Yesterday afternoon I made it to Baku, Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea, the last major body of water before the Pacific Ocean. I plan to catch a ferry across the Caspian to Aqtau, Kazakhstan, but after spending 4 hours today looking for the ferry office, I'm interested to see how that turns out.
I've got enough material from my attempts to find the ferry office last night and this morning to write a novel. I don't want to get too deep into the particulars, but I've probably talked to about 50 different people, all of whom have given me different answers. My favorite was the guy who told me it was on the floor above his office. When I confronted him with the fact that he was in a one story building, he changed his mind an waved his hand in a seemingly random direction.
So far, nobody has admitted that they don't know where this elusive ferry office. I can't decide whether their unwillingness to admit this comes from a effort to be helpful or from their own pride. I'm pretty sure that the only reason that I'm getting any response at all is because I'm a goofy American looking for a boat to Kazakhstan. People here like novelty and I'm like the newest joke amongst a circle of friends: it's entertaining for about 5 minutes but then you drop it and resume drinking your 12th cup of tea for the day.
One especially helpful group of men grabbed a youth off the street and made him find an English speaker to help me. He led me into what looked like a school, past a gymnasium into a locker room full of sweaty, half-clothed, stinky boys. Awkward situation. But you have to have faith in these people. Sure enough, one of the boys spoke English and was even fully dressed so he walked out with me, listened to the old men for a minute, made a phone call and then pointed me towards the office that sold tickets to Turkmenbashi, Turkistan. Close, but not quite.
I'm exploiting the fact that I'm a novelty, but it hasn't gotten me very far. One police officer actually gave me a place name, but google translate says that it's the "Limanu Dry Cargo Plant". I am cargo, and mostly dry (although the Baku heat has drenched my back in sweat) but it still seems more logical to me that the ferry should leave from the "Ferry Terminal". But this building, the guard has told me twice now, is a office building and there are no ferries there.
I knew this was going to be challenging when I set out to find this ferry. The company has no web presence that I can find. The only mention of it is on travel blogs and message boards like lonely planet and most of those berate the ferry for being inconsistent, overpriced and, surprise, very difficult to arrange. But, I've got another 25 days on my Azerbaijani visa and my Kazakh visa isn't valid until July 22nd, so I'm not in any hurry yet. I think I'm going to switch up my strategy though. Instead of wandering around in the heat saying "Billet Ferry Aqtau Kazkhstan?", I'm going to recruit a local to figure this out for me and then report back. If I could just find a phone number, this search would be a whole lot easier.
Interesting fact about Baku: men here don't wear shorts. They let it slide with foreign men, but in my effort to fit in today, I wore pants. It was a terrible idea. Not only is it overly hot here, it's really dirty, too, so that the ankles of your pants are covered in dirt and junk. I suppose it's better that your pants are dirty instead of your ankles, but when you're working with three pairs of pants, I tend to want to presever them more than my ankle hygiene.
I'm sure that finding this ferry will provide plenty more entertaining stories. I'll keep you all posted.
I've got enough material from my attempts to find the ferry office last night and this morning to write a novel. I don't want to get too deep into the particulars, but I've probably talked to about 50 different people, all of whom have given me different answers. My favorite was the guy who told me it was on the floor above his office. When I confronted him with the fact that he was in a one story building, he changed his mind an waved his hand in a seemingly random direction.
So far, nobody has admitted that they don't know where this elusive ferry office. I can't decide whether their unwillingness to admit this comes from a effort to be helpful or from their own pride. I'm pretty sure that the only reason that I'm getting any response at all is because I'm a goofy American looking for a boat to Kazakhstan. People here like novelty and I'm like the newest joke amongst a circle of friends: it's entertaining for about 5 minutes but then you drop it and resume drinking your 12th cup of tea for the day.
One especially helpful group of men grabbed a youth off the street and made him find an English speaker to help me. He led me into what looked like a school, past a gymnasium into a locker room full of sweaty, half-clothed, stinky boys. Awkward situation. But you have to have faith in these people. Sure enough, one of the boys spoke English and was even fully dressed so he walked out with me, listened to the old men for a minute, made a phone call and then pointed me towards the office that sold tickets to Turkmenbashi, Turkistan. Close, but not quite.
I'm exploiting the fact that I'm a novelty, but it hasn't gotten me very far. One police officer actually gave me a place name, but google translate says that it's the "Limanu Dry Cargo Plant". I am cargo, and mostly dry (although the Baku heat has drenched my back in sweat) but it still seems more logical to me that the ferry should leave from the "Ferry Terminal". But this building, the guard has told me twice now, is a office building and there are no ferries there.
I knew this was going to be challenging when I set out to find this ferry. The company has no web presence that I can find. The only mention of it is on travel blogs and message boards like lonely planet and most of those berate the ferry for being inconsistent, overpriced and, surprise, very difficult to arrange. But, I've got another 25 days on my Azerbaijani visa and my Kazakh visa isn't valid until July 22nd, so I'm not in any hurry yet. I think I'm going to switch up my strategy though. Instead of wandering around in the heat saying "Billet Ferry Aqtau Kazkhstan?", I'm going to recruit a local to figure this out for me and then report back. If I could just find a phone number, this search would be a whole lot easier.
Interesting fact about Baku: men here don't wear shorts. They let it slide with foreign men, but in my effort to fit in today, I wore pants. It was a terrible idea. Not only is it overly hot here, it's really dirty, too, so that the ankles of your pants are covered in dirt and junk. I suppose it's better that your pants are dirty instead of your ankles, but when you're working with three pairs of pants, I tend to want to presever them more than my ankle hygiene.
I'm sure that finding this ferry will provide plenty more entertaining stories. I'll keep you all posted.
Man, I got frustrated and kinda anxious just reading about not being able to find the ferry.
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