Wakey wakey. After 5/6 hours sleep, we have  a morning briefing in our hotel in Ashgabat where you can here my drone on about toilets, health and safety and money for 20 minutes.

Then we have a quick morning Ashgabat city tour, before we transfer to the main event the Darvaza Crater AKA the Gates of Hell!

250KM through the Turkmeni desert, the Central Karakum Sands, in our private 4WD vehicles. We will arrive at the ancient Inguz line of the desert where we'll explore the various craters. One full of water, one full of mud, then we'll make our way before sunset to the fiery crater. 

We'll pitch up, maybe have smuggled a bottle or 2 to share, and enjoy sunset at one of the world's most unique destinations, the Gates to Hell. We'll camp here all night, so bring warm clothes!

Brekkie in the desert. Then we drive back to Ashgabat. We'll head back to our hotel where they kindly allow us to shower (they even have an old school sauna and gym). We'll take a shower here after a night by the crater, have a spot of lunch in a fancy Ashgabat cafe.

We then head to the train station for one of my favourite things to do in unique countries, an overnight train across the whole country towards Turkmenbashi in an ancient Soviet train. God this is fun. Alcohol is illegal on the trains (cough, cough). 

We'll wake up in Turkmenbashi and have a short sightseeing tour where you'll get a chance to have your first sight of the Caspian Sea. 

We'll then hop back in 4WD vehicles and make our way to Central Asia's proud answer to the Grand  Canyon, Yangy Kala. This canyon was the former floor of the Tethys sea, and over time, millions of years created the current 'design' of unusual forms and multicolor pictures. 

We'll chill here for a bit, soak up just where in the world we are, before we head back to Turkmenbashi to overnight in our Caspian Sea resort. 

Back to the airport folks (god it feels like we live in these places!). 

We fly back to Ashgabat, check out the UNESCO world heritage site of Nisa Fortress, and the world famous Turkmen horses, then we check into our hotels once more. We have a free afternoon to explore the city, or recover from a fast paced few days. 

Then this evening we'll have dinner in Ashgabat's fanciest restaurant (don't worry, due to the black market, this will cost about $10!). 

Overnight at our Ashgabat hotel. 

We're out of here. Or more probably, we all left at 2am the day before! We'll be in touch about plans for that.

Now... who's coming with me to Mongolia in a week or so?!