Two Cities

Rest Day in Baku
August 20th
0km

The Velotreki Hotel where we stayed last night is a complete dump. No air conditioning meant that it was impossible to get any sleep at night. There was one small fan in our room, but the power in the building kept going off...so even it didn't work. The water pump must be electric, because there was no water when the power was off either. Horrible place. Its next to the city's outdoor cycling ring, but none of us felt like giving it a try.

After a bit of searching, and some help from English speaking locals, I found the local DHL office and picked up the package that my parents sent me. Such a treat. In one box where so many of the items that I have been looking unsuccessfully for en route.

The locals speak a mixture of Azeri and Russian in every sentence. For the most part, they use a Turkish alphabet, not the Russian Cyrillic, but they have their own letter (an upside down, lower case 'e' that sounds like 'a') which I didn't see in Turkey or Russia.

The other good news is that we got our China visas! Technically, we got one group visa for China, so there is nothing actually in my passport. But it is a very good step. For the past few days, we had heard that the answer was yes, then no, then maybe. This morning, we filled out some new application forms and sent them off. The one challenge with the group visa is that we all are required to enter and leave the country together. Entry is fine, but everyone has different flights out. I leave with Al and Fred 2 weeks after the trip ends. This is a problem that will have to be resolved once we are actually in China. I will likely need to change my flight plans.

Taking the metro into the Old Town in Baku revealed a completely different city from the area around the Velotreki. (The metro was obviously built by the Soviets, as it looks exactly like the Moscow metro – big, open, clean, marble stations.) There is a lot of oil money here, with every high-end retailer you can imagine. There are also lots of lovely parks, fountains, pedestrian walkways, etc. It is a really beautiful city...we just happen to be staying in the worst possible part of it. The metro made it easy to get around, although some of the stations were closed for repair and some of the platforms had trains from multiple lines stop at them with only an oral announcement of where the train was going. This led to a lot of backtracking by me.

Tonight, 9 of us booked rooms in a hotel downtown for $35 each per night. It is much nicer than the Velotreki, so I'm hoping to get a better sleep. The tour company really missed the boat on accommodation here.

The worst hotel in Baku:

A bakery, where we got lunch:

Fountain in the Old Town at night: