The man with the golden teeth

Bluebell 2 after her night’s rest at the Ramada Plaza

We chugged into Baku around 5 pm yesterday having spent the previous night in the Ramada Plaza hotel enjoying a little bit of luxury and a buffet breakfast to be proud of. Whilst I was loading Bluebell 2 with the luggage an Azerbaijani family came over to talk to me. The daughter was in her mid-teens and spoke great English and I told her about the rally and where we had been. They were really interested in what we were up to and very grateful that we had not visited Armenia with whom Azerbaijan has a long standing dispute. In fact, so strained is the relationship between the two countries that if you have an Armenian stamp in your passport you will not be allowed to enter Azerbaijan.

As we headed east to Baku the land became flat on both sides of the road stretching out into the distance, barren scrub, desert really. Every now and then we’d pass a cultivated area and there would be stalls along the side of the road with fruit stacked high. I remarked to Andy P about a woman with a particularly fine display of melons which he interpreted (quite smuttily I thought), as a double entendre, which could not of course have been further from my mind. I have come to realise on this trip that there are some people with very little culture and filthy minds.

We also passed cars on the motorway that were loaded down with melons, in one case the back seat was jam packed with them and in other places there were people sitting just off the hard shoulder barbecuing sweet corn for sale. Also worth noting was that on a couple of occasions cars drove along the hard shoulder towards us and on one occasion on the inside lane itself, going at quite a lick. You need to have your wits about you as the road rules we’re used to following in Britain don’t necessarily apply this far east. Lots more people in Azerbaijan honk their horns and wave when they pass us, much more so than in any of the other countries we’ve visited to date.

Roadside sellers

Loaded down with melons

Paul and John

We were travelling in convoy with our new found buddies Paul and John who are similar ages to us and after a while we stopped for them to fill up with petrol and to get a coffee. The café wasn’t busy and the waiters (and owner?) kind of crowded round our table talking fast and excitedly. I always find it a little worrying when the ‘personal space’ norms of our own culture are overridden particularly when you can’t understand what is being said and are trying to interpret people’s intentions through body language and tone of voice. It’s easy to get it wrong but you just have to stay cheerful and ‘go with the flow’.

Several of the guys wanted their picture taken and ‘the owner’ in particular. His claim to fame was a set of gold teeth that would have made James Bond’s ‘Jaws’ green with envy as he smiled for the camera. I guess it is a cultural thing but a lot of people in Azerbaijan have gold teeth fitted and I suppose it might be something of a status symbol. I have to say it doesn’t do it for me but culture is a powerful shaper of people’s actions and I’m sure there is much about our own culture that those from elsewhere find pretty weird. Another difference is that I’ve seen lots of men walking arm in arm or holding hands and giving each other a kiss when they part. This has nothing to do with sexual orientation but is simply a mark of friendship and is something that I saw in India last year as well.

The man with the golden teeth

The road was good and during the afternoon the outside temperature rose to about 35 C and we came across an ageing hippie from California broken down by the roadside. We stopped to see if we could help him but neither of us are mechanics and so we offered to rearrange the luggage and give him a lift to Baku. He was a nice old guy, a wee bit unkempt and simple, and gave the impression of being completely stoned. It worked out well for us though as we were very tired by this point and he kindly offered to drive the rest of the way. When you receive kindness from strangers it is nice to be able to give a little back.

Ageing Californian hippy

Baku is another lovely town. John and Paul had booked a hotel but there was one room left for us to rent so we hit it lucky again. The hotel is a five minute walk from Fountain Square and the old town so we were able to stroll in later and look around. Once again, a peaceful, clean place with beautiful infrastructure full of well-dressed and polite people enjoying themselves right into the night with small children in tow. No rowdiness or drunkenness to be seen.

The big issue now is getting a visa for Turkmenistan. We have a letter of invitation which we need to take to the Turkmen embassy here and they will hopefully issue us with a five day transit visa to let us cross Turkmenistan and head into Uzbekistan. The embassy is closed today so we are going to go to the port and see when the next cargo ships are leaving that might be able to take us across the Caspian Sea. It takes about 14 hours to cross and even if all goes well we have a little time to stay here in Baku. I can think of far worse places to spend a few days relaxing.

Cheers for now, Andy C

Baku town centre