As Dashain was wrapping up, I and my wife buckled up for the journey to Baku, Azerbaijan. We were very excited for the travel as this was our first international travel together after our marriage. Not only had it held a promise of good vacation but also the warm hospitality of my in-laws. My wife was over the moon as she was meeting her parents for the first time after our marriage. And likewise my excitement knew no bounds for the anticipation of our journey.
With 12 hours layover in Dubai, we got into a plane for Baku with droopy eyes. The journey was memorable not because of the facilities and services that the budget airlines provided us for. It was bare minimum. It was memorable because I had my lovely wife along with me. The journey with her anywhere is memorable let alone this eventful voyage. Finally around 11 AM of 12th October we touched down onto our destination. From the airplane the place looked Russian era as I saw mostly Russian vintage planes parking around the airport. Impressed by its new looking swanky terminal building we got into a line for immigration processing. I had a little bit of standoff with the immigration officer as we hardly understood each other’s English. It’s funny to think of that event. We saw wide grins greeting us with wavy hands as we were waiting for the bags. We waved back with equal enthusiasm. We were welcomed by warm and big hugs and smiles of my in-laws. Oh! It was one of the moments to cherish.
I loved Baku as soon as we stepped out of the airport. Modernization was catching up fast in Baku. The place seems to be fast developing. We stayed in my in-law’s house there. True to the character of Nepali mom, my mother in law had her own ‘karesabaari’. She had grown chillies, onion and saag. Since we didn’t have a wink of sleep during the flight, we fell asleep after a sumptuous food. My mother- in law has a hand for the cooking.
The vacation mode was on. Have a good food, sleep, talk, laugh and travel. That’s what we did in Baku for twenty two days. We used to travel late in the afternoon and stroll around the city till late evening. The place had numerous public spaces for parks. We used to go the famous ‘ Park Boulevard’ almost every day and take a stroll there by the Caspian Sea. It’s a long stretch but I never used to feel tired walking. It is undoubtedly one of the best places that Baku has to offer.
The other routine walk was around the newly built park near the place we stayed. I enjoyed a lot perambulating around the park with my in laws and wife in the park. The walk was a good pretext for observing the people and their activities. The people there were generally genial and hospitable to the strangers. They took special care to their young children and took part in the activities of playing and exercising with them. Me and my wife went to the cinema hall to watch Joker in nearby theatre at the mall called Genjelic Mall. It became one of our favourite place to hang out during our stay. I will do a review of ‘Joker’ in different piece. The movie in a whole was awesome for the acting of Joaqin Phoenix.
The next day of our arrival was special as we received tika from my in-laws for the first time after our marriage. With the big red tika on our foreheads we started our tour of Baku. We were the ‘novelty’ of the day as people were quiet amused by our tika and stared at us. We were very mindful of their stares. We were quiet shy and at the same time enjoying the attention we were getting from the people. The moment of the day was when one girl came with her mother to take a selfie with us.
We got onto the city bus to the place called Narimanov . Then from there walked on foot to Heidar Aliev Center. The place is an architectural masterpiece. After marvelling the locale we started off to Park Boulevard. We went into the nearby mall and bought ourselves drinks and food for the lunch that we had on the park. While returning back from our day tour we had a local delicacy called doner, meat fillings mixed with cucumber, tomato and chilly and sauce which is wrapped around bread or big ‘roti’. It was the first time I tasted that cuisine. I liked it immediately and it became the staple food for the rest of our stay. Doner for the people there is similar to momo for us.
The time we went was excellent for travel as the weather was nice, moderate and sunny. We were waiting for my brother in law who was coming from the States to join us in the travel. In betweens we rambled around the city to and fro, strolled in the parks in the evening, had a hearty meal, talked and laughed. The most memorable was the walk in Nizami street at night. It was the most beautiful experience I have had in my tour. I felt like I was walking on the streets of typical European city that we see in the movies. It was a lovely place to walk without the fear of vehicles and irritation of honking. Holding hands with my beloved and walking on the street with beautiful buildings on the sides , air filled with sweet smell of the cuisines and light music that was topped with the spectacular lightings all around was definitely the most memorable moment for me.
My brother in law joined us after fifteen days. He is a very fun loving person and likes to crack jokes on about anything he fancies. A very satirical person. We were very happy to see him after a couple of years. The most elated were my wife and her mother. They were all praise of him. Our real travel began after his arrival. We roamed around to the famous spots of Baku such as Icheri Seher, carpet museum, Heyder Aliev Center, Little Venice, 21 May etc. The iconic flame tower looks spectacular at the night. Can’t stop loving the view of burning flame embellished in the tower. It is indeed a modern marvel. We even went to watch Joker movie again for my bro-in-law’s sake. All in all Baku is indeed a touristic place and you won’t regret to travel here.
Our travel was coincided with the visit of our Prime Minister K P Oli for the international conference of Non Aligned Movement Countries that was hosted by Azerbaijan. Apparently KP Oli made us easy to tell about our travel destination to the people back home – ‘The country our PM visited just recently’ did the trick.
All in our travel we only had one hiccup. As the country was famous for its mud volcano, we went to see how mud would sputter out from the ground. We were excited to see this unique phenomenon. The journey took us to the outskirts of the city which took more than an hour in the bus. When we reached to the destination that was supposedly a site of live mud volcano, we didn’t see anything except the large undulated muddy field with no sign of volcano. We looked here and there any sign of mud volcano but to no avail. We wasted a whole day for nothing. The only good thing about the visit was the little picnic we had there. Our bitter mood was partly compensated by the delicious cooking of the mom. On top of that we were very hungry. The most bitter person for that day’s outcome was my brother in law. His sombre mood stayed on the whole day.
The next day we rented a car and hit the road to visit the other places of Azerbaijan. My bro in law’s smug mood of previous day billowed away as he took driver’s seat. He was the most excited person and was very happy to be a driver for us. Well I commend his driving skills. What a smooth and safe driver he was.
We journeyed to northern side of Azerbaijan stopping over four places, the first of which was Shamakhi, just one and half hour drive from Baku. It had no great attraction except for the historical mosque. We had a stopover there for some and had our homemade packed lunch there.
The road from there started to resemble like of Nepal. We started to climb and there was a change of landscape – from desert looking landscape to lush hilly area. The drive from there was very beautiful with the scenery and the excitement of the journey itself. All of us were deeply mesmerized by the scenery. Then we had a stopover in the place called Ismaili. It was a small beautiful town shadowed by the green hills all around. We had a Azerbaijani tea which the people there used to have more often than water. The tea was no so exceptional but the way they served was astounding. They served the tea in a teapot not in individual glasses as in Nepal. They serve it with the chocolates around which were quiet unusual for us. We had a very good tea with little bit of chitchat with the locals. The downside of communicating with the people in Azerbaijan was that they could not understand English language and we could not understand theirs. So it was the guess game most of the time. Thank god for some knowledge of local language of my father in law. He was the mediator and spokesperson for us in our whole trip. But I liked the attitude of the people there. Although they used to gawk at us like we were outcasts there but also responded warmly and humbly at our simple questions and requests.
Then for the final stopover of the day, we stayed the night in air b and b at Gebele. The whole house was for us for the night and it was a beautiful cozy place. The next morning we visited around the attractions of Gebele. It is a beautiful city with tourist attractions. We visited Lake Nohur. It is peaceful and pristine. From there we wanted to go to Yeddi Gozel waterfall but could not make to there as the road condition was bad. Gebele had a host of touristic attraction concentrated in one place. The amusement park, mountain resort with cable car and many hotels were focused in one place of Gebele. We drove around the place and stopped here and there for the snaps.
Then we headed for our final destination, Sheki. Again the drive was beautiful. In the lunch we had a Russian delicacy, the name of which I forgot. It was pieces of lamb sausages fried with eggs and lamb soup. I liked the sausages a lot with the bread. We reached there late afternoon. After some rest at our air b and b we walked around what supposedly looked like a city center. One encounter with the local there is indelible in my mind. The women vendors shopping on the street were fascinated by us. They smiled at us and tried to talk to us in their language. One thing I noticed there was that the people had a great respect for Nepal – they might not have the idea where it is. But telling them the country of Mount Everest would elicit the warm response from them. Then they approached us with a bag of fruits as gifts for us. We insisted in paying but they wouldn’t take it. We clicked some pictures with them. And one of the women hugged my mother in law which was a very surprising gesture but a very pleasant one indeed. Their love and affection for us was overwhelming.
Then we visited the Sheki Khan Palace which is the major attraction of Sheki. It’s a historical place that was the summer residence of Sheki Khans – some 250 year old Persian royalty. It’s a UNESCO listed World Heritage site. The architecture was beautiful and the environment around was serene. After spending some time there we headed for Kish village but soon it became dark and we had to abandon our plan. We headed back to our place after having doner. The next day we headed back to Baku. May be it was the exhaustion of the road trip of the termination of the thrill of the travel, the journey back was unremarkable and uneventful. We reached Baku around 3 O clock. After taking a siesta we went to visit a nearby city called Sumqayit. It is bordered with Caspian seas and has a long beach. We stayed in the beach for some and went back.
The next day was Bhaitika. For me there was no tika whereas for my wife she had been waiting for this since four years. She and her brother had a ceremony of Bhaitika after four years. I was their official cameraperson. Her brother was leaving for America next day. The ceremony was such a long anticipated event and might have to wait for many years to happen again.
Next day my bro- in law left for America. After a few days it would be our turn to leave. For the next four days we pretty much stayed indoors. The pleasant weather of Baku suddenly turned into rainy chilly days. We were very lucky to be in Azerbaijan at the perfect moment. The weather forced us to stay indoors the rest of the days. Plus we were really tired from our trip. The Netflix hit series, ‘Money Heist’ glued us to the screen until it got over. So our last days in Baku were basically sleeping, eating, drinking and watching. And the day came to be back to the grind of our routine life. Oh, I definitely miss that wonderful time in Azerbaijan. With heavy heart, goodbyes and the promise to see again, we returned back to Nepal with the cache of good memories.
Thoughts and Reminiscence 