November 19 -- Off to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan

Woke up about 5 AM and did all of the morning things. We went over to the City Center Mall to find a place to have breakfast. Most of the stores were not yet open so the mall was very quiet. We decided to eat at Paul.

Paul, is kind of upscale for a mall. Since we were there before most of the stores opened so it was quiet and not very crowded. The menu was limited for breakfast but my wife and I ordered different breakfasts and both were tasty and served promptly. A basket of bread was served with the breakfast which was kind of unexpected. We had no idea this was a “chain” until we saw one at terminal two in the Dubai airport. I would recommend this place for breakfast.

After breakfast we went back to the hotel, check-out, and took a taxi to the airport. We were already checked in so we just had to go through security and on to the gate. the flight to Ashgabat was just under two hours.

 Flying from Dubai to Ashgabat we were on a “discount” airline called Fly Dubai. The seats were comfortable the legroom was pretty average and on this flight you paid for everything from drink to the entertainment system. Fortunately this flight was less than 2 hours and we used my laptop as our entertainment system. We only got to watch part of a movie before the flight was completed. Turns out you can get manat, the Turkmen currency, at any of the hotels. The exchange rate is pretty much the same all over and agrees with what I found on the web at 3.5 manat for each U.S. dollar.

We got our visas at the airport. All we had to do was present our letter of invitation, pay for the visa, and get it stamped. We then went through passport control, back claim, customs, and then we were greeted by Rejep when we went through the doors.

Rejep drove us to the hotel and got us situated. He brought us some manat, local currency, and was off for the night.

The Ak Altyn Hotel is showing age. The door lock is still with a key and it does not lock automatically when you close it. If you leave the room you much take your key to lock the door or have someone that is still inside lock the door. We were given a room with twin beds. Oh well it’s only one night. The room smelled strongly of smoke but then there are no non-smoking rooms. The furniture is worn from much use. The rooms were clean except the bath has black mildew on the tile grout. The rooms was very dark even with the lights on and the drapes open in the morning. Not what I would call cheery. The hotel could certainly use an upgrade. Didn’t seem to have any English channels on cable but then I’m sure they don’t have too many English speaking people (as their first language) staying here. Wifi cost is $1 per day and is only supposed to be used in the lobby though you can see the network in your room. I did us it in my room in the morning until 7 AM when my time ran out. If you can afford it, stay somewhere else.

From the sixth floor you can see much of the city in one direction. The windows were quite dirty on the outside so the view was some what restricted. That is pretty much that way most windows are in hotels in the desert that I have stayed in so this in nothing out of the ordinary.

Had dinner in the Continental Restaurant in the hotel. The salads we had were excellent. The menu has pictures of everything and the salads looked exactly like the picture and were very tasty. We ordered “roasted vegetables” to go with our entree. These looked like they came from a can and were only warm when they arrived. Carrot, potatoes, peas, a few mushrooms, and something else I wasn’t sure what it was were in the mix. The entrees we ordered came in huge portions. Wife said her fish was good and I ordered the mixed grill. There were five different preparations including, white fish, ground meat patty, beef steak, chicken, and a lamb chop. The lamb, fish, and meat patty were tasty. The steak and chicken were over cooked. Didn’t have dessert. The meal was 150 manat or about $43.

We did have wi-fi here but I was not prepared to post any information. We mostly checked out email. Social media is blocked in Turkmenistan so I couldn’t look at Facebook. Not sure I will be able to post anything to the blog while we are here either but am writing things up as I go along so they can be posted when we get back to Dubai or Seattle.

We will have wi-fi in Awaza so will try to post from there or at least send emails. Plan to post some reviews to Trip Advisor as well but will probably wait to do that until we get to Seattle.
 

Turkmenistan Travel Info

Our travel agent in Turkmenistan, Rejep (the company website) was very attentive during the whole process including all of the emails that went back and forth during the trip preparations. This included securing our Letter of Invitation (LOI) which is a requirement to get a visa to enter the country. He tried to save us money at every turn and was very accommodating to our wishes. Be aware that in addition to the $100 visa fee charged by the government you will have to pay $100 to the travel person making the arrangements for the LOI for each person traveling. Be sure to allow yourself enough time for the activities you plan. The LOI effective for a range of dates but the number of days you may be in the country is also limited in the LOI and those days include your arrival and departure days regardless of the time you arrive or depart. Let’s say you want to spend 10 days in country. If you get in at 1 AM or 7 PM the day you arrive is day 1. The day you leave whether it is 3AM or 10 PM that is day 10. So that actually leaves you 8 days to do your site seeing and take care of business as necessary.