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Baku (Azerbaijan) to Turkmenbashi (Turkmenistan)
This is the day of the dreaded ferry across the Caspian. The reason it's dreaded? Because last year the RTW crew spent two days and pretty much three nights on it waiting to dock in Turkmenbashy - it should have been a single night. If you're imagining spending three nights on a P&O ferry off Bilbao, think again, this ferry more closely resembles the black hole of Calcutta than any P&O ferry currently afloat. Firstly there are no toilets, when I say none I mean none you would dare go into without a full chemical warfare suit and a baseball bat. Secondly the cabin beds/mattresses are so dirty that you as soon as you lay on them you start to itch - I know it's psychosomatic but it sure feels real. Finally there's no food or water so if you didn't bring it you don't eat it. To be fair those were our experiences last year and people do say that was a particularly bad boat.
So what happened this year? Well, the toilets were just as bad in fact the Gadget Crew used the bunk ladder to prop open their room door all night to reduce the smell from their toilet. Aaron suggested that some of the organic matter floating round in the toilet - which of course didn't work - was so old that it was starting to develop a language if its own. You'll have to ask him for a demonstration but the sounds it was emitting seemed similar to the language used by JaJa Binks in the star wars movies (the flubberdub sounds). However the syntax seems to be enhanced by variable unbelievably foul smells - perhaps they just couldn't get the smell across in the movie. The rooms and mattresses were just as bad although with forewarning most of the guys brought their airbeds and sleeping bags so as not to lie directly on the beds. What was different was the food, Kevin brought the makings of a Pilov - not sure that's how it's spelt - a meat, rice and carrot dish on to the ship and persuaded the chef to cook it for us. What made it a great night was the number of bottles of vodka and red wine everyone had to drink in order to persuade the crew to allow us to use the Café area. By the time the food was ready most people involved in the negotiations were "in a state" and as usual when you're in the Russian dominated areas the jokes turned into banter which turn into an arm wrestling contest. What was different this time however was that the mix included a female arm wrestler, she was certainly willing to arm wrestle and most of the boys reckoned she might be willing to wrestle in other ways too. It turned out she was - but not with boys - she originally showed significant interest in Anne, which we mistook to be a desire to arm wrestle with her, so we were then confused, having persuaded Anne to compete, when she then refused to arm wrestle her. Thinking something had been lost in translation we left it at that, only to find the following morning that Alex and Anne had been disturbed in the night by a drunken female wrestler anxious to take things to the next level with Anne. Apparently the arm wrestler was confused by Alex's presence in the bed room - perhaps they don't do "bi" in Russian female arm wrestlers circles. I didn't hear how the encounter finished but for the purposes of this blog we will assume that she was quickly rebuffed and sent on her way.
Another unexplained event of the evening was a visit by the arm wrestler to Aaron's bedroom - the one with the door propped open, apparently when Aaron realised what might happen he shouted "No! No!" at which point the arm wrestler was heard to laugh and walk away. The general consensus was that actually the arm wrestler was looking for Anne and was therefore amused that Aaron mistook her search for unwelcome sexual advances. I understand Aaron is quite successful with women so you can understand how confusion might occur - in my case, for example, I would have just assumed she was looking for someone else. We didn't see the arm wrestler again so whether she managed to find a compliant bunk or not I'll have to leave to your imagination - it's certainly true that none of our team were ready to admit to succumbing to her advances.
The final piece of good news was that the boat docked on time so we were off the boat waiting for immigration within 24 hours of setting off - a great night and an excellent interruption.
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