A ferry across the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest inland body of water, from the Turkmenistan town of Turkmenbashi to Baku in Azerbaijan sounds like fun right?
In theory.
It’s not really a journey for everyone and it’s notorious for long waits and delays. But it is definitely an experience!
A Unique Adventure on the Turkmenbashi to Baku Ferry Across the Caspian Sea
With the Caspian Sea being one of only two accepted entry/exit points for the Turkmenistan Visa, it’s almost like and adventurer’s right of passage.
A journey on a Caspian Sea Ferry is a unique kind of experience that starts before you even set foot on the ship.
Whether you take a Caspian Sea ferry service from
Turkmenbashi to Baku,
Baku to Aktau in Kazakhstan, or even
Astrakhan in Russia, (the mysterious route that can neither be confirmed or denied),
be prepared to go through at least four stages of grief!
Denial: “They can’t be serious! That’s ridiculous.”
Anger: “WTF? Are they serious? So @#$%^*( annoying!”
Depression: “OMG, they’re serious. Everything here is @#$%^*”
Acceptance: “Seriously? ARGH. Fine.”
That’s just during the wait at the ticket window!
Caspian Sea Ferry Ticket Windows in Unexpected Places
This ticket sales window was, strangely, at the back of the port hotel, not in the departures terminal where you would think it’d be.
Even though there was a ticket sales window in the departures building, it seemed to be permanently closed.
That was a bit of a theme in the departures building. It was a very big, pretty and empty building.
Waiting To Buy Tickets For the Ferry Across the Caspian Sea
We had waited patiently in the Turkmenbashi port departure building since our arrival, on the overnight train from Ashgabat at 6am, until 11am. That was when ticket sales for the Caspian Sea ferry to Baku were set to begin.
The lady at the ticket window insisted that the truck drivers were to be processed first.
We had tried to get on the Azerbaijan owned ferry, Academik Topcubasov, that was also at the port.
That one only cost US$60 per person for a bed in a cabin.
Forced Into the More Expensive Ferry Across the Caspian Sea
The Turkmen staff at the Turkmenistan port had told us that only the Turkmenistan owned Caspian Sea ferry was taking passengers. Sounds legit, yeah?
Clearly it was a ploy to get people on to the more expensive Turkmenistan ferry across the Caspian Sea. US$100 per person for just a seat on a 12 hour ferry. Sounds awesome, in that completely unawesome way.
Another annoying thing was that they would only accept US Dollars as payment. We could not pay with Turkmen Manat and Turkmen Manat cannot be exchanged outside of Turkmenistan.
We were told the boat wouldn’t leave until the evening.
Eating to Pass Time While Waiting For Our Caspian Sea Ferry
We had time to waste, so we headed to the port hotel restaurant for some lunch and ice cream.
Considering the place was the only restaurant in the area, it turned out to be a lot more reasonable than one would figure. I paid about US$1.60 for a steak.
Immigration Procedure Before the Turkmenbashi to Baku Ferry
Back in the port departures building, the four of us joined the line to go through to the immigration area.
For some reason, port staff were only letting small groups of four people through at a time, so we had to wait a while. A long while.
When we finally got to go through the opaque blue door that had been keeping us out, the immigration area was pretty empty.
That meant there was no line for the luggage scanner located near the bottom of the stairs that lead to the immigration clearance area.
Shiny, Redundant Immigration Machines and Empty Shops at the Turkmenbashi Port
We were directed to use machines that scanned our passports and took our pictures. The machines didn’t give us any kind of receipt, though.
We had to then go to an immigration officer to be stamped out, so the machines seemed to be quite redundant.
From there, we entered the departure lounge to wait for boarding. Most of the shop spaces were vacant. It seems they had reserved the third floor for shops but forgot to rent out the spaces.
There was only 1 duty free shop there and all it sold was sheets and towels. I guess they figured that was a niche market for people taking the Turkmenbashi to Baku ferry across the Caspian Sea.
Starting the Journey on A Ferry Across the Caspian Sea. Or Not.
We all quickly found ourselves rows of three seats each that we could use to sleep on. We waited on the boat for many hours, completely unsure of when it was going to leave. We asked around during the evening meal and no one was sure when we would leave.
When I saw trucks still being loaded onto the ferry at 11pm, I figured we wouldn’t be moving for a while.
We ended up going to sleep while still in port.
I decided to go outside where it was warmer. We still weren’t moving and we were still in the port area.
We’d been on the ship for 16 hours and not moved a single centimetre. Obviously, ferries work differently in Turkmenistan!
Caspian Sea Day Two – Finally, Our Turkmenbashi to Baku Ferry Was Moving!
Or were we?
I presumed we were moving super slowly because we were exiting the port area. Surely we’d gain some speed once further out.
But shortly after that, I went outside and realised that we’d stopped moving. The port was still clearly visible not far behind us.
Would our journey on the Turkmenbashi to Baku Ferry start that day? Or would we spend another night on the ‘sea’ in a stationary boat?
Helpful Staff on the Turkmenbashi to Baku Ferry – Caspian Sea Day Two
By this stage, we hadn’t showered for a few days. We’d taken an overnight train from Ashgabat immediately prior to spending two days on the ship.
Thankfully, one of the nice kitchen staff allowed all four of us to take showers in his personal cabin. That was much needed and awesomely refreshing!
Indecisive Captain on the Turkmenbashi to Baku Ferry
There was a rumour that the captain of the ship for this sailing was relatively new. Being new, he apparently thought there was a storm coming.
The thing is, the sky looked clear of storm clouds for as far as the eye could see and the water all around us was calm.
Staff on the boat didn’t even know what was going on.
They actually thought that we would be on the way to Baku that day.
By the evening we still weren’t moving and still had no idea what was going on. When we went to have the evening meal, we got a bit of a surprise.
Despite having already paid US$100 for our seat and onboard meals, the ship staff wanted to charge us for that meal. In Turkmenistan Manat, which we had gotten rid of.
Helpful Passengers on the a Caspian Sea Ferry
Luckily, some other, obviously awesome, passengers on the ship came to our rescue.
Firstly, some super friendly Azerbaijani truck drivers made sure that the four of us got meals from the kitchen.
Then a really kind Turkmen lady, who spoke English really well, shared some food that she had made at home and brought on board with her.
She obviously knew that the Turkmenistan to Baku Ferry often took days longer than it was supposed to.
Meeting People on the Ferry Across the Caspian Sea
This lady had figured out that I was a teacher because she’d heard me explaining something to someone earlier. I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.
As the only person on board that could speak English, she became our communication conduit. It was a bit weird when passengers asked for invitations to South Korea, from my companions. They had only started talking to them one minute beforehand.
Caspian Sea Day Two – Still Stationary and Wondering If Our Turkmenbashi to Baku Ferry Will Ever Move
That night we went to sleep again on the water, but still not moving. We were anchored just outside the port area, but still within Turkmenistan waters.
At that point, we had officially been on the Turkmenbashi to Baku ferry for over 30 hours and in the same spot for about half that time. We were possibly waiting out a storm that never came.
We’d been stamped out of Turkmenistan early afternoon on the Monday, but our Turkmenbashi to Baku ferry still hadn’t left Turkmenistan waters by the early hours of Wednesday, almost two days later.
Caspian Sea Ferry, Day Three – Finally Moving from Turkmenbashi to Baku!
The next day I managed to sleep in until 7am, probably because I was so exhausted from my lack of sleep over the previous three days.
It was about that time that we finally started moving.
For real!
We checked with the staff and they said we would be in Baku by 7pm.
Collectively, we found this claim a bit dubious, as we had also been told that the day before.
Following Our Turkmenbashi to Baku Ferry on the Map
We kept checking our progress on our map periodically during the day. It was extremely comforting to see that we were actually moving nicely across the Caspian Sea from Turkmenbashi to Baku.
Around 3pm it looked like we were very close to Baku and would make it quite a bit before 7pm. The prospect of getting in earlier than expected was exciting. We just knew that exiting the ship was going to be chaotic and time-consuming.
Then our final surprise came at about 17:30.
We were looking at the map to check how far we had to go. It was then that we realised that we’d sailed right past Baku!
Despite all the information that we’d read online that the Caspian Sea ferry port was in the city of Baku, the Port of Baku had actually moved to Alat in 2018.
That’s around 70 kilometres away from the city of Baku!
We had no idea how we were going to get into the city.
Entering the Port of Baku on a Caspian Sea Ferry
We were only making our way past the sandbar island outside of the port area after 7pm.
We were barely crawling at that point, I guess due to speed restrictions near the port.
Then we had to wait for the Azerbaijani tug boat to come out and guide us in.
Ferry Across the Caspian Sea – Land Ahoy!
You can’t imagine the joy we felt at finally being in Azerbaijan. But the challenges were not over yet.
We still had to get off the Turkmenbashi to Baku Ferry, go through immigration and then find a way to get into Baku.
It was 9pm by the time our Caspian Sea ferry docked at Alat.
Disembarking From the Turkmenbashi to Baku Ferry and Immigration at Alat
Staff became crowd controllers as they had to ensure that all the drivers exited first, in groups of 20. There were 50 drivers and the staff had their work cut out for them trying to keep the passengers at bay.
Waiting patiently, instead of pushing and shoving like all the other passengers were, paid off for us.
A staff-member-turned-crowd-control dude let us go with the last lot of drivers. That happened an hour after the boat had docked.
There were only 2 immigration officers, so even with such a small amount of people, there was still a pretty long wait.
We Made it From Turkmenbashi to Baku, Now How do We Get into Town?
It wasn’t far away from midnight by the time we had all made it through immigration. We found out at that point that it wasn’t possible to get a taxi from where we were, in the port area.
We had to get a port shuttle to the main road first. Luckily, while we were waiting, a port coach entered and we were told it would take us all the way to Baku for US$3. Sounded great to us!
I even managed to get a bit of sleep on the way in.
Should You Take the Turkmenbashi to Baku Ferry Across the Caspian Sea?
As fun as the ferry across the Caspian Sea from Turkmenbashi to Baku may or may not sound, I wouldn’t recommend it. Unless you absolutely can’t live without the ‘I’ve crossed the Caspian Sea on the Turkmenbashi to Baku Ferry’ bragging rights.
Or you’re trying the budget approach and Azerbaijan has the cheapest visa of the two allowable entry/exit points for Turkmenistan.
Follow the whole overland adventure from Hong Kong to Baku, Azerbaijan!
Travelling to Western China
Journey to Kazakhstan via Western China
Kazakhstan Border to Almaty
Adventures in The Almaty Region Of Kazakhstan
The Quirks of Eastern Kyrgyzstan
Silk Road to Southwestern Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan via the Dostyk Border Crossing
Unbelievable Uzbekistan
Underrated Uzbekistan
Travels in Tajikistan
Turkmenistan – Frontier to Fire
South Turkmenistan – Overly Impressive Capital to Caspian Sea Port
Turkmenbashi to Baku Ferry
Beautiful Baku
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23 Replies to “Turkmenbashi to Baku – 3 Days on the Caspian Sea”
That sounded like a hellish experience! If it happened in other countries they’d probably go out of business! :P
I know. We were thinking that would never happen on the Azerbaijani ferry! Then the Azerbaijani drivers pretty much said that exact thing to us, hehe.
It’s still an experience to remember huh :) do you share your travel experience with kids?
Oh yeah, for sure! I can wear the ‘I’ve done it’ badge proudly, hehe.
I do sometimes actually! But they haven’t even heard of a lot of the places I’ve been, so then it’s a whole thing where I have to explain where the place is in Chinese, while pretending that I don’t know Chinese. Because I’m an English teacher who couldn’t possibly know Chinese, right? ;o)
I haven’t heard of a lot of the Central Asian places you’ve been to! And I’m 33! They’re lucky to get you as a teacher. :) Why do you pretend you don’t know Chinese? To make teaching more efficient? Did you grow up in HK?
I’ve spoken to a lot of people, much older than you, that had no idea that some of these countries existed! I’d recommend visiting them to find out more ;o)
The school tells the kids that they can only speak English in our classes. Some of my younger students have cottoned onto the fact that I know some Chinese, because I sometimes answer their Chinese questions in English without thinking.
I have some kids that often come up to me in the hallway and say “你識講廣東話” to which I reply, “唔識講廣東話”. So they say, “You just said Chinese!”, then I say, “No, I said I don’t speak Chinese!”. They think I’m funny, hehe.
It seems daunting to visit those countries alone! Do you ever feel afraid?
Oh that’s like in Singapore, we’re supposed to only speak English in class.
Haha yes it’s hard to pretend not to know a language when it’s spoken around you all the time. It’s so cool that you know Chinese and know the Cantonese characters! I bet they find that cool too :)
Nah, I’m always excited to visit new countries!
Strangely enough they don’t think it’s anything special when I read their names off a Chinese name list, but me speaking Canto is a big shock to them, hehe.
I came to HK as an adult, but I’ve lived here long enough to claim right of abode and to be able to say 我係香港人 :oP
Love the pics ❤️
This is amazing traveling experience you shared with us. Thanks!
Thanks Vanesh! :o)
Oh wow, sorry that your experience went that way!
It’s all part of the adventure! I guess they can’t be awesome all the time, hehe.
I’m so sorry this happened, it sounds awful. I would be so stressed out in this situation!
I try not to stress about things beyond my control, but there was certainly a bit of frustration happening! My friend had a similar experience a week after me as well. Maybe it’s just how things work on Turkmenistan boats. Heh.
So sorry you had to experience that.
At least I can say I’ve done it and there’s no need to do it again! :o)
Sounds like a great adventure!
Well, it was interesting.
Thanks for this excellent information I was looking for it for a long time.
I’m glad I could help :o)
Three days for that short of a distance? Crazy what one will do for a visa.
Haha. Well I had no idea when I got on the boat that we’d be stationary for days! I thought the waiting would be to get on the boat.