Turkmen Army conscripts. Check point (see picture below), near Serahs, Turkmenistan.

On my second day in Turkmenistan, the temperatures were still somewhere close to 50° C, but the bigger problem was the wind, no, storm which was blowing so strongly that even if it were coming from the side rather than from the front, it would blow me off my bike. So I spent a day with these guys and their officer at their post. When, in the evening, their relief arrived, the guy on the right warned me about the officer and advised me to leave. That was not really an option under the circumstances (more or less middle of the dessert/steppe, still strong wind, night about to fall), so I stayed, averted the first tries of the officer to extort some money, then nearly blew it again by winning two times in "Tshashki" (a board game) against that officer, and finally created the good atmosphere that brought me a decent dinner and one of the three available beds by losing and very broadly announcing the officer's superiority in "Tshashki".

next person, please >>