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Mary,Mary, but not contrary

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And Mary is in Turkmenistan 

This post is a week late and from Azerbaijan as we cannot blog in Turkmenistan. 

We leave Bukhara bright eyed and bushy tailed at 7.00 am in the morning as we have to cross the Turkmenistan border which is 95 km down the road. There at the border we have to meet our Turkmenistan guide who will escort us the the city of Mary which is another 300 km away. Leaving Uzbekistan at the border was relatively easy and painless. Entering Turkmenistan was nearly a three hour process with a huge amount of paperwork associated with the bike. Along the way I got at least 12 dirrerent stamps on 8 pieces of paper form 9 different people. I apparent,y now have an Turkmenistan drivers licence but I have no idea which bit of paper it is. We also get full and complete bag search.  Like most countries they are very concerned about drones and they are completely banned. Having one seems to be up there with importing drugs 

  And talking  of being up there at one  stage I get ushered  into an office where there is a woman who looks like an industrial nurse. There is a hand basin on the wall and next to it is shelf with what looks suspiciously like some rubber gloves on it I quickly mentally come up with  my line 

                                                            “ No ma’am, I can assure you I don’t have a drone hidden up there”

Very fortunately I don’t have to trot the phrase out 

Then at some stage we hear a loud German voice. It is our tour guide. We say hello. With our one word her face drops. So does ours. She speaks German, but not English ! Oh dear!   Somewhere along the line there has been a Snafu and New Zealand has been incorrectly identified as a German speaking colony!  Anyway, in spite of extremely limited English Natalia  acts as an efficient paperwork fixer and we finally get thru the border formalities. She will then escort us in  a van to Mary and tomorrow we will get a substitute English speaking guide 

The trip across the Karkorum desert is hot, flat and somewhat boring with only the odd wild camel to liven things up We have to follow the guide’s van that will not go over 80 km per hour. The air conditioning on the bike does not really kick in until about 100 km per hour so it is very hot. 

8

Now it is a rest day in Mary. Our guide shows us the sights. We see the old historic city of Merv 






A stunning Russian Orthodox Church 




The locals do up their cars for weddings. I suggest to “Davies from Arrowtown” that he set up a business doing this in Arrowtown. The reply to the idea was not encouraging nor even grateful !  




Then as the sun sets on Mary 







Tomorrow it is  another long hot ride  to the surreal city of Ashgabat. 







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