The journey to Bajgiran is beautiful. The road takes you through desolate terrain and slowly up to an altitude of around 1500 metres. It was March when we undertook the drive, and there was still snow in some parts of the mountains. The Kia Pride who took us to Bajgiran had some difficulties once in a while. Not because of the steep road, but because of its limited horsepower under its hood. Just before we entered Bajgiran, we had to show our passports at a military checkpoint. When the soldiers found out that we wanted to spend the night in Bajgiran, because our Turkmen transit visa started only the following day, they told the taxi driver to drop us first at the local government house. We were welcomed there friendly and after registration, our host told us that there is only one sleeping option in town, the Bajgiran Camping and Tourist Complex (a room costs 500,000 Rials which is around € 10). No choice, so the decision wasn’t difficult to make. We were the only guests in town and the hotel wasn’t staffed, which meant that we didn’t only get the key of the room, but also of the hotel.

The central heating in the hotel wasn’t functioning and there was no hot water. But to keep warm at night, the host set alight the small petroleum stove in the room. We had to keep the windows open to make the petroleum smell bearable. When we asked him if there is a restaurant in the village, he said no. ‘You have to go to the small local ‘magazin’ (which is Russian for small shop) to buy some food’ was his suggestion. And that is what we did. We bought bread for lunch, dinner and breakfast of the following morning. There weren’t a lot of options for sandwich filling. We bought some Iranian Feta and Yoghurt with Shallots to do the job. The next morning at 8, we met our host again at the hotel to receive our passports. We asked him if he knew somebody who could change our last Iranian Rials into Turkmen Manats. Of course he knew, and five minutes later somebody arrived with a big bag of money. The guy was also in the possession of a car, and for 40,000 Rials (€ 0.90) he was willing to drop us at the border, some 2 kilometres uphill away.

The Iranian-Turkmen border is located in the mountains, at an altitude of around 1500 metres. Public transport isn’t allowed at the Turkmen side of the border, so government-run VW minivans shuttle the travellers to and from the border, from a checkpoint 20 kilometres down the mountains. The 20-minute ride is spectacular but costs a whopping 10 US$ per person (30 Manat). But it doesn’t get better at the checkpoint at the bottom of the mountain where they check your passport again. Here you have to make a deal with a taxi driver to take you to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan’s capital city, another 20 kilometres away. The going price at the time of writing was 30 US$ for a taxi. Fortunately, we could share the taxi with a Turkmen traveller. And when we eventually arrived in Ashgabat, after a hectic morning, the story wasn’t over yet. It was extremely difficult to find a hotel room for a reasonable price. Some hotels were full, others were demolished or under renovation, so we eventually took a room in the expensive Ak Altyn hotel. It’s just for a couple of day we said. What a morning!