Ashgabat to Mary - Turkmenistan

Due to the travel restrictions we knew we were in for a challenge whilst travelling through Turkmenistan as we were only permitted fours days to transit through the country but I didn’t realise we were about to encounter the hardest two days on our journey so far. With our mandatory guide called Jennet sitting in the back we left Ashgabat on our second morning heading for Mary, which was over 300km away. Prior to leaving I wondered why Serdat had asked me, ‘What do you think about the roads?’ Generally that is a question that you only get asked by a local somewhere like Kenya, where the roads aren’t so good. In Ashgabat they were so flat and clean you could eat Plov (national dish) off them, so curiously I asked our guide what the road to Mary was like? She replied, ‘Oh, its good but there are 1 or 2 diversions along the way. It should take us 5 hours to get to Mary.’ My suspicions continued to dull as we left the Ashgabat on a beautifully tarmaced road. However, 20km out of the city small pot holes started to appear and as minutes passed the holes began to increase in size. Having prior experience at dodging bathtub sized potholes this wasn’t too hard to get used to. The worst part about the roads was that you would be driving along what you think is a relatively flat section at 50 mph and then out of nowhere the whole van lurches downwards and just as quickly launches skywards again and then bounces back to normality. The whole experience feels like you are galloping along on an 18 hand stallion without a saddle or stirrups and the beast drops down a small gulley and then launches itself over a Grand National sized hedge, which leaves you feeling dazed and like you’ve just been thorough frisked by marauding aliens on a swoop in-and-out mission. What really happens is that Miranda drops in and out of sections of the road that has subsided (or potholes that have been filled in) which creates these huge ambush-like speed bumps. My wheelchair that is locked to the floor (by the means of a bolt under my chair and a locking mechanism) acts as a pivot and amplifies the experiencing making me seesaw violently forwards and backwards. To try to reduce this I wedge my head into my headrest.


The so called road to Mary runs parallel to the Kopet Dag range and borders the Karakum Desert. Despite this dry climate there are fields of cotton and other crops growing on either side of the roads, which makes the mind boggle at how these plants survive during the harsh summer months? The answer soon comes when you bounce over bridge that expands a gushing brown river the width of the Nile. However, what you think is a river is actually a man made canal that runs over 1000km from north of the country. It is absolutely staggering how many tons of water flow down the canal every minute. Of course creating a man-made river through a desert is an amazing feat of engineering that creates livelihoods along it banks and produces revenue from irrigated cash crops but unfortunately the base of the canal isn’t concrete and tons of water must soak uselessly away into the desert. Added to that the canals aren’t covered and tons more water must aimlessly evaporate in the intense summer heat. All of which is having huge implications at the Aral Sea – the worlds fourth largest lake. The two main rivers that feed the Aral Sea (the Syr-Darya and Amu-Darya) were tapped by the Russians during the soviet era to irrigate cotton fields and according to one source the soviet planners fully expected the lake to dry out! Apparently in the 1950’s 55 cubic kilometres of water was brought into the lake by the two rivers every year and as a result of the irrigation the flow into the Aral Sea fell to just 10% of the original intake by the 1980’s. This lake-slaughter has resulted in the water receding by 80km; leaving skeletons of fishing boats behind and eventually the lake split into 2 in 1987 (a north and south lake). The fishing harbours that sustained a huge community are now redundant because navigateable fishing lanes failed to stay open and most of the indigenous fish have been wiped due to pollution (herbicides & pesticides from cotton production), falling sea levels, rising salt levels and loss of feeding and spawning grounds. Apparently, the human cost has been huge. People living around the lake now suffer from respiratory illnesses and cancer of the oesophagus due to the salt and dust. Typhoid, hepatitis and dysentery are on the increase as the water quality deteriorates. It has also dramatically affected the animal species around the lake and the flora and fauna of the river delta’s.


As the hours increased the road continued to deteriorate, which slowed our progress at times down to less than 20mph. At the same time the temperature was rocking up compared to the cool air that morning. To combat the heat I wore a water soaked cobber around my neck; our 8 inch fan was on full power and Chrissy blasting me with a fine mist spray from our pressurised garden sprayer. Despite all of this I could feel my body temperature taking on the outside temperature. It is commonly known that people who have suffered from a spinal cord injury loose the ability to regulate their body temperature by either sweating or shivering and I was finding that the heat was really beginning to get to me. I imagined my body was like that of a crocodile heating up in the midday heat and having no water around to cool me down. And strangely, just like a crocodile I felt that I unconsciously had my mouth open and was breathing harder than normal. This was a thought I only considered days later and I have know idea whether this was my bodies natural response to combat the heat or not. What I did know at the time was that 5 hours had passed and we were still only halfway there. As we progressed into the afternoon heat the relief from the spray and fan began to loose its effects. Not only was the air from the fan feeling like I had just stuck my head in a fan oven but the water from the garden sprayer felt like it had come from a freshly poured hot bath. Every bump I hit would lurch me forward into my tight chest strap and almost knock the wind out of me. Moreover, my head that was generally wedged into the headrest was throbbing from the friction that was caused by the bumpy road. All my body wanted to do was to stop driving in the intense heat but I knew if we stopped I’d just get even hotter.


During this time our guide who had an excellent knowledge of Turkmenistan’s history turned out to be directionally challenged and would shout directions from the back of the van. Strangely she would bellow, ‘Turn right’ on right hand bends and ‘keep going straight’ on totally straight sections of the road? Before we left she also told us that we could stop at a reservoir halfway along our journey where we could rest and eat some fresh fish if we liked. As the day progressed we still hadn’t reach this reservoir. Worse still we had to take an extended detour on a road that turned out to be a worse road than we were already on travelling on before we got to the reservoir. By 4pm we bounced passed a row of buildings that was our intended pit stop. The break couldn’t have come any sooner and as soon I had parked beside a lorry which provided Miranda with a little shade we shot into the air conditioned restaurant. Sitting in the cool interior I felt exhausted from the heat. The bags under my eyes felt as heavy as an African ladies breast that have been affected by the cruel end of gravity during a lifetime of not wearing a bra. Whilst Chrissy and Jennet tucked into some freshly battered bass (that is reared especially in the reservoir) I downed a gallon of cold coke-a-cola. Around us truck drivers tucked into huge water melons, chai, rice and fish. Even here we were reminded of Iranian friendliness when a Iranian trucker randomly came up to us to give us some limes that he was transporting to somewhere in the ‘Stan’s’. By time the girls had finished one hour had passed and I felt like my body temperature had lowered slightly. Despite this when we went out side the evening heat still was bloody hot. Hours later we rolled into Mary and Jennet finally found our hotel. What should have taken us 5 hours took us 12 and after getting my routine out of the way we crawled into bed at 1am.