Photo & Video Update

A new batch of photos just posted to Flickr!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/autarken

And a quick video clip from the Aral Sea!

Making Our Last Stan

That “lamb shish” that I “just finished” in my last post?  It was a vile poisoned thing!  Either they rushed it out or the whole kitchen was filthy, because that was the 2nd worst food poisoning incident I’ve had yet.

After finishing that post I heard my name called in the courtyard outside the internet cafe and joined the guys in our convoy, Tom, Boris, Hugh and Will, along with another German, Sebastien, whose birthday was being celebrated, again, because we didn’t make it to Bukhara the night before.  It was after 11pm and Bukhara had completely shut down, but we sat on the steps near a fountain and shared a few drinks and stories… such as Hugh’s work with the UN and a funny German “perfection”-ist trainer who tried to show American NGO aid groups why the houses they built were all wrong… and our favorite funny movies.  After Hugh was slightly harassed by the fuzz and a very drunk Uzbek became convinced Tom was Mike Tyson, we decided to pack it in and finally go to bed.

After sleeping just a few hours I woke up trembling and emptied the contents of my stomach which had turned rancid in my belly and were begging to escape.  I tried to drink some water and go back to sleep, but I couldn’t even keep that down for more than an hour.  At 8am, I woke up Tom, told him I was ill and needed to sleep some more, asking him to figure out our fuel situation.  I tossed for a few hours, and tossed my cookies a few more times (all just water I couldn’t keep down, even with re-hydration salts), and when I finally emerged at noon I was surprised to find Tom was *still* trying to sort out our gas!  The Uzbek fuel shortage was no joke.  By 8am all rations were tapped out already and he had to talk to two different guys to find enough black market gas to get us to the border.  Supposedly the situation was improved nearer to Tashkent, but we did not want to risk it and just wanted to make the border.

Getting such a late start did not help, but finally we were fueled up and on our way after noon.  While Jean & Tom drove in convoy with the CooperTroopers, I fidgeted uncomfortably in the passenger seat.  Boris opened up his pharmacy to me and provided some foul tasting concoction that successfully eased my stomach… but now I found that my muscles, particularly my back, ached, and I could not sleep much in the car.  At least I could stomach water.

We made Samarqand in the early evening, took some photos of Tamerlane’s statue & mausoleum, and grabbed a quick bite to eat.  I was too uncomfortable to join the group for more photos & minaret climbing at the Registan (this one dazzlingly lit and accompanied by music, in stark contrast to Bukhara’s solemn square)… I’m jealous Boris must have gotten some amazing photos!  We pushed on toward the border and stopped in a field just before midnight to camp out again.

New day, new man.  When I woke up again I was feeling completely better.  Whatever nasty bug had gotten into my system had finished excreting it’s toxins and I vanquished them from my body, ready to move on.  With the CooperTroopers and Will heading to Tashkent to pick up their Tajik visas and Pamir highway passes, we split the convoy again and BaatarHero was on its own once more.  We made pretty good time to the border, and had a relatively smooth Kazak border crossing, similar to the Uzbek crossing.  What a pleasant surprise after dealing with such long process & expense in Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.  Another nice surprise were relatively well paved roads in Kazakhstan!

Our drive up to Shymkent was a breeze and before we knew it we were sitting down to dinner at a Kazak barbecue place with live entertainment… well, it was basically 1 guy doing karaoke all night, but beggars can’t be choosers.  Chicken for me this time… very well done.  We crashed at a hotel rather than drive out into the country and camp again, knowing we would need a good shower and breakfast before today’s long drive.

Thinking we woke up early, we learned at breakfast that we’d lost another hour due to the timezone change, so we dashed out of Shymkent and sped off for Almaty.  The cop who pulled us over for accidentally making an illegal u-turn was nice, and let us off with a warning instead of shaking us down.  This great start to the morning was improved by absolutely stunning views of the country along the M39.  Each border crossing brings about a stark change in geography, from the desert of Turkmenistan to the lush cotton fields of Uzbekistan, to the rolling hills of grass and various crops in Kazakhstan.  We drove east, skirting around the feet of the towering Tian Shan mountains which climb off into Kyrgyzstan, passing herds of cattle and horses.  Big Kazak horses, not like the tiny ponies we expect in Mongolia.  Some of these look domesticated, but many look wild, roaming free along the freeway and crossing the road in their own convoys. It is killing me not having Kim here because I know she would love the landscape and the horses.  We will just have to come back… maybe do the rally again some day?

After passing some tanks on the freeway we were surprised to come up on a bright yellow mini cooper with Superwinch written across the back.  We had run into this team at the Kazak border crossing and thought they were heading North.  It turns out they are, but not directly, first heading East a bit and then turning North before reaching Almaty.  We drove with them for a while, taking turns passing the slow trucks, and then they seemed to disappear.  Not having their phone or a plan to travel with them, we figured they stopped for a bathroom break or something and we continued on into town.  After a few minutes though, a local driver flagged us down to tell us our friends were in trouble, so we turned back to find them along the side of the road with the front right tire completely missing, and all the steering bits turned about in different places.  It turns out one of the steering control arms just bent.  For no particular reason.  They didn’t hit a big pot hole or rough patch of road… it just bent and drove them off the road.  As it happens, they have a spare of EVERYTHING in that car, and they were probably a quarter of the way to repairing it.  They just couldn’t find a bolt, which I happened to stumble upon and hand over.  Glad I could be of some use!  We stayed behind for a bit to make sure they’d be ok, but it was starting to get dark and we wanted to make it to Almaty tonight to reunite with Amy & Yasmin.  They reassured us they were fine, so off we went.

Trying to skirt the Kyrgyz border without actually entering, we had to get off the main road which goes to Bishkek, and took this nasty detour just North of the border which had a ton of construction, pot holes and gravel.  It made the night drag on, but we finally made it past the bad parts by about 11pm and hit really good pavement 200km outside Almaty.  We cruised the rest of the way, and despite some really bad directions from a gas station close to the hotel which sent us 45 minutes in the wrong direction, we finally pulled into the parking lot where Amy & Yasmin were staying at just after 2am.

I whipped out the laptop straight away to have a Skype with Kim as its been days since we could have a real conversation.  The internet connection here is decent and we will take advantage of it to finally catch up on photos & video in the morning.  We’ll probably be in town all day tomorrow fixing up the cars.  They’ve been taking a beating but are still holding together.  We think we have an exhaust leak in one which is robbing us of power and fuel efficiency… despite which I still seem to be averaging 40mpg after our just over 6000 miles.  I’ll have to corroborate the odometer against the map track tomorrow, but we’re now over half way through the trip in both distance and time.  We’re hoping the roads stay better than expected so we can make good time in Kazakhstan and Russia to be reunited with Kim finally in Mongolia.  We are also looking forward to meeting up again with the teams we’ve convoyed with the last few days who have split off in different directions.  There are several arrival parties in Ulaan Baatar, and as we’re swinging through there to pick Kim up before touring Mongolia, we might actually be able to make both of them!

See you all again on the other side of a few hours’ sleep with some photo updates of our progress.

Aral Sea and The Stans

Waking up early and leaving our desert camp ground at Darvaza, we made for the Uzbek border, filling our fuel tanks both internal and external to full, including some extra 5 liter water bottles, as we’d heard about a gas shortage in Uzbekistan. We made the Turkmen exit border at about 4:30pm and into the Uzbek entry by 5:30, just in time to strat processing by the 6pm closing.

Uzbek border guards were friendly and helpful, asked us lots of questions about the rally and America, and especially about my tattoo. One of them asked if I was Yakuza (don’t know how he thought I was Japanese… I was more worried he thought I was a gangster), but he was laughing and joking around mostly.

After the border we split up our convoy, with Just A Steppe Away saving fuel and heading straight for Bukhara. Romanda from 3 Blondes and a Beater joined us along with team CooperTroopers in their little 1 liter Daihatsu and we headed north towards Muynaq. Our “quick” stop at a market for water turned into a 45 minute ordeal as the whole town showed up to take photos of us on their cell phones. We were all a curiosity and pretty popular, but nobody more so than Tom. In both Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, everybody asks where we’re from and we say “America, Canada, Germany, Australia”, listing the nationalities of everybody in the convoy, but they inquire about Tom’s heritage and when he admits India they light up with smiles and say they love India… “Namaste!”. It’s hilarious. We’re all getting a big kick out of it. And Tom’s face is on more Uzbek cell phones than we can count. We finally pulled out of town and found a quiet camp spot in a field a klick or so off the road.

We didn’t even wait for the sun to break camp early and set out for Muynaq. We also wanted to get to Bukhara on the 15th to rejoin Romanda with her team… plus we have to make progress as our visas expire on the 18th. But first we just had to see the Aral Sea, or lack thereof. Unfortunately I’m at a slow internet cafe in Bukhara now, and there isn’t enough line of site for the satellite to work here, so you don’t get video or photos quite yet… but I can’t wait to upload this stuff. The devastation caused by the draining of the Amu Darya river for irrigation is amazing. As we drove north from Darvaza, we started seeing the lush green cotton fields grow more abundant and in this northwestern corner of Uzbekistan it is all green and marshy (with accompanying mosquitos) despite the arid desert environment. Then as you pull off the road at Muynaq the desert just opens up, and there is a cliff at least a hundred feet high where the sea port used to be and the dead sea bed drops off below. At the bottom are 10 rusty ships amidst sand dunes and sea shells and it’s hard to belief that as recently as the 1970’s they were floating up in the harbor of this fishing village. Words really can’t describe it, so you’ll just have to wait for the photos, but Darvaza and Muynaq are competing for most amazing sites on the rally so far… and actually some of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.

As we drove south towards Bukhara the cotton fields began to disappear, though as we crossed the Amy Darya, now barely a few hundred feet across where it used to be miles wide, you could see the irrigation canals streaming off either side off into the distance where they feed farms in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. There are resevoirs where kids are playing, unaware of the barren landscape just a few hundred kilometers to their north.

The drive to Bukhara was another brutal day of rough roads, and we quickly began to realize the scope of the gas shortage here. Every gas station you see looks deserted… and the stations that do have attendants tell you they are empty. Every once in a while some shifty guy will approach you leaving the station and tell you he can sell you his gas for twice the price, but it’s stored in 5 liter jerry cans and nobody knows how much of it is really water. We begged off all these early offers hoping we could find a bigger city before Bukhara, but nothing materialized. We made it within 250 klicks of Bukhara before we were too tired to keep driving on horrible roads, and pulled off into the desert to camp. Pitching tents and sleeping on the sand made for a pretty comfortable night’s sleep, and we wook up again at dawn to push on for Bukhara. The road conditions improved and we made good time, but the needle on our fuel tank crawled towards E and the light came on pretty quickly.

We finally found a station that had a line up of Uzbek cars, but when we pulled in they insisted they had no gas. Incredulous, we decided to wait them out and see if they started pumping for a local. Stubbornly, the attendants and owner left the station. We thought the locals might be angry with us, but they made conversation… also insisted there was no gas (we wondered and asked what they were doing there though, without much explaination), and took more photos with Tom. We finally gave an and putter on towards Bukhara. There was another station along the way where a tanker truck was supposedly showing up at 1pm, and it had a half mile long queue of cars in front. Not waiting for that, we coasted into town on fumes and were refused gas at another station that WAS pumping petrol for people, but apparently only for Uzbek firms with prepaid invoices. We are now parked at our hotel and will be hooking up some black market gas from some guy’s house in the morning… probably paying too much, but at this point we need full tanks to make the border and get to Almaty to pick up Amy & Yasmin.

It was nice to arrive in Bukhara in the afternoon. A decent lunch was available and we were able to meander around the Registan and the Ark, relaxing a bit and taking lots of photos. I was anxious to see the Ark, including the Zindon or Sia Chat “bug pit” where British officers Stodart and Connolly were tortured by the Uzbek Emir before execution. The bug pit was closed but we wandered around the outside at sunset and slowly made our way back to the hotel for some excellent night photography.

I just finished a lamb shish kabob dinner and am ready to sleep in a bed again before getting up and pressing on to Samarqand tomorrow.

Next post hopefully with photos & video!

Stuck In The Sand

We are in the middle of the desert in Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan, hunting for the ghost ships of the Aral Sea near Muynaq. For the first time some locals just gave us some bad directions and we took a wrong turn into the desert. So far Uzbekistan has been very welcoming, but we decided to pull out a wimpy get out of jail free card and fire up Google Earth and the GPS to know exactly where we need to go. Oh yeah, Jean scraped something (non-essential) off the bottom of car 206, and Tom just got 201 stuck in the sand. Team Cooper Trooper is pulling him out now while I look up the GPS coordinates so we can find these ships…. Ah, Tom just got unstuck! Gotta go!

Salam Alaykum Turkmenistan

There is a glow a few kilometers to our East. It’s an unmistakable warm orange-red glow of fire, but this fire never goes out. It’s been burning for the past 40 years or so.

We are in Darvaza, Turkmenistan, camped out in the middle of the desert after returning from the flaming gas pit that’s been on fire since the Russians were drilling for gas here. A sinkhole opened up and swallowed up some of their equipment in the process. They attempted to burn off some of the “waste gas” that was bubbling on top of the crater, and it has been on fire ever since.

Video shot with VadoHD provided by eKit

Standing at the edge of the crater, hot blasts of air hit your face and twisters spin up out of nowhere as this place creates its own micro-climate. The blasts of air are not unlike the conditions while driving through the desert. With no air-con we have to drive with the windows down, if for no other reason than to prevent the windows from acting as lenses refracting the sun into the car.

Other than the 110 degree heat we have been loving driving through Turkmenistan. Our ferry from Baku crossed relatively quickly, but we had to wait a day outside the port for room to open up for us to dock. All told: 31 hours at sea. Let us know who won the pool at the Microsoft Office team. The border guards at port were *really* nice. I may not have mentioned this yet, but the Turkmen Consulate in Baku was really nice and helpful as well, which gave us hope that was definitely not misplaced. The guard processing our visas asked who was in charge of our group, which turned out to be me, he called me “Chief” and said I looked like an actor. After we figured out he meant “Lost” when he was talking about the “teleserial ‘Staying Alive’” he laughed and said he thought I was Matthew Fox. One of the members of our group had a misprinted passport number on the invitation, clearly a typo, and the guard joked that he wouldn’t let him in… but then said “bad joke, sorry” and we all laughed. No shake downs, just a lot of forms in triplicate, all very official and time consuming. Clearing immigration and customs: 6 hours. It was 7 am before we found a place to stay, camping out on the beach with a bunch of Turkmen families. We grabbed just a few hours sleep and woke up by taking a bath in the Caspian, cool and refreshing.

Driving to Ashgabat took ALL day, on paved roads that had been melted in the heat and driven on hard by big trucks, turning the blacktop into waves of tar that rolled our cars across the desert at a max 80kph clip. We were pulled over 4 times again, but the cops here are friendly and really just want to say Hi and ask about the rally. They shook our hands instead of our wallets, and sent us on our way. Nice change of pace. Azerbaijan, you could follow this example. We are like celebrities here, *everybody* can tell we are foreign and the cars draw a *lot* of attention, even from hundreds of meters away cars flash their lights at us, and everybody stares and waves.

Ashgabat was this strange place, somebody said aptly a combination of Las Vegas and Pyongyang. There are hundreds of fancy looking buildings, but not enough traffic to justify their existence, and inside many of them are empty or downtrodden. We stayed at what looked like a really fancy hotel – inside it reeked and the carpeting had gaps with concrete below… the power was inconsistent and destroyed one of my adapters. We were pretty anxious to leave the city and head for Darvaza after getting some supplies… an exercise which took 4 hours because there are no ATM’s and the banks are extremely slow to process a cash advance. The other thing that doesn’t seem to work is my cell phone. It’s not compatible with any network here, and nobody will sell me a pre-paid SIM since I’m not Turkmen. So, no updates from eKit until we make it to Uzbekistan I think.

We hooked up with several other rally teams at a gas station on the way out of town, joined the caravan north, and finally found our way to the gas crater at about 10:30pm, brilliantly lit up in the dark and clearly visible from miles away.

I’m sure I’m probably forgetting something, but my video has just finished uploading and we are on the satellite again, rationing our data. I’ll let the video speak for itself and our next transmission will probably come to you from Uzbekistan

Cruising The Caspian

I’m sitting on a rusty old cargo ship on the east coast of the Caspian Sea, waiting for a spot to open up at port for us to dock, watching the sun set. After a few technical difficulties I’ve finally got the sat-modem working.

We’re rationing the data, so I’m keeping this short…

Tom’s description of Azerbaijan pretty much echos the feelings I was having… but we did have a much better time in Baku, having dinner with a helpful family friend of Justin’s who also helped us arrange our ferry departure yesterday. The whole procedure was a little hectic but the boat finally did leave at about 7:30pm… and sure enough about 12 hours later we arrived just off the coast of Turkmenbashi.

As they were venting sea water over the deck just outside our room, and bathing themselves in it, I took up a conversation with the crew and found out there are 25 students on board from the maritime academy, and I talked to their teacher a bit. The crew told me we would dock “maybe tonight”… but that was hours ago. The port is “busy”. I strolled around the boat taking photos, and some crew took interest in the photos. I took their picture and showed it to them, and they asked me to give them a copy on their laptop… I also showed them our Turkey pictures, the guy I was talking to, Vadim, said he wanted to got to Turkey and took copies of several of our photos. We exchanged email addresses so I could send him pictures of “Amreeka”. They speak English pretty well, but it’s been a good opportunity to practice Russian more as well.

It’s been really hot, over 100 degrees, and we’re all tired, can’t wait to be off the boat and make our way to Turkmenbashi and then on to the gates of hell. I don’t have cell service on the boat, but a few of the Just A Steppe Away team do, and they’ve been getting facebook/email updates… apparently they know somebody in the Microsoft Office group, and a pool has been started taking bets on when we’ll be off the boat… whoever placed their bet for 1 hour was throwing their money away… whoever said 5 days has a cruel sense of humor. To all MS peeps out there Tom says “Hi” and there better be a Media Devices pool bigger than the Office group’s pool (we’ll gladly take a percentage of the winnings!).

Going on 26 hours since we boarded…

They should call this place…Briberzijan

Hello from Baku, Azerbaijan. I can’t tell you how happy I am to have made it here tonight. Which is a surprise, as all I wanted to do was leave this place ASAP! Many hours earlier I was sitting on the side of a very dusty road on top of a pile of gravel, in the scorching sun, wondering if the police planned to ever come back with my (and Jean’s) international drivers license. They didn’t. Apparently you’re not allowed to ask for directions on private property, get their approval to turn around and safely re-enter the roadway.  Uh, Right. I’ll get back to that one later.

Let’s recap the past 24 hours. The Georgian\Azerbaijan border was brutal for all. It took nearly 2 hours  for 12 cars to inch through the border and then another 4 hours to process the cars. Jean, Brian and our friend Justin from team Just a Steppe Away, had the pleasure of having to deal the border police throughout that time. At least that was somewhat interesting and were in the shade! The rest of us had to stand behind a rust covered steel gate that was managed by the military. Standing and waiting in the 100+ heat doing pretty much nothing . At least I had Kayne and Christine to hang with. Also, one or two friendly and curious locals wondering what ethnicity I was. This has been common now. When I mention my family is from India, they all light up and tell me how nice Indian people are and that they love Indian films. Some of them even mimic their favorite actors by dancing. I wish the police were as engaging.

We finally make it through and the roads are amazing when compared to those in Georgia. The highways were like an interstate back home. There were no sign postings, but I was doing about 55mph when all of a sudden a police car going the opposite direction indicates for me to pull over. So, I did.  Justin and Jean pull ahead and over, but for some reason the police are interested in them. They call up someone who speaks English and hands the phone to Justin. Many calls and dialogue later, they want $200 USD on the spot for speeding. The speed limit is apparently 40mph on the highway. That must be the forigner speed limit as the locals are going 65 mph. $150 later, we’re apparently on our way. This was the first 15 minutes of being here.

We spent the the next 30 minutes looking for a gas station that will take USD or credit cars. Both of which should be easily available. Not so…the locals are super friendly however and helped us change our money rather easily at a local market. Speaking of which, everywhere we go they all wave, honk and flash their lights to say hello. They really are nice people. We found a Ramada hotel and they were extermely generous to us there as well. We spent the night there as our options were limited and the roads were turning for the worse.

Next morning we’re on the road bright and early. 30 minutes into our journey, we approach a police check point (common every 20 miles or so) when I’m told to pull over again! It couldn’t be speeding, the roads were so bad that I was doing 15mph! For some reason they ask Brian to step out and take him inside to explain that we ran a stop sign on the highway. Yes, you read that correctly, a stop sign on the highway. I can’t help giggling as I type that. What wasn’t funny is that they told Brian they wanted $50 USD. Then apparently his colleague comes in and now is throwing out numbers like $200-$300 for all three cars running this sign. We all get out and Brian explains that he wants to see this sign. Yes, show us this sign. As far as the eye can see, no one is stopping. As each car passes by, I keep saying….ticket, ticket, ticket, ticket, ticket….yet no one is getting pulled over. Just us. Brian is allover him about this. Before I know it, he gives Brian the papers back and that tell him to get out of here. Gladly.

30 min later - I go around a roundabout. I suspect that we made an error and pull into a private lot to ask the contruction workers standing there. They confirm and indicate to turn around there. We do, when low and behold we’re being tailed by 2 cop cars. They tell us to pull over. Take my license, take Jean’s somehow and then starts writing me a ticket. They were playing bad cop – bad cop. I’m from New Jersey, I know how that game is played. The rules suck cause the cops are the only ones that win. Are we in AzerbiJersey or something? One of them made an attempt to explain what I did wrong and before I know it his partner, is trying to get me to sign a citation with a 150USD fine. I refused and simple asked to show me what the correct thing was to do, or just explain it to me. That wasn’t an option. I asked if I can speak to someone who speaks English. He refuses, tells his partner to get in and off they go with our licenses. We’re in shock, we wait, wait, wait. I watch this scrappy dog approach the car on the roadway, tired he takes comfort in the shade of my rear bumper. Funny. I decide to do the same and take a seat on top of a pile of gravel, waving back at all the people saying hello. 20 min later the cops drive by and indicate to the team that they are turning around. They never did. We waited, waited and we just decided to leave. Our Washington licenses are good enough, but I ask Brian to drive as I’m  clearly marked.

An hour later, we approach another check point and told to pull over. This cop is completely fixated on Jean. Takes all our car documents and is harassing Jean that she doens’t have an international drivers license and operating the car. He’s got Christine’s license and keeps telling Jean he wants hers etc. She explains it was taken by the police, but he seems dismissive. He has her going back to his car and asks to take her to a restaurant or something. She refuses. He asks all of us too, we all refuse. Before I know it, he’s in Jean’s car and asking for the keys to drive the car. He tells Brian and Jean to get in and we’re now all following them to restaurant. 2 min later we’re in a very small room he’s asked to play musical chairs at a table, drink tea, asked to take pictures with him, as he writes a police report for the ‘lost’ license. He wants to know all this personal stuff about us and keeps insisting that Jean will have to spend the night in the town while the others go on to Baku. Over my dead body. Over all over our dead bodies. 90 min later he gets to the point. 145 USD and you can go. It was so shady, we didn’t know if that would happen, but he made a critical mistake and put down her license and handed the car papers back. We now had all the documents in our hands. Long story short…Brian pays  $120MAT (I50 USD or so) and he lets us go. Almost. He stops their car again, and is making calls…when a tour bus comes and hands hime these two papers. I see this in my rear view mirror and I’m in shock. He hands  Jean her international driver’s license that was taken 40 miles back. It’s like he didn’t know that mine was taken and is anxious  to to give mine back. He walks up and shows it to me. He is laughing and I let him know that he’s a ’smart one’ so to speak. He tries going for our MP3 player asking for that as payment for it. Christine is driving and I tell him to keep it. He’s shocked. I let him know that I didn’t need. He says, Baku? I tell him that she’s going to drive from now on…I’m going to sleep and i don’t need it. He laughs, I do as well and offer to shake his hand. As he does, I grab my licesne.  He looks at it, I let him know how ’smart’ he is, he enjoys that and I tell Christine to go. They are all in on it! Arrgh. We were left alone after that and drove very slowly to Baku. Your lands are and people are beautiful, but i’m done with you Briberzijan.

Azerbaijersy Part 1

Our attempt to wake up early and get out of Tbilisi this morning was met with the usual struggle to coordinate 6 people and 3 cars, but after getting some Georgian Lari and a delicious little breakfast in a charming area of downtown Tbilisi, we were off about 11am and on our way to the border. We actually made good time and were at the border by 12:30… but we immediately lost another hour due to another time zone change. This border crossing put Georgia’s & Turkey’s to complete shame. We queued up for a couple hours, inching our way to the holding pen where drivers were separated from passengers who had to move along to Azerbaijan and wait for us. Justin had already paid for his road tax, but had to wait for Jean and I as they wanted to process all the rally teams together. This is when the real struggle began.

We were hot and had already been waiting for hours to get to this point. Jean and I queued up at a little office door with several pushy Azeri & Georgian men, all waiting to get our car documents processed. One of the agents looked like Barry Corbin’s character from War Games, and one of the men waiting was Azerbaijan’s version of Luke Perry. We had fun with the celeb look alike game for a while, but eventually we were just restless to get into the booth. This was very much like waiting to get into the Russian consulate. A few men snaked past us which was frustrating because the agent moved SO SLOW to process everything. Eventually we were ushered in together but a few other men still tried to cut in… at this point the agent got very angry at them, and for about 5 minutes there was a lot of screaming and shouting while Jean and I watched the agent assert his authority. He ended up chasing these guys out of the office and was replaced by a new agent who seemed no less surly. This new guy pushed us around a bit, and when we tried to make sure everything was correct he got even more stern. I don’t know if he was illiterate or what, but he could not spell my name correctly, and shh’d me when I asked about it. I gave him my address, that was entered wrong. Then he insisted we get a 3 day transit visa even though we already had our 30 day tourist visa. Eventually an agent who spoke English came in and explained the cars could only get a 3 day transit visa due to being Right Hand Drive. Now, granted, we want to be in this country no longer than necessary to get on the ferry in Baku, but if there are any issues a 3 day transit visa might not be long enough. We tried to negotiate and give the soft offer for bribes “is there a special fee we can pay for a longer visa??”… but he didn’t bite at all. 3 days, that’s it. Then he demanded we have a document that authorized Jean to drive the car since it was registered in my name. I offered to write a contract right there that gave authorization, but he wouldn’t have it. He tried to suggest we go back to London to get “official” document, and in 2 seconds the issue magically was dropped (and never brought up again).

About another hour to get our Azerbaijan insurance, my passport was confiscated for 30 minutes, the car was “inspected” with a very brief look inside… the agent thought my laptop might be a gun but took my word that it wasn’t, and finally after about 5 hours we were through the gates!

We had originally hoped to make Baku in the evening, but it was already 6pm! Uggh. We got on the M1 “motorway”, and followed the flow of traffic, but were immediately pulled over for “speeding” (at 55 miles an hour). After the crazy driving in Georgia, we could not believe it. The cops shook down Justin & the girls in the other car as Tom & I sat waiting for the bribing to begin… but the cops took off and left us alone. We were having trouble getting food and gas since there was nowhere to get local currency, nobody would accept credit cards and nobody wanted to exchange any cash (Georgian, US or Euros)… eventually we found a guy who would take our dollars. A few more hours drive at a slower pace, stop for a quick bite and a gas fill up, and all of the sudden it was getting dark. I wasn’t really comfortable with the idea of camping given the inhospitable welcome we had received so far and the lack of what looked like any kind of public place to sleep. Given the good roads and our experience from the night before, I insisted we push on towards Baku. But after another police check point the road worsened considerably, and we all started to worry about more pot holes and punctured tires.

We were arriving in Ganja, probably Azerbaijan’s second biggest city, when in front of us appeared an oasis… a hotel, and not just any hotel, a large hotel that was likely to accept a credit card and have a free room. I joked over the radio that looked like a Ramada… but low and behold it was. The rooms were pricey, but given our other options this was really our best choice. I explained to the reception that we were doing this for a charitable cause and they did knock 20% off the room rate right away.

So here we are, in a really clean room with awesome facilities and internet awaiting our updates! I’m getting some photos & our progress map uploaded, and catching a few zzz’s before we get up and start over again on our way to Baku. Once we make the ferry we’ll probably be out of touch (no cell, internet or satellite service while the boat is moving, we are guessing) for a day or two, but hopefully we can make it to Turkmenistan with no visa problems and not too much of wallets skinned.

Until then, Da Svedonya!

“Welcome to Tblisi! Now please enjoy a flat tire…” and other stories

Even though I may be overlapping some of Brain’s post, I thought I’d put in a few words about the last few weeks…

Family:

Meeting Tom’s uncle and Brain’s cousins was one of the highlights of Europe. In Koln, Germany, we were treated to a truly Indian/German fusion meal…pork and cabbage but with an Indian twist. Deeelicious. Yes, it came with a spicy sauce on the side. We were also able to do some much needed rearranging of our stuff as everything seemed to be everywhere but nowhere when we were looking for it. And Tom got in some much needed QT with family.

In Budapest, Hungary, we were treated to not only dinner, but also to a lovely walking tour of Budapest (so beautiful), a night out  on the town and our first flat tire upon leaving their house (oopsie!). We had a great time enjoying time for one day on the slow having coffee, conversation and quite a few laughs with the girls. New facebook friends!

Klenova, Czech Republic:

This party was crazy. We met up with our two F5 guests and caravaned in to a steam of people walking from the campground to the castle for the party. We turned up the Motley Crue on the radio and if we didnt pull away when we did a slew of people in costumes including Borat would have walked up to the car window to greet us hello. This was green thong Borat, btw. (Yikes!)

We were amazed that the Adventurists actually got the permit for this party. Last year, someone ran off with the head of one of the 14th century statues. Luckily, it was returned and the party resumed…complete with gin, roasted pig, watermelon, hookah and live music. All the teams were so excited to meet each other and the stories were insane (like the guy who was wearing a very nice sundress that Jennie would have loved telling the bit about how last year on the rally he sunk his car into a river, got arrested and thrown in jail for 8 hours).  Needless to say, we woke up feeling some pain and needing to erase the green graffitti written on our windows.

Bulgaria:

Our first grease. We didnt pay the vignette, so we “paid our fine on the spot”. Who knew there would be cops on every corner in Bulgaria! Not even out of the EU!

Turkey:

Ahh Turkey. I think I imagined a country full of Tolga’s and while everyone is quite gregarious, friendly and willing to take the time to engage in conversation, there is only one Tolga

There are, however, quite a few of Tolga’s peeps. Tamer and Tanol, college friends of Tolga’s, were originally going to have lunch with the team. We received a delightful mail with lines that said ”if you eat two profiterols, do not drink water in between” and “screaming is allowed while eating” while recommending places to eat and including text in Turkish to show restaurant hosts to ensure the proper treatment. After running into trouble, we called for help from the three T’s and we quickly got calls, emails, texts, favors to Moscow, and lunch.  I hope they visit Seattle soon so we can take them out and return the favor!

Our split off from Kim and Amy was really hard. They are now on the Aegean Coast enjoying some sun. I hope you are having a great time, girls!

Everything after Turkey:

Georgia: Beautiful countryside… two lane roads with 4 lanes of cars. Sorry, no lanes, I meant lines of cars. 2 lines passing into oncoming traffic at the same time! These people drive crazy! Goats, cows, ducks, people, cars, all in the road crossing whenever they g’damn well felt like it. Not to mention the craters for potholes. I fell asleep on our push to Tblisi and awoke to a massive earthquake in the car and yelled a groggy “oh god, something broken!” to Tom. I snuck some pics of the cops who had fun watching Tom and Brain switch out the flat at 2am and flirting with the other teams we found and caravaned with (one ambulance team named Magic Mongolian Mystery Tour and Just A Steppe Away). Georgia is like the greatsest ghetto car video game ever. Luckily no smashy smashy.

Azerbaijan:

Mmm, 6 hour border crossing. Line cutting (my NJ elbow came in handy at least once). Some ppl cant speak English and some people plain pretend they cant speak English. Transit visa  – read: need to be out of Azerbaijan in 3 days with the cars though our visas are tourist and good for 30. Shady “fees” at the border, immediately pulled over on the road. More “paying of the ticket on the spot”…halfway to Baku to get ready for 13 hour ferry with no bathroom and more greasing. Not sure I like this place but this hotel we are in is really really really nice. I am in a bathrobe and slippers writing this post. I think we are at least still 5 or so hours from Baku. 

Well, more later. I am nervous about this boat and how much we will have to pay in extra “costs”. Most of all the bathroom situation. Not that I’ve actually had a full meal in days but definitely no food or drink for me tomorrow

The Russian Dilemma

The past two days have been a roller coaster of emotions and contradictory bureaucratic responses from the Russian Consulate in Istanbul.

On Monday, we went down to the Consulate, even though we were still waiting for Kim’s new passport, and explained our situation to them. In my rudimentary Russian, I explained “I am going to Russia, Mongolia, My wife, lost passport and visas, police report”… The diplomat we talked to was sympathetic, made a phone call, and told us “no problem”. Incredulous, we asked if he was sure, and how long did he think it might take. He said “maybe 1 day”… WOW! 1 Day! We started thanking him and he begged off, saying he couldn’t promise anything, but to come back the next day “zaftra” with her new passport. After getting some food and returning to the hotel we had another pleasant surprise, Kim’s passport was already waiting for us. In less than 1 day the US Consulate had prepared her an emergency passport and couriered it over to the hotel. We ended Monday on such a high note with everything seeming to go our way.

Tuesday morning, we returned to the Russian Consulate with new passport in hand, copies of the old visa, and invitation letter all ready to go. We had to wait in the line again, with the Turkish tourism mafia guarding the door and seemingly entering freely… somebody was paying off the Russian’s well for such frequent access (there are several tour agencies across the street that specialize in Russian visas)… but the Russian bouncer who works the door, and the rail thin girl who works security behind it both started to recognize us and we were able to work our way to the front of the line (visa issues get worked before more complicated passport issues). We made it inside the air conditioned office to wait some more and eventually got to see another diplomat. The man we talked to on Monday was gone, and the diplomat we talked to on Tuesday looked over our papers, including the police report, and flatly said “is impossible”. I pleaded with him to call as the other diplomat had and make sure, telling him that we’d been told a different story the day before. He left, made a phone call and was gone for about 20 minutes. When he came back he actually came outside his booth into the lobby, and said again “is impossible”. He was a little more sympathetic this time and told us he had talked to the Vice Consul and the problem was we can not replace a visa issued in Seattle here in Istanbul. The only other option would be to apply for a new visa, for which we would need a Turkish residency permit, or we could send her passport back to Seattle to try to get the Seattle Russian Consulate to replace her old visa.

We were getting close to giving up when we received a phone call from a Turkish friend of a friend who apparently knew somebody at the Russian consulate. Here is where it would probably be better if I didn’t go into too much detail, but we were told if The Adventurists would fax a letter confirming Kim was in the rally and had to travel through Russia that we could have the visa replaced here, in as little as two days. We tried not to get our hopes up too much, but I was able to sleuth out a phone number for the hard to reach Adventurists HQ and they kindly sent the fax right away. I also received calls back from the offices of Senator Cantwell and Congressman McDermott, as well as an email from the office of Patty Murray. They all offered to help Kim with her passport, which we fortunately already had, but they sympathetically and diplomatically explained that they couldn’t intervene in the sovereign affairs of a foreign country and that we had to continue to pursue our visa issues without their help. I was more touched than I expected to be contacted by them so quickly even though they were not able to assist us with the Russian visa.

Today, we returned again with our new super secret contact at the consulate in our back pocket. When we got there and mentioned this name, we were actually told we could not speak with this person as they were too high up, and when we got to speak to a diplomat again (a 3rd totally new guy to explain the story to, in my broken Russian) I think he was in disbelief that we actually had any contact with this person. Granted, I haven’t shaven for a week, I have no clean clothes, and I must look a site in this sweltering heat… But we provided some phone numbers, he made some calls, and he even seemed a little nervous when he told us to come back at 2pm when they could confirm with Moscow the details of the rally. We returned at two, “v’dva chsa”, and explained ourselves all over again to a 4th diplomat who seemed to already be familiar with our story. He then explained that yes, Moscow confirmed, and yes they could in fact replace our Seattle-issued visa here in Istanbul… but that it would take no less than 10 business days.

This was the last heart breaking blow. We had prepared to alter our route and take a ferry from Turkey to Russia, traveling 3,000 miles from the Crimea to Siberia and then into Mongolia, if only we could get Kim’s Russian visa, but even that route would require us to catch the ferry next week, not more than 10 business days from now.

With that, we spent all afternoon trying to figure out the least worst option for splitting the team up to complete this journey. I think we all felt ill at some point with most of the options presented… I tried to think of some way Kim & I could stay together sending the rest of the team on to meet us in Mongolia (which does not require a visa for Americans)… but the cars are registered in my name and each border we cross as we get further from Europe the more sketchy we anticipate it being if there is any discrepancy in the paperwork. Sending Kim on alone to Mongolia for a month did not feel like a very team-like thing to do either, but asking any of the other team members to sacrifice the rest of the rally to join her was equally difficult.

We wrestled with every scenario for hours until we were starved for dinner and finally settled on a plan where Amy & Kim will take a breather here in Turkey for a few days while Tom, Jean and I press on along the original route, cutting out some destinations to make up for lost time and get to Mongolia as quickly as possible. Amy will re-join us in Kazakhstan at the same time Yasmin flies in, and Kim will head to Mongolia to scout out UB for us and maybe volunteer with Mercy Corps for a little bit. We’ll all meet up again when we cross into Mongolia and resume the original plan from there. It’s incredibly hard for us to split up after a year and a half of planning this together, but we believe we can complete the journey this way and finish strong together at the end.

This is when somebody says we’ll all look back on this years from now with a good story to tell… right?