{"id":165,"date":"2019-09-14T13:27:12","date_gmt":"2019-09-14T13:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/?p=165"},"modified":"2019-09-14T13:27:16","modified_gmt":"2019-09-14T13:27:16","slug":"turkmenistan-immigration-a-kitten-and-some-cookies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/2019\/09\/14\/turkmenistan-immigration-a-kitten-and-some-cookies\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkmenistan immigration, a kitten and some cookies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>by Robin Ewing<br>July 23, 2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About 1pm the boat raised anchor and excitement\nrippled through the ferry as we chugged into the stark Turkmenbashi port. Six\nhours later, we were still on the boat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/IMG_1241-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-153\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/IMG_1241-980x653.jpg 980w, https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/IMG_1241-480x320.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1024px, 100vw\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A few gregarious dock workers used an\nEnglish dictionary to shout garbled questions up at us, such as \u201cHow old are\nyou,\u201d \u201cWhat did you study in school\u201d and \u201cWill you marry me.\u201d One said he had\nseen Jennifer Lopez when she sang Happy Birthday to President Berdymukhamedov (and\nlater apologized saying she didn\u2019t know he was a repressive cult-of-personality\ndictator. That\u2019s probably true as she apparently tweeted to her Turkmen\nfollowers, who most likely number zero as social media is banned.). I\u2019m\nguessing the dock worker saw her on TV, considering the concert was in a $2\nbillion resort and organized by the Chinese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/IMG_1245-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/IMG_1245-980x653.jpg 980w, https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/IMG_1245-480x320.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1024px, 100vw\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Around 7pm we were allowed off the boat and\ninto Turkmenistan immigration. Narmy had to put on a shirt with sleeves before\nhe was allowed to enter. The convoluted process took 4.5 hours and 20 steps,\nmany involving carrying a form into a small room where a lone man sat quietly at\nan empty desk with only a stamp. We talked to a veterinarian. There was a\n\u201cbank\u201d with a tiny window and an even tinier woman working behind it. Jamie\nkneeled to talk to her through the gap. There was a $1.40 bridge tax (I never saw\na bridge) and I paid $140 for something I never understood. Wardlaw sat on the floor\nin the center of the room and played with a kitten. An officer brought us\ncookies on a plate. A man who spoke excellent English came out to rifle through\nour car and wrote \u201cBest Wishes from Turkmenistan\u201d on the map sticker on the\nhood of the van. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/car-hood-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-166\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s a sketch of my route through immigration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/turkmenestan-map.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-167\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;I\nwonder if JLo went through this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Robin EwingJuly 23, 2013 About 1pm the boat raised anchor and excitement rippled through the ferry as we chugged into the stark Turkmenbashi port. Six hours later, we were still on the boat. A few gregarious dock workers used an English dictionary to shout garbled questions up at us, such as \u201cHow old are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/IMG_1241.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169,"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions\/169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}