He's amazed at the stark change in landscape. One minute you're in a lush mountain forest enshrouded in mist, the next minute you're in a sunscorched, arid, treeless plain. Azerbaijan has just about every climate type packed into this little country...

Yavlax is a fairly large city in the middle of the plain, with wide boulevards and modern government buildings standing serenely around the plaza . A couple of guys join him for a parkbench session. They look classy (as everybody does here) so he doesn't think any of it. But then he notices that one of them has slashes all up his arm and very red nostrils--suggesting he must be a heavy drug user. Something not quite right about their behavior either. Alarm bells go off, and he excuses myself abruptly and heads on.

Don't know how precarious that situation really was--but it was a good reminder that all thugs don't necessarily dress like thugs.

Luckily he finds another plaza where this time he's joined by a police officer who takes a break from his job guarding a government building to listen to some music. Definitely feel more at ease this time!

As in other cities here, he's taken a bit aback by the contrast between the money spent to spruce up the main boulevards (Yavlax even has a fake castle with statues of medieval warriors stationed on top) and the side streets where it seems hardly a penny of government money is spent...