Day 16 - A bumpy ride to the gates of hell (Darvaza Crater)

Alright! Time to cross over into the mysterious country of Turkmenistan.

Known as the North Korea of Central Asia, the country had been closed off for decades to the outside world.

Even now, the only way you can visit is by joining a tour group.

I booked a three day tour starting from the northeast border Shavat, traveling south through the country, and then ending in the southeast border of Farap.

So, first thing we needed to do was get to the Shavat border.

Shavat border crossing

Another early morning started at 5:30 today.

Despite the border crossing only opening at 9am, we were advised to get in line an hour early.

With the ride to the border taking up to 90 minutes, it meant we had to leave our guesthouse at 6:30am.

So, with now two days of limited sleep, I groggily hopped in a car with Nathan on our way to the border.

Sure enough, when we arrived at 7:30, there were already about a dozen people lined up.

Eventually the other 4 members of our tour joined the line as well and we just chatted until the gate door finally opened at 9am.

In our group is an Australian couple Scott and Ainsley, Slawek from Poland, and James from New York.

Even though we were some of the early people in line, that nice straight line had now become a very wide line as people who arrived after us just kind of cut into the line in front of us widening it.

Whatever, we didn’t really care.

We’ll get there when we get there.

Crossing the border

At 9am the border gate opened and the line slowly made it’s way inside.

Getting through the Uzbekistan side of the border took about a half hour and that was the easy border crossing.

We exited the door leading out of Uzbekistan and we’re instantly officially in “no man’s land”.

A shuttle bus came by to drive us through no man’s land to the Turkmenistan border control building.

One US Dollar please. Yeah, that short shuttle ride ain’t free.

Inside the building we found our guide, Oraz, waiting for us.

He had our required paperwork already filled out and directed us through the long process of getting into Turkmenistan.

First there was a visit to the little door with a “Sanitary Doctor” placard above it.

Yup, it’s 2026 but we still had to get a mandatory $35USD ($48) covid test.

Next, it was onto the window next door to it labeled “Bank”.

Here we had to pay for the covid test along with our visa fee ($55USD, $76) and a “Migration Tax” which is, well, who knows what that’s for but it was another $16USD ($22).

In total we each paid $106USD ($146) just to enter the country.

Off to Passport Control where our passport would be scrutinized for the first of about a dozen times during the entry process into Turkmenistan.

Yup, they’re very thorough.

Finally, after an xray of our bags and a few more passport checks, we were officially in Turkmenistan.

It was 11:30 so the entire process took about 2 1/2 hours which is insane given that there really weren’t that many people going through the border at the start of the day.

Anyway, we were finally through and I can officially cross country #69 off the list.

Lunch

Since there were 6 of us on the tour we would be separated into two cars which was a nice little surprise since I was expecting us all to be crammed into a little van.

Not only that but the cars had full-on air conditioning.

Alright, I can dig this!

We weren’t on the road long as we stopped at a nearby restaurant for some much needed lunch.

My breakfast was pretty small and that was hours ago.

The restaurant looked pretty swanky and certainly not what I expected from a country with the word “stan” as its’ suffix.

I mean, they even had individual iPads at the table as menus complete with English text and nice, big, bright photos of the food.

While we were waiting for our food we paid Oraz $400USD ($550) each for the upcoming three day tour.

I had shopped around and found this price to be, by far, the best price out there.

It’s still a pretty hefty price tag for just 3 days but, hey, it’s the only way you’re able to see Turkmenistan so your hands are kind of tied.

For lunch, I had the beef with mashed potatoes along with a fruity Miami lemonade.

Total cost was 160manat which converts to about $62 which obviously a ridiculous price to pay for lunch.

However, that’s at the official conversion rate.

Luckily there’s also an “unofficial” rate that cuts the cost by about 70% making our total only $18.

Phew.

Potholes and dirt roads

Our lunch kind of dragged on and, finally, after almost 2 hours we were finally on the road again heading south towards the Darvaza.

That’s one of the problems with being in a tour group – you’re sometimes held hostage to other people’s time frames.

If it was only me, I’d have been out of there pretty quick.

Anyway, like I said, we were back out on the road around 2pm.

Originally we were supposed to do a detour up north to the ruins at Köneürgench but that plan was quickly voted out as it would mean 4 or 5 hours of extra driving and we wouldn’t arrive at the Darvaza Crater until close to midnight.

Now, let’s talk about the drive from the border to Darvaza which is almost smack dab in the middle of the country about 300km away from the border.

There are multi lane highways traversing the whole route with very minimal traffic.

I’d say there were probably 95% trucks transporting goods to and from the Uzbekistan border and then a handful of cars like ours.

So you’re probably like “wow, multi lane highways with minimal traffic! You must have been able to just coast down to your destination!”

Um, nope, not so much.

Parts of the road were literred with potholes and other parts were just pure dirt rocky roads.

That was our choice – either swerve back and forth on a semi-paved roads trying to avoid the potholes or drive straight down the bumpiest road you ever saw.

Turns out, our driver decided to randomly switch it up.

We’d drive on the pothole filled road for awhile and then switch over through the median to the dirt road.

And then back again.

To give you an idea of how bad the roads were, we must have counted a hundred discards truck tires on the sides or the road along the way.

It was a crazy ride. Perhaps the craziest I’ve ever been on and I’ve been on a few.

After a grueling 4 1/2 hour ride (yup, you read that right) we finally arrived in Darvaza around 6:30.

Darvaza Crater

The Darvaza Crater, also known as the “Gates of Hell”, is a man formed crater in the middle of the Turkmenistan dessert that has had fire burning in it for 55 years.

Back in 1971, Russians were digging for different ores and precious metals and, while digging, hit upon natural gas.

They tried to cover it up and light it on fire to burn it out.

It didn’t burn out.

In fact, it still hasn’t after 55 years.

Sure, the gas supply has shrunk over the years but there are still multiple hot spots inside the crater that are burning 24/7.

There’s been talk over the years about finding ways to permanently shut off the fire but that would cut off a tourist attraction that lures 100k people a year to visit.

Amazingly, Oraz told us that no one has fallen into the crater which I kind of took with quite a bit of sceptism.

I mean the little broken fence around the crater wasn’t keeping anyone from walking over it for a closer look and it wouldn’t take much to tumble on down.

I am happy to report that all of our tour group came away from our crater viewing unscathed.