Hello again my peeps, thanks for sticking around in 2024. Welcome to my first proper misadventure since the -stans. We flew into Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, via a layover in Dubai (more on the atrocity of Dubai and its airport in a later post). Our connecting flight was with flydubai and I have to say I was rather impressed with it. We had a meal included onboard even though it is a low cost airline, presumably because it was booked with an Emirates connection. Because of the complicated situation in the Caucasus, the land border between Azerbaijan and Armenia is closed, so from Azerbaijan we had to route through Georgia before going to Armenia. The other way is possible, à la Armenia> Georgia> Azerbaijan, but according to the internet, more people have problems with customs this way. For context, the Nagorno-Karabakh offensive took place only a month before this trip, and hence it nearly fell through before it even began.
Anyway, back to Azerbaijan. It has the most restrictive visa policy in the Caucasus; almost every foreigner not from a Turkic/ ex Soviet country requires an e-visa to enter. Baku’s international airport is brand new, which is probably the only thing nice I have to say about the city. The first scam we encountered was when we were still planning the trip. We initially booked a hotel right in the city center, only to receive a notification after by booking.com that the hotel changed its name and address. We looked up the hotel on Google reviews, and found it was littered with people calling it a scam, despite it being listed on booking.com, where it had a decent rating. So we cancelled the booking and tried finding another hotel, but we couldn’t find one at a reasonable price that doesn’t have shady reviews on Google. Alas we decided to go with the international chain hotel, Ibis, for a peace of mind, even though it wasn’t very central, and because I will not be caught dead in a Marriott or Four Seasons without being sponsored
The second scam started right after we landed at the airport when we ordered a Bolt to Ibis hotel- note that your driver will almost certainly ask you for more money before you leave the airport premise, and it is probably for their parking fee. If you happen to get a driver who has been waiting in the parking lot for a long time, get ready for your wallet to bleed. There isn’t any other option either because on the app it shows your trip has already started. So instead of paying less than 10 manats for a trip into the city as indicated by the app, we ended up forking another 20 more manats (1SGD=1.25AZN). Furthermore, traffic in Baku is the worst amongst the Caucasian cities we encountered; lane markings and honks mean little here. Taking the metro is also, in our opinion, the most hassle out of all the capital cities in the Caucasus. You have to buy a metro card then load it with money, or you have to download an app to pay via a QR code, which honestly for our one night stay, wasn’t very worth it. Hence we decided to Bolt wherever we couldn’t walk, which leads us to the third scam.
This has only happened in Baku, not anywhere else we used the Bolt app, such as Georgia and Greece. We were going from the city center to Yanar Dag, a place with an eternal burning flame fuelled by natural gas reserves from the ground. If you’ve been to the Darvaza gas crater in Turkmenistan, don’t even bother with this one. The app indicated 20 manats for a one way trip. We took longer than expected to reach because of traffic, and when we got to the destination, the app showed that it costed 40 manats instead. 40 MANATS for a 25km route. And because Yanar Dag is quite out of the way, it’s difficult to get another Bolt back to the city, so we ended up paying the guy another 40 manats to wait for us and take us back. But guess what, he didn’t have enough change, so we effectively gave him 91 manats over the duration of 2 hours. Almost all of our cash changed for Azerbaijan dried up within a few hours of landing in the country
Being sleep deprived while dealing with all the day 1 cr*p meant I passed out the moment we went back to the hotel at night. One upside of staying in an international chain hotel is that they have the Bloomberg channel, and so I woke up to sounds of the equally chaotic but more familiar world of markets.
Day 2 didn’t start off great either. We booked a half day trip but our guide picked us up 40min late, and we were the first ones to get picked up. The subsequent pick ups made no sense in terms of route order; we kept circling back to hotels that were nearer to those where guests had been picked up earlier. We passed by the F1 track three times because of all the u turns we made. BUT ANYWAY….. the Gobustan petroglyphs and mud volcanoes were quite underwhelming as far as attractions go. You can see better preserved and more elaborate rock carvings in other parts of the world, and as for the mud volcanoes, there’s a reason why Yellowstone is famous. Do I regret going? As a matter of principle, no. The value of each attraction lies in the unique history that has shaped the area as it is today, but in terms of visual appeal, I get why this place is still undiscovered.
We were dropped off at Heydar Aliyev center, one of the landmarks of Baku, designed by renowned architect Zaha Hadid, and also where the I love Baku sign is located. I won’t bore you again with our Bolt misadventures but we had at least five drivers cancel on us after accepting the ride. Because of this, we didn’t have enough time to have a proper local meal before we left. After collecting our bags at the hotel, we headed straight to the airport. Our ride was going so well, until the car got stuck outside the automated gantry where the airport entrance fee is collected, which was only a sickeningly tantalising 1km away from the departure hall. Till this day I don’t know what happened, but we just waited there for a full 20min before the barrier finally opened. With not a thing going right for two consecutive days, it was a sign to leave the country.
Regional/domestic flights leave from the older terminal, so our Buta Airways (the low cost subsidiary of Azerbaijan Airlines) flight to Tbilisi, Georgia was from here instead of the swanky new terminal. If you’re from a “rare” country like where I am from, you will get questioned by the check in counter and immigration. Just don’t say you’re also travelling to Armenia. I don’t think there are airbridges in this terminal, or if there are there certainly aren’t many of them, so we walked across the apron to where the plane was parked before climbing up the stairs. Aviation geeks rejoice. Also, the offerings of low cost airlines in this part of the world are far beyond what the Asian ones could dream of. Ahem those that rhyme with hoot and fantasia. Both flydubai and Buta Airways have USB charging ports; flydubai has a large personal touchscreen with free access to the live flight map; and every Buta Airways ticket includes food and water on the plane.
And with that, after an hour we were in Tbilisi. My day wasn’t over because my international roaming SIM card latched onto the “wrong” telecoms provider upon landing and refused to reset to the right one. And this is when, my peeps, travelling in pairs provides insurance to the failures of modern technology. Bolt works perfectly fine here by the way. Yes that was salt. Things get better, I promise.
Hi! I am Joey, a University student from Singapore, attempting to show my appreciation for the world’s most powerful passport by literally milking its visa-free benefits one country at a time. I describe my travel budget as shoestring and travel style as audacious.
Slide into my comments section...