Traversing Central Asia

Glancing over my shoulder I saw a portly woman, modestly dressed in a long skirt, her eyes glued to the floor. She entered the apartment quietly and shuffled into a room with Roshan’s friend. I wouldn’t have guessed she was a prostitute, but Roshan’s blatant hand gestures left no question. He looked me in the eye and smacked his fist into his palm repeatedly, nodding towards the room she had just entered. It was an invitation for me to take the next turn. No thanks. Derick and JP also kindly declined. We sat in a circle on a floor covered in Turkmen rugs. Empty soup bowls, a couple loaves of bread, and a dish of candies filled the space between us. It was nearing 2 AM and we were on our second bottle of vodka.

Roshan had approached us on the street an hour earlier with blood-shot eyes and a drunken grin. We’d parked our car in front of his building and were having some curbside snacks before heading out into the desert to camp. Not a minute had passed before he invited us in for the night. We obliged, and followed him up into a dark, concrete apartment block. He flicked on the lights and woke up an old man named Casper who was curled up on the floor, and another he called Chief who had passed out on the flat’s only piece of furniture. Having been suddenly roused, they stared up at us bleary-eyed, and then jumped to their feet, scared and confused.

With spontaneity comes trust in the unknown. But at that instant I questioned whether we should be there. The unanimous bewilderment threw me off, and the fact that at 1 AM we were in a room full of strangers in one of the worlds most enigmatic countries.

But my wariness was momentary, and seconds later Casper and Chief snapped out of their stupor and joined Roshan’s delight in hosting us. A third man appeared, ran out to buy more vodka, and returned with the hooker. It was an impromptu soirée with Turkmen oil workers in their temporary abode while out on the job. The conversation was broken but lively. They talked of patriotism, and we bonded over manhood and shots of vodka. Casper didn’t speak a word of English, but managed to dominate the conversation, building his stories with a pair of weathered hands. Roshan translated what he could, and we chipped in with muddled smiles. It was 3 AM by the time we convinced our hosts to let us rest. We had arrived that evening after being stuck on a cargo ship in the Caspian Sea for three days. This was our introduction to Turkmenistan.