Caspian Sea Ferry from Baku, Azerbaijan to Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan (+ Aqtau, Kazakhstan)

I hadn’t seen anything new for awhile so inputting my recent experience (Oct 2017)
-you can buy ferry tickets to both Turkmenbashi and Aqtau in Baku. My experience indicates that the present situation is that the ferry to Turkmenbashi departs from Baku and the Aqtau ferry from Alat (~75 km south of Baku), but again tickets for both can be bought in Baku.

- The ticket office can be found as follows – From Port Baku Shopping Mall, take the pedestrian underpass on the main road on the side toward the Caspian Sea direction. When you come up, follow along the road in the direction away from Baku centre. A few meters away there is a park with a wall running along the back of it that you cant tell what is on the other side (it’s the port). Heading diagonal left you will eventually see a children's playground. Approx 5-10 mins walk. The wall ends about there. Right behind there is the ticket office. It is in what looks like a half size transport container with a window on the right side of the road before the port access barrier. This is the office where Vika is (+994 55 26653 54). She speaks English and sells the boat tickets to either destination.

-It appears Vika only sells tickets for Azerbaijan boats. In my case I was heading to Turkmenbashi (and luckily for me Vika was honest), she told me I should take the next Turkmenistan boat as that was the next departure, as the Azeri boats may be a few days until next departure. She couldn’t sell me that ticket, and instructed me to pay on the boat, which is what I ended up doing (FYI – prices as follows for 3 types – general where you sit anywhere although there was a lot of couch and chair space in my sailing - $50 USD, dual room with small bathroom+shower - $80USD, single with small bathroom and shower - $105USD). Foreigners need to pay in USD.
-It seems boats for Turkmenbashi are regular but not every single day. Doesn’t seem like you would need to wait more than an extra day or 2 if you didn’t get the day you hoped.

-Some travellers I met who were going to Aqtau mentioned that they had been delayed a few days for their journey. Each day they had hoped to hear news the boat was leaving, but had to wait further. They then got indication that indeed it was leaving that evening when I met them.
-My particular travel experience was as follows – told to arrive at Baku port at 8pm (just beside the ticket office). The guards point you to a waiting room. Waited there for 4 hours, and then everyone hops in a bus to the customs/ immigration area. Boat ended up leaving at 330am. Arrived in Turkmenbashi at 4pm. One small tip. It may be worth trying to leave boat first. A lot of people are carrying multiple luggage (there seems to be no restriction per person, so some had like 7 boxes etc) and the customs process is very long as they scan and search each one. Took more than a few hours to get through.
-In Turkmenbashi – have exact 14 USD for Arrival fee (or whatever it is). This is a separate fee to any visa fee of course (I already had my visa)
-Another FYI – Bring a lot of USD to cover your whole stay as its difficult to get money out of ATMs here. Plus you wouldn’t want to as the Black market exchange rate is double the official rate which is what you would get if you used an ATM/Visa cash advance or a bank. At present it is like 7.1 to 1 USD whereas official rate is 3.45 to 1 USD. You should be able to change easily in any bazaar/market, just don’t do it in plain site perhaps obviously. I did hear of one bad experience.

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