【Feng Jiaxia - World Wanderings After Germany's Working Holiday】Azerbaijan Backpacking Day 6.1 - The Driver Was Silly (#Wanderer Chronicles 13) - HowToTrip

You read that right! The title really has changed~

It’s rare to come to the Caucasus, how could I just stay put in Georgia?~

As the information guide (http://garcia-in-germany.blogspot.com/2018/08/blog-post.html)
says, to fully explore the Caucasus3region, the travel order must start with AzerbaijanAzerbaijan, and most travelers on a tight schedule10will only visit9the capital BakuBaku, but the Caspian Sea, located at the country’s farthest east point, is nearly8–9hours away from Tbilisi. With my tight travel schedule this time, I don’t want to waste any time!

While browsing around, I discovered a historical ancient city in northwestern Azerbaijan called"ShekiSheki" , said to be a key tourist destination. It’s also about4-5hours’ drive from Tbilisi, and there’s super little info about this place online—so I went to see what’s up there!

Also, everything I experienced in Sheki was related to “people” encounters, so in these few entries, almost all of them are#WandererChronicles, and the travelogue will focus on these as well!

Before we begin, since it’s a new country, let’s go over some basic info first~

The Republic of Azerbaijan, also known as Azerbaijan, gets its name from Old Persian, meaning “Land of Fire”. Located in the eastern part of the South Caucasus in Western Asia, it sits at the crossroads connecting Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Human habitation dates back to the late Stone Age, and it is also the world’s first country where Muslims make up the vast majority.

Time difference :　UTC+4, which is4hour behind Hong Kong, same as Georgia

Currency : commonly referred to as “manat”manat, while officially it’s written as AZN , approximately1 AZN = $4.6About 30 manats, roughly the amountx5minusdequals Hong Kong dollars. At banks you can exchange US dollars, or at Georgian exchanges too.

Language : Azerbaijani. I heard if you know Turkish or Persian you can communicate, no problem at all.~ English? Come on now~ If I could communicate, I wouldn’t have written this article~~

Visa : clickEnteringhttps://evisa.com.az/en, after a few days of stamping you’ll get ite-visa, very simple~ But please don’t be too handsyclickBeen to Nakaar!!!

Good~Basic info ends here, main content begins!

====================================

Continuing from last time, early in the morning leaving the mountainHosteltowardsShekiwe set off!

According to the info from the staff where we stayed the first nightPushkin 10 hostelin the morning8o’clock come toMetro “300 Aragveli”station to take the bus

Why isn’t the infocame fromfrom the place we stayed last nightge Hostel Mountain 13accuratege? Obviously that bearded dude knows nothing except flirting~

Just didn’t expect evenPushkin 10the info he gave was wrong, when we got tominibusstation, none of the drivers knew how to get to the border ”LagodekhiLagodekhi” I had no idea where to find the bus! All the drivers were like? Telling me “Go ahead and check for yourself”
x“Unlimited,” but all the buses at the station only had signs in69Georgian script, which I couldn’t readga wor!

It turned out to be a station even bigger than half of Kwun Tong Promenade. I wasted twenty minutes there and got nowhere, so I had to look it up online myself

The information said it was near the subway stationIsaniThere should be one. I checked the map, and the stationexactlywas just ahead of me15minutes away………The drivers’ “Go ahead and check for yourself” actually meant?QGo forward…………….

After walkingIsani, I knew things weren’t going to go well. The drivers here also had no idea which bus went toLagodekhi ga!!!!! They all just saidtaxi taxi……….

Take a look at the time, it’s almost9half past. After some haggling, they said45gel
= $150around [time], which wasn’t too expensive. Normally, taking a ride in Hong Kong can cost even more. I figured I’d trade money for time, and comfortably and quickly head off to AzerbaijanuberSometimes it's not even enough—just use money to buy time, effortlessly and at high speed? I'd have rushed off to Azerbaijan by now.~

I don’t know if taking a taxi was faster or if it was really closer, but in less than two hours I had already arrived at the border cityLagodekhi

I saw onlineLagodekhithat there’s actually a lake that’s really beautiful. I wanted to ask the driver to take me there, but ended up playing charades again. But asking him to just take me directly to the border crossingMatsimihe understoodwor! and even managed to overcharge me5 gel,5minutes awayja!

Anyway, I finally made it to the Georgia–Azerbaijan border checkpoint!!!!!!

(LagodekhiThe lake,as seen in the photos online,from http://georgiatosee.com/2016/11/lagodekhi-protected-areas/
)

A lot of people say entering Azerbaijan isn’t easy, and IexceptThe customs officers even had the chance to give me a hard time just because they’d never seen a Hong Kong SAR passport before.

Who would’ve thought they were actually efficient and friendly?wor!

CheckThe end.visaThey politely asked me a couple of questions? Why did they detain me for so long—whether I’d been to Armenia or not—and then just let me go?3Didn’t take even a minute.! On the other hand, walking up the stairs to cross the border took me5much longer.

(The border bridge—nice scenery though, you jerks~)

Finally, I set foot on this piece of land in Azerbaijan where there aren’t many Hong Kong people.!!

What lay before me was----------a rather desolate sight.!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why does it feel kind of likethe capital of Montenegro? ?ga!!!????? As soon as I got out? It was the same thing again.dLike the western desert.”do do dooo~~~~~” Same vibe.!

Not having anything around isn’t the issue per se—the real problem was that I only had Georgian lari on me.GEL (people pronounce itas”“lari”lari”), but with no currency exchange shops around, I couldn’t get any Azerbaijani manats.AZN (People pronounce itas” “manat”Manat”)

I should’ve just exchanged my money at the currency shop in Georgia right before crossing the border.………… Way too overconfident.!

At this point,da taxi driver came over trying to solicit passengers.

I didn’t really want to deal with them, but they clearly said they were waiting here for customers all the time—ge minibusyet there wasn’t a single car around.…… I guessed it right, this border crossing? Few people come through here, doing business here is worse than begging. Look at me, I had to grit my teeth and take a taxi.gala…….

80 AZN!???????? 3A few hundred Hong Kong dollars—you think I'm stupid?ga??????????

Cut the price right now?7Okay then.25 AZN,? That's still steep.worImmediately half-price.40 AZN!

After a round of back-and-forth haggling like a sword fight, you cut the price, I cut the price, in the end35 AZN = around $161we struck a deal. I know going toShekiwill also take about two hours, and the fare is about the same as the Georgia trip just now, so I’ll let it go.

But the more important issue seems to be that I don’t haveAZNany cash on me, and I only haveGELlarge bills.……….

So we agreed on it early on. : “No Manat,
Georgia Lari only, OK?”

“OK~ OK~”

coffee coffee beans espresso geisha coffee latte cappuccino arabica robusta pour over cold brew

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