Rygsækrejsen 2015-2016: Ashgabat big city tour

Today was a very emotional and hard day. It is one year since Malene's sister passed away.

So it was nice with the opportunity of a late morning. Plenty of time for a breakfast. Staying in a hotel and no rush to leave since we had new group members joining at 10 am. Our new members are from Canada, US, Germany and Australia.

From 11 am it was time for the big city tour. First with the truck to the Russian Sunday marketoutside town. Not the kind of markets we usually visit. First of all it was big, second it was modern with a symmetrical layout that from the air is supposed to resemble a carpet and third there was a section dedicated to live stock. Needless to say – we headed straight for the goat section and found out that there was also a camel section (baby camels included) and sheep. Not like 10 or 20 – no, they were there by the hundreds. And those camels were indeed noisy. We also had a look inside the slaughterhouse conveniently located next to the market. Most animals are cuddly but their purpose is…. Well, food for us. Nice to be reminded about the origin of our meat since we never see or experience this at home.

Anyway, almost two full hours at the market meant plenty of time to explore, buy a bit of fruit, veggies, a kutap pancake and politely ask for a photo here and there. Most people here don't like to have their photo taken and some places you're not allowed to take photos. So always ask. But even after permission to take a photo one of our new group members Michael was asked to delete pictures when an angry man apparently didn't agree about him taking pictures. We experienced the complete opposite. One shop selling scarfs even gave Malene a free loaf of bread when she poked her head in and asked for permission to take a photo. Always be polite. It sometimes pays of – this time in bread.

Back to the hotel and off we went with the official bus for a tour of Ashgabat with our trusted guide – Slava. Spent nearly 4 hours driving around town, paid a visit to the last president's tomb, a mosque, a monument for independence and a monument for neutrality. Big city with 4 lane roads with no cars, obscure big and shiny monuments and buildings everywhere, boulevards with one ministry after the other and then the lack of people. Was it because it was Sunday or are the people just inside during the day or? Almost all the new buildings are white covered in marble, "gold" and the often a picture or statue of the president.

In Turkmenistan many of the women wear colorful dresses and hats/scarfs. They're traditional clothings not religious. Some dresses are multicolored others are only in one color with embroydings on the chest, this shows which region you're from. The tradional dresses are very trendy right now both for young and older women. You see a few woman in jeans, pants, shorter skirts but not many.

Did we mention that this side of the Caspian sea is where the summer is hiding. So finally after 3 cold weeks of overlanding this was the first day of summer sun and temperatures in the high 20's. Fabulous and much needed.