A Weekend Away
The wind took the role of the front row in a scrum, doing its best to muscle me into the path of overtaking lorries. I leant into it, my head teetering over the edge of the asphalt. White foam, whipped up by the wind into airborne meringue, flew across the road like diving doves. In this gale I had another 140 miles to ride, and I hoped – as the forecast predicted – it would soon be a tailwind, as I turned south to Lankaran, a town in Azerbaijan’s South.
En-route to Lankaran
The day slipped by rather more easily after I plugged in my headphones and stopped counting the kilometre markers, a self-defeating exercise if ever there was one. No matter how hard I cycled I would have at least seven hours of cycling ahead of me – to rush the minutes and miles through becomes quite depressing because no matter how you crunch the numbers it will still be a long time. The grey clouds merging with the horizon and flat terrain did little to break the tedium.
I had disregarded my own advice to my cousin Kira who was attempting her own long-distance cycle that day, bringing only four bananas with me, and these were consumed by halfway. Not a problem of course as I would buy some food at a petrol station or small town en route. Turkey had petrol stations laid out with the most incredible frequency – perhaps one every five kilometres, and I assumed there would be several along the way. Of course I was wrong. As hours stretched by I realised I had miscalculated. The closest I got was a new but shuttered petrol station. Seven hours in I was flagging badly, and worse, the wind which had reservedly coaxed me for the first half had now swung round and I ploughed into impossibly thick, dense air. Eventually, I capitulated and turned off the highway, striking out for a small village which surely had a shop.
I pulled up at a dusty, stony square, framed at one end by an off-white train station. Another edge held a bus stop. A man in a sky blue shirt, white vest being squeezed by the sizeable belly beneath stood next to the bus stop. He had an open, friendly face and seemed entirely unperturbed by my slightly plaintive questioning as to where the shop might be. He waved down an adjoining road and called after me “Come back and have tea when you’ve done your shopping.” He really meant it.
When I entered the small shop (the size of a living room) I was like a toddler running into a flock of pigeons. Immediately there was chattering and animated discussions as the ten or twelve people crammed in caught sight of me, in my lycra cycling top – and particularly – shorts.
I have never felt quite so aware I was in skin-tight garb, not so much because I thought anyone was staring, but because of how unusual a sight I was. Azerbaijan is more conservative than Europe, and I was probably the first – and possibly last – man to display his shapely legs and bum in the village store. I said somewhat apologetically I was from England. I hoped they would understand.
The welcoming Jamshid and a friend of his
I rejoined my friend, Jamshid, at the tea house next to the station, scoffing wafer biscuits and half a loaf of bread the shape of a milk chocolate button. The place was decorated with a few animal posters seemingly taken from a school – a peacock, pelican and lion were pinned on the wall, though luckily not all in the same picture. After expressing his sadness in my lack of wife and children and enquiring about my bike, it was time for me to continue. Jamshid invited me to stay the night with him – so typical and openhearted of the Azeris I found beyond Baku. In any big city, Baku included, despite – or because of – the teeming people, it is difficult to fall into conversation with anyone. But particularly noticeable in Azerbaijan is the warmth and friendliness I was greeted with. Knowing it was a unique opportunity, it was with a moderately heavy heart I thanked Jamshid and mounted my bike into the headwind.
The chai evi, or tearoom, complete with classroom decorations
After two and a half hours in the dark, with my eyes red from grit and dust, I made it to Lankaran, more relieved that the tedium of pedalling had ceased than tired. That said, I swiftly went to bed in a stuffy room, but slept badly – first troubled by mosquitoes and then the heat emanating from my fatigued, throbbing body.
The next morning the sky shone blue, in contrast to the previous day’s low grey clouds, and I was determined to make the most of my one day in Lankaran. After a breakfast with Lankaran natives, who waved me over to join them at a roadside chai evi (tea house), I set off into the town and presently spied a gap in the wall behind which the train tracks lay. Beyond the rails was the sparkling sea.
Across the train tracks to the sea
On a whim, I crossed the lines and came upon four small wooden fishing boats. Not more than seven metres long, they had been pulled up onto the sand and relaxed, though purposeful activity surrounded them. Looking upon the scene, I wondered for a couple of seconds if it was any of my business. I took the plunge and walked over. Soon I was in conversation with Vuksal who was cleaning his boat and draining the bilge. Communication outside of Baku I found more straightforward: Russian, which the older generation nearly all knew. In Baku, it was a constant toss up between English, Russian or Azeri and Turkish for the younger generation. Some spoke English, some spoke Russian, and many spoke neither, leaving me constantly guessing. Vuksal told me that the catch size had plummeted over the last 20 years – boats turned from silver treasure chests with flapping fish to mere pocket money of two or three kilos of fish. Today the catch was zero. Still, Vuksal appeared to take this in his stride. “What can you do? You take what you are given.” It seemed, as a fisherman, you quickly learnt to let go of what you had control over and make the best of what you are given.
However there was one man on that beach who was significantly less easy going. Dressed in black boots, a thick belt and green pixelated fatigues a soldier watched me suspiciously, and as I was chatting with Vuksal he hovered to my left. I ignored him, not keen to hasten whatever small talk he had prepared. Eventually he asked me what I was doing here. I told him I was chatting to Vuksal, and continued to prove the veracity of my words. He walked off several paces and started talking into his phone. “What’s the problem?” I asked Vuksal. “The Iranian border is close, they are worried about people and drugs crossing. Most of the heroin comes through Iran.”
Presently the solider came back. “Can I have a minute?” We stepped a pace further on, a measure apparently affording me the privacy he desired. “I need your passport”. “Ah, it’s back at the hotel” I replied. Contrary to official advice – and I could yet be proven quite mistaken – I have never found a procured passport improves a situation, except on airport check in desks. “What information do you want?” I volunteered. He carefully ripped the back off a cigarette packet and inscribed “Luk So” and my birthday and my father’s name. Thus satisfied, I was free to leave, with the warning that next time I should bring my passport with me. I thought it won’t be much help crossing the nearby border.
Deciding photographing the boats was not a good idea, I was set to leave but before I did I was invited to tea – a simple yet profound gesture of hospitality. An ash-blackened kettle sat on smouldering wood and soon there were six or seven of us around a small, low, blue wooden table, sitting on low stools, the sea a literal stone’s throw away, the vine above giving dappled shade.
My previous plan for my day in Lankaran had been to explore the city centre and find one place that did real coffee. But I was aware as I sat there with the fishermen that this was it. This was the reason I travelled. It is always so easy to think “I had something else planned. I don’t have time for this.” But if I wasn’t here, with these fishermen, what else would I be doing – wandering the streets by myself? Rather than wanting to be somewhere else, I reminded myself, this - this seemingly unremarkable interaction of tea around a fire, would be the highlight of my day. It would be the thing I told everyone about, wrote about and what everyone would say “What an amazing experience.” So often in this age of social media, it is seemingly enough to condense an hour into a snapshotted smile, and for that to be enough validation of the moment – along with the comments on social media – supposedly showing you are having a really good time, rather than soaking up the here and now.
So perhaps it was a good thing that photos were out of the question with my soldier friend around, that in the late morning sun I was there simply living, enjoying the chatter and bantering and the hot tea in stained mugs. If I couldn’t enjoy life now, and could only look forward to be somewhere else, I would be missing out on what happened now – not my future dreams, but appreciating and living and finding joy in the very moment I was currently in. it is the joy we have in front of us every day but how often do we choose to grasp it?
Later that day through fish lunches, mugs of vodka, coke, more tea and juicy raisins, I tried to keep in mind that although this wasn’t what I had anticipated, jumping into the joy of what was happening around me was the only way to deal with the unexpected – to roll with it and recognise any and all of the experiences we have are immeasurably valuable.
A party of fish and fishermen