Headbanging in the Desert, Literally ...
Samarkand, Uzbekistan, May 25
Every traveler, upon reaching Samarkand, must quote the final lines of an apparently not-very-good poem by James Elroy Flecker:
We travel not for trafficking alone,
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned.
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
Since the penalty for not doing this involves sand, dung beetles, and flaming oil, I'll play along.
On May 20 I was still in Turkmenistan, and we headed north from Ashgabat into the desert, after making a stop at a large bazaar just north of town. They had rugs, scarves, lots of baby clothes, and traditional furry hats (which must be really hot in the sun), but my favorite section was the auto parts. It looked like just about every sort of car in the former USSR had been taken apart and put on display. The bearded old men looked closely at old radiators and crankshafts and debated their relative merits and defects like horsetraders.
Once in the desert, we finally saw some big sand dunes (the desert west of Ashgabat doesn't have them, just rocks and gravel, at least near the road). The highway varied a lot in quality--there would be a good section, then bone-jarring potholes, then another good section.
The road work was going outward from train stations along a parallel railroad. After an hour or so we stopped at a village where I saw how you get camel's wool: just pull it off when the camel starts to shed. Much easier than shearing, I guess. The local kids mugged for our cameras and followed us around, but I don't think they asked for money.
Toward evening we left the road to head for our major objective: a flaming gas crater. Sometime in the 1950s, Soviet gas prospectors conducting seismic studies accidentally set off charges in a more active gas field than they had realized, blowing nine craters in the desert. Most have only slow gas seepage, but one of them has enough gas flowing into it that it stays constantly on fire, visible for miles away at night. Nobody seems to know exactly when it was set on fire, or who did it, but I'm willing to bet lots of vodka was involved.
The crater is about 150 feet across, and the atmosphere is incredibly bizarre, like something out of a Bond film (minus the palatial villain estate) or like a volcano from a 1930s jungle flick. Even in the daytime the heat and flames are amazing, and at night they are astounding. Flocks of birds, hunting the insects attracted by the light, dive in and out of the crater, somehow dodging the intense heat. My guidebook referred to large spiders walking into the crater, but I didn't see any. I went to bed well after dark, secure in the knowledge I had seen something new.
May 21st was mostly spent driving north to the Uzbek border. Our guide drove the jeep about as fast as road conditions would allow, and sometimes arguably faster. There were no seatbelts, and I was sitting in the front and enjoying the view until we hit a bad pothole and I bounced my head off the windshield hard enough to crack it. The blow had taken me completely by surprise, so I had been totally relaxed, which I think helped. I was not cut or even bruised, but I instantly started to recall all the alarming things you learn about brain injuries in first aid classes. Nick was the same way--we checked that neither eye was dilated, did various other neurological tests, and agreed that I should stay awake for at least twelve hours.
In a case of very bad timing, I had managed to get badly dehydrated the previous day through a combination of alcohol, not enough water, wandering in the desert, and a lower intestinal ailment I have been too decorous to mention in this journal. So I started to feel faint about 20 minutes after the accident, but drinking water and eating a chocolate bar soon helped. Since we wanted to arrive at the border with plenty of time to spare, we made only a brief visit to the 12th and 14th-century mausoleums near Urgench.
Our exit from Turkmenistan was uneventful, but the Uzbek border guards (after making me display all my currency and checking my entry declaration) insisted that we accept a ride into Nukus from one of the border guards, and not from the taxis waiting nearby. We were charged $10 apiece for the ride, which we later determined was at least triple the market rate, but since the border authorities could have delayed us any amount of time we thought it unwise to refuse. This was our first encounter with an official shakedown.
In Nukus we made the mistake of staying at the Hotel Tashkent, a Soviet holdover with water in two flavors: slightly warm and brown, or cold and a bit paler brown. It did have nice views, though, and we were high enough that insects were not an issue.
Again, I apologize for leaving the story unfinished, but other matters call. I will be up to date by the day after tomorrow at the latest.
Every traveler, upon reaching Samarkand, must quote the final lines of an apparently not-very-good poem by James Elroy Flecker:
We travel not for trafficking alone,
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned.
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
Since the penalty for not doing this involves sand, dung beetles, and flaming oil, I'll play along.
On May 20 I was still in Turkmenistan, and we headed north from Ashgabat into the desert, after making a stop at a large bazaar just north of town. They had rugs, scarves, lots of baby clothes, and traditional furry hats (which must be really hot in the sun), but my favorite section was the auto parts. It looked like just about every sort of car in the former USSR had been taken apart and put on display. The bearded old men looked closely at old radiators and crankshafts and debated their relative merits and defects like horsetraders.
Once in the desert, we finally saw some big sand dunes (the desert west of Ashgabat doesn't have them, just rocks and gravel, at least near the road). The highway varied a lot in quality--there would be a good section, then bone-jarring potholes, then another good section.
The road work was going outward from train stations along a parallel railroad. After an hour or so we stopped at a village where I saw how you get camel's wool: just pull it off when the camel starts to shed. Much easier than shearing, I guess. The local kids mugged for our cameras and followed us around, but I don't think they asked for money.
Toward evening we left the road to head for our major objective: a flaming gas crater. Sometime in the 1950s, Soviet gas prospectors conducting seismic studies accidentally set off charges in a more active gas field than they had realized, blowing nine craters in the desert. Most have only slow gas seepage, but one of them has enough gas flowing into it that it stays constantly on fire, visible for miles away at night. Nobody seems to know exactly when it was set on fire, or who did it, but I'm willing to bet lots of vodka was involved.
The crater is about 150 feet across, and the atmosphere is incredibly bizarre, like something out of a Bond film (minus the palatial villain estate) or like a volcano from a 1930s jungle flick. Even in the daytime the heat and flames are amazing, and at night they are astounding. Flocks of birds, hunting the insects attracted by the light, dive in and out of the crater, somehow dodging the intense heat. My guidebook referred to large spiders walking into the crater, but I didn't see any. I went to bed well after dark, secure in the knowledge I had seen something new.
May 21st was mostly spent driving north to the Uzbek border. Our guide drove the jeep about as fast as road conditions would allow, and sometimes arguably faster. There were no seatbelts, and I was sitting in the front and enjoying the view until we hit a bad pothole and I bounced my head off the windshield hard enough to crack it. The blow had taken me completely by surprise, so I had been totally relaxed, which I think helped. I was not cut or even bruised, but I instantly started to recall all the alarming things you learn about brain injuries in first aid classes. Nick was the same way--we checked that neither eye was dilated, did various other neurological tests, and agreed that I should stay awake for at least twelve hours.
In a case of very bad timing, I had managed to get badly dehydrated the previous day through a combination of alcohol, not enough water, wandering in the desert, and a lower intestinal ailment I have been too decorous to mention in this journal. So I started to feel faint about 20 minutes after the accident, but drinking water and eating a chocolate bar soon helped. Since we wanted to arrive at the border with plenty of time to spare, we made only a brief visit to the 12th and 14th-century mausoleums near Urgench.
Our exit from Turkmenistan was uneventful, but the Uzbek border guards (after making me display all my currency and checking my entry declaration) insisted that we accept a ride into Nukus from one of the border guards, and not from the taxis waiting nearby. We were charged $10 apiece for the ride, which we later determined was at least triple the market rate, but since the border authorities could have delayed us any amount of time we thought it unwise to refuse. This was our first encounter with an official shakedown.
In Nukus we made the mistake of staying at the Hotel Tashkent, a Soviet holdover with water in two flavors: slightly warm and brown, or cold and a bit paler brown. It did have nice views, though, and we were high enough that insects were not an issue.
Again, I apologize for leaving the story unfinished, but other matters call. I will be up to date by the day after tomorrow at the latest.
posted by jeros | 1:58 PM
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