Clean mud

On Sat 18^th May at 9am we approached the Azerbaijan border from Georgia.  It was a bit concerning seeing the overhead road sign.

3 hours later the sign made sense.  Mahala was the 1^st to hand over her passport & not get it back.  Then get grilled about the fact we had been to Armenia.  It appears these 2 countries don’t get on.  All our passports were taken.  Any Armenia products were seized.  We lost bottles of water, snacks, shampoo, 22 cans of beer! Pernille had her Armenia money taken.

All our rucksacks were placed to one side & many blokes in uniform came wandering around.  Individually, we then had to collect our bags & show the border guard our camera photos.  Any of the Armenia Genocide museum were deleted & we were given a lecture about how the deaths were a result of war, not Genocide.

The odd few locals wandered on past through various doors with their buckets of strawberries etc.  When the border guards questioned them after passing their bags/buckets through the x-ray, the locals decided to shout & carry on.

2.5 hours later we entered the gates into Azerbaijan, only to discover 2 minutes’ drive along the road Warren & Dave’s visas had not been stamped on entry.  Back we drove to cause more chaos.  They wanted all our passports back, luckily not us in person.  In total it took us 3 hours to get into Azerbaijan.

Armenian beer I found in the fridge, the guards did not

Drying my clothes on the truck roof

 

 

We stayed at Hotel Karavansaray in a town called Seki.  Big in the by-gone days of the Silk Road.  The courtyard & garden restaurant looked lovely.  Whilst in this town also had a guide around a building called Khan’s Palace.

This was the hotel's tap water!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The usual tack on sale everywhere

 

Then an 8h drive across the country to the mud volcanoes we were all looking forward to just outside Baku.  By the time we got there it was raining.  The truck got stuck – so did we!  Bush camp ended up being in a gravel pit next to a motorway.  The only saving grace was the warm temperature.  Not the gravel getting stuck to our mud covered feet & legs or security guards who turned up.  I guess the gravel belonged to someone.

 

The mantra I kept hearing from a few was “And we paid for this”.  Up at 5am, drive to Baku & the Turkmenistan embassy early to get our visas.  That’s right.  We were in the queue looking like this!  Got to the embassy at 9am.  It opened at 9.30am.  We waited in the truck whilst Teresa & an Odyssey agent arranged the visas with the embassy.  Left at 12.30pm.  Visas were authorized in the afternoon.

I did not get to see Baku except for the waterfront & the world’s largest KFC where I ordered a beer with my chicken & chips.  In fact we were only in Azerbaijan for 65 hours!  At 10.30pm that night Teresa phoned to say we were likely to be boarding a cargo ship in the early hours so be ready to leave at 3am.  We packed ready to go, & the call came at 5.50am.

 

Tue 21^st May 6am - to the cargo port in taxis.  Customs & passport control was a shed with an x-ray machine where dock workers freely wandered past!  I walked onto the ship at 8.45am.  There were actual train carriages shunted onto the ship.  We set sail at 12.25pm.  It was a good ship & a lovely sea crossing.  Food consisted of the snacks we stocked up on & noodles.  Yvonne, Mary, Becks & I shared a cabin.

 

Woke up at 7.30am on Wed 22^nd to here Phil on his daily run around the ship!  To EVERYONES annoyance.  There was only us & two other passengers along with the crew.  We dropped anker within site of the Turkmenistan coastline at 8.45am & waited.  Finally, stepped off at 5pm to start the passport process.  The sea crossing was an experience, but slow & totally inefficient.  Allowed into Turkmenistan at 7.30pm.  I have now realized a theme with these border crossings=slow & very inefficient.  The border guards would never cope at a UK airport.

A rainy night in Georgia/Armenia

After using the Georgian tube to visit a museum, only to discover it was closed due to a national holiday (on a Sunday), we drove into Armenia.  The border crossing was not too bad, but took about an hour due to only 1 person stamping the passports (that national holiday had interrupted us again).  Still, there was Port & Whisky in the Duty Free.  I had my hot toddy sorted for around the campfire.  Which was good because as soon as we began driving in Armenia the heavens opened?  The roads in this country had not improved, in fact worsened.  We bush camped about 2 hours outside of the capital Yerevan in the rain next to someone’s’ allotment/house.

 

We arrived into Yerevan on Mon 13^th May.  It was bright & sunny.  The hostel has lovely with hot showers.  I hiked with Phil for 1 hour 40 mins to find the waterpark.  Once inside, managed to get in 1 flume ride before it was switched off!  Had to then swim in the bog standard postage stamp 25m pool.  I asked for a discount in international sign language but it did not work.  In the evening we all went to a restaurant for an Armenian feast.  The food & wine kept coming & I discovered Armenia is famous for Brandy.

Spike Hayden Teresa Rebecca Dave Me

 

The brandy is called Ararat named after the mountain in which Noah’s Ark landed.  That’s in Turkey, but we saw this from just over the disputed international fence on Wed 15^th.

 

But, before then on Tue 14^th I did a walking tour of the city with the hostel, then to a Genocide museum – never knew there had even been Genocide 1895-1915 – neither do the British Government who states the millions who died was an act of war.  Apparently Hitler was not too worried about wiping out a race as no one noticed the Armenian Genocide!

In the afternoon I walked up the Cascade steps.  A good example of unfinished business by the Russians.  Money dried up for the project in 1991.  The top steps were never completed & the cranes just left to rust since then.  I noticed this is a common occurrence in Georgia & Armenia – not just for monuments but every type of building & roads – infrastructure & superstructure really.

 

At the top was a park containing the statue of Mother Armenia.  Now housing The Victory Museum about a 1991 conflict with Azerbaijan & WW11.  I also managed a picture from within the museum of Lenin or Stalin (I can’t tell the difference yet), on top of the plinth before Armenia got its independence.  However, I could not get into the WW11 exhibition as some diplomat from somewhere turned up with loads of police in blacked out window Larda cars for his own personal viewing!

 

Our last night in Armenia was at a beauty spot called Lake Seven.  It looked a baron place when we turned up due to the rain.  Only 2 blokes fishing in a rowing boat on this massive lake.  It was the first night we had to eat in the truck.  Only 15 of us present as the other 7 had been left in Yerevan trying to get their visas for Kazakhstan.  This had been a fiasco since entering Georgia!

Anna

Dave Phil Louise

 

On Fri 17^th May we crossed the border back into Georgia.  Only for the night, to bush camp near the Azerbaijan border, as we could not cross into Azerbaijan directly from Armenia.  We discovered this field was also home to frogs, ants & mosquitos.  The Kazakhstan visa 7 found our camp in the middle of nowhere at 4am on Sat 18^th after travelling by taxi all the way from Yerevan!  At 9am we began our border crossing into Azerbaijan & discovered why we could not cross directly from Armenia into Azerbaijan!

Surreal

We entered Georgia on Monday 29^th April at the town of Sarpi.  For passengers it was fine.  No problem.  We even had Duty Free in Euros.  For Simon driving our truck/bus it was grief.  The vehicle side of this border crossing seemed chaotic.  None of the border guards seemed to know what was required.  A truck driver tried to scam 50 Euro by saying it cost that to enter Georgia.  Simon had to go looking & found 1 boarder guard who offered to fill out the paperwork.  Other truck drivers wondered why there was no driver present & became very irate.  They took their anger out on a police officer who became stressed & punched Simon in the face when he returned!  Welcome to the none Western world.

 

 

On the bright side, the weather was hot at about 30⁰C which was lovely.  We drove along the Black Sea coast to the town of Batumi.  This place appeared run down with buildings dilapidating, many roads & pavements unsurfaced, hardly any road markings & hardly any driving rules.  Yet, a walk along the sea port revealed a surreal boulevard of palm trees, & brand new skyscrapers-one had a Ferris wheel in it.  The hotel had a roof top terrace with a good view of this odd skyline.

Our first night in Georgia was spent at a restaurant, decked out like a ship in the town’s main tourist park.  We had a Georgian feast.

Next day was a 6 hour drive to a bush camp at a town in the mountains called Mestia which was about 1600m high & very remote.  On the way I saw great views, hair-pin bends, over taking on the hair-pin bends, mountain passes, unsurfaced roads, rock falls, more derelict buildings, homes only just standing, water pipes serving homes not berried in the ground, cows, piglets, horses, donkeys & dogs freely wandering everywhere.  So much so, that the truck had to dodge many.  I discovered this was the norm & it will be.

On Wed 1^st May a few of us did a 5 hour hike to a glacier.  It was lovely especially as the weather was still about 30⁰C.  Next day some of us did a 4 wheel drive tour to a UNESCO world heritage site village.  Only 46km away, but took 3hours to drive due to only 1 mountain track.  It was like stepping back into Medieval Britain.  One big farm yard.  Mestia’s (& most of Georgia’s towns), shops are front rooms of people’s houses.  This village called Ushguli had 1 place which was the shop/bar/café/restaurant.  It was open, but only selling bread.  There was hardly anyone about.  We found a family offering to prepare us lunch.  This turned out to be a real experience in their front room.  We were given the Georgian staple of bread, cheesy bread, potato & veg soup, hard boiled eggs, cheese, salt & fried potatoes.  On getting back to Mestia we moved from bush camp to our 1^st homestay which was really like a youth hostel.

 

Next was a homestay in the city of Kutaisi.  On the way there I managed to sit on the roof seats of the truck-brilliant.

 

Sat 4^th May we went to the town of Gori which turned out to be the home town of Stalin.  Considering how Georgia has its independence from Russia & the fact Stalin sent over 40 million Russians to their deaths between 1932 & 1952, it was very weird to walk around a large museum all about him.  They were selling postcards in the shop & I nearly sent one home saying “hope you’re all OK”.  We got to look on his personal train carriage where I managed to get a photo on a loo inside.

 

Next day to the town of Kazbegi which again was more a village on the Russian border.  To get there, we had an incident with a sheep being herded & had to drive along a road called The Military Highway.  Hair-pin bends & unsurfaced.  Two of the group had seen this on a program called The World’s Deadliest roads!  Once in the village we did a near vertical hike to a Russian Orthodox Church at the top of the mountain.  Brilliant views.  However, the weather turned & it began raining later in the day.

 

After driving to the town of Telavi we were all looking forward to a wine tour.  First we had to attend a monastery that made its own wine.  None on offer, but a strict dress code to enter.  We got lost looking for the wine cellars we were required to attend.  In the end we stopped a man in a street & he took us to his.  It was very traditional for the region with wine stored in the floor – but not the best wine I’ve ever tasted.  They also made the Georgia version of Vodka called Cha Cha.  Revolting.  Next we had to attend “The Old Ladies house”. This was a dilapidated yard containing metal vats of wine covered with plastic.  Her wine turned out to be even worse.  Someone found maggots in the bottom of their sample glass of white!  And, the red wine was Stalin’s favourite.  During the tasting we discovered the old lady supplied Georgia Air.  I won’t be hurrying to buy a ticket any time soon.

 

Next day we decided to visit a decent wine cellar & checked out the Lonely Planet guide for help.  It came up trumps with cooking advice included.

 

Friday 10^th May was a drive to the Georgian capital Tbilisi.  I am proud to say I spent my first afternoon in this city looking for a laundrette.  Not that easy considering most people hand wash with clothes hanging everywhere in every street.  In the end we found  a back street place containing 1 woman & her 1 washing machine+1 dryer.

Sat was a walking tour of the city, ride on the funicular, sulphur bath, restaurant meal with champagne.  This place is cheap.  The sulphur bath was an experience.  I’m still not sure if the 3 of us were exfoliated of violated.  Still, I’ll do it again.  Managed to use a Soviet underground system on Sun 12^th May before leaving Tbilisi & crossing the border into Armenia.  Another duty free shop.  This time just a queue, no costs or punches.