The Caspian
After 7927 km we have reached the Caspian. Sadly we didn’t come over the brow of a hill and sea the blue waters sparkling in the distance it was more we got off the metro and could smell it – not salty sea air with chips and vinegar from Aldeburg(oh that sounds sooo good!) – but a pungent oily smell. It wouldn’t matter how hot you were here in Baku you wouldn’t want to go in the water, at least not without the RSPB there to de oil you when you got out. Actually its not that bad, and certainly not as bad as the smell suggests, but you can clearly see lots of...
Read MoreNearly there!
The Khan’s Palace at Säki was our first tourist site in Azerbaijan and it is certainly an impressive way to start. All that remains of the Palace is one small two storey building made out of wood and stone. No glue or nails were used in its construction and it took 2 years to build and 8 to decorate – and before you ask, no it was way before my sister in laws time! It is covered in highly detailed bright colourful paint work on all but the floor and originally this would have had a carpet that reflected the patterns on the ceiling. The painting is of flowers, animals and scenes...
Read MoreWhat are we doing here?
After our previous nights storm we both woke up tired. Linda’s back was still giving her a lot of discomfort and the continuous bumpy roads weren’t helping it either. I’d got food poisoning in Tblisi and the local Georgians were not ‘the warmest most welcoming and lovliest people in the world’ that Lonely Planet had promised. They were in fact sullen faced, highly suspicious of us and seemed decidedly grumpy even aggressive. we have never been to a country and felt less welcomed than in Georgia. This attitude was whether we were in Taffy or not and despite the...
Read MoreWho needs roads?
The weather we’ve had in Tbilisi has been nice. Sunny mornings and cloud later on meaning we never boiled. It has been around 30C and even when we wake up it is usually mid 20’s, but come the late afternoon it always looks as though we are about to have a tremendous storm but we never do. Leaving Tblisi in the morning was no different and we swept past Tbilisi on the ‘M25’ bypass along with the occasional truck and car gazing down on the sprawling city below as if we were in an aircraft. Here we passed our Bonus Sea on the eleven seas tour “The Tblisi Sea”...
Read MoreTbilisi
After being woken by Daisy the calf mooing and bringing our early morning milk delivery we got a taxi into the city. We touched 100kph in the city centre and the driver was going carefully for Lindas backs sake. It was terrifying, 6 lanes of traffic with closing speeds of over 200 kph, in a city centre, with no seat belts on, one hand out of the window and the other holding the mobile and the obligatory fag, brazenly overtaking into the oncoming traffics lanes and he looked as cool as a cucumber. We were in the foetal position in the rear crying like babies! When we arrived at the tourist...
Read MoreThe Badlands…
We left the Botanical Gardens at Batumi in bright sunshine and to hearty waves from the cafe staff. The car park attendant looked particularly chuffed when we have him an extra 5 GEL. He had charged us 2 to park overnight, made sure we were tucked away for the night and buttoned up and introduced us to the local bobby. All for about 70p. The road was OK but very wiggly. Georgian drivers are notoriously nutty. So on tiny roads winding up steep hills they tear past flashing their lights at the oncoming truck like phasers as if that will somehow make it vanish. I am sure that if we had another...
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