I woke up this morning to look outside, expecting to see blue seas and blue skies, only to find we're still in Baku!! What?! Just as we went on deck we were being pulled out of the dock by a little tug! Ok, well at least we're on the ship and on the way, right? So a day of sleeping and reading and nibbling on the food we'd brought with us. We had a little cabin, with a private bathroom. The port official had told Tahira we would be comfortable with even showers...

With the help of our new friends we managed to get tickets for the ferry to Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan. This is a tricky business, and in the 4 days that we were in Baku going to the ferry port we met several others trying to get tickets either for the ferry to Turkmenistan or Kazakhstan. You see the ferry is actually only a cargo ferry and although passengers can normally get a ticket, a passenger with a vehicle is a different thing altogether! There is a lot ...

From Saki we headed to Qobustan to see the "mud volcanoes". What a strange sight! We couldn't find it from the directions in Lonely Planet (the book I am coming to least trust in the entire world) so we pulled into a police hut and asked for directions. So helpful, for just a small fee(!) one of the policemen rode with us and gave directions -to be fair we would never have found it! On the way up we did notice lots of abandoned drill sites... the water/mud is no...

After a mess around with the Azerbaijan embassy we did get our visas. We spent our last few days in and around Tbilisi with Greg and Maria looking around the markets, enjoying dinner and wine and Georgian traditional dancing and singing. We all went on a bit of a random adventure looking for a fishing spot and got caught up in a rally! That was just after Fintan had been attacked by wasps. His leg swelled up and I was a bit worried... but sitting around in the ai...

Hoorah! We both received our passports back to the Marriott Tbilisi, with 60 day single entry L type visas! After months of planning and organising and everything revolving around the China leg of the trip we finally have a visa and a confirmed itinerary! And we have the carnet du passage! We have to say thank you to the Marriott for signing for our packages, even though we weren't staying there! The list of papers and documents to collect is getting shorter... ...