First Class OVERNIGHT TRAIN Georgia to Azerbaijan (scary border crossing)

The customs official was not excited that we had been to Armenia.

And he said, do you agree with Armenia? And he said.

Today was our last day in Georgia. And sadly, our friend Charlie left us yesterday. Charlie, we miss you already. Come back soon.

This evening we are jumping on an overnight train from Tbilisi to the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku.

We're a little bit nervous about the border crossing, but we'll explain that later.

Taking the metro to the train.

Next station. Majority of this ticket is in Georgian, but we think we are train number 37, platform one. That leaves at 8:30. Maybe this. This is the train car number. Maybe this is our seat number. I guess we'll find out. Platform one.

Turns out Platform 1 is in the basement. Turns out it's not in the basement. We're getting mixed answers from the locals. Found it. I think this could be our train 20 years ago. I'm so proud of us right now. Our train is leaving for 15 whole minutes and we're already you. We're not running this and this.

Come on.

Holy cow, it's hot. 11, 12.

Where are the lights?

Oh, there's a lot of buttons.

Nice. Nice.

So much. This window, I feel like it's rather big.

Oh, look at there. It's nice. Smells nice. Looks pretty clean. We have two nice mirrors.

Okay.

No smoking. Okay. So this is our home for the next 12 hours. We booked a first class cabin, which means it's just us. I think these are our beds. I feel like normally they fold out or something, but we haven't figured out how to do that yet. We got a fresh bag of linens.

I think this might be the nicest pillow we've ever had. It's like memory foam. And a second mushy pillow. Oh, look, we have this big, thick mattress pad. No AC yet. I am sweating. But.

There are outlets so it can charge. That's a plus. Okay, new discoveries. There's a door that closes and locks.

Supposedly closed door. Locked. There's also all these buttons. This, oh, I think is the cabin attendant.

Lights maybe. What do you think these two lines mean? It didn't do anything. I wish this was ac. I don't think it is, though.

Can you. Can you see this sweat dripping down my forehead? It's like a spa is included. A free sauna is included on the train.

And we're off right on time. Also, as soon as the train started running, the AC came on, which is a blessing because I don't think I would have made it to Baku in that heat.

Whoa.

Not. Not as deep as I Thought it was. Okay. Let's try that. There we go. Not a lot of space up there. The carry on bag barely fits. Hopefully those don't fall down and kill us in the middle of the night.

Are you sure that's how we're supposed to go?

Oh, there's storage space underneath the bed. That probably would have been a lot easier.

Oh, let's do that. I'm scared they're going to fall on our heads.

Yeah, I like that idea. Can't believe how hard I threw it against the wall.

It is 9pm right now, and this train will get to the Georgia, Azerbaijan border sometime between 11 and midnight.

We think.

We think nothing is certain.

Based on the Internet, I think this.

Is the most nervous we've ever been about a border crossing before.

So if you don't there is some beef between Armenia and Azerbaijan, you actually cannot cross the border between the two countries because there's this area of contestant land that from what we understand, they both want control of, which is why.

We had to come back to Georgia in order to go to Azerbaijan.

And from what we've read, the Azerbaijan customs people don't like it. If you've been to Armenia, you can technically still get into the country. So, like, we should be fine. Like, everything we've done is above board. But we've heard that they'll give you some trouble if you have been to Armenia before.

We're just a little nervous that they're going to ask a bunch of questions, and the language barrier might make it a little tricky, and we just don't want to make anybody upset.

I think the real issue here is that if you're in Armenia, you can actually go into the conflict zone. And if you've been to the conflict zone, then you're not legally allowed to enter Azerbaijan. So I think we'll get a lot of questions about what we did in Armenia, which was not go to the conflicted area.

But what if we can't communicate? And what if there's scary and mean?

Now we wait for two hours. Okay. We are only an hour into the ride. This is all happening a lot faster than we thought. The cabin attendant just knocked on our door, made us leave it open, and just said, customs.

I'm nervous. I'm just nervous. They had a whole sticker. Nothing's happened yet. I don't think this is gonna be a video. I think it's just the Georgian people letting us out of Georgia. They shouldn't be too preserved.

We're stopping. Nate sees a police stat.

It's hot again.

They're coming.

So the Georgian customs official disappeared with our passport about 30 minutes ago.

And.

They turned the train off. And I don't mean to be a complainer, but it must be 100 degrees in here.

Just sweating.

So much sweat.

So it's been almost an hour since they took our passport, and I'm assuming that they've taken everybody else's passport on the train because they turned the train off. It got really hot inside, and now everybody else is just hanging out outside the train waiting, I guess, to get our passports back. I'm not sure if we're stamping out of Georgia and into Azerbaijan right now or if we're just leaving Georgia. Hopefully we're doing both since we've already been waiting for an hour.

You can totally get back on the train.

Customs forms. We're moving.

AC is going to come back on.

So sleep.

From what I think I understood from our cabin attendant, we will be at the border of Azerbaijan in 10 minutes to go through customs there.

I think we've just arrived at the border. This is where things could get interesting. She doesn't seem too concerned.

That was really scary. This stamp means we are in Azerbaijan.

Did you say that? Weird. Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan.

I think it's Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan.

It turns out what I read on the Internet was correct. The customs official was not excited that we had been to Armenia.

It was so scary. He came in our room and he said, have you been to Armenia? And Nate said, yes.

What was his next question?

Why.

Oh, why? And they said, tourism. And he said, do you agree with Armenia? And they said, no. And he said, why? And they said, I don't know.

It just. It seemed like the right answer. I knew there was a dispute. I don't know the details of the dispute to know who I agree with.

Yeah, I was just saying they're like.

But I figured the guy from Azerbaijan did not want me to agree. Agree with Armenia. And then we had to go into this separate room. Like, they took one of these rooms that we're in right now and, like, set it up as, like, a little office. He took our picture with the camera, gave us the stamp.

He asked him if I spoke Russian, which was weird.

All in all, it was a painless process. He was a pretty intimidating man. And then we met some other soldiers at the end who were super nice people. Not near as intimidating as the one customs guy.

And now we're moving in the ACS.

Back on, and it is 1230, and we are going to try to get some sleep.

As Usual. I'm doing a bathroom tour. It smells really, really bad.

Toilet. I think this needs flush. Don't know what this is.

Soap.

And another soap.

Shower.

Not the worst I've been in, but not. I'm gonna leave now. Time to make our beds. Which one's the light?

Good.

Thank you.

Good morning. It is eight o' clock and I slept like a baby last night. I don't know if I was just really tired or if this is just a really smooth train. And there's a hot water machine just like on the Trans Siberian. So we get to have coffee. We should be to Baku in about an hour. From the looks out the window, it looks like a drier deserty Armenia. Good morning. Good morning. Please give me sheets.

Give me. Okay.

Thank you.

First time Baku tourist.

Yes. Yes, it looks beautiful. And 13 hours later, we have arrived in Baku. It is absolutely crazy how quickly it went from like desert nothingness to this huge modern city.

It's so hazy and hot. Okay, but this is a nice train station.

Now we just had to find our way to our Airbnb, which we think should be close.

We're pretty sure we found our Airbnb based on this big 11 that's up on the wall. But we've tried contacting our host.

The subscriber you are calling is busy. Please call the line or call later.

We're here and he is nowhere to be found. So we're standing out in the Baku heat. Melting. I think this is him. Not him. Not our host. Just waved at a random guy.

He seemed like he was decided to see us.

Only one day.

Ah, we have finally made it to our home for the next 24 hours. Our Airbnb host was a very interesting guy. He made sure to take us around to all the faucets and show us that the water worked in each one of them. I've never had that happen before.

You just never know what you're gonna get. But we're going to end this vlog here because we only have one full day in Baku because we're leaving in the morning. So if you want to see us explore the city, watch the next vlog.

Also, we just realized that this is our 80th country. Yeah, only 20 more to go.

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I am so proud of us right now. Our train is at least. Oh, yeah, an hour, 15 minutes. Oh.

It'S so much heavier than mine. Let's see how this looks.

Let's see how this looks. Maybe it looks better. Do we still look orange?

I'll remember this when I'm riding my review. Just kidding. I normally leave really nice reviews. Unless it's really bad.

I'm just hot hungry.