After 20-hour of painstakingly traveling and crossing, finally here I am, in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan.
I arrived in the bus company office in Tabriz at 9.00pm where I met my future host – a group of volunteers from Hungary, France and the Netherland under European Union Volunteering (EVS) in Baku. In fact, I didn’t even send a Couch request. I was just asking them if there was any cheap place to stay in the city and I was invited right away because they were also CouchSurfing during their entire traveling trip in Iran.
There were three buses departing from Tabriz to Baku tonight and I asked them to put me in the same bus with my future host, with a bit of effort. I felt lonely. I didn’t want to stay alone. They first put us in two taxis which brought us to an abandoned garage and before we could figure out what was happening, we found ourselves in a grocery shop where everybody stocked some food and snack. I bought some cigarette as I was told that the cigarette in Azerbaijan is much more expensive.
The bus only took off at 11.30pm. We were told that if it was to take off on time, which is 9pm, it will be too early by the time we reached the border as the border is only open at 8.30am. Damn it! If this is the case, then don’t ask people to gather at 9pm! Just change the time to 11pm!
So we arrived at Astara border around 6am the next morning, with our eyes half-open. Everybody got down to feed themselves in the restaurant. We were on budget, so we didn’t join. We either squatted outside the restaurant, smoking, or slept on the couch in the restaurant, killing time.
Money changers were wandering outside, touting for someone unaware of trap.
When the gate finally opened at 8am, it’s expecting that nobody queues(queuing in Middle Eastern standard means you are either silly, inefficient or are waiting to be superseded) and everybody just rushed to the custom office only to find out that there were more doors stay locked. So, we waited impatiently again in the immigration building for an hour more, failing to figure out what we can do. Luckier than worse, we were foreigners and we didn’t have to queue with the locals. We only had to queue among ourselves. Xiao! However, we still have to wait for hours before we can cross the border as we were staying in the same bus with those locals and so, that made no difference.
At the Azerbaijan side of the border, the formality was even worse not only because we have to fill up the entry form which was only written in Azeri(No English!) but also because they need to take photo, interrogate and check each of us before letting us go. So one by one we were like prisoners waiting for trial. I was quite worry at that time not because I was told that they will spend more time on those who had been to Armenia but the fact that I have downloaded all my photos taken in Armenia from my camera into my laptop. I thought I was smart enough to have hidden all my photos in my laptop. I wouldn’t know what to say if they want to see my Armenia photo. It won’t make sense if I told them I didn’t take any there. But if I told them the truth, they will for sure request to check my laptop which will certainly take ages.
Fortunately, I could manage to pass the ‘trial’ by making a combination of lies, skips and excuses. What a blessing in disguise! Nonetheless, we still have to wait for our fellow passengers until we ended up sleeping on the ground right outside the border, for hours, before I could hear the bus engine getting started again.
The subsequent long ride on the bus from Astara to Baku didn’t make us feel any more relieved not only because it was slow but also it always stopped for lunch and tea en route. Hyyghhhhhhhh………..
Note: For those who doesn’t need a visa to Iran like me or have multiple entry visa, Iran serves a good jumping off point to Azerbaijan if you don’t want your Armenia photos deleted or Armenia guidebooks/maps confiscated by custom officers(or even denied entry) when you cross the Georgia/Azerbaijan border.
