After nearly an hour we came across a truck stop. We decided it was as good a place as any so stopped. As we walked through the doors, the space opened up into an enormous room with Majilis’ divided by local wooden screens. It was a far cry from what we were used to.
A few moments later we found ourselves trying to order some food & drink. Ordering something to drink was simple, we could point to the fridge & hold up our fingers to show how many bottles we wanted. Food was a bit harder. Team Karma Kar who we were convoying with were playing menu roulette. In-between a bit of English, sign language & animal noises we all tried to work out what was available. I’m not really sure if you can call our first attempt of ordering food in Turkmenistan a success or not.
Its not a bad idea to play menu roulette when you have no idea what is on the menu. Its not so good when you have two unadventurous brits who are scared of eating something weird. A truck driver we met on the ferry was there also. Even though he could not speak English he wanted to help us order something we might not be afraid of. The Karma Kar guys all chose what they were having & John & I asked for what we thought was beef. Once we had ordered, the truck driver invited us to sit with him at his table.
He ordered some more chai & we sat there quietly talking to the truck driver about our various home countries, travels & where we were all going until our food arrived. He was trying to explain local customs to us but I’m not entirely sure we understood everything he was trying to say.
Soon we were surrounded by plates of Turkmenistan flatbread (aka çörek). The Karma Kar guys got some fish & the third team member managed to somehow order chicken. Not bad choices for pointing at a name on a menu. Our food arrived at the same time. All we can say is it looked like beef but was very dark & chewy. It wasn’t too bad & maybe the uncertainty was getting the better of us but we carried on eating what we could playing the guess this meat game. At least we did not offend anyone by not eating. Then someone said camel!!
Was our first taste of Central Asian food Camel???
