Murder on the Caspian

After a day touring and wandering the dazzling, marble city of Ashgabat with our mouths open in awe, we made a 600km dash for Turkmenbashi port.  Our helpful guide Maksat was in phone contact with the port and heard there was a ship due to sail that night.  Leaving Ashgabat at first light and arriving in darkness it was a long day, the thought of boarding a ferry straight away and bobbing along the Caspian that night lifted our spirits.  The closer to the port we got the stronger the wind became and rain had started to fall.  The port being dangerously shallow and narrow in places means boats cannot sail in bad weather.  Added to that when we reached the port the cargo hadn’t yet loaded, or even arrived.  The chance of an early morning sailing meant we were advised to stay in the port, some laying out sleeping mats in a dark corner of the heated waiting room and others bedding down in the truck.  There was still no movement the next morning, but gradually news trickled in that the cargo would hopefully be loading after lunchtime. 

The Turkmenbashi mosque

The ostentatious wedding palace

Marble-clad apartment blocks

The Monument of Independence (aka the plunger)

Pristine streets

Vicky & Mark at the British Pub

Tan & Vicky

Las Vegas of the East?

Gurganbuly, the Turkmenistan president

Ooh, can we park here please, we're British?

Neatly bedded down in the waiting room

To while away some time Lisa came up with the ingenious game of scrapheap treasure hunt.  Adjacent to where we were parked, behind metal sheet fencing, was a ship graveyard, most probably a prohibited area...  Rust and rubbish in equal measure, some boats more recently towed in, their warped hulls still half resting in the water, it had a strange kind of still beauty. 

The game players were given a list of twenty items Lisa had already spotted in the yard and then given thirty minutes to find them, with everything from a pile of poo to a blue tile we would need to be eagle eyed.  Squeezing through a gap in the fence clutching our lists, the search was on.  We picked our way carefully around the piles of rusting ship parts, peering into portholes in search of dead snakes, scanning the rubbish for a bottle of pear juice, taking photographs when we found each item.

Lisa and her list

The gamers make their way through the gap in the fence

The rusty ship graveyard

Anna & Tan

Chris, Anna & Tan

There's the wrench

And the dead snake

Dr B has spotted something

The game playing continues - Rogs

Linc on the ladder

Mark on the slack line

Our thirty minutes was soon up and we gathered to count up our finds and have our photographs verified if necessary.  Joint winners were declared, Sue & Vicky having found 18 of the 20 items!

It wasn’t until about 5pm that we watched the cargo trundling and clunking past on railway tracks linking up directly with the ones on the boat.  Our wait was nearly over as we slowly made our way through customs and immigration and eventually along the tracks ourselves and into the boat, 26 hours after we had arrived at port.  Once inside we were then faced with the challenge of hauling ourselves with all our luggage, bags of food and bottles of water as well as blue boxes from the truck with more emergency supplies up near vertical metal steps up to the passenger decks.

After walking the length of the ship we found ourselves in a rather luxurious lounge with leather seats.  At last we could reveal to the group we were in fact on board Professor Gul.  The finest ship on this route from what we’ve heard and the same boat we were lucky to be on the previous year.  Clean and comfortable two berth cabins, bathrooms and even a shower with hot water.  Panic food buying meant we’d brought enough supplies to last for at least a week on a boat with no supplies.  Better to be safe than sorry.  Professor Gul surprised us with a well equipped small restaurant serving food and drinks.  The chef was to be disappointed by the lack of business from our large group.

Not bad at all captain!

View from a cabin

Mindy & Sam

Sue, Vicky & Rae toast the Caspian with a song

Boarding the ferry meant another game could commence; a twist on our favourite, Murder on the Truck, a game of Murder on the Caspian.  Everyone having picked out of a hat earlier a victim, a weapon and a location or time to complete their killing.  As we sailed away from the lights of the port around 10pm and settled into our cabins, the killing began.  Hels was one of the first to be felled, in a doorway with a mushy banana.  Sam was taken shortly after on his way up the stairs to the deck with a potato masher.  Rich was beaten to death with an unassumingly harmless cup in what he thought was the safety of his cabin.  People were dropping like flies; Rogs attempted to lure Robbie to the front of the ship to his location, the anchor, but was held back by lack of access to the anchor deck.

The crossing continued smoothly through the night, past silhouettes and flares of oil rigs out at sea, some staying up for most of it celebrating the journey with some on-deck wrestling and an un-official tour of the engine room.  The trail of oily footprints leading back to the cabins might have given them away…

Linc & Vicky with dirt on their hands

Unofficial tour of the engine room

If you’re going to have your birthday on the trip what better day to have it than whilst sailing on the Caspian Sea.  Mindy was the lucky one and we celebrated in a most civilized fashion for a change with a tea party in the lounge.  We’d all brought our own decorative teacups and there was a splendid selection of snacks and sweets laid out from Turkish baklava to homemade brandy stewed dried fruit.  A few locals travelling on the ship joined us and generously rustled up presents for Mindy.

  

Mindy & Sam on her birthday

A most civilised tea party

The birthday tea cups

Rogs sips his tea up the mast

Boys bonding

A bit of murder on the Caspian with Chris & Br Bruce

The helm

Tan & Vicky helping out

Tan climbs the mast

Vicky chilling out in a lifeboat

News from the bridge came in that we would be docking in Baku at around 5pm.  We reluctantly packed up our belongings from our cozy cabins and headed out into the warm sunshine on deck to watch our arrival into port.  It was also the culmination of the game, when in sight of land, the final two left standing Bruce B and Robbie, killed each other at exactly the same time meaning it was a dead (no pun intended) heat. The modern buildings dazzled along the waterfront in contrast to the older style grand parliament building.

In sight of land

Reversing into Baku

We made it!

A couple of hours later customs and immigration were completed, where a policeman registering the passports in his ledger spotted the day’s date coincided with Mindy’s date of birth and popped a packet of birthday sweets in for her.  A small gesture but a big warm welcome to Azerbaijan.

Heading into the bright lights of Baku at evening rush hour we deftly crossed eight lanes of speeding traffic and weaved our way a short distance to the hotel.  There waiting for us on the pavement were Dave & Phill!  Happy smiling faces all round, no more so than that of Suzie & Rae, glad to have their husbands back.  You can read all about their adventures away from the truck in Dave’s special guest blog posted before this one titled “The Advance Party”.

Dave & Suzie and Rae & Phill happily reunited

Baku exudes money, with fancy boutiques selling nothing but fur and every luxury international fashion and jewellery brand with an outlet.  Immaculately turned out women wander the malls and young men drive outrageously expensive cars, accelerating away from junctions tyres screeching.

We had an evening and a morning to wander the old town and marvel at the modern world we suddenly found ourselves back in and also indulge shamelessly in our first fast food fix of the trip.

Modern Baku looming over the old

The Maiden's Tower

They even have London cabs in Baku

and 7D cinemas!

The cheeky MakFlurri

Number 28 made us chuckle at the money exchange

The streets of Baku

Tan & Vicky

The old town of Baku

Souvenir shops in trunks

A short drive the next day led us down the coast to Gobustan and the mud volcanoes, which took some people by surprise on discovering they were in fact, very muddy.  Too muddy to take the truck up to so we set up camp lower down and walked up the steepest bit of the hill to inspect the bizarre bubbling mini volcanoes. 

The muddy road to the err... mud volcanoes

Exploring the lunar landscape

The larger ones audibly gurgling before a bigger eruption happened and you were at risk of being splattered with mud if you stood too close.  Chris wandered a little way to inspect a bubbling lake and took one step too far as she instantly sank to her knee, throwing herself backwards and shrieking she managed to clamber out.  On realising she was ok and out of danger our concerns dissolved into laughter, it’s a good thing Chris has a sense of humour.  There were no other casualties thankfully apart from a lot of very muddy boots.

Don't stand too close!

Bruce B

Mark takes a risky run down the slippery side

Chris not so lucky with an involuntary near mud bath

Our muddy footprints

And even muddier feet!

Rich setting up camp

After dinner of an epic veggie stir-fry, a four-wheeled drive vehicle appeared with some local workers on their way to the nearby gasworks for an evening inspection.  After some hand kissing for Chris and shaking for others they offered, through sign language, to take a car full up to the flaming burn off tower and tanks.  The speedy drive up there was possibly more entertaining than the actual site, although the wandering hands for a photo with Anna and Tan and a man kiss for Dr. Bruce were quite entertaining!

Anna & Tan with the wandering hands man

Our next stop was Sheki, according to the Lonely Planet, Azerbaijan’s loveliest town, and what feels a million miles away from Baku in glitz and glamour with the simple and beautiful Khan’s palace.  It was an important trading junction on the Silk Road and at its peak had five working caravnaserais, one of which is now converted into a hotel and where we stay. Small bedrooms tucked away under arched brickwork ceilings.

Mindy at the entrance to our hotel in Sheki

The hotel by night

Sunset over Sheki

The Khan's Palace, Sheki

The following day, the undulating tar road took us swiftly onto one of our favourite countries Georgia, where we expect to put on a few pounds!