My time in Tbilisi has come quickly to an end – what a great city! On Saturday night I find myself in a taxi screeching round bends and street racing towards the train station, music blaring from the upgraded car sound system. I have become something of an expert in all the many taxi scams out there, and enjoy watching the driver go through the motions of using a few of his weaker tricks on me, especially as we have already agreed a fare of 10 Lari. First of all he tries the invalid routine, shows me a scar and says he’s not well. I sympathise and ignore this line of conversation. Then he decides to up the ante and says that the fare is actually priced in US dollars. I smile and pat him on the shoulder – treating this move as though it is a bit of Georgian humour. This completely defuses the possibility of a renegotiation. Keep smiling. Then he decides to try the ‘double fare because you are only one passenger’ routine. I just wag my finger and show hime my 10 Lari note. Finally he starts driving like an absolute tool, perhaps to scare me into paying more, but I just close my eyes and breathe deeply. Eventually we pull into the station still alive and in a taxi with no new scrapes or major missing parts. Exasperated at my resolve he gives in and helps me with my luggage. I give him 15 Lari, that’s about a £1 tip. He settles for that looking a little like he has been ‘done’, and wishes me well. Georgian taxi drivers are real chancers, as well as generally quite dangerous drivers.

Tbilisi station is set inside a shopping centre. Up on the second floor the display board rolls in Georgian and then English, confirming all is in order. I head to platform 1, and the train is there but locked up as I’m too early. Eventually the Azeri ladies who run tonight’s train open the doors and let a few of us on board. I’m in carriage number 6, berth 7, it’s a modern SV, or two berth first class carriage. It looks a bit ‘Cold War’ on the outside, but it is clean, comfortable and quite new inside.

I’m sharing tonight with a charming Frenchman called Gerrard, who lives in Reunion and has been travelling around Iran in a way that British and US passport holders can only dream of. The train is made up of a couple of SV coaches, 4 ‘kupe’ (four berth) carriages, and for the adventurous, a single ‘Plaskart’ wagon containing 52 open plan berths. Once again there is no restaurant carriage, a consistent disappointment so far on nearly all of this trip (I guess there was one on the Paris – Munich TGV, but I was served at my seat). Up front we will be pulled to the border by a Georgian locomotive. The carriage attendants are keen to chat, and one speaks quite good English. The banter is friendly and strangely flirtatious.

We set off with a series of bumps and bunny hops down the line at about 20.40. On board everything seems to work, but I don’t try the television in the room as its unlikely to be showing anything in English. The toilets are pressurised and there is an enormous red button on the wall with a sign saying ‘Unload!”.

At about 22.00 we reach the Georgian frontier, and the train stops here for an hour. I have no idea why, but the upside of this inactivity is that we are allowed to get off and hang out with the dogs. There is even chilled beer on sale at a couple of enterprising pop up shops by the side of the Police station. I enjoy a couple of Aisi (Icy) beers before we head into Azerbaijan. Typical of everything I have experienced on this trip a couple of Georgian men who speak English help translate my beverage requirements and generally look after me.

I’m greeted back in the compartment with a fairly simple customs form to complete. No gold, currency over $10000 or firearms to declare. The fun starts around midnight. My Azerbaijan e-visa is checked and taken away along with my passport. The drill is that we each have to attend an interview and have our photographs taken in a compartment down the train. When my turn comes it’s all going well to begin with and I’m invited to take a seat opposite the officer who will be deciding if I’m to be admitted. He has a massive plastic box on the table with his computer inside and a camera mounted on the top. It’s the sort of box that is indestructible and people use to transport very classified things. As he takes my photo and he speaks to me in a very polite way, with soft and precise English. At this point one of the carriage attendants appears round the door and chats to him whilst he types something inside his plastic box. They are talking about me, but I can’t work out quite why. I guess she tells him I’m that I’m a wealthy retired businessman, and more importantly in her mind, an English gentleman. He hands back my visa, and given what has been said, I can’t stop myself saying something silly like “are we done?”.

He looks at me very seriously after I have said this, and responds with just one word, “No”. Then the ‘Great Escape’ and ‘Columbo’ moment combined. Just one more question, ‘Have you been to Armenia?’. Of course I have, the stamps are there in my passport, but I look contrite and confirm to him that I have in fact been in Yerevan for a few days, but nowhere else. I dare not even say the words, but what he probably wants to know is that I have not visited Nagorno-Karabakh. My confession of having visited Armenia signals a change in approach and he gets out a notebook and starts taking my details down. I’m not sure if this is just theatre to intimidate me, or possibly something else more worrying. His boss arrives (five stars on his epaulettes, but I don’t think he’s a general) and is also incredibly polite. After a quick chat and a bit of staring at me, I’m eventually accepted as a tourist. A green stamp is added at the opposite end of my passport from my Armenian one. I’m in and allowed to return to my compartment where Gerrard is interested to find out why it has taken so long. Its his turn now, but I don’t think Iran poses as much of an issue on this particular border.

The final step is the customs man. He’s been tipped off I’m the only person in the carriage who has been to Armenia. My bags are all out and being inspected in the small space of the cabin. I don’t know what he’s looking for. When a Captain walks by I say ‘hello’ to her. She smiles and simply asks in good English if I have anything with me from Armenia. When I say ‘no’ its all over and the customs man leaves me alone to repack.

It should have been a comfy night on this train, but as is the way in the post Soviet empire, the air conditioning is deemed a bit decadent and switched off. I have learned that its pointless arguing about this. Better just to open the compartment door and a window in the corridor and let the air forced in by the speed of the train ventilate the otherwise sealed compartment.

By 07.00 I’m up and about. Gerrard snores gently, and I try not to wake him as I fold up and return my bedding. The carriage attendant fusses around me and makes me a cup of tea which is served with some boiled sweets. Outside the skies are dark and lightning streaks down on the oilfields and marshlands. We pass occasional settlements of mud huts with modern houses being built around them, a sign of the oil boom no doubt. Herds of goats tended to by their herdsman wander past nodding donkeys of an altogether different breed.

Things are going well until will stop at a place on the outskirts of Baku where the train stops and is declared officially broken. It takes about an hour to abandon the striken locomotive and get attached to a new one, and many people give up and leave the train here to find a bus.

We eventually arrive into Baku in the middle of the thunderstorm at around 10.30 am. A policeman helps me sort out a taxi and the need to find an ATM. I’m tired but content – another successful night on the rails. Then it occurs to me – this is my final objective – I have travelled from London to Baku, probably about 5500 km, in 19 days. It might not sound very far, but it has been a little complex in places, particularly in Turkey.

My journey ends here, but it is possible to take a ship across the Caspian Sea to Turkmenistan and onward east on the Silk Route. But the ferry no longer has any official timetable and takes more than two days to make the crossing. I note the possibility of using this route to circumnavigate the world by train and ship at a future date, but it would of course be much faster and easier to take the Trans-Siberian to Vladivostok. I wonder why Phileas Fogg didn’t opt for this route? Even Michael Palin chose to head through the Gulf to India and Singapore..

I hope you have enjoyed reading about this journey. I will wrap up my learnings in a later post when I am back behind my desk in deepest West Sussex.

It’s a short stroll into the station, where I find a large and very peaceful Soviet designed hall that reminds me of a Moscow metro station. I can see a few people waiting, but there is no hustle and bustle here – presumably because there are only two or three trains a day, and it’s not exactly a commuter route taking a meandering nine hour journey over the border to Tbilisi. I speak with a young lady at the ticket counter, and as I had hoped, my train is due to arrive about 30 minutes before departure right outside the hall on platform 1, so I’m in the right place.

As I wander out onto the platform I see the carriages are being shunted onto our platform early. The 202 is the returning ‘Armenian’ 201 service from Batumi, and I recognise some of the crew straightaway. They don’t seem that pleased to see me, but I think that’s just a Soviet railway thing.

This is a summer only train, mainly scheduled to take Armenians to the Black Sea for their holidays. It’s a 16 hour ride to Batumi, but the route the train takes in the summer is still faster than the route in the off season. Lets be honest, this isn’t an ‘express’! The train heading this way is about half full, whereas the one I took coming from Batumi a few days ago was 100% full, as passengers are returning from their well earned summer break.

For this journey I have been able to secure a ticket in SV, first class, and I’m introduced to the lady who runs the single carriage of this type – No. 2 – on the train. Once she has verified I’m not a second class passenger sneaking in to the luxury of SV, I’m shown to a clean and comfy two berth compartment. Here I am dazzled by the extra set of gold net curtains, a pair of VIP slippers and an industrial quantity of fruit pastilles. It turns out I’m not going to have to share today, so I have space to relax and unwind. I like meeting people in shared compartments, but it’s also nice to have a break and a bit of solitude too. That is why I like crossing Siberia with my own compartment so much.

Once I have my gear stowed I hang around on the platform with the crew, and meet a few slightly mad fellow passengers. Nearly everyone is headed to Tbilisi. The timing of this train is such that I don’t really see it as a sleeper, even though I have a bed. Departing Yerevan at 15.30, our arrival in Tbilisi is scheduled for 00.12, so I have a hotel booked at the other end. What I do like about mid afternoon departures like this is that the scenery can be stunning and its good to see everything in daylight before the night draws in. That’s probably the reason it is not so busy – unless you are heading on to Batumi you could just buy a seat in coach. But this is £35 I’m happy to spend for the extra comfort today.

The driver eventually blows the engine whistle, and I’m ushered back on to the train – we set off right on time at 15.30. Other than a minor scuffle over the number of fruit pastilles permissible for a single first class passenger to consume, everything goes smoothly (FYI – it’s just one box). The toilet is kept very clean, the samovar works, and most amazingly the carriage has free wi-fi that seems very fast to me. This is a rail first, as I have actually assembled most of this post whilst on the train. I carry a very thin and light MacBook with me, and my photos can be transferred wirelessly onto it from my Fuji X-T20. I used to do this on my iPad, but now I use WordPress I like to have the full functionality of the OS X version and a decent keyboard.

Watching the desertified plains and rolling hills out the window (train travel cliche!), I eat my rations of a single meagre ham and cheese roll. The Armenians take their bread very seriously and its actually pretty tasty. I decide to take a tactical nap at around 19.00, as I want to be fresh and ready for the border games that will start later on, and there will be no chance to rest then.

Shortly after 21.00 an Armenian soldier dressed in full combats looks in to my compartment, switches on the main light and glances around. Maybe I’m too well camouflaged to be seen in my yellow t-shirt and gold scarf in a compartment completely furnished in shades of yellow and gold. Focussing in my direction he doesn’t seem to concerned to eventually spot me. He takes my passport and after a cursory check, hands it to his boss, who says a lot that of course I can’t understand. Maybe they have noted my special Armenian train camouflage technique?  There is no time for further debate though, as a smartly turned out immigration officer arrives in his dress uniform, complete with the computerised M&B 1980’s “Battleships’ game that is actually his mobile passport scanner. When he stamps my passport I thank him and he says that I’m very welcome. I only hope that these Armenian stamps don’t give me any trouble when I head for Azerbaijan in a few days time. You may well be aware that the direct border between these two countries is closed, which is why I’m headed back to Georgia as an intermediary.

A bit later on I’m visited by a serious man in blue overalls wearing rubber gloves. He’s the customs man, and he asks me a whole checklist of questions which culminate in his interest in cash, gold and firearms. I like to think I have an honest face, and after a while he marks my name off his list and goes back to searching other parts of the train.

We arrive in Tbilisi about 15 minutes late. Its not one of my favourite stations in the world, as the very high bridge between platforms has only stairs, and it’s a long, long, climb up with a 30 kilo bag. Outside I go through the usual taxi routine, and end up with a deal that’s inflated, but not so much as to lose sleep over. The driver looks both disappointed and offended at the same time that he’s only managed to get 20 Lari out of me. And so ends a long trip, my head hits the pillow at about 02.00am.

I’m here in Tbilisi for a few days before embarking on the final leg of this trip to Baku at the weekend.

I’m very early, and at first the guard of carriage number 6 says I can’t come on board for another 25 minutes. This is a Soviet style carriage, so the metal steps are pulled up like a drawbridge, and I’m not getting on until he lowers them. I hang around the carriage taking moody selfies for a future project.

But then just when I’m getting too hot in the afternoon sun, in a turn of good fortune I meet the jovial and larger than life station master, who seems to take a like to me. He’s a big chap with a big personality, and he has more gold braid on his shoulders than a Bolivian tank commander – just a few words from him seems to wither the man on the train, and with a shrug of defeat, I’m in.

Carriage number 6 has four berth kupe style compartments, but with some very Armenian adornments like gold curtains and complimentary fruit pastels. The windows are sealed and the air conditioning isn’t on, so I sit on the steps of the carriage and watch a steady stream of Armenian holiday makers returning home with much baggage.

The train is completely full and I share the compartment with Paul, the first Briton I have met in over a week, a bearded youngish Armenian chap, also headed to Yerevan, and a smartly dressed older man, who is getting off in the middle of nowhere. I have forgotten what kupe class is like, but quickly find myself getting used to the limited space of communal living. I have a lower berth, which gives me bagsy rights on the small table by the window. I’m much happier on the lower beds as night time trips to the toilet can go dramatically wrong when descending from high up.

The journey to Yerevan is around 16 hours, and we pass through Tbilisi at around 10pm before heading south to the Armenian frontier at Ayrum (00.46 am). We have around 30 minutes sat in Tbilisi station, so most of us hang around on the windy platform until summoned back on the train. A couple of American tourists roll up to our carriage attendant and want to swap from where they are located in another coach – I have no idea what has gone wrong, but hang back as I don’t fancy changing berths at this stage.

Much to my disappointment there is once again no restaurant carriage, but I have stocked up on some local cheese stuffed pastries for my supper. Once the sun has set we read and then try and get some sleep; something I don’t manage very well. The Georgian police board the train at around 11.00pm, collect passports and travel with us until the border. I had heard that Armenian security checks could involve a one to one interview, but nothing could have been more different from this tonight. Well after we have actually crossed the border, a smartly turned out soldier enters our compartment (at around midnight) and asks if he can sit on my bed. I’m hardly likely to refuse, and before I know it I’m sat next to him like we were going to play a game of cards. He sets up his passport scanning machine, something that reminds me a bit of a 1980’s electronic version of ‘Battleships’. No further questions are asked, and with my freshly stamped passport back in my hands he leaves us. Our bags were not searched and we were then left alone for the night.

The next few hours were not much fun for me, but this wasn’t really the fault of the train. At one point I needed to use the bathroom with some urgency. I met two large ladies at the end of the corridor who insisted that this wasn’t possible (I think was in their smoking and gossiping space) – ‘its finished” they said, waving their arms – but I haven’t got where I am today by being put off by such people. I returned with the carriage attendant, and as if by magic the toilet door is opened and is working just fine. Second class ‘Kupe’ carriages often smell quite ‘lived in’, and this one was no exception. It might be psychosomatic, but all I could smell was stale urine. Paul smelt nothing other than the burning of our worn out brakes. Added to this the aircon went on and off throughout the night, changing the climate from nice, to sweaty and back again to nice constantly. Just to add to my misery I had tooth ache and the drugs I had didn’t seem to control the pain. I lay there feeling a bit sorry for myself until the sun rose and Mount Ararat (in Eastern Turkey) emerged seemingly close by.. but I couldn’t spot Noah and his Ark.

This hasn’t been a particularly relaxing journey, but the company was good, and you learn to take the rough with the smooth. The carriages were 100% sold out, so do try and get a reservation made well in advance if you are considering taking this train. The beds were comfy, and as long as you bring your own supplies, everything will be fine.

I’m now spending a couple of days in Yerevan – first impressions are very good. I’m actually headed back to Tbilisi on the same train in reverse later in the week, but in single SV (first class), so it will be interesting to compare the experience.