Ferry, 'cross the Caspian

I had heard so many horror stories about taking the ferry from Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan that I was frankly a little disappointed when my trip was completely pleasant. Well, not that disappointed. 

What can go wrong: You wait for hours or days for a ferry to leave, as the boats have no timetable and are more oriented toward cargo than passengers, so they leave when they’re loaded up.

 What happened to me: I got to the ferry terminal in Baku and the woman selling tickets said “Go, go, go, there’s one leaving now!” I went through all the immigration and customs posts as quickly as I could and about three minutes after I got on board it left.

What can go wrong: Some of the boats are apparently in terrible shape, and your only option for a bed might be to pay one of the crew members to let you use his, in a roach-ridden and smelly bunk. 

What happened to me: I got a nice room to myself with a bathroom and a window out to the sea. My boat was the Mercuri 1, and it was apparently the best one that runs this line. It was a bit run down, but perfectly acceptable, about of the standard of an Eastern European train – the ship was in fact built in Yugoslavia, I found out. It started out as a ferry on the Mediterranean, and then worked its way down to the less prestigious seas, to the Black Sea and then finally the Caspian.

Here is the “lounge”: 

And the casino – but all these machines were either broken or turned off: 

 

The boat apparently more often makes the trip from Baku to Aktau, in Kazakhstan, and there were a series of pictures on the boat showing the former president of Azerbaijan,  Heydar Aliyev, with Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev. But this one is sort of mysterious – it’s Aliyev with various Central Asian leaders, but Aliyev is clearly Photoshopped in: 
 

 

What can happen: You get to the coast of Turkmenistan and have to wait for hours or even up to three days to actually get off the boat, because there are only two berths in the port in Turkmenistan and if they are waiting for cargo, too bad: you wait. 

What happened to me: We didn’t wait at all, and I got into the port (named Turkmenbashi) at 11 am after a nice night's sleep. Here is our entry into Turkmenbashi: 

 
And my first shot of Turkmenbashi propaganda, as we neared the port. (I refer here to Turkmenbashi the man, not the town – Turkmenbashi was the self-awarded nickname of the last president, and he also named the port town after himself.) This says “People, Homeland, Great Turkmenbashi”: