Ashgabat. Day 5 morning

 Another long night. More so than I expected, seeing the flight was earlier and shorter than some others. It was a little chaotic, just because the Turkish flight attendants were nice but always seemed intense and rushed, clanging about. We landed about 1.30am local time to a big, but deserted, airport.

ASB

There are a lot of huge airports now. Are they the modern churches? That's an essay I don't have time for now. This one is designed to look like a falcon.

It looks great, but doesn't work well. It took about an hour and a half to get through the rigmarole - first the sham covid test (they 'swab' you but don't label the specimens and it is just a justification for part of the entry fee) then you queue for the visa, they take your passport, then you queue to pay the entry fee ($US130 in new notes, no change given), then you go back to the visa queue to get your passport back, then you go to the e-passport machines that work erratically, then go to the immigration officer who asks random questions. Then we had to wait for the rest of the group and drive to the hotel.

We are in a Bunnicks tour group. It may be possible to visit not in a tour group, but you need a letter of invitation from the Department of Tourism and I assume this is harder to organise without a tour operator. This may be why, ignoring the fancy airport, there are only about 15,000 tourists a year. The airport may be to facilitate the net outward migration.

Ashgabat is... interesting. Imagine that Pyongyang was designed by Versace - it has a white-and-gold theme, the most white marble buildings in the world (a deliberate world record targeted by a previous president) and to compliment this cars can only be white, silver or bronze. All this white means that at night they can illuminate things in garish colours.

At 3am this is a bit hallucinatory. We were told our hotel (Diwan or Divan Hotel) is very near the president's palace, but not to go near it and definitely don't take photos of it. But every building looks like it might be the presidential palace. Including the hotel, which is very large but almost empty. Our tour group has 14 people and I think there might have been 1-2 people at breakfast not in the group.



Fortunately we have had our morning at leisure - to sleep in, then have a desulatory breakfast, do some washing and organise outselves. Not especially keen to venture out this first morning, between the disorientation, heat and soldiers.


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