Category: Asia

Categories
Asia Myanmar

Exploring Inle Lake

From Yangon, we took a short internal flight north to Heho and headed to Inle Lake! First of all, I’d like to do a quick shoutout to the internal flights in Myanmar, which were surprisingly nice. National airlines in less touristy places can be hit or miss (and they’re often a miss), but I was impressed with these ones.

Very charmed by this plane eating a sandwich

Inle Lake was by far our nicest hotel of the trip. We had these beautiful villas, and we watched the sun set from the pool. Across this whole trip, we spent a lot of time in the pools to escape the heat.

We spent the whole day near Inle Lake exploring it by boat, which is the only way to get around. I’m fascinated by these communities that live on the water like this – I would love to know more about what their day-to-day life looks like. We had a stop here at Inle that focused on the floating gardens, where they grow vegetables, which was an interesting thing to consider. The logistics of getting food and other materials into these communities, the supply of clean water, transporting every single thing by boat… it is a completely different way to build a life. I’ve seen similar communities in a number of places, from a more built-up version like Venice to places like Ganvie in Benin and Brunei, and each time I’m left wondering what it would be like to live like that.

We visited a lot of artisans in and around Inle Lake. It was cool to see the different types of crafts, and there were some incredible handicrafts, although after a while I was tired of being sold things. This was a common theme across Myanmar, and I feel for them, given that there are so few tourists at the moment, but I don’t typically buy a lot of souvenirs. Things that involve plants or natural materials can also be challenging to get through customs in various countries as well.

This guy is a silversmith. You can see the fish he’s working on if you look closely at the bottom of the picture – these were probably the most impressive thing we saw, as they are highly articulated and move beautifully. Of course, they’re very expensive because of the price of silver. I mostly took this photo, though, because I was absolutely baffled to see a photo of Herbert Hoover on the wall. I guess before he became president, he was involved in silver mining in Myanmar with a company called Burma Corporation? I can’t imagine any other reason for this, as nothing in his foreign policy section on Wikipedia really deals with Myanmar or Southeast Asia in any way.

We also visited a temple while we were in Inle Lake. We went to a lot of temples while on this trip; this one was fine. It was a smaller one and worth a quick stop since we had lunch right across from it, but I think it looked more impressive from a distance over the water.

In the late afternoon, the clouds came out and gave us some reprieve from the sun, which was amazing. We went through some of the more dense areas of the communities around Inle Lake and saw the temples and homes and shops where the local people live.

All in all, I loved Inle Lake! The boat ride was so pleasant, and it’s always interesting to see how different communities live across the world. It should absolutely be included on a Myanmar itinerary. And with that, we were off to our next destination: Bagan!

Categories
Asia Myanmar

Yangon, Myanmar

From Hanoi, I flew to my next destination: Yangon! This was the start of a week in Myanmar, which included visits to Yangon, Inle Lake, Bagan, and Mandalay before I flew back to the US.

Obligatory disclaimer that Myanmar is not the most stable country in Southeast Asia. They had a coup in 2021, perhaps best documented in this exercise video of a woman dancing obliviously while the tanks roll in behind her, and there has been instability ever since while they’ve been under military rule. There is also a long history of conflict between the various ethnic groups, with Wikipedia calling it the “longest-running ongoing civil war” in the world and noting that some of these conflicts have been ongoing since 1948. For the record, I felt safe everywhere we were. Our tour guides did adjust a few parts of the itinerary in Bagan and Mandalay, but the conflict was happening on the other side of the river and we were able to keep a comfortable distance.

In fact, the most alarming part of the trip might have been waking up to an earthquake the first morning in Yangon! It was about a 5.3 magnitude on the south coast and we felt it in the city. It didn’t do more than shake the hotel a bit, thankfully. I will say, I find earthquakes to be the most alarming natural disaster since there is no warning.

We started our tour of Yangon at the Sule Pagoda. One of the cooler aspects of this one, for me, was having the normal buildings behind the spires of the temple, which I think makes for an interesting perspective. Here, I also loved that the guidelines on what to wear appeared to be sponsored by a local energy drink. I have a lot of questions about this arrangement, honestly?

We explored downtown Yangon for a bit, including the main park with their city hall and a monument to Myanmar’s independence. I liked the vibes of the city. The core downtown area had more historical buildings, including some historic hotels as well as some of the embassies, but we did also go to more modern sections of the city as well.

One of the interesting things that I noticed as we were walking around town was that the license plates in Myanmar appear to have the make and model listed. I’ve never seen this before!

One of the more interesting sites in Yangon is the Chaukhtatgyi Buddha, which is a very large (and dare I say glamorous?) Buddha statue. I had seen pictures before, but I was still unprepared for the scale of the statue itself.

What I liked about this one is that it was the most distinct of any temple we saw – when you see a ton of temples over a short period of time, it’s easy to have them all start blurring together.

Yangon, of everywhere we went, was obviously the most developed, and also had by far the best food. Most of the menus in the more rural areas were a lot more basic. Luckily for me, there were always vegetarian options. The vegetarian option was generally fried rice, which I love, but by the end of the week of having it for every lunch, dinner, and sometimes breakfast, I was so ready to eat anything else. Yangon at least had more choices in the restaurants.

I also got to try wine from one of Myanmar’s wineries, Aythaya Vineyard! They only have two vineyards. This one was the first, opened in 1999. It tasted pretty different from anything I’ve had before. The best way I can describe it is that it almost had a smoky taste, which I rather liked.

If I had to pick the single best tourist site that I saw in all of Myanmar, it would hands down be the Shwedagon Pagoda. We arrived just before sunset, got a quick overview of the complex, and then we got to experience it as day turned to night. I say “tourist site” but the truth is that we were the only tourists – everyone else there was local families, coming to pray and to take photos and to spend time with their loved ones.

With every moment the light changed, it became even more beautiful. There were chimes going off in the background and the whole experience felt absolutely magical.

Yangon was an amazing start to our visit to Myanmar, and I couldn’t wait to experience what came next! I really enjoyed our time in Yangon, and we had a lot of cool places left to visit.

Categories
Asia Vietnam

A Party In Vietnam

After Brunei, it was on to Vietnam to meet up with my travel friends for a big party! We were starting in Hanoi. It felt a lot less overwhelming this time than it did when I visited in 2023. Part of that is that I have traveled a lot since then. That was my first trip in Southeast Asia. This time, I was coming back to somewhere I’d already visited, I had more experience under my belt, and I was traveling with friends, which made it a much more relaxed proposition than figuring it out on my own. After a flight from Brunei to Singapore, a long layover, and a second flight to Hanoi, we grabbed dinner and went for a massage.

The next morning, we were off to meet up with everyone else! We took a shuttle from Hanoi out to the Ba Vi National Park, where we were staying in a resort. It was so beautiful, and it was nice to see a little more of the countryside in Vietnam. It was also an interesting experience to do a little road trip through Vietnam – I was very impressed with their rest stops and food options when driving through the countryside.

We had various dinners and activities and cocktail parties while we were there. It was so much fun to have the whole resort to ourselves to spend time with everyone. I was able to catch up with people across a lot of different trips!

From there, it was off to Ha Long Bay. This was a long day, because Ba Vi is several hours west of Hanoi and then Ha Long Bay is several hours east of Hanoi. Plus, most of the bus was hungover from the previous night. But once we got on the boat, it was really nice. I have been to Ha Long Bay once before – I think we were in a different section, based on the activities that we had available, but I loved it then and I loved it now.

This one was Catherine Cruises, and I would recommend them as well based on my experience. The biggest negative was this absolutely appalling beer pour:

The wet floor sign on the rocks cracked me up as well.

We had two activities on the boat – one was the Sung Sot Cave, and the other was kayaking (which I don’t have any photos of, but was very enjoyable). Sung Sot Cave was incredibly crowded, especially at the beginning. Once we got into the larger cavern at the end, though, the temperature was so pleasant and there was room to breathe.

The rock formations were nice as well. I wish they would tell the tourists that there are more rooms of the cave – if people would go faster through the first part and spend more time in the third room, the whole experience would be so much more pleasant.

This is what it truly felt like ^^

Overall, it was a great trip to Vietnam. I had a lot of fun, I saw so many friends of mine, and I was in some beautiful areas of the country. With that, it was on to the next part of the trip: Myanmar!

Categories
Asia Brunei

Is Brunei Boring?

Most of what you’ll find online when you look at what to do in Brunei talks about how boring Brunei is. It feels a bit rude, really. Brunei is tiny, and it’s surrounded by some of the best travel destinations in the whole world, so naturally it suffers by comparison. To me, it feels most akin to Liechtenstein – a small country that’s pretty unusual compared to its larger and more well-known neighbors, but has similar landscapes and less tourism offerings, and often gets overlooked.

Brunei is on the island of Borneo, which is mostly controlled by Malaysia and Indonesia. I haven’t been to either of those countries before but I think most of the tourism is in Malaysian Borneo, where people go orangutan spotting and trekking.

In Brunei, the main things to do are to explore the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan, as well as river cruises where you can spot the proboscis monkey. What makes Brunei unusual, you ask? Brunei is very wealthy from oil and gas. It’s led by a Sultan. Wikipedia tells me that the Sultan’s powers include emergency powers ever since the Brunei Revolt in 1962, which means that they are technically under martial law and have been since the early 1960s. And it’s extremely Muslim, to the point where they practice sharia law. That was implemented in 2013, so it isn’t just a holdover from the olden days. They have some pretty unusual punishments currently on the books. All of this to say – there isn’t a lot to do in Brunei, but I was still quite interested in seeing it because it is unique.

The first thing we saw after landing was a mosque

Bandar Seri Begawan is not a big city. From our hotel to the waterfront, it was only about a 15 min walk, so we saw the majority of the downtown pretty quickly.

The waterfront has an area to walk around in, and it’s possible to get water taxis over to the floating village. We had coordinated with our hotel to do a tour at sunset instead, which ended up being a great choice. More on this later.

From there, we headed over to the Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Mosque. If you’ve ever seen any pictures of Brunei before, chances are it’s of this mosque. It’s their national symbol. This one was an unusual visit because they had a very specific robe they had us all wear. I’ve been to plenty of mosques before, with all kinds of rules – almost all have made me cover my hair, some have asked me to put on a skirt, others have asked me to put on an abaya. But none have handed me a robe that makes it look like I’m graduating high school / going to Hogwarts / joining the Illuminati, so that was kind of fun. Huge point for Brunei for also making the man in our group wear the exact same robe.

We explored the grounds and walked over to another nice viewpoint of the mosque.

From there, we headed to the Royal Regalia Museum! We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside. This was extremely up my alley, though. It was all about the history of the Sultan, as well as all the presents that he had been given from various other countries. At one point we ended up in an area where they had jigsaw puzzles to complete. Since we were enjoying the air conditioning and had nowhere else we wanted to go before our sunset tour, we ended up sitting down and putting together puzzles.

After a quick stop at the hotel, it was time for our tour! We started with a boat ride, which we boarded next to this giant cool bridge.

From there, we headed far down the river so we could find a spot with proboscis monkeys. These are also known as the long nosed monkey, and they certainly do have some spectacular noses. It was exciting to spot them and we were able to observe them in large groups as they maneuvered around the trees.

As the sun started to set, we headed back to the floating village! We had a nice boat ride to the home of our guide, where he and his wife prepared some snacks for us and told us about Brunei.

This is a bus stop

I’ve been to a lot of very untouristy places, but it was pretty unusual to have our guide show us the wall with every tour group he’s ever had in his home and be able to remember which countries they were from and details about their trips. He was so nice and he was excited to have visitors! It was very cool to get to see one of the homes in the floating village, and imagine what it would be like to live there.

We also wanted to go check out the night market. This was pretty far from the main city center, so we took a cab there and back. It was fairly tame by Asian night market standards, but the food was good and it was nice to see another part of the city.

So with that, what’s the verdict on Brunei?

It’s not a big place. There’s enough to keep you entertained for one or two days, but it is more of a day trip like San Marino or Monaco or Liechtenstein vs. somewhere that you would want to spend a lot of time. There’s so much to do and see in Southeast Asia that it’s hard to recommend it over some of the heavy-hitters, but if you want to see a different side of the region, a quick trip would do. Regardless, do a little research on it because it is certainly worth learning about.

Categories
Asia Georgia

Tbilisi Time

For the whole time we were in Georgia, we stayed in Tbilisi and took day trips from there to explore the countryside. I’ve gone through all our day trips, so now it’s time to cover what we did while we were in the capital!

On the first day after Alan and I arrived from Armenia, we took a cooking class. It was with Georgian Flavors, who I had found online from recommendations on blogs. They noted that she was good at adapting for vegetarians as well which was a big selling point for me. It was a private class, so just Alan and I in her home.

It was a really fun experience. We made vegetables with walnut paste, which is a classic Georgian dish, and of course, the classic Georgian cheese bread! All of the food was delicious, and it was nice to get a pretty authentic look at Georgian culture immediately after we got there. Irma told us all about the culinary traditions of Georgia, and we also had great conversations about the general culture and history of Georgia.

The next day, Colin had arrived and we did a sort of self-directed walking tour of the city. In total, I had about three full days in Tbilisi, so I did get a pretty good sense of the city.

I quite liked Tbilisi, I think it has an interesting mix of old and new and it feels cool. Georgia went from very off the radar to a big tourist destination, and with that came more remote workers, more expats, more people who want to be in Tbilisi. It felt very cosmopolitan.

Tbilisi, like Yerevan, also has a large metal woman on a hill. We took a gondola up to the top to go see her and then walked back down. I would definitely recommend doing this on a clear day, because the views of the city were amazing!

We also went to the National Museum. There were a lot of animals that are native to Georgia featured, and I thought the natural history portion was pretty solid.

At the top, there’s a hallway that describes the history between Georgia and Russia, which was interesting but could have used a little more broad context in my opinion. While we were there, we saw multiple protests about Russia and the fact that their government seemed to be supporting Putin. We had local guides express negative opinions toward the country of Russia and the number of Russians living in Georgia. I think I have a decent sense of it all from my own knowledge of USSR history and other tours across the week, but I do think the museum itself could have more of that information accessible for someone who is starting with the basics.

One of the other interesting cultural experiences we had in Georgia was trying chacha. Chacha is a local brandy, similar to vodka or grappa, and it is made from the grape residue that’s left over from making wine. Georgia really is out here inventing all the new ways to drink liquor!

We went to a chacha bar and asked the guy for a tasting. It was sort of half bar, half liquor store, and he was clearly an expert. We tried three different types between us so we could each take a sip of each kind. It was very strong. I had the flavored one, which I was happy about because it went down a lot smoother than the original!

We also visited the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi. Every time we found ourselves at a church in Georgia or Armenia, it was very well attended. This one seemed to be having some sort of confirmation or performance for children or something – there were tons of families there and the kids seemed to be in fancier outfits.

During our last night in Tbilisi, Colin was heading to the airport and it was just Alan and I again. We started talking about how we were both missing the chance to see Wicked: For Good with our friends at home, so we decided to see if it was available anywhere in Tbilisi in English. We found an English-language screening at the theater in the mall near the apartment we were renting and so we headed to the movies! I haven’t gone to the movies when I’m abroad very often, but it was kind of a great way to finish out our trip. Although I do wish the movie hadn’t been in 3D since it made the sets look a bit fuzzier than I remembered in Part 1.

I had an amazing time in Georgia! I feel like I saw a lot, but I would go back to explore more of the western part of the city and just spend more time there. I found the culture very warm and the food and wine there was great. I will definitely be back to the Caucasus region to visit Azerbaijan, and I would happily stop back in Tbilisi at that point.

Categories
Asia Georgia

The Birthplace of Wine

For our last day trip out of Tbilisi, we headed east into wine country! One of Georgia’s claims to fame is that it is the birthplace of wine. Archeologists have found evidence of grape cultivation and wine-making pottery as early as 8,000 BCE in Georgia. There are also still unique wine-making practices in the region. While we also got to see that a bit in Armenia, I was excited about a tour that was focused on Georgian wine-making tradition.

We went with a tour company called Eat This! Tours, and they were great. It was meant to be a small group tour, but it ended up just being the three of us, so we had a private experience at the various wineries. We started at a larger family-owned winery and got a tour of their vineyard.

So what does make the Georgian tradition unique? (And not 100% unique, to be clear, as we saw the same traditions in Armenia. Maybe I should rephrase to the Caucasus tradition.) They age their wine in ceramics instead of wooden barrels, and then those ceramic jars are buried underground for the aging process. It looks like this:

Once we had learned about the process, we had an elaborate lunch with wine and food pairings. Georgia definitely takes their food and wine seriously. Everything was delicious!

From there, we headed to Sighnaghi, which is one of the most well-known towns in the region. It was beautiful – I can see why it’s risen in popularity for the tourists coming to the Kakheti region for wine tasting. It has a cool set of city walls that were used to fortify it in the 18th century.

We had a short tour of the town before our next wine tasting!

Allegedly, if it was a clear day, there would be an amazing view of the mountains behind this town

We headed to our second wine tasting, which was at much smaller winery. It’s also family owned but it’s on a much smaller scale than the first place where we had lunch. It was nice to get a sense of the wine industry in Georgia. Not just the fancier ones that cater more to tourists, but also the places that are a little more off the beaten path. The wine was delicious!

Our last stop was a family home that makes their own artisan wines! They cooked an amazing dinner for us and showed us their own personal vineyard and wine-making set up.

All in all, it was a great day! Georgia’s food and wine and hospitality are excellent, and this was such a fun way to experience it. I think anyone who visits should do some sort of food and/or wine tour during their time in Georgia. I’ll have one more post from Georgia to summarize our time in Tbilisi, and then it will be on to the next destination.

Categories
Asia Georgia

The House of Stalin

The next day, we hired a driver and headed east from Tbilisi! I had read about a service called GoTrip, which worked so well. It functions as a long distance taxi service, and gives you a flat rate for a specified route. You can match with people in various languages as well which was helpful to have a driver that we could talk to. The route I picked started at the Uplistsikhe archeological site.

The site is from around 1000 – 2000 BCE, and is a town carved out of the rock. It was really cool, and we got there pretty early so we had it practically to ourselves. The one negative is that there isn’t a ton of information about it on site, so most of what I know about it I’ve gotten from Wikipedia. Still, it was interesting to climb over the rocks and explore the various structures.

Fun fact, when we first bought our tickets, the woman at the counter asked us if we wanted to see the wine cellar. It was a little extra, but it was interesting, she said. So we paid a few extra dollars and went on our way. When we got to the part that said wine cellar, we learned that what we had actually paid for was a wine tasting – at about 10:30 am! It was fun to try a couple different wines, but it was also quite a bit earlier than any of us had planned on drinking that day.

Once we had our glasses of wine, we got back on the road toward Gori. Basically the only thing that Gori is known for is being the birthplace of Stalin. There are statues of him, the house where he was born, a park named after him, and a museum that talks about his life.

As you know, I am fascinated by propaganda, so I had a great time at the Stalin museum. Which, by the way, gives an unexpectedly rosy view of his reign. I would say the general narrative is that he was a part of the Russian Revolution alongside Lenin, then he defeated the Nazis, and then he died. Here’s a photo of him signing a new law! A law that does what, you ask? Don’t worry about that at all!!! He got rid of Nazis!!! Did we mention that part???

There is a small annex in the ground floor that mentions some of the death and prison camps and exile to Siberia, but you have to go looking for it. The majority of the museum is beautiful oil paintings and Central Asian carpets with his face on them and gifts that were given to him from various other world leaders. It was very interesting to see the way they presented this period of history.

Once we were done at the museum, we headed to the Memorial of Georgian War Heroes. My friends were deeply unprepared for the scale of this monument as we rounded the corner. The statues were super cool, especially with their location at the base of the Gori Fortress.

It took us a while to find lunch in Gori. There weren’t a lot of options and most of them seemed to be closed. But we eventually found a place to eat more of those delicious Georgian dumplings, and then it was off to our last stop of the day before we headed back: Borjomi!

When you go here, you’re going to be tempted to try the water. You will not enjoy the experience of drinking the water

Borjomi is a resort town known for its mineral water. There’s a brand of bottled water called Borjomi, although I certainly hope its water tastes better than what we tried out of the spring. Allegedly, it has some sort of healing qualities, although I would have to be pretty sick to want to drink its hot and sulfurous stream again.

The park was pretty nice, and we walked along for a while until we were ready to go back to Tbilisi. During our walk, we found another probably-haunted Soviet amusement park, which is still one of my favorite aspects of this region.

Borjomi was unlike anywhere else we went in Georgia, but it was also pretty small and didn’t have much to do. There is a Romanov palace near by but it’s now on private property and not accessible to the public, which is a big bummer. Maybe in the summer more of the park would be open, but that also seemed like it was more designed for children. There might have been more to do on the other side of the river in town, but it didn’t seem worth having our driver take us back into town to wander around when we could just go back to the city. It was beautiful, though, and it wasn’t that far from Gori, so definitely worth the visit as a part of this day trip.

My friend calls this the Sonic the Hedgehog bridge

It was a really interesting day out of Tbilisi. I think this is the most “off the beaten path” we managed to get in Georgia – Tbilisi is very popular, and the two other day trips we chose are the two top choices for most tourists. And with good reason, I loved Kazbegi and I loved the wine tasting tour. But it was also nice to get a different side of the country, both literally and metaphorically. Also, if you’re like me and you’re interested in propaganda, the Stalin Museum is top tier. 10/10 would recommend.

Categories
Asia Georgia

The Georgian Military Highway

The image that I’ve always had of Georgia is of one specific landmark – the Gergeti Trinity Church in the Kazbegi region. The photo of it on a hilltop, surrounded by snowcapped mountains, is perhaps the most iconic image of the country, and it was a top priority to see it while we were here. I scheduled it for our first full day out of the city so that we had some flexibility just in case there was weather up in the mountains.

We started at the Zhinvali Water Reservoir and the Ananuri Fortress. The reservoir is man made, created from a nearby dam. Ananuri sits on the water’s edge and has beautiful views of the valley.

Ananuri was built in the 13th century and is on the tentative list for UNESCO status. It’s famous for surviving a siege. It has secret tunnels that allowed the inhabitants to continue to get food and water. The name comes from a woman named Ana from the town of Nuri, who was captured by the enemy and tortured in an attempt to reveal the entrance to the tunnels, but she chose to die rather than betray her people.

After we had explored the fortress, we continued north to our next stop, which was a honey tasting! I’ve done one or two honey tastings before, and I’m always amazed at how different the honey tastes based on which types of plants the bees are pollinating.

As we continued north, the landscapes became more stunning! We stopped for lunch and then made our way to Stepantsminda, which is the closest town to the Gergeti Trinity Church.

We even had to switch from the small bus to cars that had 4×4 enabled to get up to the church! Thankfully, we were doing this all on dry roads. There was snow on the tops of some of the nearby mountains, and we saw a few patches of snow near the road, but our weather was perfect.

Once we were done at the church, we had one more stop on the way back to Tbilisi! And outside of Gergeti, this was the one I was the most excited for.

Welcome to the Russia – Georgia Friendship Monument! Our guide put the “friendship” part in very heavy quotes. Anyone who knows me should know that this is exactly the sort of Soviet-style pseudo propaganda I’m looking for when I travel. This particular monument was created to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Treaty of Georgievsk, which was signed in 1783 between the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Georgia. By 1983, Georgia had been subsumed by the (soon to be defunct) USSR, and the narrative on the monument reflects that.

Our guide went through all the symbols with us, and while I don’t remember all of them, the gist is that Russian folklore and national symbols are to the right and Georgian folklore and national symbols are to the left. The center depicts a maternal Russia holding Georgia, her child, on her lap, and has an inscription in both Georgian and Russian. The design of it is absolutely stunning. I loved the vivid colors of the monument, even if its message is quite patronizing toward Georgia. It was interesting seeing the Russian perspective toward Georgia, especially since the majority of our trip was giving us the other side of the story.

And with that, it was back to Tbilisi! Heading up to Kazbegi was amazing. I would love to spend more time in the Caucasus Mountains. This was our only day trip into the mountains, because I wasn’t certain if it would be snowy or bad weather; that said, I think the hiking and trekking in the summer and fall are some of the best of what Georgia has to offer, and I would love to spend more time in the region. But we did have a few more fascinating stops that were included in our itinerary. More on that next time.

Categories
Armenia Asia Georgia

North to Tbilisi

It was time to make our way north to Georgia! We woke up very early in the morning to head up to the border. On the way, we made a few stops. First, we headed to Sevan Lake, where the temperatures were absolutely frigid and we watched the sun rise over the misty lake.

We were flanked by a few dogs, who tried to follow us all the way back to the car. The whole region is full of mostly friendly dogs. In Georgia, they even have an ear tag system that indicates they’ve had their shots and whether they are friendly, with a green-yellow-red system to show you whether or not you should try to pet them. All the ones we met were friendly!

From there, we went to another monastery complex, Haghartsin. We arrived right as they were opening the doors, so it was very peaceful during our visit.

Armenian cross-stones, or khachkars, are a part of Armenia’s history and culture, and have actually been registered with UNESCO on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. They date back to the 9th century and have elaborate artwork and motifs based in medieval Christian Armenian art. Some have been lost to time, and others have been lost to genocide and conflict with Azerbaijan, but you can still see them around the various monasteries in Armenia!

Something that we saw signs for but didn’t get to experience was the corn of Northern Armenia – either it was too early in the morning or out of season or both, but it would have been fun to try that if we had been in the right time frame.

One aspect that I found fascinating as we made our way north was the border with Azerbaijan. As I mentioned in my last post, they do have a complex relationship, and a lot of that stems from conflict over the borders. The border had barbed wire across it and each side would put their flags all around the border, on various hills so that it was clear they had marked their territory. You can see the Azerbaijani one in the image below.

The border between Armenia and Georgia was smooth. One of the better land crossings I’ve done, really. And then we were in Georgia!

Once we crossed, it wasn’t too long to Tbilisi. I’ll have a lot to post on Georgia, but my first impressions were very positive. Georgia had been very high on my list for a long time. It had been under the radar for a while, but at some point it got popular and I was seeing it everywhere in the travel community. I was excited to check it out for myself!

We quickly discovered that the relationship between Russia and Georgia has gotten… strained, in recent years. We saw multiple protests against the Georgian government for capitulating to Russia during the time we were there. Various local guides we had over the course of the week also talked about their negative relationship. It stood in contrast to Armenia, who seems to have a much friendlier relationship with Russia. Armenia’s primary taxi app was Russian and we heard a lot more Russian on the streets. In Armenia, the signs were in Armenian, then Russian, and maybe English; in Georgia, they were in Georgian and English. I suppose Armenia has a lot of other enemies surrounding them. Compared to how Azerbaijan and Türkiye have treated them, Russia probably looks a lot nicer by comparison.

I have a lot more pictures from Tbilisi and from the Georgian countryside for next time! Can’t wait to share the rest of this trip.

Categories
Armenia Asia

South to Tatev

We headed out from our hotel at 6:30 the next morning to start our tour to Southern Armenia!

When we first got outside of Yerevan, we ended up in a patch of thick fog straight out of a Stephen King novel. I’ll admit, it isn’t so comforting when your driver is taking pictures and videos because he’s never seen anything like it before. But eventually, it cleared up, and we ended up on a beautiful drive.

We saw Mount Ararat, which is an important symbol of Armenia even though it’s located outside of Armenia’s present day borders. It’s now a part of modern day Türkiye. In pre-Christian Armenian mythology, Mount Ararat was considered the home of the gods, similar to Greece’s Mount Olympus. After going through all that fog, it was nice to have good enough visibility to see it!

One of the most interesting parts of the drive was watching where we were on the map. The borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan are complicated. A lot of this comes down to the post-Soviet conflicts in the 1990s, and localized conflicts between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in the border zones where the minorities were marginalized, displaced, and sometimes murdered. Various enclaves and exclaves still exist as holdovers from this conflict, including the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan that we passed right next to on our drive. There are also tiny ones that are technically a part of Azerbaijan that had no indication that anything had changed, and you would never know that the borders were shifting around you unless you were closely watching the map.

There are still tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, although they did recently sign a peace agreement in 2025 that has theoretically calmed things down. There are no open land border crossings between the two countries and no direct flights between them as of this writing.

We had a few stops on the way to get a coffee and stretch our legs, but we had a long way to go to get to Tatev Monastery.

Our first bigger stop was Khndzoresk cave village, which reminded me a lot of the underground cave villages in Cappadocia. We started by walking down a ton of stairs (which was really fun on the way back up to the car) and across a bridge.

It was a nice visit, and I was enjoying the chance to see a side of the country outside of Yerevan. Yerevan is pretty modern and developed, but it went from urban to rural quickly as we left the city.

so many stairs 🙁

From there, we headed even further south! The next stop was Tatev. Specifically, we were starting at the Wings of Tatev, which is the longest reversible aerial tramway in the world. It takes 12 minutes to go across the gorge from the starting station to Tatev Monastery. The views were incredible.

Armenia had a very clear vision when they built all their churches and monasteries. Most of them look extremely similar, which meant that when I was recently in NYC, I had no trouble recognizing an Armenian monastery from a brief view out of a bus window.

We also went to another outlook nearby to admire even more views of the mountains!

Once we were done visiting Tatev, it was time for the long drive back to Yerevan. But first, we had one more stop to make….

It was time to do a proper Armenian wine tasting! This region has a unique winemaking culture, and they often age the wine in beautifully decorated clay pots instead of oak barrels. A couple that they had available to try were the same grapes aged two different ways so that we could taste the impact of the clay. We got to try three types of wine and one shot of their hard liquors, which were flavored by all kinds of different fruits.

It was a long day with a lot of driving. Still, I think it’s worth it to get out of Yerevan, and the landscapes and cultural sites in the south are the most impressive sites for visitors. I would recommend this same tour for anyone who wants to get out and see some of Armenia beyond just the capital city.