arrival at Ashgabat International Airport, huge, and empty
Many of you have already realised, of course, that Ashgabat is just 40 kms north of the Iranian border. Iran being the country that is heavily being bombarded by Israel and the US, as we speak, and also the country that seemingly randomly lashes out to its neighbours in retaliation. The good news is that they have so far not looked north, and that to fly from Western Europe to Ashgabat, one avoids the war zone – so far, flight to and from Turkmenistan have not been cancelled.
lots of flights, still, to the north of Iran
And indeed, our Turkish Airlines plane departs from Amsterdam to Istanbul, half empty, but the connecting flight, to Ashgabat, is much fuller. Apparently, many travellers avoiding the middle east now travel via Turkmenistan to further Asian destination, like Thailand and China. But the majority of the passengers is still Turkmen, recognisable from their excessive hand luggage, not just small and middle-size suitcases but lots of plastic bags, all stuffed with purchases from Turkey, to be sold back home.
Upon arrival in the flashy modern airport of Ashgabat we need to turn our invitation letter, which we received through the travel organisation, into a visa. Which is a relatively straightforward, if time consuming process: show your letter at one window, leave your passport and move with the received chit to a next window to pay, and then return to the first window, where lots of other people still line up to offer their letter, and squeeze in between to recover your passport. Incidentally, part of the payment, some 35 US$, is for a Covid test which no one actually administers, although there is a table with white-clad medical personnel on the opposite side. By the time we are done all our luggage has already been taken off the belt, everybody else, except a few more foreigners that went through the same process, has gone.
Once outside the arrival hall we get our first taste of Ashgabat architecture: the white-marble airport has been built in the shape of a bird, and is brightly lit, despite the ungodly hour, it is now 4,30 am.
next: Ashgabat
the airport terminal building, in the form of a giant bird
despite all the lights, it isn’t very busy in the middle of the night – when all the international flights are arriving
well, one woman is looking for a taxi
Ashgabat by night
and we are really talking ‘night’, by now it is 4.30 am
