Category: Asia Minor

Thursday & Friday, the 29th & 30th of March

After our last post, we stayed in the beautifully named town of Yeghegnadzor. Our guesthouse hosts were very attentive, if a bit reserved. No luck trying to make smalltalk. They prepared us a wonderful evening dinner of fish, tolma (minced meat wrapped in wine leaves) and salads:

In the evening we also met our co-guests: a Belgian-Czech couple that were already a few days in the area, and pointed us towards a nice hike in the surrounding mountains. We hope to meet them again in Hoeilaart 🙂

So on thursday, we set out for the deserted monastery of Tsakhatsqar. Early in the day, we passed by a little jewish cemetery. Apparently there used to be a jewish community in these mountains in the 13th-14th century, but this cemetery is all that is known about them:

Walking up the mountain, we didn’t meet a single soul, but were welcomed by some very nice views at the monastery:

As rain threatened we abandoned the further hike to Smbataberd fortress, and instead drove to the Nonavank monastery. By this time we were getting a bit tired of all the monasteries, to be honest 🙂

On Friday we continued on our way to the border, passing by yet another monastery, in Tatev (this is the last one, promise!):

(Nice view from the bishop’s palace. These guys got all the good stuff in the middle ages!)

(In this picture: Tom crawling from the bishop’s latrines.)

We also found another Silk Road reference:

We stayed the night in Kapan, driving by the Nagorno Karabakh border on our way there. For those of you that are interested: this is Azeri territory occupied by a de facto independent Armenian republic. A brutal war was fought over the area in the early 90s. This conflict is still smouldering, so Armenians and Azeris still aren’t on speaking terms.

(The restaurant in Kapan had cigarettes on the menu. You can imagine what it smelled like inside…)

Saturday, the 31st of March

We set out to cross the Armenia-Iran border on Saturday. The day started out not so well: first some of the densest fog so far while crossing mountains (makes for a very pleasant drive, I tell you)…

Intermezzo quiz:
Can you tell which fog belongs to which country? We’ll provide the answer below this post!
Countries: Serbia, Turkey, Armenia
Photos:

… Then we made it almost as far as Meghri, when we ran into a really big nail. Luckily, changing the tire didn’t take us too long, and a repair shop was nearby. So after only half an hour, we were again under way.

(Last picture: plugged and ready to go!)

The border experience itself was rather funny this time: on the Armenian side the luggage control was thorough, but the guards were cracking jokes with us the whole time. On the Iranian side everybody seemed confused that we drove a Belgian car all the way to Iran. After lots of gesturing and talking to us like we understood Farsi, an English speaking official was found. We understood that we had to go back to the start of the border control, to pass through an X-ray machine with the car. So we duly did. Again lots of gesturing and shouting. Apparently we misunderstood, it was not an X-ray machine (no idea what it was then :). They wanted us to take our luggage out and move this through another machine inside. As nobody accompanied us, they just took our word that we did so, strangely enough. The most important thing to them, as far as we could tell, was that we didn’t bring any wodka into the country…
After getting our Carnet de Passage stamped, we finally drove into Iran. We drove along the border for a while through the Aras river valley, before we drove on to Tabriz to spend the night.

On our way to Tabriz, we had to top up our fuel tank for the first time in Iran, which was a bit confusing. The guy at the fuel station didn’t speak any English, but with some difficulty we finally understood that we had to pay 300 000 Iranian Rial. Which seems like a lot at first sight, until you realise 1 euro equals 60 000 Rial. Which means we paid exactly… 5 euros for 50 liters of diesel. So we’re basically driving around Iran for free 🙂

(Later on, we changed a 1000 dollars to Rials, and we ended up with 50 million Rials. When you know the largest bank note is for 500 000 Rials, you realise we ended up with lots of grubby bank notes…)

Sunday, the 1st of April

Our first real note on Iran is the origin of the title of this post. So far we’ve noticed that Iranians are just as friendly as we had hoped for, going by our travel research. This changes however, when they get in their car.

Iranian traffic is hell.

Simple as that. To give you an idea, we’re paraphrasing a quote from the Lonely Planet: “Some would describe Iranian traffic as chaotic and unpredictable. Others would say it’s a death-defying circus.” We’re inclined to agree with the latter. Whatever we wrote about Turkey earlier, we take it back…
Drivers weave in and out of lanes without indicating, cutting you off, speeding past you left and right… Basically just doing whatever they like. In the cities, you need to have a 360° view around your car at all times. Driving around in a city for an hour gives you an instant headache. Luckily, we’re avoiding Teheran, which is supposed to be worst of all :).

But as written earlier, the Iranians we’ve met personally so far, have been very kind and welcoming. We regularly receive stuff for free, everybody welcomes us to their country, invitations to lunch…

(Bazaar in Tabriz.)

On our first complete day in Iran, we drove from Tabriz to Kandovan, a little troglodyte village in the mountains. Supposed to be really beautiful. What we didn’t take into account however, is the festivities around Iranian New Year, No Ruz. No Ruz is the 21^st of March, but everyone takes two weeks off, so everything is packed with Iranian tourists until early April. So when we arrived in Kandovan, it was sheer chaos: cars trying to park everywhere, lots of people, cars honking. So we beat a hasty retreat. Besides, under a grey sky, Kandovan itself wasn’t much to look at either:

We wanted to drive a large part of the way to Teheran (where we would pick up Abdel on the 3^rd), so we hit the road again. The idea was to drive by the Colorful Mountains on our way to Zanjan. Tom thought he had found a nice way through the Mountains, with only a small detour. One problem: on arriving in the neighborhood, this road didn’t exist (according to our GPS). So we had to retrace part of our steps, and the small detour became a big one. No Colorful Mountains either, but still some nice views along the way:

In the end we decided to drive on all the way to Qazvin (500 km from Tabriz). We made it, but it took us until midnight. Two more examples of Iranian kindness though.
For the first time, we encountered toll stations on the highway. When we passed the first one, Wafa asked the guy behind the counter how much we owed him. He just looked at us, said ‘No’ with a dour face, and let us through. Someone’s fed up with his job, we thought. However, ever since, we’ve only been paying at 1 out of 4 toll stations we pass. Most officials just welcome us to Iran and wave us through :).
On arriving at the Qazvin hotel we picked from the travel guide, the guy at the reception first gave us a nice discount on our room, and then a free upgrade to a suite. Slept like a baby!

Monday, the 2^nd of April

On Monday, we wanted to go hiking in Alamut Valley, home of the Castles of the Assassins. The Assassins were a mystic cult of… assassins, whose might was only broken by the Mongols invading the Middle East in the 13^th century. Their castles were besieged and destroyed, leaving behind nothing but ruins. Supposed to be a really beautiful hike.

However, as we soon found out, this day was also the feast known as ‘Nature’s Day’ in Iran. With ties to Zoroastrianism, one of the oldest organized religions, this feast means Iranians everywhere decide to go picknicking for a day. Mostly in the parks nears the cities, but also in Alamut Valley it seems. From the moment we left Qazvin, we were stuck in a traffic jam. With still 100 km to go.

(This holiday also has everybody putting wheat sprouts on the hood or roof of their car. This is supposed to fly off, and take with it all bad luck you’re carrying around with you.)

So we beat a hasty retreat (again), and decided to visit the city of Qazvin itself. The roads were empty (which was nice), but everything was also closed (not so nice). So we found ourselves with nothing to do. In the end we met a French couple, Elodie and Matthieu, who we ended up spending the entire afternoon with. They’d already spent two weeks in Iran, so it was interesting learning from their experiences.

Tuesday, the 3^rd of April

The holidays of the past couple of days, also meant that most offices had been closed. So on Tuesday, the first thing we had to do was get our car insurance for Iran. (We didn’t find an office when we first entered Iran, so we’d been driving without insurance for 3 days at this point, in some of the worst traffic of the world. Whoops.)

After 2 hours spent gesticulating, waiting, explaining, some more waiting and lots of phone calls in Farsi, we received our insurance. We decided to spend the rest of the afternoon in the Qazvin bazaar, which had a really nice terrace café (one of the only ones we’ve seen in Iran so far… there’s definitely an opportunity there).

(Saffron tea in the Qazvin Bazaar.)

Next time: picking up Abdel from the airport!

PS: answer to the quiz: first picture is Turkey, then Serbia, finally Armenia!

Saturday, the 24th of March
We did another excursion from Tbilisi, this time to David Gareja. Founded by an Assyrian dude (David) that came to Georgia to christianize some pagan Georgians, this complex of monasteries (15 at its peak!) had its highs and lows. Since the end of the Soviet Union, some have been reoccupied, but it’s still a remote and really quiet location, as proven by the 30 kms of unpaved road to get there.

First we drove by Rustavi, a place where the old Soviet factories are still (more or less) running:

After which we drove for kilometers on end through… nothing:

(That sign says: ‘go left for nothing, or continue straight on for more nothing’.)

In the end, it was worth it though. The most impressive monastery at David Gareja is called Udabno, and consists of a series of (half destroyed) caves hewn into a hillside, covered in beautiful 1000 year old frescoes (I just googled how to write ‘frescoes’):

While we were up there, we also had 2 random encounters: first, with a really big eagle. It soared only 10 to 20 meters above us. Sadly, we were unable to take a picture, but you can see Tom’s WOW-face here:

(That’s a clear WOW.)

Encounter number 2 was with 2 Azeri border guards that were patrolling the area. Apparently, this patch of land on the Georgia – Azerbaijan border is stil disputed. We asked nicely to take a picture with them, but received a clear no, and left it at that.

Sunday, the 25th of March
On Sunday we drove to Armenia, while passing by the monastery complex of Vardzia (another one, yay!).

Vardzia was once home to over 6000 monks, in 400 rooms, 13 churches… Sadly, war, earthquakes and the Soviet Union managed to empty it. Recently, it has been reoccupied by a few monks. Seeing the views, you’ll understand why:

Sadly though, Wafa sprained her ankle while walking around here. Still, it didn’t seem too bad, so we set out for the Armenian border. After driving on some of the worst roads so far (mud and potholes the size of a bath tub), we arrived in Armenia. After paying for local insurance, a car importation tax and even an emission tax (only 27€ in total), Northern Armenia looked like this:

(Much of the North looks like this: a snowy, wet, highland plateau (over 2000 m).)

By the time we arrived at our guesthouse, Wafa’s ankle really starting hurting. Luckily, our hostess, Raissa, had some Armenian medicine ready. First, she applied a slathering of toothpaste, which was left to dry for a few hours:

After washing this off, she soaked some durum bread in vodka, which was then applied to the ankle in question. Held in place with plastic foil and a big sock, Wafa spent the night like this:

(Shame about the vodka…)

Next morning, most of the pain was gone!

Monday & Tuesday, the 26th and 27th of March
Monday and Tuesday were spent in the North of Armenia and Yerevan, the capital. There’s nothing much to say here, as both didn’t really appeal to us.

Apart from some nice views and loads of monasteries, the North doesn’t really offer much. Also really poor, as this area never really recovered from a big earthquake in 1988, combined with the fall of the Soviet Union.

(Up: Haghpat monastery. Under: Sanahin monastery.)

Unlike Tbilisi, Yerevan wasn’t really inviting. Much of the center has been rebuilt in recent years, leaving you with the impression it lacks a soul. Just our opinion, of course. We did visit the National History Museum of Armenia, though, which had a really nice Bronze Age collection (sadly, no photos were allowed to be taken.) Also learned a lot about the Armenian Genocide of the early 20th century. The tragic history of the Armenian people is also captured by the fate of Mount Ararat (the one from the Bible – Ark of Noah). Historically, this mountain formed part of the Armenian heartland. In the struggle between the Russian and Ottoman empire, however, Armenia got divided, so that Mount Ararat is now in modern Turkey, but always looming over a large part of Armenia. We could actually see it from our guesthouse balcony in Yerevan:

Also worth a mention is the Geghard monastery, in the vicinity of Yerevan. Really dark and foreboding atmosphere:

Wednesday, the 28th of March
We started travelling further south, passing by Lake Sevan, a huge lake on the eastern side of Armenia. Worth mentioning here are the kachkars of Noratus. Kachkars are a sort of memorial stone, only found in Armenia, often with inscriptions on the person they’re commemorating. Noratus has the largest collection of them, about 800 in total, some dating from as far back as the 9th century. Kind of looks like a cemetery:

After passing over the Selim pass, we came across our first caravanserail of the Silk Road! Finally, a connection! This hall, dating from 1332, offered refuge to weary merchants and their draught animals. Even after almost 700 years (at 2400 meters!) it still looks magnificent:

While up there, we also met Armin, who was selling his self-produced wares (still merchants on the Silk Road!):

After tasting some of his 60% homebrew vodka, we suddenly liked Armenia a whole lot more!

Monday & Tuesday, 19th and 20th of March – Turkey
In the end, we drove through Turkey in two days: From Izmit (near Istanbul) to Unye on the Black Sea Coast, and from there to Batumi in Georgia. Quite uneventful days, except for that moment where Tom pulled down his pants in a Turkish post office.

Wait, that needs some backstory.

We’d been driving through Turkey on some very nice highways (see previous post). Getting on and off those roads, we always passed some sort of electronic toll system. However, as there were no ticket booths or barriers, we just drove straight through, assuming we would have to pay when exiting. This didn’t happen the first day. On the second day of doing this, an alarm started blaring when we left the highway.

Mildly concerned, we checked our guide book: apparently, you buy credit to use these roads in a Turkish post office when entering the country. They register your car, after which cameras detect you joining or leaving the toll roads. Fuck.

We pulled over in the next town and went into the post office. No one spoke any English, but with google translate and a lot of gestures, they understood our problem. Apparently you have up to 50 days to pay your dues, so we weren’t in any trouble. They did need our car papers and passports though, to register everything. Passports, which were in Tom’s moneybelt. Tom’s moneybelt, which was nicely tucked inside his pants. Woops.

So, Tom found a quiet nice little corner in the office, got the passports, and the registration was finished. Nobody seemed to mind the pantsdropping, as they started talking about football. (These guys knew all about Belgian football, somehow.)

That night, we stayed in a beautiful hotel in Unye, in an old 19th century house with massive fireplaces:

Next day, we just drove straight on to Georgia, as our views of the Black Sea were mostly limited to this:

Wednesday & Thursday, 21st & 22nd of March – Georgia: Batumi & Tbilisi
We arrived in Batumi the previous evening and went to bed early, after another fishy dinner and a nice walk through the old town. Batumi is sort of like the Georgian Riviera, lots of old houses and also very new and modern architecture. Very nice entry into Georgia.

On Wednesday, we drove on to Kutaisi. Nothing much to see there, cathedral was a bit meh and the nearby Gelati Monastery nearby was also a bit bland. Very nice frescos inside the church though.

On the way there, we noticed something about cars in Georgia though… They seem to be having a bumper problem. Also, a lot of Mercedes. A lot.

In the evening, we arrived in Gori. Famous for only one thing: birthplace of Ioseb Jughashvili, AKA Stalin! We stayed in a lovely guesthouse, with Lea as our host. After a warm welcome, we went out for a typical Georgian dinner: ginkhali with an eggplant walnut salad:

As you can see, ginkhalis are a kind of dumplings, filled with a very tasteful broth and mushrooms, meat, potatoes…

The next day we left for the old capital of Georgia, Mtksheta, and the new, Tbilisi. Lovely cathedral in Mtksheta (and some very nice candy ;):

Tbilisi is also a very nice city to walk around in, if you ignore the mental traffic. (Georgians like to drive anywhere. Makes us wonder if traffic is only going to get worse the further East we go.)

(Left: 4400 year old version of our Suzuki. Right, the quirky clock tower in the old town of Tbilisi.)

Friday, the 23rd of March
Today, we wanted to drive to Mount Kazbegi, to see the Samebi Tsminda church. Apparently, this one of the most iconic places of Georgia. The pictures we saw certainly looked gorgeous.

However, we already had a bad feeling when checking the weather report this morning: rain, snow, temperatures around 0°C…
But hey, we didn’t come this far to be turned back so easily! After a couple of hours of rain, the rain turned to snow. The higher we went, the messier conditions got. Especially when random truck lines started blocking the road at 2300 meters altitude…

(We were close to the Russian border, so probably a customs thing.)

In the end, we made it to the village below the church (on a hilltop). Following the road signs, we started driving up the hill on a nice asphalt road. This road soon changed into a hell of mud, rocks and water though. After several attempts to climb on, we decided to drive back to the village before we got stuck in the mud. We still need some practice offroading before we take on this kind of hell… 🙂

Back in the village, we found Manas and his cute Lada 4×4:

For just 40 Georgian Lari, he drove us up and down the mountain, which took us nearly an hour in the end. Looking back, we’re glad we didn’t do this with Suzy. It’s amazing what kind of beating these old Soviet cars can take!

The destination was worth it though:

 

After an exhilarating ride back down, we were happy to find Suzy unscathed!