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Monday 2004-06-14 - Mary, Turkmenistan
Weird economy, too
The plan is to leave Aşgabat at ten this morning to go to Mary. But first the registration has to be taken care of: the government wants to know at all times where all foreigners come and go. Our guide, Bava, will take care of it, and is at the office at 7:30 am but it’s so busy, it’s 11 when he finally arrives back at the hotel.
On the way to Mary he tells a little more about how this country works. We’re riding over a very bad two-lane road with no markings: this road is the main connection from Aşgabat to Uzbekistan, all imports from there have to come along this road. In fact, all roads in the country are narrow and in bad repair except those within cities, while many millions are spent building apartment buildings with apartments practically no one can afford to live in at an average monthly income of $100: obviously not the way to kick-start an economy.
Meanwhile, farmers are not allowed to own any ground: all is owned by the government and the farmers have to rent it; a maximum of only 5 hectares is allowed. The government also dictates what can be grown (cotton or wheat) and buys the produce from the farmers who will get $200-300 extra for their families working in the fields. Near Mary however, ground is scarce, so the actual maximum a farmer can rent is only 3 hectares.
When we arrive in Mary, it’s only a few minutes before six, too late to be let into the museum (in spite of Bava’s brave efforts). Carla goes to the hotel to sleep, the rest of us go on to visit the historical site of Merv.
Destroyed by the Mongols
Ancient Merv, an old center on the Silk Road, was located a way from present-day Mary. It was — especially for the time — a huge city of which only ruins are left now, spread over a large area. Obviously, arriving here around seven in the evening, we will have time only for a few highlights before it gets fully dark — and we still have to have dinner as well.
There were several large citadels here, as well as forts. When the Mongols arrived here on their rampage across Asia, they didn’t know how to tackle such a large city: they’d never encountered anything like this. At first they roamed around for six days failing to find a way in. Then they laid siege but after half a year they’d gotten nowhere: the city still thrived. At last a spy overheard two women chatting to each other, saying they’d never have lasted this long with out the tunnel through which water and food was brought into the city… Now the Mongols finally had a way in. The two women were stoned to death for thus betraying the city but that was not all. The Mongols offered to spare everyone if only they would move out of the city; the people took the offer but found they had been fooled: nearly all were killed. One of the survivors, an Arab who lived here, was tasked with counting the dead. He recorded the counting took him 6 days, and he counted 1.2 million bodies.
The city was then abandoned for about two centuries, after which people slowly began to move back, but soon left again. New Mary was built at a distance from the old site but the extensive cemetery at Merv has been in almost constant use — a pity there’s no time to walk around there, I love to look around cemeteries. We have time only to visit a few forts and the mausoleums for the two women who were stoned to death; then we run up the hill of another fort on a hill to watch from there the beautiful sunset over the site. A few more places viewed in the dusk, and then we ride back to the city.
In Mary we have a late dinner in the open air; my chicken kebab tastes very good, but it’s also very cold outside by this time: it’s nearly 11 pm! Our hotel is of the “Russian” type with a key lady and no restaurant. (No choice: it’s the only hotel in town. A new three-star hotel has been built but not opened yet.) Our bathroom looks terrible with a jumble of broken tiles but it has been cleaned and the plumbing actually works. The hot water is turned off at eleven though, so my shower is only lukewarm.
Tuesday 2004-06-15 - Chardzhev, Turkmenistan
Sick over the border
We have to leave Mary early this morning to have sufficient time for the border crossing near Chardzhev. As soon as I wake up, I know I’m sick: I have diarrhea and a little later I have to throw up, too. No fever, so I’m not really worried but I do feel very weak. Bad planning for a border crossing day… When I enter the restaurant next to the hotel where we’ll have our breakfast, just the smell of the food makes me sick again, I have barely time to make it outside to throw up again, let alone to ask for the bathroom. I try a bit of tea, but even that upsets my stomach.
I’m put in the front of the bus and soon doze away; the landscape is boring anyway. At Chardzhev where we need to cross a pontoon bridge before the border crossing a little further on I wake up again because we seem to be going in circles. We are. The driver can’t find the entry to the bridge because all the original routes have been closed off. Finally, with the help of some locals, he finds the way. At the bridge, Bava starts negotiating: normally the bridge can be crossed only by locals and trucks — travelers have to take a taxi across to the border. Some baksheesh takes care of it though: more expensive than taxis but also more comfortable. As a ‘bonus’, we can take a picture of the railway bridge next to the pontoon bridge — illegal but safe from our bus with a trusted driver. It was bombed several times by the Germans during the last World War but they could not take it out of action.
Crossing the border is near torture: it’s extremely hot at midday, everyone is tired, customs at the Turkmen side takes a very long time with all luggage opened (though for a cursory look only) — and then, after saying goodbye to our guide Bava whom I promise to email, we have to walk a long way across no-man’s land in the burning sun to the Uzbek side. It doesn’t help that I’m very light in my head but I’m not the only one suffering. I bless my luggage on wheels though: without the wheels I wouldn’t have made it! At the Uzbek end things are a little easier — the same type of customs declarations as we had for Turkmenistan is required, but at least they have an X-ray machine for the luggage. Two mini busses stand ready to take us to our first Uzbek city. In the front of the bus again I fall asleep immediately. It’s still 97 km to Bukhara.
Sunday 2004-07-04 - Dunhuang, China
End of the known world
The section of this trip covering Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Xinjiang in China was “the known world” for me: I’d traveled in all these countries before and visited most of the places we visited now (with the exception of Mary in Turkmenistan and Kuqa in Xinjiang). Not that that was a problem though: it was great to be back in Central Asia and it provided some ‘mental rest’ during a trip otherwise rich in new impressions.
Today I’m definitely in a new country: neither in Liuyian nor all along the road through the flat desert to Dunhuang is there a single word to read in the Arabic script of Uyghur as was the norm in Xinjiang where practically everything is bilingual. We’ve left the Turkic languages and peoples behind now: I’m in the ‘real’ China at last.
Looking out of the window of the bus that takes us from the station in Liuyian to Dunhuang, the landscape isn’t very interesting at first: just very flat and almost completely bare desert and a very straight road. After about an hour of this, we see a slight dip in the desert ahead of us and when we get close it suddenly gets a lot greener, obviously because the water table is closer to the surface. First, tamarisk appears, always a sign of the presence of a little water; later, we see irrigation channels and fields; even tree-lined roads. Checking my map: this must be the area of the Shule He (He means river, but I don’t know what Shule means). When we leave the oasis behind, the ground stays a little greener than before, until we reach the outskirts of Dunhuang and we see fields and trees again.
Dunhuang, my first contact with a real Chinese town, has a friendly provincial atmosphere, immediately apparent when arrive after the two-hour bus ride. This town (population: 100,000) at the edge of the feared Lop desert was originally at the extreme western border of the Chinese empire — its name means “Blazing Beacon” — and the Great Wall was extended to here.
Our hotel, Fei Tian, is unremarkable but we have a comfortable little room — and John’s Cafe is right next to the hotel’s forecourt, along the street.
