Members of the Indian Army Service Corps (ASC) team known as the “Tornadoes” display their motorbike skills during Independence Day celebrations in Bangalore, India, 15 August 2023. India is marking the 77th anniversary of its independence from British rule. (Photo by Jagadeesh N.V./EPA)

An Israeli 155mm self-propelled howitzer, loaded on a trailer, arrives at a position along the Israel-Gaza border on May 13, 2021. Israel deployed additional troops to Gaza's border as the military conflict with Palestinian Islamists raged on, while inside Israel security forces scrambled to contain deadly riots between Jews and Arabs. (Photo by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP Photo)

Travel photographer Amos Chapple recently crossed into Turkmenistan on a three-day transit visa and was able to photograph many of the sights and monuments in Ashgabat, the capital and largest city. Turkmenistan is a single-party country, a former Soviet state, run by a president at the center of a cult of personality.

Photo: A young couple leave the Alem Entertainment Center in Ashgabat. The current president has a history of breaking obscure records. In 2012 the wheel atop this complex was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest enclosed Ferris wheel. The structure was built at a cost of $90m. (Photo by Amos Chapple via The Atlantic)

This image taken from video provided by TVBS shows a commercial airplane clipping an elevated roadway just before it careened into a river in Taipei, Taiwan, Wednesday, February 4, 2015. The ATR-72 prop-jet aircraft had 58 people aboard. (Photo by AP Photo/TVBS)

In this September 10, 1977, file photo, from left, Hua Guofeng, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chairman and Mao Zedong's immediate successor; Ye Jianying, CCP vice chairman and future ceremonial head of state; Deng Xiaoping, no formal titles at the time but soon to emerge as paramount leader during the reform era; Li Xiannian, CCP vice chairman and future president; Wang Dongxing, head of the leadership bodyguard unit who helped topple the Gang of Four, view the body of later Chinese leader Mao Zedong in Beijing. (Photo via AP Photo)

Alexandra Mazo, 12, with her cellphone on her way down the mountain after finishing school. The remote mountain village of Pueblo Nuevo has been highly affected by the armed conflict and direct combat between the national army and Farc guerrillas due to its strategic location and the intensive production on coca crops on the surrounding hillsides. (Photo by Mads Nissen/Politiken/The Guardian/Panos Pictures/The Nobel Peace Center)

Ardent fisherman Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox appears to have hooked Frances Flajnik, Tempe queen of Anglers World Series, March 15, 1960. (Photo by AP Photo)

A man hugs a child at the Santuario de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe during a celebration on the Virgin of Guadalupe Day in Guatemala City, December 12, 2015. According to Catholic believers, December 12 marks the anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe at the Cerro del Tepeyac in Mexico. (Photo by Jorge Dan Lopez/Reuters)