Travelling in the 5 ‘Stans’ With The Record

Peter and Skip Farrow of Fayetteville recently went on quite an adventure: After a stop over in Istanbul, Peter and Skip Farrow’s tour proper started in Ashgabat, a very clean, modern city in Turkmenistan. Many of the buildings there are white marble and cars are required to be white as well.

It took ten hours and 375 miles over very rough “roads” to make the trip to the Darvaza Crater and back. The crater was created some 50 years ago by Soviet gas exploration. Still impressive, particularly at night, it is slowly fading according to our guide.

The next ‘Stan’was Uzbekistan where they changed $100 and became an instant millionaire in the local currency.

From Samarkand, Uzbekistan, they took a day trip to another country, Tajikistan. The Filmandar picture (spelt Filmandor on a map) is at a village on the way to the Seven Lakes Alpine region in Tajikistan, a tedious trip over unpaved roads, but worth the rough ride.

On Friday, April 17, they were on a four hour train journey, speeding at 35 miles an hour, on the way to Tashkent. The next day after sight seeing in Tashkent, they flew to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.