Due tothe fact that no-one seemed to know much about the existence of a ferry that goes to Turkmenbashi, we decided that it would be best to head down to the port early and enquire as to when, and indeed if, such a ferry was due to leave. To our initial surprise the lady at the cash desk sold us a ticket immediately for 55 dollars and seemed to suggest that we should hurry up and board the ship as it was leaving imminently. I somehow couldn't believe our luck and was content to know that at least we would be going.

First we had to clear customes where a group of exceedingly bored-looking officials proceeded to ask us banal questions about our luggage and what we were doing. All of this, as our passports were passed around and inspected by everyone there. I had a few photocopied pages of a guidebook with some maps of Azerbaijan and this immediately seemed to arouse suspicion. I tried to explain that it was a tourist guide, but the man inspecting it just replied "nyet". I repeated my tourist story and kept getting the same answer. I was just starting to get annoyed when he kindly stapled the papers together and handed them back to me without further questions.

We were ushered into the next room for passport control by another set of bored-looking men sitting around smoking and chewing gum. My entry stamp was incredibly faint and I'd been worried this might cause problems when I left. I just smiled, spoke a few word of Russian and hoped that by being friendly they wouldn't question it. I was wrong. Officials can be freindly, and these guys were, but they are officials and everything they do has to be official. He handed back Joe his passport and said he could go through but told me that I would have to go back to Astara.

I played the dumb tourist. "OK, Turkmenistan?"

"Nyet. Idit Astara. Zaftra Turkmenistan"

I explained that I didn't want to go back to Astara. They had written down all my entry details on the computer and he could phone them up if he liked.

"Nyet, not possible" he replied and smiled wryly, his lips parting just enough to reveal a neat row of gold teeth.

I persisted. It just wasn't fair to send me back for something that was their mistake. He smiled again and just said "fucking Astara" as if to show off his one English swear word. I was thinking something else. But just as I was ready to show him how pissed off I was by the whole thing, everyone in the office burst out laughing and he smiled again, this time even more broadly, revealing his full set of gold teeth. I'd been their joke for the day, they'd had their fun at my expense and I could get on the ferry. We parted amicably with much shaking of hands. I was too relieved to bother chattng any further to them. I later found out from 3 Americans  who were also on the ship that the official had played the smae trick on them.

The ship itself was about as Soviet and decrepit as I had guessed it would be. We checked into the "hotel" section of what was basically a cargo ship with a few rooms for passangers. Along with the 3 Americans (who were, rather more bravely, cycling to China) and one Turkish guy, we seemed to be the only passangers on this ghostly ship that had clearly seen better days.

I tried to get some information from the captain as to when we would leave for Turkmenbashi. Instead, I was given a tour around the ship. My continued persistence paid off as he eventually assured me it would only be a couple of hours till we left. I reported back proudly to the others.

One hour turned into tow whch turned into four and after 6 hours I asked again. Once again the reply was one or two hours. Evidently the guys had worked out that this was just enough to shut me up and leave the crew alone. We waited. There was nothing we could do. We couldn't get abck into Azerbaijan and we weren't sailing to Turkmenistan. Instead we had some soup and bread in the awful ship's cafe where one or two broken chairs sat around empty tables.

As the hours ticked away, we were becoming more frustrated. It was clear that no-one actually knew when the ship might leave. The captain changed tack, and indicated engine trouble was the problem. The next few hours passed slowly. Any sign, no matter how small, gave us hope that we might be about to leave. The tiniest activity on shore raised our hopes for nothing. We still weren't going anywhere.

At least the ship came well stocked with beers and vodka. We tucked in, doing our best to enjoy the evening as much as we could. I tried to learn some more Russian in case it might help me find out more about what was going on. It didn't. We still weren't going anywhere and by now the crew had gone to bed. At midnight I gave up hoping that we might actually leave anytime soon. We'd worry about it in the morning. Though frankly it was hard to work out what would be the plan.

At 3am a loudspeaker announcement woke us up - was this the sign that we might be on our way? I dared not hope. But sure enough after a few minutes there was activity outside and we were moving, albeit very slowly. At last we were off, 18 hours after having boarded. It felt like a minor victory and we returned to our cabin smiling. How long it would take to gettoTurkmenbashi would be another matter entirely.