The Rest of Georgia and Armenia - Feb 2007.

From the wilds of Armenia...... Back in Feb 2007


Bloody Iranians. Rejected for a visa three times - tried to pay the requisite bribes and that still didn't work. Don't know why they hate me. Anyway that was a couple of weeks ago and after much swearing and stomping of my size threes I decided to take the hint and accept that I wasn't getting into Iran. I am over it. But hey all the sympathy I had for their isolation and plight is gone - stuff em.

Anyway back to the Caucuses. Georgia rocks.

Only totally humiliated myself once.....You'd have thought by now that I would have learnt to avoid shortcuts, but no. Went up to one of the major landmarks in Tbilisi - Mother Georgia - she stands on a big hill (quite an attractive lady for a 20m white aluminium statue) in one hand she has a wine goblet to welcome her guests and in the other she has a sword to fight off her enemies - she pretty much sums up Georgia - welcoming to guests but don't cross her.... (postscript from Nov 2008, well actually the Russians managed to cross georgia and win, so my foreign policy analysis from 2007 wasn't very good!)

Anyway after climbing up all the way there i didn't fancy going back the way I came. So a shortcut seemed like a bright idea. Climbed down a fairly steep hill for about 100m and then got to a top of a church and couldn't get down any further except via a 10m rock face - I'm not known for my rock climbing skills. (un)luckily about 15 people were standing outside the church and could see my predicament and sent up a couple of youngsters to show me how to climb down - this produced great amusement - then the people in the church abandoned their service to see what the commotion was outside - priest included - and came out to watch. I'm a bloody idiot.

The roads are bloody awful - like one large pothole occasionally broken up by a small bit of bitumen, just enough to make you realise how bad the roads are.

Saw some very cool old churches, including some in caves on the Azeri border, and also went to see Gori - Stalin's birthplace. Interesting. Especially the english tour that they were giving the Germans - the guide spent most of the tour talking about how Stalin crushed the German's in WWII .....I had to try to stop giggling.

The poor Georgians haven't quite "got" capitalism. Each town you pass through (slowly, very slowly) has it's own roadside vendors, first town was selling tomatoes, next place sells cucumbers, next place sells bread - so by the time you've got half way accross the country you'd be able to make a sandwich. And, they were competing on price, how dumb is that, driving cucumber seller down to the lowest price isn't going to result in a booming local, nor an easy to make sandwich.


Armenia

I thought Georgia would be hard to beat for friendliness and stuff to see but Armenia topped it. First night in I went to the Opera (as you do) - couldn't understand any of it but it was cool and I thought it was some shakespeare thing, I was betting on Othello - actually it some local play about some important King - but hey it seemed a bit like Othello to me.

While at the Opera a girl (Anna) of about 25 tripped over my feet, I apologised alot, and she was just staring at me - when she finally worked out that i was speaking English she happily chatted away to me - turns out i was the first native English speaker she'd ever run into. Anna invited me to visit her workplace - she worked at the local Armenian equivalent of the Vatican - the Armenians were the first Christian Country and are some form of Orthodox.

So popped out to see her, involved getting badly lost, a share taxi and a mini bus but eventually made it out there and tracked down were Anna worked. I got taken on a tour of the various churchy bits by some novice priests (monks? - guys in brown robes) and met the 2IC of the Armenian Orthodox Church - they clearly don't get many visitors. The highlight was being taken into the private collection, my lonely planet said it exisited but it was really hard to get into unless you were some foreign dignatory (or in my case a scruffy looking Aussie) - they had religious icons from all over the world including a bit of the original crucifix (it was about 5cm long and looked really old - wasn't able to authenticate it).

At the end of my religious experience my trusty gorup of guides (by now I had about 7 people taking me around) started asking about Australia, church and asked about my local church. I admitted, stupidly, that I wasn't religious. The the conversation turned to baptisms - I (stupidly, this is becoming a theme...) said that "No, not baptised", at which point the 2IC of the Church and my 6 other guides just looked shocked and then starting looking at the pond (which was half frozen) as if to say, "well, lets baptise this heathen". I must of looked a little wary because they didn't push it.

The rest of this Blog should have the following tales in it:

• mad Armenian party for my taxi drivers uncles 75th birthday out in the wilds of rural armenia.
• Ski Lifts in Armenia (who'd of thought?)
• a roaring argument with taxi drivers in Prague (when will taxi drivers learn not to cross me)
• an intense dislike of one former Yugoslavian country - grrrr.
• The accidental trip to croatia, which turned out to be excellent.

And another bunch that i should write about at some point.

Turkey Feb 2007

Eastern Turkey Feb 2007

Photos -
http://picasaweb.google.com/MSherrin/EasternTurkey2007#

Have had an excellent time on the first 2 weeks of my eastern turkey, caucuses and iran (hopefully) trip. Highlights so far have been old armenian church on a little island in Lake Van and the most wonderful friendly people. Not seen another western tourist - I seem to be the only person mad enough to think a trip like this is a good idea.

Georgia is truly one of the strangest countries I have ever visited. But I should start from the start.

I am supposed to be in Iran but the saga with that ever elusive visa continues so in some new hope of getting my Iranian visa I headed to Dogubuyazit in eastern Turkey where my new found friend Zafer, the travel agent, runs a sideline in getting visas, for a price, for people who have failed through the usual channels and need a 'tour' to be arranged so a visa can be obtained. But I hold no real hope.

Dogubuyazit is about 35k from the Iranian border and the region is a significant place in terms of biblical history, Armenian history and Kurdish separatism. It's a real frontier town, complete with many soldiers, tanks, frequent ID card or passport control checks, a thriving black market and is completely un-Turkish. I should add that it's winter over here and everything is covered in snow and ice and it's f**ing cold.

Mt Ararat rises up over the town and it is spectacular. The place where some believe Noahs Ark came to rest was worth a visit - the actual site is covered in about 6 foot of snow but still very interesting. Over the years Dogubuyazit has been controlled by the persians, armenians and the russians and the old capital has certainly seen better days. I've attached some photos above of the old seat of the capital - Ishak Pasa Palace (1685) and the other sights.

Public transport is a bit thin on the ground so I hired a car and driver (Ibrihim) to get around. The guidebook says that soccer is the Turkish national obsession - but nah it's not, it's petrol prices. A litre is 3 lira - about $2.70 (imagine the outcry in Aust if petrol was that expensive... it'd be the end of little johnny). Over the border in Iran it's about 9cents - so yep there is a fair bit of smuggling going on.


Ibri (as he likes to be called) takes me to a"cheap cheap iranian benzine" place in Dogu where it is only 2 lira. As we go around the region he takes me to places where the price is as low as 1lira - he seemed to have some network of cousins who know where to find the cheap petrol - "miss, miss it is kurdish benzine and we are kurds so it is our benzine". Not sure about the accuracy - but anyway.

Unsuprisingly there are many, many abandoned petrol stations in the region and a fair proportion of the Jandarma are involved in trying to stop the flow of cheap petrol - surprise road blocks where if you have an extra container of fuel you are fined (or shot) etc etc. Just before the roadblocks you see a whole bunch of trucks pulled up with their drivers furtively trying to put their "spare" fuel either back into their truck or sell it to passers by - this all seems to happen just away from the view of authorities and is the the subject of much amusement to Ibri and all the other drivers that he meets on the way. I asked Ibri who was making all the profits from the smuggled petrol - "oh miss there are many people, many people we must pay bribes to".

But it ain't all good petrol....on my last night in Dogu, Zafar and his friend, with an unpronounceable name which sounded something like issi, take me out of town for fine kurdish dining (mutton chops and salad) and on our way back the car dies. So picture this, it's pitch black, we are way out of town, the roads are covered in snow or thick, greasy ice and the wind chill factor was right up there. These 2 guys have no idea how to get this car going - Zafar manages to flood the engine. We try to push start the car - Issi and I are pushing the car, slipping over on the ice and laughing at poor Zafar who is mortified that his female guest is pushing the car. The car kinda starts does some bunny hops and dies again - repeat above steps for 1k or so. By this time Zafar is swearing in some strange strangled sounding langauge and screaming that the "iranian benzine is corrupt" and then over pulls a very fancy car with two well dressed kurdish men - I think spiffs is the best way to descibe them - they looked like mafia guys. They try to fix car - fail - so that's 4 men standing around an engine making hmming noises and not knowing what they are doing. I am wet, from falling over about a dozen times on the ice, almost frozen and trying not to laugh at this absurd situation. The new guys put me in their car and drive me back to my hotel, (leaving Zafar and issi to deal with their car), these two don't seem to speak a word of english but insist on feeding me corn chips and some strange pickled celery - bizarre mob the Kurds - always trying to either feed you or give you a cup of tea.

The next day I quiz Zafar about them - and yup the guys were the local mafia and control the flow of iranian benzine. How cool - never thought I'd meet real mafiosa types or that i'd meet them in Turkey.

Enough of that. The sights of eastern Turkey are awesome - the area has only just opened up to tourism and I was the only tourist around. Highlights included some bloody old armenian orthodox churches - the area is all old Armenia, a bunch of very cool Seljuk castles and so much snow.

One arvo we got cut-off from Dogu by a blizzard - had a challenging time finding a hotel that Ibri thought would be OK for me to stay in because there was no way that we were getting over the mountain back to Dogu. Ibri and Zafar had the whole network of cousins ringing in on mobile phones trying to work out what the hell they were going to do with me and where they could possibly find an OK hotel out in the rather rough wilds of the area - I tried to explain that I was not fussy but to no avail. I think the main problem was that most hotels are brothels for the iranian truck drivers. All was fine though - it always is.....

On hotels, at some point remind me to tell you about Frank, the rat, and the lack of heating that brought us together one chilly evening.

From Dogu I headed to Trabzon. Nice enough city on the Black Sea - but has some problems with ultra right wing nationalism and soccer violence. Trabzon is where the Catholic priest was murdered last year and where the killers of the pro Armenian journo who was recently shot down are from. So it has issues. But the people I met while getting hopelessly lost about 3 times (stupid lonely planet map) were very friendly - insisting on personally escorting me to whatever I was trying to find and insisting on feeding me or giving me tea.

Next stop Georgia......