride on the flying chairs and others enjoyed the rocking pirate ship and were joined by local high school students in their elegant school uniforms. The pop corn and ice cream vendors did well out of our group as we strolled around the grounds checking out the huge dinosaur sculptures.
At 4 pm we left the hotel to be seated for the opening ceremony of the 5th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, due to start at 8.17pm.
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