The best laid plans of mice and men….
Stalin’s Train Gonio Burial Place of St Matthew This lot will need feeding you know… Its certainly made for an interesting 24 hours trying to sort our passage to Russia out. It all really went wrong with the Poti to Novo ferry. We had enquired about that as soon as we arrived in Georgia and got the provisional sailing date of 15th July. We had applied for our visas based on this but the shipping company decided to cancel this sailing and the next one won’t sail until the 25th (if it actually sails at all) so we were left with two choices, sail to Ukraine or go on the rust...
Read MoreThe long and winding road…
We hopefully said our last farewell to the brothel and began the drive north up the Georgian Military Highway to the Russian Georgian border. We have decided to try to cross the land border right in the centre of the caucuses rather than drive to Poti and get the ferry after numerous lorry drivers told us it was the best way into Russia. They told us that despite it going within inches of Chechnya it was safe and so we approached the embassy in Tblisi to check. They said they had had no reports of problems but would advise against non essential travel to this area, however they would...
Read MoreHalt who goes there?
Our plan for Georgia was to visit the David Gareda monastery which is close to the Azerbaijan border in the desert like step. We had been told Taffy would easily navigate the dirt road route but when we got to the road we couldn’t even get on to it because it was so bad. Queue the arrival of the local drunks in their 4×4. They said there was a tarmac route over a huge hill that would lead back to the dirt road missing out the start section which had been rendered impassable for us by flood damage. They drove off erratically speeding up the hill and round the hairpin bends like mad...
Read MoreReturn to Tblisi
We left Yerevan and headed to see the two UNESCO sites just south at Echmiadzin. One is just ruins and a bit disappointing but the other is the Vatican of Armenia and is a complex of a small cathedral surrounded by gardens and priests accommodation buildings and various other churches dotted about the town. The cathedral seems to be working non stop with people coming in to kiss the icons and light candles as well as get children baptised. It seems a bit odd to see the baptism happening whilst others pray or do the rounds of the icons and all the while tourists mingle freely with everyone....
Read MoreYerevan
The crossing into Armenia was pleasantly hassle free. The Armenian officials were helpful taking us from point to point to get the visa, Taffy x-rayed, the insurance, the Eco-tax and finally to make the payment into the bank for all these things. There was no corruption and all the officials tried to speak the odd word of English. The controls were still the baffling ping pong array of going from pillar to post to get various stamps etc that seem to be a hang over from Soviet times. Once in, the scenery again instantly changed as we left the rolling hills behind and began climbing into the...
Read More
Recent Comments