Empire Hotel Baku

... perfect English, having he told us, recently returned from several years at London School of Economics! His mate then led us in his Merc at breakneck speed dodging the racing Porches and Ferrari's to a small hotel where we booked in and immediately demolished the mini-bars in both rooms. Off to bed at around 3 in the morning and hopefully ready to crack-on to Georgia in the morning.<br><br>Cheers, Rick.

... to stop her sliding off the oily deck into the sea. Fantastic. I have met a Russian lorry driver called Alexander, who has taught me to play Kazio. He thinks the crossing will take 3 days. I hope he's wrong but he has apparently done this journey many times.

... lost on the metro, but eventually got back to the Gordons. They had a few friends over and we spent all evening outside chatting and barbequeing. It was fantastic and we will all be reluctant to leave the land of real food, showers and beds.

... swerve to avoid a Lada that pulled out in front of us. Despite having kept his cool and avoided a crash, we were rewarded with a $100 fine. And only because we said we didn't have $150. It was clearly a corrupt deal, but we didn't have the time to try and take it down official lines. The roads were awful and we spent the night in a building site, leaving at 6am to beat the traffic.

... as we needed to climb a few passes on a dirt track and cycle on the unfinished, scraped off tarmac road back into Baku. More like a goat track than a highway but somehow cars, donkeys, trucks all seem to manage, so we should as well. And we did, they are very polite on the road surprisingly...and as crazy as it was it was honestly enjoyable. Difficult to describe the conditions to you, but just image dust, bad roads and lots of trucks. We must have smoked at least 15 cigarettes ...

... kilo. It is too late to get into the Palace up the hill, but we go up anyway, and find the Fortress gates open, and are able to walk all around the 18th century palace, taking photos of the ornately decorated external walls, and monster plane tree in the garden. Walk back through the back streets, finding some charming corners. Back at the caravanserai, run into an Explore Tour group. We have a lot in common with these mentally ...

... here are old. Very old and very smokey. I was wondering about carbon monoxide poisoning and trying to monitor myself for dizziness etc all the way through. It stank, so I let out a rather verbal Homer - style Woo Hoo as I flew out the end towards the toll gate. I decided that wasn't worth paying for so went around it to be chased by a dog which I easily burned of on the slight downhill slope. I called into a shop in Kashuri to ask for hotel whereabouts and was struck by ...

... Siis leidub siiski ka buss. Esimesed segadused rahaga. Jutt käib 22-st rahast. Lubati viis? Ühikud manatt, shirvan, dollar. Näitame raha ette. Lugu laheneb, 4.40 manatti ehk 5$. Meid istutatakse bussi, kotid võib sisse kaasa võtta. Juhi pea kohal rippuvat silti uurides selgub, et buss väljub 7.30. Oehh. Andrus läheb vett otsima. Rättidega tädid vahivad mind uudishimulikult, kuid tunduvad sõbralikud ja ohutud. Viimaks stardime ja uinun enne Bakuust väljumist.

... left the dock the next morning. I spent most of my time in the cabin, since I was troubled by a mild motion sickness. 18 hours later we arrived Baku (population 1.7M), the capital of Azerbaijan. There were quite a few huge oil-industry related structures along the way. Arriving at 3am in a new country is not a lot of fun. After much discussion, three of us hired a taxi to go into town to a overnight cafe. We hang around there ...

... lit up in street lights, and thinking that Azerbaijan would be the only country which I had travelled in completely alone. In each country I had been in before I had always met a local or another tourist and travelled with them for a while. Soon, Azerbaijan would no longer be the only country I went solo in. Rovshan looked tired, he'd just woken up. We chatted casually and he turned to me as we made our way to the taxis. "Hmmm, well, maybe I come with you. Is better no ...