Turkmenistan isn’t exactly what you would call touristy. Okay, that might the understatement of the century. Turkmenistan is not touristy at all. I went nine days without seeing another tourist anywhere – at least not a Western tourist who stood out like I did. Then I arrived at this burning gas crater in the middle

I lay on my back, gazing up at a sky full of stars, watching the full moon rising in the distance. A light breeze swirled around me, occasionally breaking the silence as it rustled the flaps of my tent. Aside from my guide, Oleg, a few feet away, I was completely alone. I wondered who

I stepped carefully over the faded yellow, green and red bricks, pausing whenever a spot of turquoise or royal blue caught my eye –fragments of ceramic mixed in with the city ruins.  I tried to follow the vague path that seemed to lead over the dirt mounds that once formed city walls, afraid that one

  Arriving in the capital city of Ashgabat, I wondered if I was still in Turkmenistan.   Or had I been transported somewhere over the rainbow to the Land of Oz? All I needed was green-tinted glasses and I would have sworn I was driving through the Emerald City. It didn’t feel real. It had