A great new travel book published just in time for Christmas. A selection of travel stories from the more unusual parts of the globe that you can explore from the comfort of your armchair. These are places that you will never see advertised in a travel agent's window. ...

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Enough for two rugby teams. The Plov man at work Well, of course, you can survive quite happily on a diet of kebabs (also known as shashlik) and vodka (also known as a spirit that can burn the back of your throat off) while travelling around the country, as these are ubiquitous, and rather tasty, but there is a lot more for the...

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On the northern edge of the Kara Kum desert are the remains of the important Silk Road trading post of Gurganj. It was the capital of Khorezm, a small country surrounded by the Persians and Uzbeks. It was a place of great beauty, with palaces, gardens and the mighty Oxus river providing both transport and irrigation. Its beauty was no protection from invasion....

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We left Ashgabat around lunchtime in a convoy of three 4WD cars, packed with tents, sleeping bags, food, water, and, of course, many bottles of Vodka. We were heading to the site of a Soviet mining accident in 1971 when Russian geologists were drilling for oil. They found gas instead, and the drilling rig collapsed into a crater. The gas was expected to...

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About 20 km’s outside of Ashgabat is the Tolkucha Sunday market. This is the largest open air market in Central Asia.  It sprawls across the edge of the desert, and here you can buy and sell anything. The big days are still the weekends, particularly Sundays, when buyers and sellers pour in from all over Turkmenistan and Iran. ...

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That is how many tourist visas were issued in 2012 for Turkmenistan. Tourism is not viewed as important by the government, and with the vast sums being earned in oil and gas, this view will probably not change. ...

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Despite the attractions of virtually free petrol*, the roads in the centre of Ashgabat are deserted much of the time. Huge marble clad buildings surround the roads, Turkmenistan is the number one importer of Italian marble in the world, it even has a Guinness book of records entry for this, but not enough people live and work here to make use of the...

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In the twelfth century Merv had over a million inhabitants and was considered to be the largest city on earth for some years. It spread over hundreds of acres, on the borders of modern day Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. It was a glittering city, with travellers in awe of its many ornate buildings and its size. Today, although much has been destroyed by both...

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Leaving Uzbekistan involved a one hour taxi to the border zone, a place of emptiness with only a barbed wire fence interrupting the view to the horizon of sand and dried vegetation. I then had to queue for two hours in dirty, boiling hot border post, with broken fans not moving the fetid air. The majority of people seemed to be traders, with...

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