evening still eaten often as fast as a few skewers at the roadside and then searched for a place to sleep just before the border Turkmenistan.
morning was again awakened by a few sympathetic cheer Kids motorcycle. The breakfast we move but still on the Iranian border town Bajgiran.
The Bulli fights bravely up the last mile to the border pass. We want to fill up, as is marked on our map a gas station in this location. Gas station, it does not give any more than anything else interesting. :-(
So just had breakfast and up to the modern border station on the pass, we decide on $ 5 a man who helps us with the border formalities to leave. The border officials is just drinking the tea. So a bit of Iranian TV looked just the "Afghanistan protocols" quoted from the mirror. Interestingly, in a country where the mirror is not officially allowed to be sold is just what fits rausgepickt and quotes ...
What is the first press in Turkmenistan, whose regime is often placed in a row with North Korea and Burma?
Finally we are allowed to cross the border, note that the $ 5 was not really necessary - we could have done anything good yourself.
Before the Turkmen side of Noodledude all decided to leave in a bit more relaxed approach. So the car in front deserted border post, parked and set simply uninterested in the waiting room. Works beautifully. Suddenly we do not have to run from one to another, but the border guards take us by the hand and do everything with us. But suddenly everything costs money - Welcome to Central Asia! - Health check (actually a paper), processing fee, entrance fee, disinfection and what else ... We were a bit naïve and have assumed that we will come here with € ... So our rates to poor Euros exchanged for dollars with which we can pay then. (To anyone who travels to Central Asia: Do not take Euros!)
Then the usual question: "Driver" I am the "Driver". So we are separated, and while I was with a customs official on the number of seats in the Bulli argue (he contends that the six seats on the bus "original" at all but ten ... and he's right - because, as we indeed know since our childhood: "Those who shouts louder is always right ..."), have to cross the Noodledude on the pedestrian side of the border.
So I leave vast sums on the border (about $ 160 oderso) only for it to drive a car for 5 days from Turkmenistan into it. And we drive down the Turkmen desert purely to Ashgabat.
(It should be said beforehand that we are not free in the accounts of experiences with individuals, since this blog is public and even the author of Lonely Planet's because of the authoritarian regimes in Turkmenistan remains anonymous.)
Ashgabat is a city that shines in marble, whose streets are swept around the clock by hand and in the stands at every corner, a police car. Only humans seem to be any ... Life on the Street - Not applicable. What we have actually been missing in Turkey in Iran, there is even less, not really.
This we did with our transit visa have no obligation to register, we sleep in the semi-legal Hostel Murat for 10 $ a night. Murat is likable, but it seems to be a little worried is the area where his house is but it seems the last thing that has not been torn down for any comic marble skyscrapers and probably the next turn.
We spend two days in Ashgabat with which to enjoy a freedom that we had not in recent weeks. We pass through the bar (s) from Ashgabat. (Otherwise, there is not much to see in this town with a big golden book of Turkmenbashi, the earthquake museum in memory of the earthquake at the Turkmenbashi's mother was killed and the stature of Turmenbashi himself, which rotates with the sun and golden shimmers over the city.)
Actually, we only go to the British pub, because we do not believe that one can seriously celebrate elsewhere in Ashgabat. There is a mix of foreigners (mostly French engineers, residents and local prostitute) on the road. The latter are often very difficult to distinguish from the rest. When we make our way to the pub, we must first look a little, which means that we are running along a road twice ... - SUSPICIOUS! - So now with passport control survey. What a country.
The second night of our night Trips to the British pub we still find a English journalist who comes home from Kyrgyzstan and reports on the riots in Osh. With him in tow, we all still funny and closes when the British pub we try to ask some locals where the party goes on. So we end up in the basement of a doubt quite expensive hotels, where they are punched by several beautiful women, but to deduct all very disappointed when we realize that we are pretty poor devils. Nevertheless, satisfied and for a long time for the first time drunk again well we pull back alone to the third through the dark streets of Ashgabat to the hostel. Apparently after all the marble high-rise buildings has not the money for a street lighting served.