Original title: Tourists want to leave the country, helpless to spend 2 days on the border of Turkmenistan
According to the Journal-Bee, the Turkmenistan Border Guard recently intercepted Ali Simidoor, a U.S. citizen who traveled from Russia to Iran, for 2 days on the border with Iran.
According to the Turkmenistan Chronicle, Ximendowal travels frequently and has been to more than 100 countries, but when he tried to leave Turkmenistan, known for its closure and strict restrictions on movement, he ran into unexpected trouble.
"At the time, a guide who looked more like a spy accompanied me. They don't like to be nosy. Everything was strict. Simondower said.
On 15 October, Simmendall and a guide drove to the Turkmenistan-Iran border. According to the guide, the checkpoint closed at 18:00, and in order to avoid problems, the two arrived at the checkpoint as early as 16:15. But border guards said the two were late and that the checkpoint had closed at 16:00.
Border guards advised Simidoor to go to a nearby border city to obtain an exit permit, but refused to leave the city, requiring him to stay until 8 a.m. when the border opened before leaving the country.
Then came all sorts of bureaucratic delays: Simmendall was sent to a state-run hotel in Sherakhs (a border city of Turkey and Iraq), asked for $40 for an "overdue" pass, then $3,500 for the same document (Simmendall did not pay in the end), and spent more than 2 more days in Turkmenistan.
In the end, Simdall entered Iran normally, but he regretted that he did not give the border guards $20 directly at the beginning, otherwise he would not have encountered these problems.
According to Simondall, he had visited North Korea, which is also known for its many restrictions on tourists. "North Korea is much stricter than Turkmenistan. They let us live on an island almost like Alcatraz island in the United States, where we couldn't go anywhere. But he pointed out that Turkmenistan also has a lot of rules when it comes to prohibitions. In Ashgabat, for example, a police officer grabbed his camera as he tried to photograph the marble building and ordered all the photos to be deleted.
Source: Central Asia News Network
Compiler: Liu Ruowei