3 hours later the sign made sense. Mahala was the 1st 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 21st 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 22nd 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.
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