Day 46 334 miles 24th April
We leave Ramsar and our huge Soviet style hotel, slightly indecisive as to the target for tonight. We have decided that we should aim to stay in Mashhad even if it means a short backtrack for the Turkmen border, given its status as the holiest city in the country. We wind our way through town after town along the southern coast of the Caspian. The driving is the most difficult that we have encountered – we share the limited road space with thousands of mad Iranian drivers racing as if their bumper cars are charged with nitro. Trying to keep the k’s ticking over is tough on driver and passengers. We decide to head for Alexander the Great’s wall and a ranch nearby run by an amazing lady called Louise Firouz who has been in Iran for 40 years and running her ranch for 30. We try to call but the number doesn’t work….. Well, we decide to turn up anyway even though we have to divert off our track to the north. We rock in at about 4.30pm and amazingly find this isolated spot and are instantly welcomed by Louise as well as fellow guests George and Holly both working for the Foreign Office. Half an hour later, we are in the saddle joining a small group riding out on Turkomen horses a breed almost lost to history until Louise rescued the lines and brought them back for us all to share. It was a wonderful experience as the sun slowly set and we walked and trotted into a deep valley along ancient tracks on these beautiful nags. We splashed through streams, watched kestrels dive and all around green fat eared wheat moved like a sea in the soft breeze. We returned to the ranch and were invited to spend the night in a yurt. Hard floor, fire in the middle, large tent. Well we knew that we would have to say yes and after a great dinner with Louise and the team, Reza, our guide, and your two intrepid travellers bunked down for the most uncomfortable night. I refused to camp with the family when I was 10 years old…..Cocks crow all night, dos bark and old limbs find hard ground just a little uncomfortable. To cap it all, just when your body is getting into the swing of things and allowing you to consider sleeping, it is light and only 5.30am. Still, what a great experience and what fun to spend time with one of the great personalities alive. Thanks, Louise and particular thanks for the memories of Thesiger and Freya Stark.
Day 47 299 miles 25th April
Needless to say, we get on the road surprisingly early for this final day in Iran. We make Marshhad by late lunch and route march down to the shrine of Imam Reza. It is huge and overwhelming. Because it is a shrine, we are not allowed automatic entry and have to get special permission from the International Relations Office. This gives us a chance to get a quick refresher on the Muslim faith and the Shiite sect in particular. It is helpful and low key, but there is no mistaking the glint in the eye of our guide as he confirms the certainty that the faith will prevail. It is difficult not to be impressed by a place whose first courtyard is larger than Trafalgar Square and through which more than 12 million pilgrims pass a year. And this is the last resting place of only one of the original twelve Imams of the faith. Sadly, as infidels, much of the complex is off limits to us. We walk back through streets thronged with people, mainly women who while veiled are shopping – mostly jewellery – with serious concentration and return pooped to the hotel for our last night of Iranian food and drink. This is not the culinary paradise that we had hoped and as you can imagine the beverages left us a little cold too. Hopefully Ashgabat will score on at least one of these requirements. For the record, we search high and low for postcards of the city to send to you all back home. Iran does not do anything as frivolous as postcards and sadly that kind of sums it up.
Day 48 164 miles 26th April
Jules’ carpet has arrived and so we grab our get out of jail cards and head for the border. It is hot – 35C – and it only cools as we climb to 1850 and the pass between Iran and Turkmenistan. Improbably, at this isolated spot with only a few lorries passing each day, this strange pair of countries have built two huge border control buildings. Like great empty skeletons, they stand in this isolated landscape and prepare a welcome to the few travellers who pass by. They are sad reminders of a hopeless competition between countries that should have better things to do with their petro $. We take about an hour exiting Iran since each stamp needs to be checked by a third party, but after an hour or so, we pull through the first gate and arrive in Turkmenistan. The guard checks that we are expected on his walkie talkie and we drive 5 k’s to the main customs and immigration post. Stage one of the process is straightforward. We are issued with departure card, a foreign persons card and charged $113 for the car – including insurance. It is at this point that the bizarre world of the police state takes over. We enter five separate offices to get the appropriate stamp on the cards or new slips of paper. This is belt and braces. By comparison, the customs search is pretty easy and compared to the lorries which appear to be virtually stripped, we get a friendly and cursory “any guns or drugs ?” and the with a guide as escort are on our way. An hour later, sipping an ice cold beer in the Hotel Nissa, we felt that we had arrived in heaven. Strange it may be outside the walls of this international standard hotel, but here in the bar surrounded by European looking people, it is reassuringly reminiscent of home.
Day 49 10 miles 27th April
After a good night and breakfast containing normal looking food, we decide to fill the car with diesel – about a $1 - and go to the bank. Driving through the city, however, we are stopped repeatedly and it becomes clear that driving without a guide is an open invitation to the traffic police to grab a western sized bribe. For the record, they stand at most junctions in the city and carry a special, battered little book in which the bribe is to be inserted, so as not to be observed by passers by. Pretty frustrating, so we abandon the beast and start our tour on foot. The city of Ashgabat is a new town, having been rebuilt after a devastating earthquake in 1948. In the last ten extremely rich years for this small, energy rich country, its President – Turkmenbashi – has presided over a building program that even Ceauşescu would have difficulty in emulating. In the central area there are a succession of huge heavily guarded monuments and buildings, each with their reproductions of the great leader. Two heroic statues, one atop a 300ft monumental arch, the other more modestly seated on a marble throne, depict Turkmenbashi in gold, while we lose count of their base metal cousins on our stroll around town. As we walked, it was clear that as foreigners, we were considered suspicious. Very few smiles or salutations could be elicited from the serious looking soldiers and militia who guard the capital, even the civilians, many of whom are Russian and look in every way European, have a cautious air. It was only when we found a street market that there was a marginal easing up of the feeling of tension as the power of capitalism overtook that of the state. So we take advantage of this little ray of sunlight, buy caviar and vodka and retreat to the security blanket of our hotel.
Day 50 292 miles 28th April
A long run across to Mary, as first stop before the border tomorrow. We have a guide and decide to also book one in Uzbekistan, given the apparent delight of traffic police and wandering militia to stop our foreign car. We are stopped eight times at check points on the road down and arrive at Mary at 3.30pm having had lunch for $5 on the way at a roadside café. Ilena, our guide, is very helpful and seems able to deal with the authorities with aplomb. She is fiercely loyal to her country and is happy to explain and justify the many things that seem odd to us. She confronts the issue of personality cult directly and is probably right in believing that most Turkmen are supportive of the status quo. The land is flat and while in the past, semi arid desert, we see the effects of the canal built in the 1950’s to bring water from the Amu Darya (Oxus) River, as there are fields of ripening corn all along the way. The people clearly regret the problems that this Stalinist improvement has caused for the dying Aral Sea, but point out that the people must eat. More than 50% of Turkmenistan’s population live on the land. At Mary, we check into the hotel and having picked up a specialist guide head out to the legendry city of Merv. The city is in fact three huge walled enclosures which lead back to the first millennium BC. Finally abandoned in the 12th C with the shifting of the river systems, Merv had suffered repeated conquests and depredations through its long history. At the height of its glory it was one of five centres that were considered to be heaven. Omar Kayam was resident in this city of trade, learning and religion. So in the early twilight we stand on the walls of the citadel and look out over this huge adobe brick wonder of human strength and sadness, over walls that had failed to keep the Mongol hordes at bay and below which lay the slaughtered remains of the hundreds of thousands of victims of their onslaught – alone with the wind and dying sun and the haunted memories of a violent past.
Day 51 242 miles 29th April
I am sitting in a little piece of paradise, on an open terrace under a silent minaret with the swallows, the blue domes of the mosque and a sunset to keep me company. We have reached Bukhara and bunked down in a small well positioned hotel in the centre of this amazingly quiet old city. Getting here was not without incident. With Ilara in charge of talking us through the many checkpoints, we make Turmenabat by lunch and the prepare for the rigours of our next border crossing. Over the great Amu Darya river on a pontoon bridge takes us up to the crossing point. The river which was once mighty but now diminished by irrigation along its length, has always been a massive divide. Until recently, very few Europeans made it this far into Central Asia – we were not welcome through history and sometimes we get the impression that things haven’t changed. Once at the border, we go through the exit procedures with help from Ilara. Needless to say, we hit a snag with Jules’s carpet. It is a criminal offence to smuggle an antique carpet out of Turkmenistan. A very heated discussion ensues, with Farsi receipts being waived around and intransigent – big hat - officers trying to deal with an extremely angry guide acting for us. At last the senior customs man, who has already processed the car in moments is summoned. He looks at the carpet, agrees it is Iranian and that is that. Exit big hat looking bruised. On the Uzbek side of the border, we are allocated what appears to be a trainee - a very pleasant young man, who needs a lot of help from colleagues and me when it comes to paper work. He takes his revenge by searching Jules’s suitcase and being unable to recognise the wide range of prophylactics on display, summons the drug officer with his search dog. Bantering over we are about to leave, but he calls me into the interview room and starts to look embarrassed and shifty. Pretty obvious what is coming next! “$20” – “Sorry – No”. .”$10?” – “No, but very nice to meet you and many thanks” – big smile quick retreat and we are in the car and off to Buhkara. We pick up our guide on the way and are slightly nonplussed to discover that his English is weak; he has only a hazy notion of the rules of the road and has never been to Tashkent – our destination. The city appears suddenly and we are enveloped in honey coloured brick buildings, all ancient and redolent of Silk Road history. We eat in the early evening by a pool surrounded by mulberry trees that have entraced travellers since the 1620. No glitz and very relaxed.
Day 52 162 miles 30th April
Bukhara by day is still very quiet. In the centre, the mosques and medessas seem now to owe more of to shopping than religion. While there is a feeling that the centre has been held in aspic, it is still arresting and comfortable to be with. The trade off seems to be not many locals and not many tourist busses. We visit the Ark, which was the Citadel and the site of a core moment of Empire heroism. On this spot, two British officers and emissaries were led out under the order of the Emir, made to dig their graves and before a great crowd – beheaded. Stoddart and Conolly were players in the Great Game and sadly are only remembered in this strange and beautiful. The Greeks under Alexander thought that they were at the end of the earth and in many ways they were. We head off to fabled Samarkand. The road passes through more semi arid desert and later rolling good pastureland. However, the shortcomings of our guide’s knowledge of local traffic rules are exposed as we are stopped for speeding – guess which of us is driving – twice in short order. This reduces the Easy Rider feeling that was slowly reasserting itself after the depredations of Turkmenistan. Very sad. Our hotel in Samarkand is of the Soviet variety and the food disastrous. To add to our woes, the hotel’s security detail tell us that our diesel tanks on the car have to go. They consider the risk of attack from guests in the nightclub to be too high. A bit mysterious give that they have been on the roof since Syria and not caused comment in some of the most politically sensitive places on the planet but there we are. Happily the hotel manager, Dieter, is somewhat embarrassed and we sit late into the evening with another bottle of Uzbek white wine, discussing the development of the EU and the inability of parents to discipline children in this modern age. He - born in 1939 in Dusseldorf – probably had a point and he certainly livened up an otherwise downbeat ending to our first day in old Marakanda. We are beginning to flag.