5 ~ Hello from Baku and Abu Dhabi

Hello from Baku and Abu Dhabi,

A three hour flight across the Caspian Sea brought us to Baku, the capitol of Azerbaijan. We have wanted to visit Baku ever since we traveled to Georgia and Armenia a few years ago. I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I got here. Baku is where the modern oil industry began, back in the middle 1800’s. I didn’t know if it would be an old historic city, a European city or a modern city. As it turns out, it was all three. There is an old round city, built on a hill, with many structures dating back to the 1200’s. It was built on the foundation of an ancient city, about a half mile in diameter and surrounded by a Great Wall. About half the wall remains today. This is where we stayed, in a new hotel built into an old building.

Baku in some ways resembles Tashkent. Much of it’s main infrastructure and subways were built during the Soviet years. And, it has lots of fountains. However, it has been updated and maintained far beyond Tashkent. With oil wealth came great prosperity, starting back in the mid 19th century. They wanted to build a great new city, and they modeled it after Europe and its architecture, using French and Italian architects. Parts of the city look like a mini Paris, with large boulevards surrounded by large 19th century European buildings. And then, there’s the modern Baku. It competes a little bit with Dubai, but they are just getting started with this phase. The most striking example is a group of three similar skyscrapers, built to resemble three giant flames. They are covered with lights, controllable like a large three dimensional video screen. At night they display various moving images and frequently make themselves look like giant flames lighting up the night sky.

The people here are similar to the Uzbeks, friendly, but a little more reserved. They weren’t always asking us to take selfies with them. Undoubtedly they get more western visitors here than in Uzbekistan. Their arts and crafts are similar as well, with weaving, embroidery and specializing in fine hand woven carpets. They also make an assortment of copper pots, pitchers and utensils. Like Uzbekistan, it’s a very safe place to visit. No worries about getting pickpocketed or mugged. We didn’t know until we got here that Azerbaijan is officially in a stalemated state of war with Armenia. It’s over a disputed territory, Nagorno-Karabakh, that seceded and became part of Armenia. As friendly as they are to almost everyone, they are mortal enemies with the Armenians.

Upon our arrival at the Baku airport, we changed $120US into AZ Manat money and proceeded to a machine to get a plastic transit pass and load some cash val ue on it for the bus/subway ride to the hotel. At the machine we were a little confused about how to buy the card before adding value to it. We were cautious because of a big red sign that stated “no change given.” The bank machine had dispensed two 100 Manat bills to us (worth about $60US each) and we didn’t need that much value on the transit card. So, back into the airport (through security with our luggage) to a money changer that gave us some change. Once back at the transit pass machine a policeman saw us hesitating, came over and said he would show us. He grabbed all the cash out of Carol’s hand and started feeding it into he machine. Before I could stop him, he purchased a bit more in transit rides than we were going to need. Inside the subway, the turnstiles were the same as in Tashkent, only they had been upgraded to electronically subtract the fare from your pass, and they all worked. In Tashkent, most of them were broken. For each ride there, we had to buy a plastic token and drop it into the broken turnstile while a person watched us do it, before proceeding through. However, the cost of a ride was the same in both cities, about 15 cents.

What we didn’t know when we planned this trip was that Baku was currently hosting the Formula 1 auto race. The race course, on city streets, included a loop around the “ring road” encircling the old city where we were staying. This meant that no cars were allowed to cross into he old city. All the roads were blocked. And, there were only two walking bridges over the race track for pedestrians, in and out. Fortunately, the subway exited inside the old city and we didn’t have to walk over the bridge. Unfortunately, since no cars were allowed into the old city, we had to walk a half mile to our hotel over the old cobblestone roads with our luggage in tow. Good thing we always travel with just one carryon bag each.

Leaving Central Asia, our path back home, on Emirates Airline, took us through Dubai. Having spent a week there a couple of years ago, we decided to explore down the coast a bit, in Abu Dhabi, for a couple of days. This flight took us from the cool climate in Central Asia to the virtual oven in the desert of the Arabian Peninsula. Abu Dhabi competes with Dubai on how to spend their extorted oil money, on lavish “over-the-top” skyscrapers and shopping malls. Abu Dhabi is far behind Dubai, but they are catching up quickly. Much of the city is under construction or renewal. They recently opened a new “Louvre” Museum there, that cost over $2 Billion to complete ($750M for the building, $750M for art loans and $525M to the Louvre in Paris for using its name). It’s the biggest museum on the Arabian Peninsula at 260,000 sq ft, with 86,000 sq ft of galleries. The galleries are randomly shaped interconnected white cubes, all covered by a huge metal dome made with four layers of interconnected geometric shapes, allowing sunlight to filter through randomly, as the sun moves across the sky. You may have heard about the recent $450 million auction sale of a da Vinci painting, the Salvator Mundi, that broke the high price record for a single painting (from an anonymous buyer). It is on its way to this museum for display. We were hoping it would be here already, but it hasn’t yet arrived.

The next day we went to visit the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. It’s the 6th largest Mosque in the world (180,000 sq ft) and able to accommodate 40,000 worshippers at one time. It’s made of all white marble and the floor and pillars are inlaid with a floral mosaic design. When we got there is was 104 degrees and Carol had to put on one of those full covering robes in order to enter. Needless to say, she was “feeling the heat.” Fortunately, once we got inside there was ample shade for refuge from the sun. This Mosque features the world’s largest hand knotted carpet, which took over two years and 1300 carpet knotters to complete. It’s over 60,000 sq ft, weighs 35 tons and has over two and a quarter billion knots. We got to walk on the edge of it! 😉
Well, that’s about it for our Central Asia adventure. I’m writing this on our 14 hour flight to Seattle. It will be good to get back home. I’ve added some new pics to the photo gallery, if you’d care to take a look.

I thought I’d leave you with these few unrelated factoids:

The toilets in this part of the world the world are often not bolted down. You have to be real careful not to lean over too far.
Our new favorite drink is now Rice Wine. It looks like milk, tastes a little like beer, but has less alcohol and is more refreshing.
Lotus tea is supposed to turn your hair black. Unfortunately, it doesn’t grow new hair, so I don’t have much use for it.
In Uzbekistan new mothers must stay home with their babies for three years. The government pays their full salary when they do. After three years the children go to kindergarten.
The former leader of Uzbekistan, who died 2 years ago, was obsessed with security. He had over 270 road checkpoints where you had to stop and show your ID papers. The new president reduced that to only 20.
The smallest denomination bill in Uzbekistan is 200 Som and there are no coins. If your change, after a purchase, requires 100 Som, they will give you a piece or two of packaged chewing gum instead.
For some reason they think cold liquids are really bad for you here. If you ask for cold (icy or refrigerated) water, they will serve it to you, but question you to see if you really want it.
My Apple Watch logged an incredible 176 miles of walking during these 4 weeks. That’s 404,000 steps with 464 flights of stairs climbed. My walking shoes really took a workout (not to mention my knees).

Don’t forget to Check out Carol’s blogpost on Baku here:

https://carolapucci-tips.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-transformation-of-oil-rich-baku.html

Until next time…… your favorite travelers, Tom and Carol