Country #133: To Hell with Birthday Celebrations

Turkmenistan is the country that almost wasn't. Look up any list of most difficult visas to get and you will find it in the top 3. This is due both to the lengthy process (think letters of invitations, numerous forms, etc) and their shockingly high rejection rate. But my life motto is that "no" is free so might as well try. 

Solo travel is not permitted so I contacted Ayan Travel about joining a group tour. Did I mention that Turkmenistan is also on all the "least visited nations" lists? For that reason, group tours aren't very common but the ever helpful Muhammet had a recommendation. He had a solo traveler booked for a tour and if they agreed, I would join them and offset the costs. The kicker, the tour began on June 2nd, my birthday, with a night at the Darvaza gas crater better known as the Door to Hell. I could be spending my birthday at the Door to Hell!! What could be more 2025 than that? I immediately said yes and then I waited. And waited. I'd never been rejected for a visa before but this one was a wild card. Meanwhile, I was busy planning the rest of my trip of neighboring Uzbekistan, based on the assumption that I would get approved. Almost 3 weeks after applying, I got my acceptance letter. Huzzah!

Fast forward to the night before my scheduled border crossing. I start feeling a slight cold coming on with a bit of a cough. Normally this would be no big deal but another little wrinkle in visiting Turkmenistan is that you must show up with $35 US in cash to pay for a Covid test. I've had Covid twice and both times, it has felt like a very mild cold with a bit of a cough. What if, after all the planning, I failed my Covid test and got turned away? I didn't sleep that night, trying to will away this maybe-Covid. It wasn't until I saw the actual test that I was able to exhale. 

After getting dropped off at the border, I entered a room labelled "Sanitary Dr" and witnessed the following: one man at a desk writing down visitors' passport information while another man administered nasal swabs. The two men were not communicating at all. There was zero identifying information being relayed. No sooner did man #2 swab someone with his right hand than he transferred said swab to his left hand, which held approximately 10 other recent swabs. Again, none of them with any identifying information. This was nothing more than an elaborate play for $35. Huzzah again!!

With this behind me, I joined up with Aziz, our fantastic guide and Joaquin, my Colombian travel partner. Joaquin and I watched as Aziz went from one line to another getting us processed into the country. The whole thing was part bureaucratic labyrinth, part rugby scrum. A group of guides fought to get a stamp from one lady which had to be shown to someone at the other end of the room who would then give the ok for the guides to join a third line to pay. There was probably a 4th and 5th line too but I was busy eavesdropping on the other tourists, all of them fellow country counters. 

But it was all good because after maybe an hour of this, I was in country 133, most likely without Covid!! Now came the fun part, after a quick lunch at a border town we were on our way across the Karakym desert to our big flaming firepit. The distance is only 270 km (or 168 miles) but thanks to the non-existent nature of the "road", it is a 4-5 hour drive/ thrill ride. Our driver maneuvered around semi's, cars and wild camels like a pro.  

We made it to the crater around 5pm. My feelings were mixed. On one hand, I was beyond thrilled to be in Turkmenistan, at this iconic attraction on my birthday. On the other hand, I expected the giant fire pit to be a bit more fiery. 

The origin of the gas crater goes back to 1971. Soviet geologists were drilling for natural gas, leading to the accidental collapse of a natural underground gas cavern. Realizing that having all that methane released into the environment was probably not a great thing, they set the whole pit on fire, thinking it would burn off in a week or two. And now here we were in 2025 at what has become one of the country's main tourist attractions. Despite its popularity, the government has been drilling wells to capture the methane and the fire is about one third of what it once was and is expected to finally die off. 

Birthday beer by the Gate to Hell? Don't mind if I do.

Regardless of its reduced size, it was still cool as hell. As were our accommodations for the night. There was once a time when anyone wanting to see the Shining of Karakum (its official name) had to drive 4-5 hours to get there, take a picture or two and then turn around and do the punishing drive all over again. There was no place to stay in the middle of the desert.  Now there are yurt villages that allow overnight stays.

After settling in, we had an impressive dinner, prepared by our driver followed by a surprise birthday cake. Probably the most surprising part is that it survived that drive as well as it did. 

Once night fell, it was time to return to crater, this time in traditional costumes. 

This is when the door to Hell really shined, pun fully intended. Seriously, I can't think of anywhere cooler to celebrate anything.

We watched it for awhile, along with all the country counters from the border crossing, before returning to our yurts. At night, while the others slept, I laid outside looking up at the stars before feeling that I wasn't alone. I wasn't. There were hedgehogs amongst us!

                                        

At sunrise, I was up early and eager to return down to the crater. It's definitely more impressive at night but to be able to stroll out of your yurt and down to something so unique is a pretty great way to start the day. 

We soon packed up to continue our tour. Along the way we stopped at two other craters, one full of mud and the other vivid green water. 

There was also a stop at a downtrodden desert village, where the people appeared to less than thrilled about having visitors traipsing through their streets.  

I probably could have done without that stop but it did provide the most vivid contrast with our destination, the gleaming white marble vision that is Ashgabat, capital of my 133rd country.