We’re back online!

‘Welcome to Asia’ read the sign as we left Istanbul after an interesting 36 hour stopover. We’d booked a cheap hotel close to Taksim Square and whilst Friday night seemed quiet with no sign any disturbance, Saturday was different. As we walked back to our hotel we noticed increasing numbers of riot police, complete with shields and water cannon. Curiously, there was no real sign of any protesters. Within a few hours the atmosphere began to feel a little more tense with increasing numbers of groups of locals chanting in the maze of narrow back streets that surround the Square. Suddenly, we found ourselves on the corner of two such streets with a group of protesters running towards us – presumably to evade the police. Naturally, we turned the corner to avoid the oncoming charge, only to find ourselves faced by a rapidly advancing wall of riot police, shields in hand in pursuit of their prey. We dived into the doorway of a small hotel, which was swiftly locked behind us and the edges sealed to keep the teargas out (we had already begun to notice the gentle stinging). Fortunately, all passed swiftly and we were soon back out on the streets and back to our hotel. It was an unusual, and certainly unplanned experience, but made our visit to Istanbul all the more memorable. Our journey continued to Ankara (where we managed to obtain our visas for Turkmenistan) and onwards up to the Black Sea coast. The Turkish people were friendly and helpful. As always, the route map on our car proved to be a great talking point and an effective tool to overcome any language barriers. The border with Georgia was chaotic and confusing at times (at one point we found ourselves directed by a border guard back onto the road into Turkey!), but passed without incident. We headed for Batumi and found a small hotel on a quiet, unfinished road in a city that appeared to be still being built and that managed to mix opulence and squalor in equal measure. At a local bar we met Konstantin and David who were determined to demonstrate the importance of Georgian hospitality. We spent a long and enjoyable evening learning about Georgian culture, food and politics. Having shown us how to eat local dishes like Khinkali, Konstantin insisted on paying our bill and wishing us well on our travels – an extraordinarily generous gesture and a reflection of the kindness of the Georgian people. Our journey through the beautiful country of Georgia towards the capital Tbilisi will be remembered for the winding roads littered with ruts and pot holes and for the local drivers who seem not to recognise any form of highway code. Think of almost any manoeuvre that you would never attempt in the UK (overtaking on a completely blind corner, for instance) and you can be sure that the Georgian drivers would consider this to be entirely reasonable. And by the way, whilst that guy is overtaking you on the outside don’t forget to look out for his friend who will be attempting to pass you on the inside. All on a single carriageway and usually with a truck coming the other way. In a right hand drive car, driving on these roads is definitely a team effort. On route to Tbilisi we hooked up with 2 other teams – Ricard & Lucy from Team Skhandinavia and Marcus, Oskar and Fabian from Team DeTour and have been driving the same route for a few days. Ricard cycled from Oslo to China a few years ago and is a really valuable source of tips about what to expect. The Team Detour boys are professional photographers and the quality of their output on http://www.teamdetour.com is putting us to shame. We need to thank Georgia Rugby for giving us a room at their High Performance Centre in Tbilisi – Lasha and Malxaz really looked after us and our stopover in this lovely city was a definite oasis moment. “Good Luck” read the sign a kilometre before the border as we left Georgia for Azerbaijan. As we went through border control we asked the Georgian guards why there was a “Good Luck” sign for people heading to Azerbaijan. They just laughed and said “You’ll find out”. It didn’t take us long. An hour into our drive through Azerbaijan we were stopped by the police for the first time since Romania. We were told that we’d been driving at 79kph in a 40kph zone by a school. It wasn’t true, we knew that, and so did they. Our plan had always been to deal with officials by smiling, being patient and adopting a friendly, ignorant foreigner attitude. Maybe we’ll try that approach next time. On this occasion our very nice policeman told us that we would have to pay a fine equivalent to £300. We abandoned our friendly approach and just said that we wouldn’t pay. The policeman insisted that we had to pay so we got one of our phones and started to call a friend of a friend who used to live in Azerbaijan. As soon as we started making the call everything changed. He immediately dropped the fine to c£100 and when we said that we still wouldn’t pay he waved his hands for us to stop the call, said everything was ok, that we didn’t have to pay anything – and offered us a coffee! Our old friend Garry Doerr had a special word for people like him, but for now we’d like to thank our police friend for giving us something to remember Azerbaijan by. Most of this year’s Mongol Rally teams got stopped on the road from the border to Baku. Knowing that you are a target means that you have to rigidly stay just below the speed limits although it’s often very hard to work out what those limits are. In a country with a limited road network it took us 10 hours to drive less than 500 kilometres through a barren landscape, a brutal day. And so to Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, a Las Vegas on steroids that couldn’t be a greater contrast to the rest of the country. Baku is the place where you can get a ferry across the Caspian Sea to Turkmenistan. This was to prove more difficult than it sounds…