Day 17-18, Bukhara and Samarkand, Uzbekistan

It is a bit late here and tomorrow we have a wake up call at 5am to drive to Kazakhstan. We need to drive all the way up to Russia in a very short time and reserve at least 5 to 7 days to Moingolia as over there there are no roads and the average speed will drop dramatically. We had a couple of good days in Uzbekistan, both in Bukhara and in Samarkand. Not much to report as this computer is too slow and I am starving so here below a few pictures. Today we spent most of the day at the Bazar in Samarkand to buy pasta, tomato sauce, olive oil, garlic and some other food (everything that is not pasta for me is ""some other food") and a pan. The camping days are coming!

From now on internet will became a luxury as we may need to camp on the side of the roads in the next few days. My guess is that in Mongolia it will be even worse. Will try to send some updates from the road!

The Gate of Hell, unknown location, Turkmenistan

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

This is the Darvaza Gas Crater, a burning hole The Soviet Union attempted to drill there for gas in the 70s, but the ground collapsed. To prevent the gas from poisoning the surrounding areas, it was set on fire but the problem is that the crater has burned ever since...

It's is a  bit of a long story how we managed to find it and visit it but it is enough to say that this, so far, has really been one the highlight of the trip. We were drove to the crater by Vladimir, a Russian guy who picked us up in a 4wd as to reach the crater it is a good 7km driving off road on the sand.

Day 12-16, Ashgabat/Mary/Turmenabat, Turkmenistan

We spent the first night in Turkmenbashi as it was too late and we were too tired to drive at night. Early in the morning we drove to Ashgabat were we arrived only late at night. The road from Turkmenbashi to Ashgabat is ridiculously bad and it was the first real test for the car. Some of the bumps were so crazy that one the rear wheels literally took off a couple of times. 

Checked in in a nice hotel in ashgabat and went out with another team to get some food. Unfortunately everything shuts down at 11pm because of the curfew imposed by the president so we had to return to the hotel and get something to eat there together with another team. 

Ashgabat is an interesting city and I feel we have only scratched the surface of it. There is an incredible number of policemen and the image of the president is on every single government building, office, hotel, street. He is everywhere. In some pictures he is dressed in a camouflage suit making war plans, in others he is surrounded by children, in others he is praying and so on. You are also not allowed to take pictures of his palace or other gov buildings. There is a new part of Ashgabat with only marble buildings, fountains, statues and an army of people washing the streets and even the street lamps every single day. All the people we met were incredibly happy and cheerful. They all asked where we were from and where we were going and helped us every single time they could. 

We had to wash the car in Ashgabat as we were told that the police would fine dirty car driving in the city so we borrowed a mop from the cleaning lady and used the water from the fountain in front of the hotel. 

After Ashgabat we drove to Mary, spent the night there and the following day at 5am we left directed towards Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

Day 12, the Black Pearl, Caspian sea

Oh Naxcivan, why did they trapped you in this lake? You deserve to sail the blue oceans and visit the ports of the world because your beauty should not be hidden...

Naxcivana a 146 mt piece of rust assembled in Jugoslavia god knows how many years ago (how it made it to the Caspain sea is beyond my comprehension). On board there were 86 passengers (mainly truck drivers and other Mongol Rally teams) and a crew of 40 valid seamen. 

(Naxccivan twin brother in the picture below)

We were shown our cabin (2nd class, what else do you pretend if you only pay 590 dollars?) by the old  russian lady in charge of our deck.when she tried to open the tap a brown fluid invaded  the toilet and we understood that this was not going to be a smooth and relaxing cruise.

We left the new port at 8pm but unfortunately it was no time yet to say goodbye to baku as we only moved to the old port to get a few more gigantic lorries on board.

Finally we set sails at 11pm and the 16 hours journey to Turkmenbashi began. I was hit by terrible headache as I smartly spent a good amount of time exploring the ship and taking very unnecessary pictures where the cars and lorries were parked.

The problem was that a lot of lorry drivers were sat in their trucks with the engine on to enjoy the ac so the place was invaded by their toxic fumes combined with the ones from the ship.

We didn't have much sleep during the night. The temperature in the cabin was way to hot and I had to find a bench on the upper deck to get few hours of sleep. I enjoyed the sunrise while drinking green tea with the captain and his crew who let me"drive" for a while and proudly showed me all their equipments and the oil rigs scattered in the Caspian Sea. 

We finally approached the deserty coast of Turkmenistan at 2pm but once again our patience was put to tested. In Turkmenbashi there are no tug boats so when it's windy big ships can not dock and need to wait outside the port. 

This could last hours or days and it's really beyond anyone control. Last year few mongol rally teams spend 48 hours waiting with no food or drinks available on the ship. Again we got lucky as we managed to dock after "just" 6 hours. However another challenge was waiting for us...

Turkmenistan immigration process was the craziest things I have experienced in my life. A burocratic nightmare that seemed to come out straight from Terry Gilliam's mind. We had to go through 15 different steps and it took us and the other teams about 5 hours to have a stamp on our passports and register the car. Don't get me wrong though, weirdly enough I loved every minute of it (the lack of food and sleep in the last 36 hours didn' really help though) and the locals were incredibly friendly, sharing food and fresh water with us and keeping the place running the whole night.

What a sweet feeling to turn the engine on and leave the port. Despite all the problems we made it to Turkmenistan and the Central Asia adventure was finally ready to begin.

Day 11, Baku new port, Azerbaijan

We arrived at the port and saw the ambulance driven by the spanish team leaving the main parking area reserved to the passengers. Not a good sign...

We parked outside, walked in and it was like walking into a refugee camp. A big group of fellow mongol ralliers seated on the ground (despite the name, the new port is nothing more than a tiny office with no benches, no room for passengers, no toilets, no shade, nothing) waiting to board the ferry. Some of them have been here for 4 days and every single day they were told that the ferry was leaving in the evening.

Eager to join the party, we approached the ferry manager but he firmly told us: "no more space, wait for the next one in 4/5 days". Panic. What should we do? Do we wait, do we just start driving all the way back to Ukraine and then Russia? Eventually the people with tickets boarded the ferry but despite the heat we decided to camp there with other 11 mongol ralliers. One of the few take away from my travel experiences is to never take a "no" as a definitive answer and there is always a solution.

Despite the heat and the high risk of spending few more days stranded in baku we had a very good time. Food, beers and tales from the trip were exchanged and after few hours we all forgot what were we waiting for but no one wanted to leave.

Then suddenly Fortuna span her wheel and in an incredible turn of the events we were back in the game. 12 people on the ferry were asked to leave because they only had the letter of invitation but not the visa. All of them along with the ferry manager jumped on a cab to the embassy but after 1 hour they came back and the manager came to me and looking at the sky said "God helped you". So with God on our side we paid what was due (not cheap, 590 dollar for the car and three people...) and boarded the ferry with a big smile on our faces.

Communication breakdown

Long time since the last post but, as expected, mobile phones and internet were not available in Turkmenistan. It has been such a long and intense week that memories of the trip before Baku are fading away...

Let's start from the last update, a hot summer Tuesday morning in Baku when we were rushing to the port trying to jump on the ferry to Turkmenbashi.

Don't stop me now

Woke up today at 6:30am ready for a day of camping in front of the Turkmenistan embassy. While my toam mates were standing in front of one entrance I went to the main gate and started talking to the two security guards, Tagik and "Celentano" as Tagik calls his incredibly funny colleague. Now sure how that happened but we spent a good hour talking in two different languages about tablets, mobile phones and something related to eggs and cement (well, at least this is what I think he was talking about...). Then my Budadu arrived laughing as he saw us camped outside the Embassy. He left and nothing happened for a while until the nicest man in the world walked down the street. Nuri, the guy that was working on the visas yesterday accepted to work today despite he was not supposed to and in 15 minutes our 10 days transit visas were ready and stamped in our passports.

We are back to the hotel now packing all our stuff ready to check out. The ferry that was supposed to leave yesterday didn't so the plan is to drive to the port and see what's going on there.

Should we be able to leave today I guess there won't be any further updates on this blog for the next few days as I'm not sure it is possible to get a decent internet connection in Turkmenistan.

Lettera a Savonarola

As desperate times call for desperate measures, I came out with a brilliant (?) plan. We are writing a letter to the Ambassador of Turkmenistan and possibly have it translated in Turkmen by my friend Leila (thank you!).  Tomorrow morning I will print it out and give it my "friend" working at the Embassy and asking to deliver it to the Ambassador. Not sure this will work but the only thing we could do is trying...

Dear Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Annamamed Mammedov,

I hope this letter finds you well.

I am writing this letter to kindly request your help.

We are participating in a charity event raising money for orphans and to do this we need to drive to Mongolia through Turkmenistan.

We need your help to get our Turkmenistani visas as soon as possible, preferably today, so we can take the ferry to Turkmenbashi and enter your country and reach our goal in time. 

We understand the embassy is only open on Monday and Friday but we would really appreciate your help with processing our visas as soon as possible. Unfortunately we could not wait until Friday and if we won't be able to get our visas before then we would have to go back to our countries and fail our mission.

I understand this is a big ask but this would mean a lot to us and to the charity we are raising money for. 

Please find here below my telephone number. I'm available over the phone or you could find me outside your embassy to discuss. 

Warmest regards and thank you in advance. 

Beginning of Part II: "Beyond the Narrow Sea"

What happened today? too many things and nothing was good.


Just to recap the situation, we need to get the ferry from Baku to Turkmenbashi (Turkmenistan) to continue our journey. We don't have other options. The ferry is supposed to leave every day but it doesn't. The ferry is supposed to take one day to cross the Caspian Sea but this is not guaranteed. Moreover we need to have a valid Turkmenistan Visa before boarding the ferry because Azerbaijan changed the law (in the past a letter of invitation was enough and people could get the Visa in Turkmenbashi) few months ago.


So this is what happened today...


Woke up eary and drove to the sea port to check whether the ferry was actually leaving or not as somebody told us that it was still waiting for lorries and other goods to arrive in Baku. It was impossible to communicate in english but luckily I had with me the number of Elshan's number (the guy we met at the border) and he helped us with the translation. Unfortunately that was not enough as a final decision on the ferry schedule would have been taken only in the late afternoon.

We then drove exactly on the other side of town looking for the Turkmenistan embassy. Baku is quite a big city and the traffic is horrific all day long. After 1 hour we arrived at the address provided on the website only to realize that the Turkmenistan embassy have been replaced by the Indian embassy... 40 minutes later we eventually managed to find the new location but the problems were just about to start. The embassy is only open on Monday and Friday from 9am to 12:30 and therefor they are able to issue just a limited number of Visas every week as there is only one guy with a notebook and a small printer working on it. It was too late for us and despite an insane rush to the bank to pay for the Visas (yes, you need to fill out the forms and then drive 30min to the International Bank of Azerbaijan to pay for the Visas and then come back with the receipts) the Embassy was closed when we got back. 

We camped there for a while together with other 2 Mongol rally teams but nothing changed. I only managed to befriend with Budodu (most probably this is not his name but I think he will understand) who I think is the driver of the consul. He smiled when I told him I was Italian and that "Italy-Turkmenistan, best friends!!!!" but despite his help the consul refused to reopen the embassy. If I understood Budodu correctly (and I seriously doubt it) we could try again tomorrow morning. He gave me his mobile and showed me his car (not sure why). If that doesn't work either then we may need to wait until Friday here in Baku (a city that by the way is considered to be the 48th most expensive city in the world). Should that be the case reaching Ulan Bator on time would be difficoult if not impossible...

But worry not people! Team The Wrong Way Around will make to the finish line and that's because our engine is powered by something that will beat the burocracy, will beat the "system", will beat the skeptics, and will bring us straight to Ulan Bator.

GRADONIIIIIIIII! Sempre forza Roma. Difficolta, non problemi... vlv!

End of Part I: "Leaving the County"

So the first part of the Journey is over. From the green fields of Goodwood, West Sussex to the dry and open land of Azerbaijan. This was the easy part of the trip and we knew it. Yes it has been tiring, yes it has been a long way down here but the roads were overall not that bad and so far we never woke up creazy early in the morning or drove during the night. This will change. This has changed and I'll tell you more later. First an update since the last post from Tbilisi.


The drive from Tbilisi to Baku proved to be way harder and longer than expected. We left early in the morning but it took us about 3 hours to cross the boarder with Azerbaijan. A lot of paperworks. While waiting we met up with two guys who are driving to Mongolia but have way more time on their hands, about 12 weeks and a much bigger car. We also met Elshan, a local guy who studied in Chicago, won the green card at the lottery but is back in Baku as he got engaged and now is waiting for his wife to get an American visa.

We arrived in Baku after 8pm and were impressed by the wealth of the city. Expensive shops all around, nice buildings and big cars and, a nice surprise for my british team mates, a lot of "black cabs".

Tired and dirty we went to sleep ready for the next part of the jounrney... 

Day 8, Tbilisi, Georgia

Another day, another city. Today, exactly one week since the launch party in the Uk, we arrived in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.

We drove around the city for a while looking for the hostel recommended by the lonely planet but found out that the place was long gon. I guess this is what happens when you rely on a old, illegaly downloaded, electronic version of the guide book...

Good dinner in the old town, a couple of of beers and then in bed early as we need to reach Baku tomorrow and that's at least 8 hrs driving.

As we move east, the quality of our life is quickly going down the drain. The days are hot and with no ac in the car we are forced to drive all day with the windows down but that a) doesn't help because it is like standing for hours in front of a giant fan at that could easily drive you crazy... b) it is still hot. Also our accomodations are now lacking some key features... The hostel where we are staying tonight has only a bath tub which we use as a shower AND as a sink. Not because there is no sink but because whoever assembled it was either drunk or simply lazy and forgot to install some quite important pieces...

Mongol Rally 2012, Festival of Slow

Day 7, Batumi, Georgia

Finally, for the first time since the Mongol Rally launch we had time to relax. We left Trabzon heading to the Sumela Monastery, a Greek Orthodox monastery standing at the foot of a steep cliff facing the Altındere valley. Really scenic and fun drive through the mountains and definitely a well worth 100Km detour.

On the way to the Georgian border we overtook the fellow Swedish Mongol Rally team "Highway Circus" and we ended up waiting together in line at the Georgian border. They started their day yesterday at 10pm in the evening in Istanbul and they have been driving all night long aiming for Tbilisi tonight. A crazy long drive but they had an appointment with the Swedish Ambassador and I guess they didn't really want to be late for it!

Just passed the Georgian Border we spotted a church and the first comment of the team was "Look, a church!!! This means beers and barely dressed women (which is exactly what we found...)!!!!" No wonder why Christianity is the most popular religion in the world...

We decided to end our day in Batumi, a major port city considered by many the second capital of Georgia. The city center is quite unique as it combines old run down buildings with beautiful houses and the overall atmosphere and look is very much similar to the French quarter in New Orleans.

I jumped out of the car to asking for directions and a nice guy walked me to the hotel where we got a room that I could only describe as a penthouse, amazing view of the city and a bathroom fitted with a shiny new jacuzzi. It wouldn't surprise me if they had shoot some Georgian porn movies in this room...

When I told the guy where I was from, a big smile appeared on his face and he told me "Ahhhhh, Italian! I'm Corleone!! Italian Mafia, Georgian mafia... same same!! He then introduced me to his English speaking friends who made sure to tell me "Do you see this street? When own it". A friendship with the corner boys of Batumi was established thanks to our reputation of top class organized crime...

The day ended with few beers on the seafront waiting for the sunset on the Black Sea, dinner and more beers in the beautiful "Cafe Bancarotta" (Cafe Bankruptcy) which I guess is the right place where to celebrate the looming collapse of the Eurozone and raise a toast to the "rise of the others"!

Quick update

Just downloaded the app "Ramadan 2012" for android which sets alarms for Sahur and Iftar. I believe it will also wake us up at 3:08am and 5:08.  Forgot to mention it to my team mates... I'm sure they will appreciate my attempts to blend in...

Day 6, Trabzon, Turkey

Welcome to Trabzon, a port city on the Black Sea coast not far from the Georgıan border. Not much to report from the road, good driving all day; first part on the countrysıde road to Samsun and then on the Black Sea coastal road  towards Georgıa. Trabzon ıs a quite crowded town and it took as a whıle before we managed to reach the city centre. Twıce we tried and faıled ending up agaın and again on the maın highway. We have been informed that tomorrow Ramadan starts and we decıded to properly celebrate it by buying as many beers as possible...

We will slow down a bit in the next couple of days as there is no point in reaching Baku before Sunday as the Turkmenıstan Embassy will only be open durıng the Week. A Georgian weekend is therefore waıtıng for us. Friday in the part town of Batumi and Saturday in Tbilisi.