April 19, 2009
After waiting weeks and weeks for a visa, we finally got permission to go down South to the Afghan border, and it was every bit as gorgeous as we thought it would be.
The hillsides of Serhetabat (Gushgi) are just covered in flowers, so many that all you see for miles are splotches of red, yellow and purple.
We hopped on a train early Friday morning, paid about 70 cents for the seven hour journey (the train always takes ridiculously longer) and plastered our faces to the window to see the beauty of this country that only a small handful of other Americans have ever seen.
About an hour before we arrived we were hauled into a separate compartment to be interrogated by a couple detectives.
“Why are you here? What are you doing here?” they demanded.
We gave them everything- our passports, identification cards, the address and phone number where we were staying, etc. but they were still skeptical.
“Are you going to Afghanistan?” they asked repeatedly.
“NO!” we replied. Why would I willingly stumble over the border? Doesn’t exactly seem like a fun adventure…
But after about 20 minutes or so we became friends. It also helped that they were friends with the husband of who we were staying with.
“We’ll show you the best restaurant in town!” one of them said excitedly once we arrived.
We spent two days wandering around, taking a gazillion photos with the multitudes of flowers. Up on top of a hillside a group of Afghan train mechanics pointed to the border.
“It’s right there!” they said. “You want to go?”
Was this a trick question?
As school kids learned there were four Americans in their tiny military town they began to swarm us. Some of them didn’t understand our Turkmen at all, which was interesting.
We accidentally wandered onto a military base and a group of officers started yelling in Turkmen. We could understand everything they said though, which was funny- “Who speaks English? You- go talk to those Americans! Talk to them in English! Tell them they can’t be here!”
A young officer came over to us and talked nervously. “Excuse me. What are you doing here?”
Then at night a large storm hit briefly and all the power went out. I’ll never forget how amazing the sky looked that night- just completely full of stars forever and ever.
The next day we met a dude named Begmurat who said he’d take us all the way back to Yoloten and stop wherever we wanted along the way..and that’s exactly what we did. Begmurat became our new best friend running through the flowers with us, helping us take photos and find mushrooms. They’re totally not poisonous here (I hope- I eat them all the time) and they grow all over after the rain.
We wandered through the caves of Ekedeshik at Tagtabazar on the way home- a settlement that wasn’t discovered until about 1885, although no one knows exactly how far they date back. The caves extend about 35 km but only part is safe for people to wander around in. Begmurat came with us and kept cracking ridiculous jokes like, “here’s where the disco was, guys!” or “here’s where they had a swimming pool!”
Oh what a funny dude he was.
We ate ice cream and stopped off the side of the road where a group of beekeepers kept their bees. I was surprised how calm I was surrounded by millions of bees…Begmurat wore a net.
We made it home in about 3 hours total, less than half the time it took by train, and collapsed at the local Yoloten bar to drink some really gross beer…although I’ve gotten used to it, really.
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1 comment:
Sounds like a nice trip... looking forward to seeing some pictures.
Jan
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