Turkmenistan is not a place for toothache, nor for the faint-hearted. After the break-up of the USSR, the Cadogan guidebook, one of the first for Central Asia, described the former Soviet republic as "only marginally more suited to human habitation than the moon". The relentless Karakum, or Black Sand Desert, blankets most of the country. Crossing it by the Trans-Caspian Railroad in the 1880s, Lord Curzon decided that it was "the sorriest waste that ever met the human eye". What's more, this isolated nation bordering Iran and Afghanistan has one of the most secretive and repressive regimes on earth.
If none of this puts you off, Turkmenistan is definitely worth a visit. The capital, Ashgabat, is a monument to the country's eccentric dictator, President Saparmurat Niyazov - otherwise known as "Turkmenbashi", or "Father of the Turkomans". His country is blessed with the world's fifth-largest deposits of natural gas, and he is frantically turning the wealth below ground into high-rise real estate. Except it doesn't look real. Gleaming marble-clad towers have sprung up everywhere, like a brash mirage in the desert.
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