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Published: June 11th 2006
Ateshka Fire Temple
Ateshka Fire Temple
Joel ''Ah, Baku! How long shall we spend here''
Adam ''Well, we'll get our visas sorted and then see when the ferry goes. Hopefully just a couple of days''
Joel ''Aye, hopefully just a couple of days. I don't think theres that much to see here anyway'' We arrived into Baku in the baking heat. Clear blue skies and a slight mugginess in the air. We had decided to walk to the hotel we had chosen but had gotten our bearings completely wrong and had ended up walking in the wrong direction for a good 20 minutes. Eventually, after a couple of breaks to relieve the weight of our packs which seemed particularly heavy in the morning heat, we found the hotel Canub, situated right in the centre of the town, one block from the sea front. We checked in, did all the necessary form-filling and decided to stay in the cheapest room - 10 pounds a night (with shared bathroom). We were shown to our room, suffering with severe damp problems, browned paper peeling from the walls, paint chipping from the ceiling, rotten windows with one paine missing doing nothing to keep out the noise
Cave Drawings, Quobustan
Cave Drawings, Quobustan of the busy road below and manky curtains hanging precariously from two or three points on the curtain rail. Hardly the Ritz, but for the price and the central location it was a real bargain. ''Besides, it's only for a few days.''
After settling in and dining on cheeseburgers and chips at a McDonalds rip-off, we headed down to the port to find out when we could get the ferry accross the Caspian to Kazakhstan. It took us a while to find the correct building. Unfortunately the Lonely Planet guidebook to the Caucasus is dire and we have taken an oath that if we ever locate Tom Masters, the author of the Georgia and Azerbaijan sections, that we will castrate him accordingly! The point of this little interruption is that the port is not where it should have been and after a long stretch of time and asking various different people, we located it underbeath an overpass, over some railway tracks and down some dodgy alleyway. We managed to locate the 'ticket office', a small hut with a large, grumpy lady sat behind a desk watching TV, and to our horror, found out that the ferry was leaving that
Mud Volcanoes, Quobustan
Mud Volcanoes, Quobustan evening. We did not yet have our Kazakh visas in place and this meant that we would have to wait for the next one. The ferries to Kazakhstan only go when there is enough cargo and as such means that the staff never know when it will leave until the day it is leaving, a reasonably irregular occurance (approximately every 5-7 days). ''Bollocks!''
We left the port, dejected with the fact that we could well be here for anything up to a week and headed into town for some dinner. We dined at a restaurant called Kohne Baki, a large underground eaterie situated in the atmospheric cellars close to the old town, where we both had a local dish of meat roll stuffed with cheese. On the way home, we stopped in at 'The Old England Pub' for a few games of pool and to drink away the pain of having to spend at least 5 nights in the oil capital of the Caspian.
Wednesday morning, we treated ourselves to a rare lie-in before deciding that we would like to spend our day seperately. This occured on no ill feeling or animosity between us, but we decided it
Mud Volcanoes, Quobustan
Mud Volcanoes, Quobustan would be nice to have some time to ourselves. As it happens, we both ended up walking through the old city, of which there isn't much to see. Its not the kind of old city we have become used to and is filled mostly with the offices of various oil and gas companies. In the end, we met up completely by chance in the same bar, drinking expensive import beer aimed at the expats while fending off some loud, drunk Brits trying to initiate what they would probably call conversation with us. We just called it embarrasment, finished our drinks and left.
The following day, after inspecting the added bites from our second night in our flea-ridden beds, we decided that we should get our Kazakh visas in order. Anticipating a our ferry departure in the next few days, we thought it wise to get this sorted out sooner rather than later. We took a taxi with Rasim, a cabbie who spoke rudimentary english and gave us his phone number so we could call him when we were done. As it happens, the Kazakh embassy was the complete opposite of the Azeri counterpart in Tbilisi. We left our passports
Mud Volcanoes, Quobustan
Mud Volcanoes, Quobustan and were told they would be ready that afternoon. ''Result!''
We had only been a few minutes and Rasim was nowhere to be seen, so we hailed another cab to take us back to town and headed to one of the more expensive expat hangouts, Ocean Point for a full English Fry-Up with Heinz beans and real, proper bacon. We felt after the efficiency of our morning operation, we could treat ourselves. While we ate, we planned the next few days and ways in which we could amuse oursleves while we waited for the ferry's departure. By the time we'd done that and played a few hands of cards, it was time to get ourselves back up to the Kazakh embassy and collect our visas. In the evening we found ourselves a real boon - an Irish pub that served real Guinness AND was also showing the England v Belarus friendly, although this game, like all other England matches, tured out to be about as exciting as watching paint dry. On our way back to the hotel, we happened to walk past Rasim, our taxi driver from earlier in the street, who recognised us and managed to persuade us
Oil, Azerbaijan
Oil, Azerbaijan to let him drive us to Quobustan on Saturday. Why we agreed, I don't know but the arrangement was made.
As decided over our fry-up yesterday, we headed out on a day trip today. We planned to visit the Zoroastrian fire temple at Saraxani, and made our way up to the main train station in the blistering heat of the midday sun. We were lucky in that there was a train leaving straight away and we sat on the hard, wooden benches, staring out the window as the city began to give way to that semi-arid desert we saw when we arrived here. We attempted to ask the ugly, pregnant lady sitting opposite us how long it would take to Saraxani but we came up against the language buffers once more. As it happens, we missed our stop, had to sit on the train for an extra 40 minutes until we hit the end of the line, the train turned and we went back to Saraxani, much to the ammusement of the two ticket inspectors.
Eventually we arrived in Saraxani and we walked the short distance to the fire temple, or 'Ateshka' as the locals call it. Another
With Azeri Friends (L to R) Argassip, Famil and Noddy
With Azeri Friends (L to R) Argassip, Famil and Noddy 'Tom Masters Highlight', the temple, supposedly the only one of its kind outside of India was a pathetic excuse for a tourist attraction. A stone bandstand-esque cannopy in the centre of a coutyard, surrounded by low-ceilinged rooms and a very poor exibit. To make matters worse, we were hounded by a very unfriendly female curator who insisted on following us round with a scowl and padlocking and unpadlocking the small wooden doors to the various rooms of the exhibits as we went in and out of them. All in all, coming to see this was a real waste of time and effort. If I ever get my hands on that Tom Masters, I'll ....$@% *&%$ the &*##$@ little $@^#!!!!
We got the train back to Baku (excuse the fabulous alliteration) and returned to the Irish pub for a Guinness and to work out where exactly we could locate Tom Masters. This is turning into an obsession! We went on to a Jazz Club, again reccommended in the gude book, which turned out to be a poncey, underground bar with one guy playing th paino and expensive drinks. We had one then left and went to bed.
11:00 on Thursday morning, as arranged, Rasim was at our hotel to pick us up. We drove the 60km to Quobustan, south of Baku, passing numerous oil and gas facilities along the way, where there is a large open air museum, displaying stone carvings from what is believed to be the stone age. Some of the carvings are more faded than others, but nonetheless, this is an impressive site and the feeling of history that flows through you when you see these ancient artistic relics is nothing short of immense. We asked Rasim to take us on to the mud volcanoes, however he had never heard of them and had no idea where they were. He asked one of the guides at the museum who told us that the volcanoes were hard to find if you didn't know where they were and the best way to get there would be to employ a local guide. Obviously, this was an added expense, but having come all this way, we were damned if we were going to miss out on this site. In addition, Rasim also wanted extra payment as he had not bargained on the extra 20km to the volcanoes. We agreed reluctantly and arranged that we'd drive back to Quobustan town, pick up our guide there and then head to the volcanoes.
The road to the volcanoes was basically a dirt track, which crossed over railway lines and oil pipelines, involved some quite steep climbs and generated a lot of dust. After a good twenty minutes of bumping around we arrived at the summit of a small hill, and laid out in front of us was, what can only be described as a lunar landscape. The mud volcanoes consist of a number of relatively small mounds of dried, caked mud, with a pool of thick, sticky mud on top. Due to the flatulence of Mother Nature, these mud pools bubble, spit, overflow and occasionally errupt (although we didn't time our visit correctly to witness this). Around some of the mounds, you can see where previous erruptions have occured, shown by a long trail of now dry, caked mud running down one side or another. This really is a spectacular sight and the views of the Caspian, rich and blue in the distance, combined with the lack of other tourists made this a truly memorable outing. We drove the 80 odd kilometres back to Baku, tried to haggle Rasim down over the additional driving costs, failed, muttered under our breaths that he was a real scheister and then went to get some food.
We decided that a few games of pool were in order, so returned to the Old England Pub, where we were the only punters barring one expat, Kevin and another British citizen, Tony who was a Royal Marine, out here to train the Azeri army. Anyway, Tony thought Kevin said something about him and vice versa and the upshot of it all is that our few quiet games of pool turned into a restraining session, trying to keep a marine who is trained to kill from pummelling a small, weedy english bloke. Not the best night but entertaining in its own little way. What is it with Brits abroad?
Sunday was truly devastating. We called the port as we had been doing each morning to find out when the ferry was going to Kazakhstan and they said today! Today! A few days earlier then we had thought! ''Bonus!''
It was only 2pm and we thought we would embrace this excellent news in true Sunday tradition - with a fry-up! We went back to Ocean Point and devoured every item on our plates, washed down with two cups of decent english tea. What a day it was proving to be. We took a taxi straight to the port to buy our tickets, but were told by the same rotund lady that we had to have our passports to get our tickets. We raced back to the Canub, packed our stuff, bade a farewell to the bed bugs and raced back down to the port only to find that....the ship, the irregular, weekly, only goes when its full ship.....had already left. ''Bollocks!'' ''Double Bollocks!!''
We loaded our stuff back into a taxi, drove back to the Canub, which we now renamed the 'Hotel California' after the Eagles song.
''You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.'' Dejected, unmotivated and ultimately pissed off, we trudged out to the Old england Pub to drown our sorrows.
The next few days seem like a blur. A monotonus period, a black hole of time that I would very much like to forget.
Finally on thursday, we called the port and were told that the ferry was 'probably' leaving today. We grabbed our bags and raced down to the port, not wanting to miss the boat yet again. I was first one out of the taxi and as I opened the door to the ticket office I got the shock of my life, and then slammed it shut again. I looked at Adam in a state of disbelief. ''You will never guess who is in there?'' I told him. It was in fact the crazy Norweigian woman who had been kicked off our boat cruise back in Fettiyeh before it had even started. Unbelieveable. Of all the places in the world! Anyway, we bought our tickets and were told that the boat would leave at 19:00. At 19:00 we were told it would leave at 21:00. At 21:00 we were told the boat would leave at midnight. And at midnight we were told the boat would leave the next morning. We settled down for the night in a breezeblock shack for what amounted to a few hours of inconsistent sleep. The wait wasn't as bad as it might sound and we managed to strike up conversations with a couple of seamen, Argassip and Famil, who joined us in our despise of Randa (crazy Norweigian) whose impatience and loud, shrill voice got on the nerves of everybody who was waiting. As it happens the ferry didn't depart until 22:00 the following evening. Finally, after 11 days in Baku and a 34 hour wait at the port, we were finally leaving Azerbaijan! Our vessel the Mercuri-1, whose sister ship went down on the same journey a few years ago was much simpler than the DFDS ferry on which we departed the UK. The ride to Aktau in Kazakstan took 24 hours, although upon arrival we had to wait outside the port a further 14 hours until we had a berthing spot. Our time on the ferry was spent chatting to the two Azeris, Argassip and Famil who, although they spoke little to no english, was preferable to listening to Randa talking about how in Sweden 1 mile is equal to 20 kilometres! Finally at 15:00 on Sunday we disembarked the Mercuri-1 and set foot onto Kazakh soil.
Update.....01/11/2006:
Hi Joel, a friend sent me your blog as I believe you're interested in cutting off my penis. I live in London and am easily contactable if you really feel the need to go through with this...
Sorry you had a bad experience with the GAA book. I can assure you that I myself bought boat tickets where I say you can in the book back in 2003 (when the book was researched). Amazingly, things change and the lot of the travel writer is to write something only to watch it become more and more out of date and unrelaible. Also sorry you didn't like the fire temple. I thought it was kind of cool.
Happy travelling, Tom M
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Cessna152
Jason Smart
Amazing story. Keep up the terrific account of your journey!