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)

“Hiding In The Shadows”. This Baby Sandhill taking refuge under Moms wings while sitting on her second egg. I witnessed this baby being born earlier that day,and the next morning saw the other one hatch,what a sight to see. Photo location: Deland, Florida. (Photo and caption by Scott Helfrich/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A person drags a suitcase as a boy clings to it on a square in front of a railway station ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year in Qingdao, Shandong province, January 28, 2014. About 3.62 billion trips will be made during the 40-day Spring Festival travel rush, which started from January 16, reported Xinhua News Agency citing a government official. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

South Korea's Lee Dae-ho is hit by a pitch off Taiwan's pitcher Pan Wei-lun during the second inning of their first round game of the World Baseball Classic at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, March 9, 2017. (Photo by Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo)

The National Geographic Photo Ark is a travelling exhibition of photographer Joel Sartore’s quest to create a photo archive of biodiversity around the world. So far, Sartore has captured studio portraits of more than 6,000 species – a number that he hopes to double. On 1 July, the ark will open at Melbourne zoo – the first time it has been exhibited in the southern hemisphere. More than 50 portraits will be on display, including many of Australian endangered animals being protected by programs at the zoo itself. These captions have been edited from text supplied by Melbourne zoo. Here: Barking owl. (Photo by Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark/The Guardian)

A truck driver cleans the mirror of his decorated truck in Charsadda outside Peshawar, Pakistan October 18, 2016. (Photo by Fayaz Aziz/Reuters)

In this Tuesday, December 20, 2016 photo, Mohammad Ramzan, right, reacts while talking to The Associated Press with his young bride Saima in Jampur, Pakistan. Saima was given as a bride to the older man by her father so he could marry the groom’s sister, a practice of exchanging girls that is entrenched in conservative regions of Pakistan. It even has its own name in Urdu: Watta Satta, “give and take”. A mix of interests – family obligations, desire for sons, a wish to hand off a girl to a husband – can lead to a young teen in an a marriage she never sought. (Photo by K.M. Chaudhry/AP Photo)

16-year-old panda, Ye Ye, rests in an enclosure at the Wolong Nature Reserve, a conservation center that trains pandas for release into the wild. This image was published in the August 2016 National Geographic magazine as part of the “Pandas Gone Wild” story. (Photo by Ami Vitale/National Geographic Creative)