Preamble: reviving my blog!
It’s been many years since I last blogged, and I thought that I would never do so again. But some of my friends have urged me to blog about my travels to places that not many Singaporeans are familiar with.
During my recent travels to South Caucasus, I was also inspired to start blogging about my travels after meeting other travellers who do so. For example, I met 2 new Irish friends who are on an epic and long journey to numerous countries – they’re in Iran now and you should read their posts! https://www.stories2blived.com/blog/categories/_iran
Moreover, while researching for my solo trip to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia (and trust me, there was a lot of prep work involved), I realised that there are almost no blog posts by Singapore travel bloggers about this region. This, of course, is not surprising, given that almost none of my Singaporean friends (and friends from other countries) have even thought of travelling there. Hence, I thought it would be a good idea to document my travels for memory’s sake and provide guidance to anyone who intends to travel there.
As such, my blog will focus on places that are off the radar of Singaporean travellers. I’ll start off with my most recent trip to South Caucasus, and in the future, probably write about my Oct 2017 trip to Ukraine and Moldova, and my 2016 trip to Belarus, Russia and Latvia.
I might blog about other places that I visit in the future, but since there is really no lack of blog posts about the more popular places in Europe like Prague, Budapest or Kraków (it’s pronounced as /’krakuf/) – often termed as “Eastern Europe” but in fact are in Central Europe – I shall probably not write about them.
And as you have noticed, my blog is titled KYtravelled – because I don’t blog while travelling. I blog after I have travelled and returned home. I don’t bring my Surface (yes I’m a Surface user) when travelling, and in any case, I would usually be too exhausted to blog at the end of a day of intense travelling. So, I blog afterwards!
Also, to keep this habit of blogging sustainable and realistic, my blog posts shall be short – it’s easier for me to write short ones and easier for you to read bite-sized pieces :).
OK enough of the preamble. Here’s the actual content:
16-day trip to Azerbaijan, Georgia & Armenia in Aug 2018
I’ve always been interested in the history and architecture of the former Soviet Union, and after my respective trips to Ukraine, Estonia, Belarus, Russia, Latvia and Moldova (in this order) over the past 6 years, it was logical and almost natural to move on to South Caucasus next. When in Ukraine and Russia, I had really amazing Georgian food, which made me look forward to actually eating Georgian food in Georgia. Moreover, Tbilisi, Georgia has been rated as many travel magazines as one of the top places to visit these few years and one which has a rapidly growing tourism industry. Hence, I went!
Where are these countries?
The location of the 3 South Caucasus countries are probably best described as between Russia, Turkey and Iran. Culturally, Armenia and Georgia consider themselves as European, while Azerbaijan is a mix of both Asia and Europe, and there’s no clear way to define it, although I personally felt it was more European than Asian.
[This made me vaguely recall another article I read about how many centuries ago, “Asia” was simply defined as anything east of Greece and “Europe” was defined as Greece and the continent east of it, thus “Asia”, with all its many diverse cultures, religions and languages, was classified as one continent, but I shall not go into that.]
My itinerary at a glance
Day 0: morning flight from Singapore to Dubai on Emirates (7.5 hrs), in transit for about 4 hrs, followed by a flight from Dubai to Baku, Azerbaijan on flydubai (3 hrs), reaching Baku at 20:20
Day 1: Baku (free walking tours in Baku)
Day 2: Day trip from Baku to nearby attractions
Day 3: Baku (museums); overnight train from Baku to Tbilisi, Georgia
Day 4: Tbilisi (free walking tour)
Day 5: Tbilisi (I joined an architecture-themed walking tour with Brutal Tours and I recommend it)
Day 6: Tbilisi (museums)
Day 7: Day trip from Tbilisi to the Kazbegi mountains
Day 8: Tbilisi in the morning, shared taxi to Gori (Stalin’s hometown) (1 hr) to visit the Stalin and history museums, then taxi to Kutaisi (2.5 hrs)
Day 9: Tskaltubo (a town 20 mins away by marshrutka/minibus) from Kutaisi
Day 10: Day trip to Chiatura (1.5 hrs) for their unique Soviet-era cable car system. Went back to Kutaisi, and then took a marshrutka to Batumi, the city by the Black Sea (2.5 hrs)
Day 11: Batumi
Day 12: Batumi in the morning followed by train ride from 15:40 to 04:20 the next day (12.5 hrs) to Gyumri, Armenia’s 2nd largest city
Day 13: Gyumri for a few hours, followed by shared taxi to the capital Yerevan before lunch (1 hr 15 min). Went for a free walking tour in Yerevan
Day 14: Day trip to attractions near Yerevan
Day 15: Day trip to attractions further away from Yerevan (including Tatev Monastery, 4+ hrs from Yerevan and nearer to the Iranian border than to Yerevan)
Day 16: Yerevan (museums)
Day 17: Flight at 01:40 from Yerevan to Dubai (3 hrs) on flydubai, followed by 5 hrs in transit and then a flight from Dubai to Singapore (7.5 hrs)
OK, that’s all for this post. Stay tuned for upcoming ones!
hek.va travelled 