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London to Tajikistan and everywhere inbetween.
Takijistan. short bit of pamirs, with a camp at...
by duttski
Turkmenistan
by duttski
What a country!
On arrival we drive 20m before the first police checkpoint. This was a sign of things to come. Our aim was to have a swim in the Caspian and then a big drive to just short of Ashgabat. This had already been cut short by a long day sat around at the border, police every 50km (even in the wilderness) and low speed limits. Swim was successful, for which we went to the 'mini Dubai' of Awaza to avoid unnecessary police input. We drive for a while, camp by the side of the road and get a reasonable amount of sleep.
Arriving in Ashgabat at around midday, we park up and go for a wander round. Photography is difficult there, but an interesting view of a Lenin statue with Niyazov standing gold and proud, 30m in the air behind. There are silent televisions everywhere displaying presidential strength and the odd naming and shaming of criminals. Ashgabat consists of steet after street of white marble government buildings, monuments and fountains. The locals are friendly enough and so are the police, but their constant presence is still slightly unnerving as we're aware of language barrier and the tendancy for arbitrary bribing.
That evening we head for the burning gas crater in the middle of the desert north of Ashgabat. Technically this was off the route that was written on our car-police-insurance-customs document, but we figure it should be ok with some shrugging and looking lost, in the case of being flagged down. We follow the map north but quickly learn that this is going to be rather difficult as the 'villages' on the map can consist of as little as a few huts off the road. Pulling over for a break in the dark, we plunge the car into some sand and are stuck, half on road half off, but importantly one of the drive wheels half deep in sand. Let the digging begin. A couple of trucks stop and we are helped with a bit of pushing and it's all ok again. With little to no signing and no exact co-ordinates of this crater we have to call in some help. Our thanks to Tommy and Sarah sending through co-ordinates. We get as close as possible by road (stop somewhere that isn't a sand trap) and begin the 2 hour walk across the dunes at around midnight. After the first clamber up one dune we can recognise the glow in the distance and feel like we're on the home strech for a good hour and a half. The walk was worth it. The crater really is a spectacle and its descriptions of being a picture of the gates of hell now seem accurate. Among the general burning , a halo of 10ft 'side flames' surroung two giant flames in the centre of the crater. In the dark desert with nothing and no-one about it is a quite frightening sight. The heat given off is unbearable near the edge, despite being at least 20m from any flames.
The next day is hopefully going to see us approach Buxoro so we kip in the car for a bit and set off around 7am. The police are out in force on the way back to Ashgabat and we see our second speeding offence so far pull 50USD out of the kitty. Nip to the bank and try to get to Mary for dinner. I'm convinced we were on the 'wrong' road to Mary. In the dark, with the sand reducing visibility to zero at times the road became to thin for a lorry and car to pass at the same time. Yet more grinding of sump guard and exhaust along the edge of the road. The roads clear up after Mary, but we've lost a lot of time. At 5am, enough is enough and we stop for a bit of watermelon, tea and a nap. Upon waking a couple of hours later, I go for a quick leg stretch and am followed by a man who has come to feed a golden eagle that is basking in the morning sun. We have a coffee and write a note in the guest book (!) before leaving for Turkmenabad, and the border.
Stopping in Turkmenabad to ask for directions, we somehow end up having lunch with a local businessman. He took us to his local place for rice and meat and we chatted a bit. He told us about his degree in Turkey, courtesy of the government (Niyazov era), but seems uncomfortable when we ask questions about it, so we leave that one alone. Unfortunately, 6 hours sleep in two nights don't prepare one well for these encounters, but we kept up polite conversation for lunch, before he had to dash off (obviously refusing to let us pay for anything).
Moving on, we see an offical blatently ask for a bribe ("one dollar for me, one for him, and you can go"), we give him one dollar and he waves us on. The border was easy enough once we found it. Pressing on to Buxoro we arrive to find a decent hotel have the first shower for 5 days in a lovely hotel. Sleep and delicious breakfast later, I'm here, writing this. Now for a wander round, stock up on supplies to get us into Tajikistan this evening.
So, after a week of waiting for various...
by duttski
So, after a week of waiting for various...
by duttski
So we've finally boarded the ferry with a letter...
by duttski
The road to Baku and ... just Baku for the moment
by duttski
Seki was lovely, but we had to press on, ferry to catch and all that. We bought some "Sexi" from a local vendor for road snack and set off. Sexi looks like Bakewell tart, with some extra goop around the edges and on that basis it looked nice. The road from Seki to Baku (and it is pretty much one road all the way) was a great road. Long straights allow us to overtake the Ladas and trucks, blind corners for the Ladas to overtake us back.
We bought some fruit from a guy that found it hilarious to just keep taking coins, so I returned fire and we reached an equilibrium that I think still left him rather favoured (too many currencies for me to keep up with!). Fruit and Sexi in hand, we press on. Now, my excuse first; I don't remember having seen any indication of the speed limit, and just follow the flow of traffic (other than the Ladas, who are too erratic to judge anything by). 83Kph in a 60Kph zone the policeman tells me. 50USD/50 Manat fine. The police man accepts a combination adding up to around 30 or 40USD, and we have a fun game of pictionary describing how we are getting to Dushanbe. He was nice, and genuinely interested - at least he was once there was some money in hand! Having been fleeced for fruit and played ball with the policeman, we felt it was a great opportunity to stop for some lunch. Sexi: The gloop turns out to be honey and the rest of it was sugar (more-or-less). One mouthful is about as much as one can stomach, before being overcome by the sweetness of it all.
The motorway-type-thing turns into 6 lane high street and we find ourselves in Baku. The search for a hotel was unsuccessful, and the airport car park will have to do. The next day is our chance to meet up with Blue Jay to go through our customs duties. After a long period of 'spot the rallier' we finally bump into them on the way to the customs office. At the customs office, we wait around for a short while and eventually they begin the stamping of documents and slow entering of numbers into some database or other. With this done, they send us on our way... But wait, no car! Turns out they have exported the car now, and it will remain in customs until we go to Turkmenistan.
~
During all the car and visa trouble we had to face the unfortunate truth. Our Uzbek visas (for further down the road) wouldn't be able to absorb the dent in our schedule. So the challenge was set: We had one day (plus Monday, maybe), to get an extention, or change, to our Uzbek visas. So we head off to the Uzbek embassy in a taxi. The drive is reasonably priced and he knows his way (which we have now come to appreciate greatly). We sit down in the frankly serene Uzbek embassy to Azerbaijan and chat with a man there who makes a call to Tashkent and confirms that we are able to move the dates, but not the duration - effectively getting a new visa, but fast tracked by using the confirmation from the old one. However, it does require going through the whole rigmorale of 'evisa' application forms and depositing a further visa fee to their bank account. So... internet cafe, forms, done. Hotel, photos (luckily not still in car), done. Bank, small shimmy around Baku, different branch, deposit, done. Alex: "ahem, I appear to have left something at the hotel". Eek.
We part paths. Ollie to head direct to the Uzbek embassy, Alex via the hotel. With the embassy's address and having had the hotellier explain where we were going I set off with the jolly taxi driver. Then, I realise, he has no clue where he is going, and indeed, has forgotten what he is aiming for! So we plod along, winding through the beeping, bellowing traffic to [somewhere else], where he asks directions again. We go through this process 5 or 6 times. Eventually, some women appear and start giving directions to the Pakistan Embassy . This goes on, and we stop several times more, once to argue with another local about his outrageous driving. Eventually, I'm back in the calm of the Uzbek embassy and am pleased to find that he can cancel the old visa and issue the new one straight away. I ask the man if he has already seen my friend, but no, Ollie's still lost in the streets of Baku, somewhere. 1 hour till closing!
I walk down the street towards the main road, ready to attempt making a Union Jack flag to give their search some direction... Luckily, this was the point at which Ollie turns up to tell of a similar, but worse, taxi experience. His journey (which should have taken 20 mins or so less) had taken him right out of town, onto the motorway, back via the Pakistan Embassy, and eventually here. I hear reports of frustration and wild taxi driving. He shakes hands with the taxi driving in a 'no hard feelings' fashion and runs into the embassy for the nice Uzbek man to issue the new visa.
A sigh of relief for both of us after a non-stop day!
After all this we hear news from Blue Jay that their work on the Turkmenistan Embassy has been agonisingly close to success, but still not close enough to allow us to leave till Monday. Our thanks go out to Blue Skies/Jay for their hard work on that front - with special thanks to Sergei for stepping forward (the only person here able to speak Russian). So we cancel another wayward taxi ride to the Turkmen embassy and head for food, beer and sleep. We meet up with the Blue Jay, Blue Skies and Charity Road Trip teams for dinner in a nice German themed restaurant and exchange stories of our journies so far. Then, for 12 hours, we sleep.
~
With nothing we can possibly do to get any closer to moving on, today was devoted to relaxation and regeneration. The only hitch being that we are approached by security and effectively told that being horizontal is not permissible, so our sunbathing plans are scuppered. Another day in Baku tomorrow, preparing ourselves for the ferry journey which will hopefully commence on Monday. Fingers crossed!
Baku hosts the Roof of the World
by duttski
Brenda's in Baku. And, at least for the time being, not going anywhere.
See Blue Jay's blog
From Georgia to Azerbaijan
by duttski
We awoke early from our camping to a lovely morning and made ourselves some campfire tea to fuel the next stretch. At the next fork in the roads we were advised by a local of a slightly different route that would serve us some better roads. This new route saw us race the remaining distance across Georgia and reach Azerbaijan in good time on freshly tarmac'd roads - bliss. After camping with very little water, we saw a perfect opportunity to have a wash in a fairly substantial white water river. In the blistering heat this was possibly the best freshen up I've ever experienced!
Co-incidentally, we pulled in directly behind Blue Jay at the border. they shared apples with us and we exchanged mutual bad road experiences getting across Georgia. The border there took a little while, but a very helpful (English speaking - phew) guy there made the experience much more palatable. Fully legal, and back in a world where car insurance makes a jot of difference, we head towards Seki, a more tourist oriented town, one of the featured locations in Azerbaijan. Totally worn out after another long day of driving in the sun we find somewhere to eat and sleep in an 18th century building converted to a hotel.
This morning we found a local coffee house, serving a sweet and spicy coffee. The locals told us how bad England are at football. They hunted down an English music channel for us, pausing on the way on some rather lewd material, leaving us feeling both rather uncomfortable! The plan is to head towards Baku today after some lunch, though we're in no hurry as are still waiting on response from the Turkmenistan consulate on our visas. Hopefully a chance for a spot of fishing and general lazing about by the Caspian sea.
the easterly road from batumi towards ...
by duttski
the easterly road from batumi towards achalciche, marked as a major road, is virtually impassable if not in 4wd. brenda taking a bruising. so painful!
--- update below ---
The car's ground clearance was an issue in Georgia. This road really was bad at one point, the clutch was really struggling too on a really rough 1/3 - I thought at one point we'd completely bottomed out but it was just the middle of the exhaust dragging along the floor. But we made it through, even if the exhaust is now in a bit of a state..
At one point, realising the problem we were facing, some kind Georgian men had a look and wanted to help us raise the suspension by putting blocks under the springs (at least that's what we gathered without being able to exchange any words). They gave up when they discovered how tough it was going to be to drop the suspension out - I think they're used to working on old Soviet style cars and trucks where everything looks a bit simpler to get at. It all wound up in them demanding to help us move all the heavy stuff to the back seats!
Moving on from the worst bit, we learnt fast how to manage the difficult roads, essentially trying to use the highest points in the road like rocky train tracks to try and save the fuel tank and undercarriage.
It was all tiring stuff so we stopped before dark and camped on the side of the road in a beautiful spot (the point of this post on the map). The view across the valley was incredible and from that height we had the most fantastic view of the milky way!
It was a tough day of <10mph driving, but the roads lightened pretty quickly and can now get on with covering some ground..
Cheating in Batumi
by olliec
OK so we caved in and are parked up in the centre of Batumi, staying in a pricey (for here) 4 star hotel. But only because the border crossing from Turkey was so darn stressful.
For the benefit of other teams approaching the border, this is was to expect:
First, there was a massive queue, with only 3 real lanes leading anywhere but 6 in action - lorries, vans and cars in one seething mass of revving rage. Turkish officials egging everyone on like the start of some sort of demented drag race. Then, after an hour and a half in no-man's land, the Georgians separate out the driver and the passenger(s). The former is subjected to an hour of vehicle checks, the latter through a mad, jostling cattle-grid of fences before customs. Then, at the other end, finding the car is like a needle in a particularly large and stressful haystack. Once you're through and repatriated with your vehicle, the road out of there is one of the worst we've experienced.
Anyway, we made it, and have just been treated to a breakfast serenade in Hotel Alick. Next, the pool and then the aquarium. Hopefully this stupid storm will stop following us along the coast so we can hit the beach later, watch the world cup final and maybe recoup our financial losses in one of the many casinos packed with rich Saudi and Turkish businessmen on holiday. Maybe not.