Konye Urgench was a massive city, so beautiful that Tamerlane thought it competition to Samarkand and so had it razed to the ground. In all the city was destroyed 7 times, only for the people to return and rebuild. The 5 or 6 buildings that survived are subject to huge speculation as the original use and reasoning for why these buildings were spared is unknown. One thought is that these buildings were important for the local population and to gain the respect of ...

From Ashgabat we took to road north, I think the term road is being used here in the loosest sense. It was tarmac-ed, but there didn't seem to be any foundations to the road and obviously overloaded trucks use this route. The peaks and troughs in the road marking the lanes. Good thing we got new suspension, and raised the height of the car! The drive took us by a set of craters. The first filled with water and you could see bubbles coming to the surface. The sec...

5am... knock, knock! Who's there? Why the skipper of course, miming for us to pack our things - we are here! Turkmenbashi! At last! I wake Fintan up and start shoving our things into the bags ready to race off the ship in a minute, Fintan is looking for his razor - shave!? Now?! In these crucial few minutes?! Of course, it took us about an hour and a half to get off the ship, so I had nothing to fret about really, I just wanted to get off the ferry and be in Tur...

I woke up this morning to look outside, expecting to see blue seas and blue skies, only to find we're still in Baku!! What?! Just as we went on deck we were being pulled out of the dock by a little tug! Ok, well at least we're on the ship and on the way, right? So a day of sleeping and reading and nibbling on the food we'd brought with us. We had a little cabin, with a private bathroom. The port official had told Tahira we would be comfortable with even showers...