8/5/14

8/5/14

This will be quick because I am enjoying my time aboard the Armenia. Yesterday, despite my better wishes, I slept in. I was concerned I wouldn't have enough time to do everything--the receptionist had told me Garni, Geghard, and Sevan were all possible in a day. But first, to avoid a situation in which I lacked transport, I went to the station and bought my ticket (platskart) for the next day's train to Batumi, whose schedule enabled me to actually not have a weird day in Tbilisi (because it gets in at 0:45 and would mean I would have to get a hostel.). Before buying the ticket, actually, a cab driver had approached me and offered to drive me to those three places for $100. I was hesitant, so after buying the ticket I agreed to Garni + Geghard for 15k dram (around $35). He was pretty friendly and the drive out there was absolutely gorgeous. I was still quite worried I wouldn't have enough time to do  all 3 places, so I went right for it when we got to Garni. It was then that I discovered that there was not much to see at this place, other than the ancient greek-style temple. I paid 1000 drams admission but I'm pretty sure that wasn't necessary; the admission was for the museum nearby (which didn't look awesome?). The cab driver hurried me through the ruins, saying that Geghard was more beautiful--and he wound up being right. Basically, Garni is a cool looking temple in the middle of a gorgeous landscape, but not more than that. It's really mostly impressive because of its setting. Oh, and I ran into one of the Slovakians. Again. Anyway, so that was alright, but could maximally take maybe 45 minutes, even if you did the museum, which didn't look very elaborate (but maybe it is…).

One of the many scenic gorges near Garni

We took another scenic drive to Geghard, and this was much more beautiful. One of the  things my travels have taught me is that the US does museums well, and when I noticed USAID paid for the information boards around the site, with information in english, I was assured this would be  quality. It was. A beautiful, ancient, and foreboding church in a steep valley with tons of caves.  Highly worthwhile; could easily spend an hour here (I spent maybe 30 or 45 minutes). After that, I decided to pay to go to Sevan--25000 dram to be exact. I thought this was a steal, until  I did the math and realized I was only a few bucks short of the original $100 I had tried to avoid. Oh well. We drove to Sevan and it was highly underwhelming--no real beach as far as I could tell (one of the hostel guests said the hotel might have one). Hiking the peninsula was quite nice though. I spent probably another 30 or 40 minutes here. I was going to take the train back, but since I would have to kill 2 hours to do so and get back too late to enjoy the cafes, I decided not to. It leaves the town near Sevan at 6 for an 8:30 PM return, so I would have also had to get dinner beforehand. But, seeing how gorgeous the drive  back was, I regretted this. The line goes right through a bunch of industrial towns in the Armenian highlands, which, though I could see them from the highway, would have been more interesting up close.  Also, the mountains and sparse mini-forests make for nice scenery. But this was only a small regret. The whole trip took from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM. So, if you're looking to do this trip, keep in mind that none of these sites, at least in my opinion, merit a whole lot of time so you can easily do all 3 in a day, and though I taxied around for 40k dram, public transit is available for parts (Yerevan--Garni and Yerevan--Sevan) though I don't know how easy to find it is and how helpful it is (apparently one leaves only every 50 minutes).

Geghard

 

Inside the monastery

Lake Sevan

Dinner was at Yerevan Tavern, which was nice, and then I hung out in Republic Square instead of my original plan to go to a café. However I was glad I did this because at 9:00 PM they sync the impressive fountain setup with music and jam out. This was nice in the  beginning when they were playing entire classical pieces but went swiftly downhill when the reject 80's hits and mashups started. Needless to say I went back to the hostel at around 9:45. I did still want to do something, however, and I decided  to go get a drink. I almost invited the other Americans but they were caught up in Peace Corps gossip and I realized that that would be  a drag to listen to them gripe about their idealistic 20something non-issues. So I went drinking alone, which actually turned out to be great. Though I was only wearing jeans, the banjo squirrel shirt, and sneakers, I went into something modestly labeled as  'jazz club' which when I went in was obvious turned out to be semi-swanky. However, they weren't pretentious at all, and the hostess/manager spoke good english and was very gracious. I had some brandy and then a white russian while listening to live jazz. It was very fancy, not in the trashy iggy azalea sense but in the good-place-to-chill-and-feel-culture sense. The bar I sat at was on the top floor, and the jazz was on the bottom. I would have liked to go to the bottom, but it looked like there wasn't any space for one there. Alone at the top bar or dancing with friends on the bottom floor, it's certainly worth it. There is some dancing--I stood at the balcony as people danced and sang (the singer gave the dude the mic--it was hilarious) "Hit the Road Jack". It was a cool environment and highly recommended--quality, classy entertainment that doesn't involve getting wasted in the club with the hostel crowd. And they're not pretentious--obviously don't dress trashy, but they were super welcoming and told me all about how they got going. Apparently their jazz pianist is a well-known armenian jazz pianist and probably has the monopoly on that market and he recruits people to play the club through his connections. They've got live music EVERY NIGHT. Honestly, doesn't get much better than that.  Overall, a highly worthwhile place to go for a drink and some live music. It's Malkhas Jazz Club on Pushkin street.

The next day, I went to the manuscript museum Matenadaran, which was small but very well done. While there I followed my modus operandi  for foreign museums, which is to take pictures until they tell me not to. A lot of places want to charge for this, but they also aren't very good at enforcing, and I'm perfectly fine with asking for forgiveness rather than paying for permission. Like most days when I run this strategy, I was caught, but not before getting some good pics. And of course, just a verbal warning was all that resulted. It helps if there are big tour groups who have paid for pics because you can kind of camouflage in. After that, I went to the Noy Brandy company. It's worth noting that there are two brandy companies in Yerevan--Ararat and Noy (which confusingly uses the word 'Ararat' in a lot of its materials). The diffference is that Noy is wine/brandy/vodka, and Ararat is just brandy. Both offer tours in english, but it's worth calling ahead because the times are fixed, there aren't that many, and you often need reservations. The Noy factory was quite cool--they brew their wine as a sort of 'national heritage' project, and it's not available commercially (apparently if you've got the hookups you can grab a bottle for a cool $5000). Of course, because they're brewing all this wine to preserve tradition but not selling it, they’ve got loads and loads of really old wine. They had some that was over 100 years old…but the bottles had gone bad and it was ruined. On the brighter side, they've still got loads of some pretty ancient stuff--this is nowhere more  apparent than at the tasting, where you get to try some 90 year old stuff--$200 value, according to the excellent guide--for free. I ingested something today that was around before the great depression, before the 2nd world war, and even before my granparents were born. Craziness. The brandy was alright--I actually don't think it compared super-favorably to the Ararat 10 year, but like most places they had several brands (Kremlin, Noy, Noy Classic, Noy Legend…) so who knows how they all stack up. I got a bottle of the 15 year stuff because that was about $35 and it was fairly. Also worth noting--I showed up without a reservation (bad idea) and only got to go because a bunch of Iranians let me go along with their english tour. Every single Iranian I've met so far (the dudes in Baku and these guys) has been exceptionally nice and accommodating as well as very curious about America. We took a bunch of pics together and toasted together. They were extremely friendly and personable and I'm impressed with all the Iranians I've met. After that, I went back, got train supplies, and headed out on the Armenia.

This is a long story, and hopefully I'll get to write it on the beach tomorrow, but it involves feasting,  sticking my head out the window, and singing Wagon Wheel.