Metropol the Hotel Baku

... to cut across several lanes of heavy traffic and disappeared into the night, not to be seen again as it happened for many days!<br><br>Bas and myself, with Pete in tow, paused at the roadside and pondered our options and decided on a hotel, preferably close, and even more important with a cold beer and a hot shower. At this point a small crowd gathered and one bloke came up to us and started to chat ...

Well, it's taken all day, but we've made it onto the boat. This is one dodgy affair. Happily the few other passengers on this filthy freighter are mostly British, travelling around the world on motorbikes. Everything is filthy, and there is nothing but Molly's ...

Chris didn't feel great, so Damien and I went into town to investigate the ferry, and while we were relieved to discover there was one the next day, we were surprised to find they were after over $600 for the privilege. We got a bit separated ...

... on the highway at Qobustan, which wasn't much - not even any tomatoes, which to now have been everywhere. Headed off the highway looking for the mud volcanoes, but found the petroglyph site instead, but closed. Back down the steep, rocky butte to the valley floor, and across some very chancy elevated mud roads to the mud volcano hill. Once again, Dan, the Kenyan runner, sprints up the steep hill to check out the path, and the ...

... hit the Caspian sea, where I turned north to reach Baku. I checked into Hotel Araz and got a single room for US$17.40 /night. A bit steep but its an expensive city, smelly and polluted too. It was Friday. I had to get a Chinese and an Indian Visa here so I tracked down the Indian Embassy first. It was closed due to an Azerbaijan public holiday, and to make matters worse, the following Monday was a public holiday in India, so the consular staff had decided to take that one ...

... thuldi upp ymasar tolfraedilegar stadreindir um borgina, sumt situr eftir annad ekki. (Narmin er leidsogumadurinn okkar, thett og madommulegur azeri med otrulega lidugan talanda) Hun fraedir okkur a tvi ad konur a thessu svaedi bui vid adrar adstaedur sne konur i odrum muslimskum rikjum, her hafi kvennfrelsi rikt fra omunatid, t.d. er daemi um thjodflokk i Gobustan thar sem maedraveldi rikti. Vid faum ad ...

Well I have truly had the experience of a life time! Mary (a CCI collegue of mine) and I travelled to the binneland (interior of Suriname)and stayed in a tradional Maroon village for three days followed by two days to the Nature Reserve and hikes through the rain forest. It was a bit like stepping back in time, although there were some modern conveniences that seemed out of place and very impractical for the setting. within the village people had TV's and DVD but rarely ...

... hotel and waited for the rest of our group to arrive. Unfortunately of the five, only four made it. Claire, our tour leader, was denied entry, as she didn't have a visa. This meant that she had to take the 13-hour ferry back to Turkmenbashi and then train back to Ashgabad, taking her travel time to at least four days. We all felt very very sorry for her. This also meant we had no tour leader, which sent, some people into a panic. In the afternoon we headed ...

... 3 months earlier when Wales played in Azerbaijan and were flogging tickets at US$150 a shout) to the fairly ludicrous (one well-to-do Azeri suggested finding the head of the FA at the Hyatt Park hotel and asking him to give us one).    In the event we decided to just head up the stadium to have a recce.   As it turned out it was all easier than expected.   The Azeri ...

... temple centered an eternal flame which was once supplied gas by a natural vent. Fire flickered at the four top corners. Although a small temple, it was the first time I'd seen a fire temple, a temple dedicated to worshiping fire, at this natural, eternal flame. I could imagine Zoroastrian priests, thousands of years before Christ, worshipping this strange fire which blazed from the ground enticing foreigners from India and beyond to worship it. The sight was also once part of ...