August 1, 2000: Caucasus (Georgia/Azerbaijan) "welcome to georgia" - with these words the georgian customs welcomed us, after we had our last turkish cafe the in the office of the turkish customs. we travelled by bus, following the coast of the black sea to batami. there are much differences between georgia and turkey, mountains, green hills, lot of cows, almost like switzerland. the georgians are looking like russians, their skin is much brighter and they all look very sympathetic. in tiblis we stayed at a homesty, hosted by a real poor family. no warm water, no shower or bath, the restroom (or somewhat like it) was in the stairway, 3 rooms - 1 room for a japanese tourist - 1 room for us - and another room for 2 childs, her mother, her grandmother and a friend. after we received our visa for azerbaijan in tiblis, we took a direct train to baku, the capitol of azerbaijan. after a long talk (no bribes) with some uniformed soldiers, we finally got a place on a cargo boat to turkmenistan. the next 24 hours on our boat, we crossed the caspian sea. we payed usd 40 for this trip and were the only tourists on board. for another usd 5 we had our cabin with a shower and a restroom. the cabin wasn't a good deal - the restroom didn't work, the shower didn't work and the cabin did not have a ventilation, so we were sweating in our 35 degrees hot cabin and the air was full of engine exhaust...! but we met a great turkman family and had a great time (during the day) on the boat. we finally saw the desert coast of turkmenistan by the beginning of the next evening.

back the view from the freight ship in front of Baku in Azerbaijan