I woke the day after we left Baku to a beautiful sunny day on the Caspian Sea. The cool sea air was refreshing. Optimistically I hoped that we would dock today, one day ahead of schedule. The first sign that things were going to be different was my mobile phone had lost any network connection. Contacting my guide onshore was going to be tricky. Everybody was slow to rise due to the night before’s vodka based celebrations. The boat...

I arrived at the Azerbaijan border and passed through the Georgian side in 5 minutes. Then began the queuing for Azerbaijan. It wasn’t moving fast so I settled in for a wait. A friendly local chap introduced himself and we passed the time with him teach me introductory Azerbaijani lingo. Overall it took about 2.5hrs to get through the border controls. I had to pay $65 for insurance and $40 for road tax. They had a look through the...

Hi everybody, Just a quick note to say Boris, Kiwi Ted and I arrived in Baku at 11pm last night. It was a fantastic end to the leg. Baku city was buzzing and all action. There were cars and people everywhere. The city was beautifully lit as I made my way to the waterfront. With all the excitement I ended up running down to see the Caspian Sea. Leg 1 is compete!! Now it’s time to sort that unbookable, unreliable and most likely...

Leg 2 of 5 – Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan to At-Bashi, Kyrgyzstan After crossing the Caspian Sea from Baku to Turkmenbashi, its a race across the country to exit within the 5 days allowed with the transit visa. A potential visit to north Afghanistan is an option time permitting, at the same time as driving the Pamir highway. I need to be on the Kyrgystan border ready to cross into China on June 20th 2013. Here I will rendezvous with a...

This is the first of a series of blogs detailing the planned route and itinerary for the trip. Leg 1a – London, UK to Donetsk, Ukraine The journey to Donetsk is a fairly brisk section as I’m planning to get to Central Asia as quickly as possible. Visa’s Required – None (for UK Passport) Distance – 2073 miles Time – 11 days Leg 1b –  Donetsk, Ukraine to Baku, Azerbaijan This section is when the...