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by mrg2k8
2120 days ago
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The easiest way to experience Turkmenistan is to go on the Mongol Rally. They work with a visa company to give all the participants a letter of invitation, which is valid for two months, for a five-day transit without a guide. Some facts that I found funny at the moment:
- they gave us a GPS device at the border to keep plugged in so they could track us. We just threw it in the back because our old crappy car didn't have a lighter. They didn't check the data when we left the country.
- they had a bank rate for exchange and a black market rate. The black market rate was 1 USD for 16 something and the bank rate was 1 USD for 3 something of the local currency. You could pay in USD, of course getting ripped at the bank rate. We managed to change some money on the street.
- a room at a normal hotel costs more than 80 USD, we found something similar to a hostel for 15 USD and still went to the Grand Turkmen, acted like we stayed there and stole some Internet
- a SIM card with 1 GiB of Internet was around 40 USD, we passed
- the Internet goes through an IPS that blocks everything we use in the western world: FB, Gmail, Whatsapp, VPNs etc. I had to tunnel through an SSH server listening on port 443 just to be able to send an email. Images didn't work, because the connection closed (I think they were cutting connections based on sequence numbers or something)
- you couldn't take any photos, they checked our mobiles upon leaving the country. Funny, because Ashgabat was beautiful and it's in the Guiness Book for the most marble and for the most waterfalls
- whenever we were alone, it took only 10 minutes tops for someone with a walkie-talkie to pass next to us
- they removed all people from a whole boulevard to make room for some official hotshot to pass
- we were listening to music in the car with the windows lowered and I later read that it was illegal. Maybe that's why everyone was staring at us
- beer was available at almost any place
- we slept at Darvaza, "the gates of hell" one night. The next day we headed north and ran out of water.
- we had some work performed on our car and the mechanics were very friendly All in all, it was a fantastic experience and I would totally do it again. |
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Unfortunately my team didn't end up visiting when I participated in the rally, but every team who wanted to go to Turkmenistan had to advertise some horse show that was running in the country that summer. They made everyone slap a rather large sticker with the logo on their car. I wonder if the campaign was considered successful considering most people outside of the country weren't able to attend or watch it anyway :)