The light broke through the curtains at some ungodly hour and it seemed to be the signal for the rest of the hotel top wake up and an excuse to make a ridiculous amount of noise. Needless to say I didn't get much more sleep. This was compounded by the fact that at 3am a telephone call had already woken me up asking me which services I required. I grumpily replied that I needed no servicing but it might be nice to have a peace and quiet service so that I could sleep without interruption. I unplugged the phone the next morning and returned it to the management the next day explaining that I would appreciate not being woken up in the middle of the night again.

Since the trip to Turkmenistan requires a mandatory guide, I had organised through the helpful David Berghoff in Kazakhstan, to share my trip with an American guy called Joe. We duly met at midday as planned and headed off immediately to find out how to buy tickets for the ferry to Turkmenbashi on Monday. The initial signs were not good. The shiny new port building was unaccessible due to efficient and well-built Azeri guards shooing us away and generally not being helpful to our requests for buying boat tickets. They told us that there was no ferry and that we would need to go via Kazakhstan should we want to get to Turkmenistan.

Neither of us had visas to Kazakhstan and neither of us were prepared to wait around in Baku for two weeks while they were being issued. Luckily we found a guy nearby who spoke some English and arrnaged for us to speak to his travel agent friend. This time we found that there was indeed a ferry to Turkmenbashi but the timetable was irregular and only left when the boat was full. He found the address of the old port where wecoudl supposedly buy tickets and we headed over.

Once there a slightly large lady informed us that we coudl come back on Monday and buy tickets. From what I gathered, there might indeed be a boat to Turkmenbashi. It was Saturday afternoon by now and there was nothing else to do but wait. So, in slight triumph that we had at least discovered a way accross to Turkmenbashi, we had a late lunch, and a beer to celebrate - no I couldn't resists and it tasted great after three weeks without.

An afternoon of wandering the old town and dodging carpet sellers ensued. The old town has an amazing variety of architecture dating back to the various different empires that once ruled Azerbaijan. There are plenty of Turkish Caravanserais, Hamams and even more Soviet style buildings somewhat spoiling the view. But with Baku next to the Caspian Sea it made for  a pleasant couple of hours strolling around the harbour front and trying to get to grips with the dual money system that exists here between the old Azeri manat and the new one.