I Visited The Strangest Country On Earth

35.

>> Anyway, guys, 35 years ago, I witnessed the collapse of the USSR and decided that one day I would visit everyone of the newly independent Soviet states.

Well, it took a bit longer than expected, but now I'm going to complete finally that teenage dream by visiting my 15th and final republic. Join me today on a momentous journey to mysterious and bloody hard to visit Turk Menistan.

Let's do it. If you know anything about the former USSR, it won't have escaped your attention that there is one Soviet Republic that stands out from all of them for being absolutely bonkers. The stranger than fiction central Asian nation that is modern-day Turk Manistan, a land as rich in crazy dictators as it

is in gas, who since independence have used the desert nation as their play thing in which to carry out all kinds of personality fantasies.

But who am I as a Brit to judge the moral compass of anyone else's ruling class? So instead of visiting the country to sneer at their politics, what I wanted to do was to go and find out about the people who live in what has been dubbed the North Korea of Central Asia. What would they be like? Were they the same

strange characters I'd seen on Turkman television whilst researching my trip? Or were they just a bunch of chilled people who are getting on with their lives like in most countries I'd visited? Posing as a curious tourist making a home video so as not to arouse the suspicion of my everpresent guides,

I enter the country in search of the truth. Get ready for a journey to a place unlike anywhere you've seen before.

Welcome to Turk Manistar. Now I have to tell you that 48 hours ago I was relaxing on a tropical beach in Maitius. Then a mate reached out and said, "Bold do you fancy joining me on a lastm minute tour to Turk Menistan?" So here I am in Kea in Usbekistan, not far from the border, utterly unprepared with

no idea what the itinerary is. Anyway, let's go grab my bag and my mate Joe and begin the journey to Turk Manistan. Ooh, mysterious. Dodgy.

>> Morning, mate. >> You ready, Joe? >> You ready? >> Let's do it then. >> Join me. >> That only took one take. If that was with backpacker Ben, >> we'd be on our 10th take by now. Come on. Let's go. Cirk Menistan.

>> Okay. >> Thank you. Can you throw this in your bin, please? >> Thank you. >> Okay. And breakfast.