Mr. Kurtulus speaks bitterly about the local population. As for the shrimp eggs, they can lie dormant in the hot sun for more than 25 years and still pop back to life when the cool water floods back in. We drive back to Turkmenbashi, and later that night pile into the same Russian Lada for an eight-hour drive across the Kara Kum to Ashkhabad, the Turkmen capital. Along a road at the edge of Ashkhabad, facing open fields, is a row of 24 hotels. They are architectural extravaganzas, but strangely quiet.
Few cars stand in the lots, and taxis almost never pull up.
All were built in the last five years by the government and are now managed by the ministry of tourism. We check into one.