In Turkish Airlines after a long time. Brings back memories of the Mongolia trip.

Where we are now…

The five of us are literally strewn all over the world right now. The one who stayed back in Atlanta clearly is having the most fun!!

My friend’s first trip outside of USA. In Turkish Airlines. In business class. His reaction when the staff came and a put a candle on his table to serve dinner…

I am back on that airlines… nearly 8 years later.

When are we hitting the road again?

If everything goes right, this would be the 77th country for me.

We were aimlessly loitering around in Istanbul airport. I chanced upon this ad and then something else struck me from the picture. There is the picture of a woman in blue saari. That was a bit unexpected!

Roger and I had planned Azerbaijan to be our followup adventure after out Mongolia trip! Never managed to get that done. Today, that wait will come to an end. Sharmila will be with me!

Take a guess where we are. This is my 196th airport!

This is the office of the government company responsible for water supply and sanitation. It is lit up like a drop of water. The picture was taken from a running car. Apologize for the quality.

Baku is very well lit. The buildings have very ornate lighting. This is the SOCAR Tower. SOCAR is the local Oil and Gas company. And it is shaped and lit up like a flame!

Those three buildings – the lights were dancing in rhythm.

It is a cloudy day here.

Baku is an incredibly modern city. Nothing like what I was expecting. And to think that the central city is nearly 30m – that is 100 feet – below mean sea level!!

Surprisingly large museum. Two floors of art of different genres. Including three Picassos!

Not the Picassos, but one of my most favorite things in the world – the world map!

This is the local market called “Green Bazar”. Nowadays, whenever we visit a city, other than the local art scene, we also tend to check out the local markets. This was by far one of the largest and cleanest. This is an example of the many spice stores.

It claims to have the largest collection of mini books from all over the world!

The largest of the books was an inch and a half long! The smallest book was merely half an inch! There were books of all topics brought from all over the world. And the whole museum was filled with books like this! I have never seen anything like this before!

You have a tunnel that goes downhill for some time. It is all cobble stoned, narrow alley. In the end, it opens up to a small room which is the gift shop for the Palace. Not sure what the original use for the place was. Perhaps some kind of security?

This goes back to the 1400s.

An old musical instrument from the fifteenth century. Called the “santoor“! Exactly like the santoor we grew up with in India! I did not realize how long back the root of this instrument went.

But exquisitely clean. And somehow, Google maps was aware of all these short cuts!

Replete with all the gondolas and couples taking romantic rides.

This part of the world seems to specialize in carpets and rugs. There are the famous Persian and Turkish rugs. If you look at the flag of Turkmenistan, it has multiple rug designs!

Some of the very first styles of carpet – made from reeds. We grew up sitting on these in India. In Bengal, we called it “madur”.

Inside the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum, on the third floor, was a section where some modern artists had taken carpets and rewoven them into modern art. These are, of course, art pieces and not to be used as carpets. This carpet, seemingly melting like wax from halfway through, was my absolute favorite.

Note that I have set the background to black to enhance contrast. (It is sitting on a grey wall and floor).

Reminded me of the Sydney Opera

Great sight on our walk back from the Carpet Mall on the long Promenade called “Bulvar” or Boulevard.

It looked really cool!

In the distance, one can see the Bibiheyat Mosque. We will visit it on our way back.

There are oil rigs right in the middle of the city. Some of them seemed almost like in the middle of somebody’s gardens. I did not realize the history of oil production and Azerbaijan. The very first industrial oil rig was here in Baku! We will see it later this evening. Around the turn of the last century, Azerbaijan produced more crude than the rest of the world combined!!

The black mountains there is called Qara Dag (I think the roots of the words are Turkish). If you carefully notice the water off the road, you will see the white marks on the banks. This is all salt. This whole area was submerged under ocean water in prehistoric times.

One of the most active mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan. The last eruption was in 2017.

These are huge rock structures with many petroglyphs by ancient Homo sapiens.

Used all my intuition and went with the one on the right. It did not help that there was a lady inside. Apparently, cleaning the floor. She said something to me. Unfortunately, my grasp of Azerbaijani is worse than my grasp of petroglyphs. Anyways, turns out I was right.

This piece of rock was used to create music! In fact, when Sharmila tried hitting it with different stones at different places, it produced different tones (from the rock’s vibrations). I was surprised by the volume!

I believe that is a boat.

Of animals, it would seem.

Old homo sapiens made this holes. The reason is not quite well known. Guesses range from storing rain water to holding sacrificial blood to saving food.

To get an idea of the scale, focus near the center of the picture. You will see the hikers. They look minuscule compared to the rocks.

I was expecting a lot of horses in this Caucasian country. Did not see too many of them, at all.

After the Gobustan Rocks and Petroglyphs, we are off to the mud volcanoes. We will not do the off roading to the big ones. We will go to the smaller ones that are easily accessible by road.

In celebration of Novruz (New Year), there was a kids’ competition for bike racing. It was a long road and I wish I had my bike with me!

Check out how the surface is cracked up. I thought that is from the mud that has flowed over the years. Our driver cum guide Hamid says this is due to the very old times when the whole place was uner water. And it is the sand that is making it crack up. Can you see the white patches on the edge of the water? Those are all salt!

You can see it bubbling and gurgling from inside.

And it is still growing!

The whole area is filled with mud volcanoes. Did you know that Azerbaijan has more mud volcanoes than the rest of the world put together?

This museum near the mud volcanoes had the skeletons of every conceivable animal – mammals, reptiles, birds and insects – you could think of.

After our day long trip, we were hungry. Hamid took us downhill from Bibi Heybat Mosque to this beautiful restaurant by the Caspian Sea – Bulbul.

Turns out Bulbul in Azerbaijani means the same as Bulbul in Bengali (and Hindi also, perhaps) – a small bird. I believe that would be a nightingale.

English was a bit problematic with the local staff but the fish was incredible! And this is from somebody who does not care about food much!!

Before coming to Azerbaijan, I had no idea about the history of oil and Azerbaijan. Turns out, at the turn of the last century, Azerbaijan produced more crude oil than the rest of the world put together!! The first oil rig was in Baku, and we were standing in front of it!!

Apparently, wooden pipes made from a particular kind of tree – which is no more available in Azerbaijan – was the way oil was transported in the olden days.

It was July 31, 2021. After a couple of days of visiting colleges in the North East, Nikita and I sat down at a riverside restaurant in Providence to relax and have dinner. A young lady had served us that evening. She seemed very friendly.

The restaurant was relatively empty (Covid was still affecting business). That gave us some time to chat her up.

“What is your name?” I had asked her.
“Shams”, she said.
“Shams? Is that a short for something?”
“No. Shams is the name.”
“What is the full name?”, I had asked a bit intrigued.
“Shams Aliyeva”
“Ok. That is not from this part of the world, right?”
“No. I am from Azerbaijan.”
“Azerbaijan? Baku?”
“Yes.”

I told her about my friend Roger and how we were planning to follow up our trip to Mongolia with a trip to Azerbaijan.

“Why Azerbaijan?”

“I do not know. We had no good reason to go to Mongolia either. I guess I like how the name Azerbaijan – especially pronounced with the Middle Eastern / Caucasian style rolls nicely off the tongue?”

“When will you go to Azerbaijan?”

“You know, I need to plan that out. I will make sure we meet your family when we are there.”

—

Well, roll forward to today. Roger and I never made it to Azerbaijan. But Sharmila and I did!! And I also knew from my birthday calls that Shams had moved back to Baku.

Now, you can guess the rest. There we were – the three of us – enjoying some coffee by a street side cafe in Baku. And catching up on life.

She even remembered Nikita and brought her a small gift. It has the Azerbaijani symbol “buta” (in India, we call it by the same name – in Bengal, I think we call it “kalka”).

Amazing intersection point… from a chance conversation with somebody who waited on us to meeting her half a world away!!

We did not realize this but we came on Novruz day – the New Year’s day in Azerbaijan. It is also when Ramadan ended – so there is a 10 day holiday and celebration galore all over the city. Especially, in the parks by the Caspian Sea.

Sitting for breakfast at the JW Marriott in Baku, we noticed this decor. They were pots hanging upside down. And the various plants were coming out downwards and then branching up. It looked great.

But that raised a question in my mind… how do they water the plants? I went nearby to inspect. There did not seem to be anything covering the bottom of the pots.

That is a mystery! Any ideas?

It has a huge cobblestone yard.

We were touring the Ateshgah Zoroastrian Fire Temple. Inside the compound, around the sanctum sanctorum, there were many small rooms. They were used as abodes for the monks in the yesteryears. Today, they have different artifacts from those days.

In one of the rooms, you could hear constant chanting. Went in there.

Was in for a surprise. It looked like somebody was chanting hymns. And there was a person lying next to him. Presumably dying or dead.

But the chant itself was the interesting part. I could distinctly hear “Om!”, “Ganapati!”, “Namah!”, and similar words. In fact, there was a light display on the wall which had the “Om” written in Sanskrit!!

Later, I did some research and found out that this temple was used for worship by the Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Sikhs!

I had no idea!

Dag means Mountain and Yanar means Fire. Azerbaijan sits on a lot of oil and gas. Some of it has has been leaking thru gaps in the mountains and burning from time immemorial. This particular one is easily accessible for tourists.

I had read about this before I came to Azerbaijan. This is not the best time to see the Masazir Lake turn pin. Later in the summer is better. But we wanted to give it a shot anyway.

Driving from Yanar Dag, we crossed Mirzaladi Gol (Gol = Lake). That looked distinctly pink to use. Encouraged, we pressed on. As we neared Masazir Gol, you would clearly see the pink effect. Unfortunately, the sun was high, and the angle was not perfect from all directions. Additionally, the entire lake was fenced off (there is a salt lake factory on its banks), and we could not reach a convenient spot.

Hamid insisted that we keep driving south. Eventually, we took a side road, and Hamid’s efforts came to fruition! There was an open area to get to the water!

You can clearly see the color difference. Again, the bright sun was not making it easy. But I have a shot of this lake from the airplane that I will post later, and you can see the difference!

Apparently, the pink color is formed by the salt and a certain kind of algae (that thrives in summer heat).

This is what I was most interested in seeing in Azerbaijan. It took us about an hour and a half to get here. The views were breathtaking. This section of the mountains seemed like striped, layered candy!!

Hamid Aliyev was our driver and guide in Baku. He was a great company and very knowledgeable about world geography. He has been to many countries. His absolute crazy stories were the drives he did from Vladivostok to Baku – about 8000 kms in 6 days. Multiple times!

I learnt also about the education system, medical system, government and a lot of things about the country that you can pick up only from locals.

Hope to see him and his family too next time we are in this part of the world.

From aboard our flight from Baku and Istanbul, we got a clear view of the Masazir Golu. A bit of cloud and a bit of dirt on the airplane window got in the way of a perfect view, but you can clearly see how pink the water of Masazir Gol is. The one on the left is the other slightly pink lake, Mirzaladi Gol. The one on the right is the Jeyranbatan reservoir (that supplies drinking water to Baku), and you can see the difference in color!

On the border of Armenia and Turkey.

Some of my soccer crazy Bengali friends will remember the famous 1978 IFA Trophy final between FC Ararat and Mohanbagan that resulted in a 2-2 draw.

Azerbaijan, without a shade of doubt, is the country that has surprised me the most. When I trekked in Mongolia, I was aware of the hardships. When I visit Caribbean islands, I know how beautiful the tropical beaches will be.

But Azerbaijan? I had no idea. Truth is, at least in my country, the USA, most people cannot locate Azerbaijan on the map. I myself did not know anything other than the name of their capital and their currency. And a bit about the recent Karabakh war.

Boy, was I in for a surprise.

The first shock was how advanced Baku is. I have seen almost 20 European capitals. Baku is absolutely one of the most modern of them all. The architecture of high rises, the facilities, and above all, the spick and span cleanliness were totally unexpected.

On top of that, it is very safe, day and night, fairly inexpensive, and the people are incredibly friendly and willing to help. English can be a bit of a challenge here and there once you go far out of the city, but still not that big a problem.

Incidentally, everybody learns Azerbaijani, Turkish, and Russian in school. And then English is the fourth language.

Speaking of languages, I found many words Azeris use that are common to Hindi and Bengali. Examples include “Hava” (wind), “Insan” (human), “Bulbul” (the same name bird), “Dunya” (world), and so on.

We explored the Caspian Sea side. The whole area was underwater many, many years ago. Today, it is a bit deserty. The city of Baku is nearly 85 feet below mean sea level (as is the Caspian Sea).

We did not explore the ski resorts and mountainous side of Shahdag on the borders of Russia.

The traffic can be a bit aggressive. Lane discipline is a bit on the relaxed side. But, otherwise it was fine

Oh! And the cats! There are cats virtually everywhere. Not that many dogs… but cats, yes!!

A country with barely 10 million people, it will absolutely surprise you if you visit it. Which I hope you will some day soon!

A week in India, five days in Azerbaijan, a total of nearly two weeks of travel. And she managed to do the whole thing with only a carry-on suitcase!

And mind you, this was India in the mid 90s and Azerbaijan in the mid 40s!! That is beyond impressive!