travel guide: turkmenistan’s 3 legendary unesco-listed treasures

Posted on February 5, 2024 by Rama Arya

For a history buff, Turkmenistan is what wish-lists are made of. Its historical sites comprise three of the greatest world cities of the past which served as the capitals of some of the region’s most powerful empires in the ancient and medieval world, namely, the Great Seljuks, Khwarezmshahs, and Parthians.

All three of these cities are UNESCO World Heritage Sites today: Merv in the south-east, Konye Urgench in the north, and Old Nisa near the capital Ashgabat.

Welcome to my travel guide on these legendary metropolises’ fantastic histories and breathtaking monuments. Places very few visit, in one of our world’s Least Visited Countries. ❤

MERV: ‘QUEEN OF THE WORLD’ AND CAPITAL OF THE GREAT SELJUKS

Coronation of Seljuk Sultan Ahmad Sanjar [r. 1118 – 1157]; Jami’ al-Tawarikh by Rashid al-Din, Tabriz, Persia, 1307 AD.

Often described as ‘the wandering city,’ Merv is Turkmenistan’s grandest UNESCO World Heritage Site, both in scale and age: 1,236 hectares [including the buffer zone] and 4,500 years. Listed in 1999, it is also the oldest and best-preserved oasis city along the Silk Road in Central Asia. Continue reading →

travel shorts: kyrk giz grotto, if ribbons and mud could stick

Posted on January 29, 2024 by Rama Arya

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Take a long piece of cloth or ribbon, add a blob of mud to it, and hurl it high onto the ceiling of the grotto. If it sticks, your wishes will come true. If the ribbon falls flat on the ground, well you can either give up, or try again. 🙂

It is a ritual which people from across Turkmenistan carry out at the 50-metre-high grotto in Lebap Province, in remote north-east Turkmenistan. Starting a new job, getting married, or want a baby—it would not be amiss to make a pilgrimage here first. Continue reading →

travel shorts: hazrat-e mazar, afghanistan’s most sacred site

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One of Islam’s most sacred sites lies in northern Afghanistan, a mere 55 kilometres from the Uzbekistan border. It is a blue-tiled mosque which glistens like a jewel, changing colour through the day, and home to countless pristine white pigeons.

Whilst the Shi’a sect of Islam believe that Ali, Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, is buried in Najaf, Iraq, the Sunni sect regard Hazrat-e Mazar in Mazar-e Sharif as Ali’s actual tomb.

Both, the city Mazar-e Sharif and its spiritual centrepiece Hazrat-e Mazar, date back to the 12th Century.

There is an interesting Afghan legend as to how the tomb came to be here. Continue reading →

a self-guided walk through biblical mount of olives

Posted on January 20, 2020 by Rama Arya

Caution: This post is for travellers. Not tourists.

Whew. Now that I have got that out of the way, let me write on. Comforted by the thought you and I are on the same page.

Some of us like to wander. To immerse ourselves at a particular site just because, inexplicably, it touches a chord within us. To gaze at the details. Behind and under the obvious. To look at all versions of history and legends with an open mind.

The reason I bring it up particularly for my post on the Mount of Olives is because one cannot not visit the Mount of Olives while in Jerusalem. For that would be blasphemy. But you’d like to do it at your own pace.

Why? Because you are in the Holy Land. And Jesus Christ spent his last night before his crucifixion as well as ascended to heaven from here. Christian communities from around the globe have built a string of lovely churches down a near perpendicular street between these two key sites. Because you do not have to be believers of the Old or New Testament to believe in a higher sacred self. Or Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. But also, because the view from the top and the walk to the bottom is what memories, which make you all starry-eyed once back home, are made of. 🙂 Continue reading →