Best Eastern Ararat Yerevan

... doesn’t produces that much, but people seems to have money to burn: at night the restaurants were quite busy, even though they were not particularly cheap. One explanation I could think of is the Armenian diasporas, residing in western Europe and N America in very large numbers (there are 8 million Armenians live outside and only 3.2 million live within the country), are sending money home or invest in it, which explains the existence of lots of grand-looking buildings ...

... their family history, how they lost people, how somebody survived and ran away, how they didn't meet their family and died in despair, how they realized they have a family somewhere far and even didn't know about it for dozens of years... This day every Armenian goes to a place called «Tsitsernakaberd» to pay tribute to all the victims of the Great Genocide.

Autumn – Autumn is a very ...

... much to my quiet amusement) was a 46 year old Frenchman who had sold his house, acquired a generous redundancy package and set sail to travel the world for the rest of his life. Having crossed most of the known world in the three years since he upped ship, Jilles was full of interesting stories and useful advice. We went hiking in the Armenian 'Alps' and duly visited a few monasteries before busing our way to Yerevan. Yerevan is a completely ...

... for a taxi if I still have to carry my bag a few blocks? It didn't help matters when he simply held up my backpack, wrong side up, with a sheepish smile. I paid him less than I had said I would and he basically took it and ran after my tirade. Sigh. It's things that aren't a big deal, but at the same time, the point of paying more for a taxi instead of taking the bus is to avoid the whole "walking with a bag" thing.... Now I'm in the town of Vanadzor. Today ...

... wound), and just in general I get candy for being an American/young/a girl/speaking one of the local languages. If I wasn't already a big kid, this would be an excellent deal. But alas.... A superstition of Kazakhstan, I learned yesterday, has made it to Armenia: girls can't sit on cold concrete/ground. This is one of the most annoying things I've encountered traveling. Yesterday I was sitting on the cool concrete of a wall ...

... I need to find an exchange office. The clerk looks busy...I just wait. In a minute the annoyed driver comes saying we have to go. Since I'm the only foreigner around, I try to explain in Russian. He takes 50e from me as a deposit, pays the 15000AMD for me in the office and then violently yells at the clerk to change him the 50e;). And he even pays me back, good business. When I get back there are new people in the bus and I need to squeeze on one seat together with my backpack, ooh. I'm ...

... was born on the roadside, as her family fled from the Biblical Ararat to Yerevan. They left behind their homeland as the Turkish army razed entire villages around World War I. Many in her family were killed. Overlooking Yerevan is the Museum of the Armenian Genocide and a symbolic grey monument of stone slabs with an eternal flame in the center, which acutely describes the deaths and exodus of well over one million people. I visited the museum to get a better ...

... still appears to be a problem elsewhere in the country. Of course, no matter what, it's not getting worse for anyone (we hope) and the situation seems to be better for many so I can't not be happy for them. Even in our little "Vosgetap" village where I stayed in 1995 and just visited, they have recently been connected with gas to most homes, have almost consistent and continuous electricity, and have a water source from somewhere ...

... same faces at the front of the line accepting our gifts when we knew there were others who had yet to receive any. But looking back, it's easy to recognize that these people are just used to having so little that they want to get as much as they can to better their lives. We also noticed as we were leaving that those who had received a lot were sharing with the others. We returned to the church, and were able to participate in their Bible Study, and sing some songs for ...

tbilisi to yerevan is a nice enough bus ride. i was even lucky enough to escape paying for the $20 U.S. for my 3 day armenian transit visa. dunno how that happened. i was a bit fluey in yerevan, so i didn't see much of the city and didn't make the day trip to the nearby ancient greek temple of ebelebeladlabtla (i forget the name ...