The opening of the new Ashgabat-Mary Autobahn has meant nothing is done to maintain the old highway via the Hauz Han lake.
What should have been an easier day's ride with the wind oblique but largely behind me is sundered by the deeply rutted, almost corrugated, cracked, pitted and pot-holed road surface. Anyway - it meant I have to keep my wits about me to avoid the sudden mini-ravines - and I feel now a sore bum and bruised palms.
Brunch in Tejen. After the rebuilt prosperity of Turkmenbashi, the flashy new-builds of Balkanabat, the gentle left-behindness of Magtymugly and the modern opulence of Ashgabat, Tejen is
the first 'normal' town I've encountered in this unusual country. Suburbs of workshops and small businesses, single-storey corrugated-iron roofed houses, pitted dirt roads, a bustling street market, populated pavements, traffic dodging in all directions - even a few cyclists. Rather a relief.