Peru, Iquitos. Restaurant in Bellavista, an area by the Amazon on April 2005. (Photo by Jean-Claude Coutausse)

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)

U.S. Army soldiers from the 2-82 Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, wait to load onto their armored vehicles as they prepare to convoy to Kuwait from Camp Adder in Iraq on December 7, 2011 at Camp Adder, near Nasiriyah, Iraq. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A man rides a golden motorbike on a street in Bangkok, Thailand on August 14, 2020. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

May Matthews (left) and Romy Clark from Bonhams Edinburgh carry a carved wooden model of an Atlantic Salmon by Rogers Brookes (estimate £1,500-2,000) during a photo call for the upcoming Home and Interiors sale, and Sporting and Wildlife sale, at Bonhams, Edinburgh, on September 16, 2020. (Photo by Jane Barlow/PA Images via Getty Images)

Colombia's Harold Tejada climb Plateau des Glieres during the stage 18 of the Tour de France cycling race over 175 kilometers (108.7 miles) from Meribel to La Roche-sur-Foron, France, Thursday, September 17, 2020. (Photo by Thibault Camus/AP Photo)

A girl catches a fish in the marshes of the southern district of Chibayish in Dhi Qar province, about 120 kilometres northwest of the southern city of Basra, on September 23, 2020. Iraq's southern marshes are blossoming thanks to a wave of ecotourists picnicking and paddling down their replenished river bends. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)

People pose near a new Banksy artwork in Rothesay Avenue, Nottingham, Britain on October 17, 2020. (Photo by Carl Recine/Reuters)