Day 443: Bless My Lucky Underpants
19.03.10: I called Alex (whom I met at the Irish Pub the other night) and asked him if he could get in touch with the Uzbek embassy to see if…
Day 442: The Dolphins In The Dole Queue
18.03.10: The Caucasus – it’s where us whities get our rather daffy pigeonhole ‘Caucasian’, a term lampooned by Lewis Carroll in his nonsensical Caucus Race in which everybody wins a…
Day 441: Politics & Modern History
17.03.10: So after yesterday's half-crazied shenanigans, I found myself kicked off the bus at 6am in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE somewhere in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The sky was…
Day 440: You’ve GOT To Be Kidding
16.03.10: The day started slowly, with me finally dragging myself out of bed around 11pm. I spent most of the day packing my bag, organising my tapes and doing a…
Day 439: A Turn-Up For The Books
15.03.10: The Azerbaijan Embassy is only open for two hours every morning, but after last night’s little beerathon, Rati and I were in little mood to drag ourselves out of…
Day 437: Back In The USSR
13.03.10: I actually woke up at 7am, but Rati was still asleep, so that gave me an excuse to go back to sleep until noon. Rati’s apartment is lovely on…
Day 436: Rimming The Black Sea
12.03.10: Dear old Bertie died of a heart attack in the 1920s and - according to his wishes - had been stuffed and kept in the little museum on the…
Day 435: The Getaway
11.03.10: The fact that I got out of bed this morning just goes to show how dedicated to the cause I am. Atheer didn’t get up until well after noon.…
Day 434: My Wit’s End
10.03.10: I dropped the passport, photos, photocopies and receipts off at the Iranian Embassy, expecting a ‘great stuff Graham, here’s your visa!’, but instead got a ‘come back tomorrow’. One…
Day 433: The Pope’s Nik-Naks
09.03.10: Scraping my face from my pillow, I headed back to the Iranian Embassy (this time I walked) with a shiny new reference number. The embassy’s only open for two…