Baku Train Station is the sort of place you might expect to get mugged in.
Not because I was threatened and not because Baku has any sort of problem with crime. Quite the contrary.
But this dingy, low ceilinged, dusty, grimy, gerry built ramshackle catastrophe of public space populated with shifty, dusty, grimy looking characters who always seemed as if they were about to sidle up to me that is exactly the kind of setting that the Lonely Planet warns you about in it’s Dangers and Annoyances section of almost every guide book.
Let’s gloss over the lack of queueing. The lack of signage. The out of date timetable. The out of date price list. The dust sheets everywhere. The peeling adverts of bullet trains proclaiming the carving out of a 300kmph route from Baku to Tbilisi, Batumi and Istanbul. And let’s focus instead on the service.
Which was friendly, welcoming and excellent.
This trip was to be one of my Point to Point specials. Fly into Baku, travel overland to Yerevan taking in the sights en route and fly home from there.
The first thing I need on arrival to any new city when travelling point to point is the confidence of my ticket out in my back pocket. And LP warned that terain travel in the Caucusus got booked up over the Summer as people fled the heat to the cool of Georgia. So I was in Baku Train Station on my first morning to book my train ticket to Tbilisi.
"Daite pazhalste dva bilyet a Tbilisi”. I could remember enough Russian to buy a train ticket.
“Pasport?” I could understand enough Russian to realise I was meant to have my Passport with me. It was of course in the hotel.
“Nyet Pasport…” An open handed quizzically raised eyebrow that says “come on, do I need a passport when I have my driving license” as I pulled my driving license out of my pocket.
“Da. Pasport”. A smile that said, “Don’t push it mate”.
When I returned 20 minutes later with my passport, the woman remembered me, ushered the crowd around her window to part while remonstrating in Russian and then remembered my date and time of travel. Three minutes and a dot matrix printer later and I had my tickets and I was glad to scuttle out of the gloomy station.
Not because I was threatened and not because Baku has any sort of problem with crime. Quite the contrary.
But this dingy, low ceilinged, dusty, grimy, gerry built ramshackle catastrophe of public space populated with shifty, dusty, grimy looking characters who always seemed as if they were about to sidle up to me that is exactly the kind of setting that the Lonely Planet warns you about in it’s Dangers and Annoyances section of almost every guide book.
Let’s gloss over the lack of queueing. The lack of signage. The out of date timetable. The out of date price list. The dust sheets everywhere. The peeling adverts of bullet trains proclaiming the carving out of a 300kmph route from Baku to Tbilisi, Batumi and Istanbul. And let’s focus instead on the service.
Which was friendly, welcoming and excellent.
This trip was to be one of my Point to Point specials. Fly into Baku, travel overland to Yerevan taking in the sights en route and fly home from there.
The first thing I need on arrival to any new city when travelling point to point is the confidence of my ticket out in my back pocket. And LP warned that terain travel in the Caucusus got booked up over the Summer as people fled the heat to the cool of Georgia. So I was in Baku Train Station on my first morning to book my train ticket to Tbilisi.
"Daite pazhalste dva bilyet a Tbilisi”. I could remember enough Russian to buy a train ticket.
“Pasport?” I could understand enough Russian to realise I was meant to have my Passport with me. It was of course in the hotel.
“Nyet Pasport…” An open handed quizzically raised eyebrow that says “come on, do I need a passport when I have my driving license” as I pulled my driving license out of my pocket.
“Da. Pasport”. A smile that said, “Don’t push it mate”.
When I returned 20 minutes later with my passport, the woman remembered me, ushered the crowd around her window to part while remonstrating in Russian and then remembered my date and time of travel. Three minutes and a dot matrix printer later and I had my tickets and I was glad to scuttle out of the gloomy station.
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