Park Inn Baku

... shouting and thumping of tables. I was delegated to go in to the Customs office and try to remove Pete before the guns came out! After more shouting and tearing of various triplicate forms, the Customs guys eventually processed the paperwork, demanded the usual seemingly random amounts of Dollars and let us through, complete with yet another wad of undecipherable stamped forms.

It wasn't over ...

... 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.

... gas causes the mud to bubble up in a variety of forms, including large, domes, up to a metre across, and 40 cm high before they collapse with a variety of burping sounds. All the volcanoes are cold, although the remote largest and highest seems to have steam or fine spray of mist from it. In addition, there is a pool 20 metres across, relatively fluid, with a continuous flow of fine bubbles maybe 3 metres across in the ...

... at 5 pm I got my India Visa. Coming out of the Embassy, for some reason, I remembered the posted photo of the cracked speedhub on the thorn tree id seen last night and decided to check mine. Sure as fack as I glanced down, there, right on top was an identical crack to what I'd just seen. My mind reran the list of solutions I'd read, and the most sensible one was 'phone the supplier, they've been known to courier out replacements free of charge, within a few days. That's ...

... arin 1993-1994 skilur madur thaer tilfinningar maeta vel. En vid thann grafreit er bygging sem Tyrkir gafu Arerbaijan og thar bjuggu their lik hinna follnu undir greftrun. Vid faum nokkud nakvaema utlistun a theim hefdum en eg held eg lati ogert ad skrifa thad allt hja mer. I grafreitnum blasir vid long rod af marmaraplotum og a veggunum er onnur plata med mynd af theim latnu, ein vid hverja grof. Annad ...

... to see is the the tops of these trees still protrude out of the water like grey fingers reaching out of their watery grave. The lake is huge and displaced many villages years ago. The village of Baku that we are travelling to is at the far end of the lake and one of the few villages that was not moved because of the creation of the lake. We negotiate a boat at Afobaka to take us across the lake. When we get out of the van we are besieged by many boat men who would like ...

... Again we were over the moon, local beer and Western food were a great combination We walked back to our hotel along the shoreline of the Caspian, known as the Boulevard. It was a warm night and there were thousands of people out and about. There were piers, cafes, bars, fairground rides and games and buskers out. The locals all seemed happy and for the first time on this trip I saw locals displaying public displays of affection. Azeris certainly seem happy.

... rain. And it was this weather that the game was played in.   There really isn't anything to say about the football.   It was dire, and certainly not helped by the weather.   England won 1-0.   Day 4 & the rest - To Reykjavik, and then ...   We headed back to England the next morning, knackered, but having seen enough of this part of the world to encourage us to return ...

... shook the police man's hand, in which I saw the 5 1000 manat bills disappear in, and the yelling stopped as the now smiling officer waved us on. The driver jumped into his seat, turned back at me and cracked a smile. That was how it worked in Azerbaijan. -- Bye Bye Baku To pass the remaining hours away, I stopped in at a pirated CD store where 2 friendly sales men were more than happy to help me buy a dozen 3$ CDs, enough to replenish my stale music library and I headed for ...