Blogs from North, Armenia, Asia

I Day 13 Armenia. Debed Canyon, Monasteries, Mikoyans and MiG 21s, and Fidel Castro. It’s a two hour drive from Lake Sevan to Alaverdi, the Debed Canyon. We savour our homely breakfast at the Lavash Teahouse. The selection this morning is omelette, frankfurters in a spicy gravy, pasta, dill salad (Marion’s favourite), tomato and cucumber salad, semolina, yoghurt, figs, stewed grapes and berries, quince in syrup, prunes, cake and bread. Lots of Germans in the restaurant this morning on a coach tour. It’s been a pleasant friendly place. A hardworking team of men run the catering, a harder working and smaller team of women do the laundering and bedroom changeovers. An ever hungry posse of good natured dogs hang about and try to scrounge food. We didn’t see a single cat in Armenia until six or ... read more

As Armenia isn’t that far from Tbilisi, we decided to go on a day trip there, as neither of us had visited it before. Our guide/driver, Irakli picked us up at around 9am, which goes to show how close it is because of the late start! Irakli explained that there’s a lot of animosity between Georgians and Armenians due to culture clashes and nationalism. People love their own country so much, they believe that’s it’s the best at everything and have disdain for others. That sounded VERY familiar! His father in law for example refused to try Armenian brandy, but our driver convinced him to try a sip and little by little, he drunk it. Now our driver says that though Georgian wine is better, Armenian brandy is superior. It took him all night to get ... read more

Noc nic moc, bo ma furt budili prichodzi ludia. Na ranajkach bola aj sikmacka rodinka s malym dievcatkom. To uplne, ze na zjedenie. Sikmacke male deti (hlavne dievcata) su dost roztomile. Po jedle vyplatenie ubytka kartou a smer bus zastavka marsutiek pred kfc na mashtots ulici. Ako som sa blizil k zastavke uz prichadzalo moje cislo 259 co smeruje na severny bus terminal. 259 neni marsutka ale klasicky mhd bus. Jedna cesta stoji 100d a plati sa pri vystupovani vodicovy. Niektore busy tu maju na boku cinsku zastavu. Tieto busy su darom z ciny pre armenov. Nakonec sa rozhodujem ist do dilijan marsutkov, bo vypadovka z mesta je taka seliaka a hlavne ma zacalo bolet brucho, co by fakt neprispelo moc ku komunikacii so sofermi. Na bus terminali (len parkovisko a neaka budova co mozno v ... read more

Über Nacht ist vor dem Hotel ein blauer Mercedes mit FFB Kennzeichen aufgetaucht und ich frage mich,, ob der Besitzer schon weiß, dass sein Auto gestohlen ist, oder ob er tatsächlich auch in diesem Hotel wohnt. Die Abfahrt war erst um 9.00, weil es das Frühstück nicht früher gab..... Die Fahrt zur Grenze war nicht lang, dauerte aber lang, weil die zahlreichen Schlaglöcher einen höchst kunstvollen Slalom erforderten. Es sah aus der Ferne sehr lustig aus, wie die Autos und LKWs in Schlangenlinien dahinkrochen. An einer Stelle war eine Straßenfräse zugangen gewesen, aber statt das herausgefräste Material wegzuräumen, war es zu Haufen aufgeschüttet worden, wie gigantische Maulwurfshaufen. Das machte die Situation noch verworrener, denn nun musste man auch noch diesen Haufen ausweichen, um 11.00 Uhr waren wir an der Grenze. 80 km, zwei Stunden. Die georgische ... read more

We had a lazy start in the morning as the hotel cook doesn't start until 9am. This is what holidays are all about - not rushing anywhere. It was the usual breakfast of bread, preserve, eggs, cheese and sour cream. We loaded up the car but Saro discovered that the battery was flat. While he phoned a friend to help him, Rod and I went for a walk in the other direction from the previous day. We found a lovely looking theatre that was being used as a furniture shop and an abandoned playground, another relic of the soviet times. Once we got back to the hotel, Saro had got the car started and we were on our way. His friend invited us for coffee at his home. This is very common in Armenia and it ... read more