T'Bilisi Riots

Today is independence day here in Georgia and all week there have been protesters outside parliament which is at the top of the road where I'm staying, even last night when I passed there at about 9pm on my way back to the hostel there was a big crowd there but it was quiet. I woke up this morning to see hundreds of riot police on standby for the parade and saw this report on events last night: Police clash with protesters in Georgia

Burnout in Baku

The day after writing the last blog entry my body completely gave up on me, I've never had that before, it was just a huge wave of exhaustion and I didn't feel up to doing anything. I have to put it down to a week of travelling  and the lack of sleep that comes with it, out around the inaccessible Baku must have been the final straw before my body had enough and went on strike.

I've been taking it easy for a couple of days now and feeling much better for it. I've made my way to T'bilisi, Georgia where I'll be staying until the weekend when I have a bus ticket to a town called Agri in Turkey which is close to the Iranian border.

Across Kazakhstan

I got to Kazakhstan on an overnight bus ride from Urumqi on the 10th May, stayed in Almaty for a couple of days as I tried to get hold of a train ticket then took the 3 day train to Aktau. The train ride passed relatively quickly with the people on board friendly enough and getting food for me from the vendors when the train stopped.

It wasn't very accessible but I had a lower bunk and the toilet was about 10m away so it didn't take very long even though I was on the floor. The thing I was relieved about was that it was a western toilet on the train and not the typical eastern hole in the floor as I knew that would get messy.

We passed through the mountainous landscapes of Almaty before the desert-like stretches where camels were getting herded by a man on a donkey. It got hot on the second day of train travel and all I did was sleep, after leaving the step (desert place) on the third day I was feeling like the majority of the travel was over with 2 of 3 nights having passed.

My stay in Aktau was a lot shorter than I anticipated and in down to my friend Artur. This guy is something else. I couldn't find the Azeri consulate and deciding to take a break I went into a cafe to ask directions, Artur heard and offered to drive me. When we got to the consulate it was closed for lunch, he had free time so he said we could hang out and we'd go to the consulate when it opened.

To cut a long story short in the space of 5 hours I went from not being able to find the consulate to being sat in the waiting room for the ferry and it was all thanks to help from Artur.

It was a long wait (24 hours) before I left Aktau but after a night of drinking vodka with the crew I've made it to Baku and into country number 10. Not long left now.

RBH: The Movie

I reposted the RBH video on Vimeo so that the music will work after it was removed by youtube. See it in all its glory here >>>> RBH Video

Unexpected delays

After getting the visa yesterday I was ready to make a move over the border in Kazakhstan today but when I tried to book the bus ticket I found out that the border is closed on weekends! That's something I wasn't expecting and means that I'll be in Urumqi until Monday when the next bus leaves for Almaty. I guess it's lucky that I found this out before buying the ticket as opposed to finding out at the border.

Kazakh visa - check

For some reason I thought there was going to be some problem getting this visa for Kazakhstan, probably because when I dropped off the application the guy there was asking for a detailed itinerary and wanted to see the hotel reservations when I came back, I brought them and he didn't bother to look which is okay because I got the visa all the same. So, that means just one more visa for Azerbaijan then it's going to be a visa-free trip from there or plain sailing as I like to think of it (fingers crossed).

Last stop in China

I arrived in Urumqi a couple of hours ago and found myself an accessible hostel, one that is up 2 flights of stairs. Nevermind. Check out my route so far as I'm close to passing the 9000 mile mark RBH Route