With the evenings' festivities marking the end of our time in Iran, we woke up early to head to the Turkmenistan border - which was made a difficult task by the evening's festivities. Of course we were running late again. Once we left the city the two faster cars, us and the Swedes, gunned it to the border to let the other people on our carnet know all was well with the cars. We headed up through incredible mountains on perfectly smooth roads towards the border and left the slow cars in our dust, so much so that when we arrived at the border they were nowhere to be seen. We waited, and we waited but Po didn't arrive. Apparently they had somehow taken a wrong turn while following the only road. With all cars alive and well we should have no issue leaving Iran, and we didn't. One stamp from three men - one to confirm it was a passport, one to provide the stamp, and one to look at the stamp.

 

The change in people's faces was immediate as we passed through no-mans land into Turkmenistan, suddenly everyone looked a lot more Asian. To get over the culture shock we all sat in the immigration hall for a few hours; well, not by choice but because we all needed to get our transit visas. A few hours later we paid the $100 for a stamp, and were ready for the whole desk hopping fun to start. Once again the drivers and passengers were separated, so feel free to continue assuming the passengers got a complimentary cavity search.

 

I parked the car at the inspection zone and was told to go to a room across the parking lot. In the room sat a man with a stack of paperwork - maps were pointed at, lines were drawn, and details were taken. With a pile of paperwork in hand I was sent upstairs to find another man who gave my paperwork an approving glance, unfortunately I couldn't take the credit as it was mostly the man downstairs work. Either way he stamped a few pages and sent me on my way to find another man with another desk. Instead of the paperwork this man had a wads of cash on his desk, I used my deductive reasoning to determine I was supposed to pay him. He typed some numbers in his calculator and showed me the total, it seemed he wanted $106. I offered the $20 I had in my wallet, this was deemed insufficient and I was sent to find the rest of the money in the car. There was no need to go to the car because all my money was tucked in my socks, but I played along and went to the car to have a rummage and came back with a smelly $90 extra. He was happier with this new offer, so happy in fact that he sent me to another room. The room was bigger than the previous rooms, but the man was less happy. I gave him the wad of documents I had collected so he could stamp a couple and take a couple.

 

Back with the car the two guards came over playing the whole good cop bad cop routine. The grumpy guard didn't approve of our organising skills and pulled out most items and tossed them back in the boot. The cheery gaurd was having a whale of a time pretending to be me; he sat in the drivers seat with my sunglasses on making engine noises like a toddler and honking the horn. After a few minutes he was bored and decided to do his job, even if it was a different method to his grumpy friend. While his friend searched, he opted to directly ask if things were a problem. He pointed at the fire extinguishers and asked "problem?". Wooden poles, "problem?". Phone, "problem?". Rubber duck, "problem?". Anything he could use, he did use. After confirming that the sun cream was not a problem, he put some on. Then after checking if the baby wipes were a problem he removed the sun-cream. Once the grumpy guard had reorganised our car for us we were waved off. Free to explore North Korea's central Asian cousin, well free to explore along a specific route.

 

Once in the marble city of Ashgabat we found a hotel where some of the other teams were staying and got a room. Since this was the first time we had time to spare, we washed all our filthy clothes in the bathtub and hung them to dry on our balcony.  We had been told that all hotel rooms in the city were bugged, but they can listen to us complain about not having Facebook if they like. All the teams at the border had made a plan to meet for a few drinks now we were in a country that wasn't dry.

 

We sat and enjoyed cheap beer and food from the English menu - which suggested trying a kebab of delicious pog or lamp, so I had the chicken steak. Since there is a national curfew of 11p.m. our fun was cut short, but rumour had it there was a nightclub beneath our hotel open till 3a.m. so we snuck through the empty streets there and continued the merriment.