Turkmenistan is a quite isolated country in Central Asia and shares borders with Uzbekistan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan. It is going in the direction of being a bit like North Korea. Turkmenistan is a dictatorship and it’s not as easy to enter, but I did so let me tell you about it! The central Asian North Korea – Welcome to Turkmenistan!
What is good to know?
Turkmenistan is not excited to have many visitors in their country. Before covid there were around 11.000 tourists in the country about which the agencies were proud. 11.000 tourists not in a day, 11.000 tourists a year.
There are two types of visas for tourists, the tourist visa and the transit visa.
The tourist visa is quite a safe one to receive, you just need to book a tour with a tour agency of the country, it isn’t cheap.
The transit visa is the other option to get, but it isn’t easy. Before covid it was a 50/50 chance of who would receive it. So you would pay almost $100 and might still be rejected after all.
The government will not allow you to exit the capital Ashgabat without a local guide. You are basically locked in the city.
Turkmenistan blocked the normal internet, even with VPNs it is not working that good, you could write emails though.
Turkmenistan is ripping off tourists
Not only that it is hard and expensive to get in. Adding to that you will get ripped off and controlled at any point.
Starting at the entrance where you need to pay 33$ for a covid test. The test is not properly done and not noted with your name or anything. You need to pay a fee and the visa, so you will end up at $100+. That is also why flights to Turkmenistan for tourists are that expensive, there is a different exchange rate then the official one, because people would otherwise not purchase it.
Inside the country
When you want to change money to the Turkmenistan Manat the official rating will be 3,5 per Dollar but in reality it is 19,5. The tour guide was giving us 18, so also he was purposely putting something in his own pocket.
The hotel you will stay in for cheap tours will be terrible. For locals the hotel is quite cheap roughly $10 to $15 a night. The hotel cost international tourists like $100. When you want to buy official things like a sim card, or something like that, as a foreigner you need to pay the official rate in Dollars.
Adding to all the above, it is just highly expensive to do a tour. We had a cheap tour and we paid almost $600 for two nights and three days. The first and last day was only a half day. Basically for 24h we had to pay $300 and that is expensive when comparing it to the local prices!
How are the people of Turkmenistan?
The people in Turkmenistan are paranoid and have fear for foreign activities. When walking through the streets you won’t see many people. The guides were saying that it is, because only 500.000 live there, actually it’s around 800.000 according to google.
People are not on the streets and won’t show them to you.
When you are taking pictures or videos of places. People are afraid and will either hide from the camera, or will tell you that you are not allowed to do so, even though it might not be true.
So I honestly don’t know if the people are afraid or what else is the issue there. I felt at no time of my visit any kind of welcome in the country. Just this one time when I was with local kids playing volleyball. When I wanted to do a video they were running away screaming.
It feels that the people being brainwashed or something like that, quite sad to see, to be honest.
