Some Like It Hot

Although I have never been one to fall into the trap of drawing up national borders and thinking every person within should adhere to certain national stereotypes, sometimes I am aware of how 'typically' English I can be.  I can be fairly shy by nature and thus awkward in most social situations, I tend to understate things (everything is 'nice') and when it comes to small talk nothing beats complaining about the weather.**

In the Iraqi Kurdistan capital of Erbil, talking about the weather was something almost unavoidable.  Even the locals couldn't get enough about discussing just how hot it was.  With daytime temperatures soaring above 50 degrees and air-conditioning restricted to taxis, hotels and a few lucky shops, most people wandering the streets resembled the Walking Dead, though instead of brains everyone was hungry for some shade.

Luckily enough, the government are in the early stages of a mass redevelopment of the city in an attempt to rejuvenate the image of the region and attract major investment from abroad.  Where once there was arid wasteland, now locals and foreigners alike could relax in the lush green parks and cool of near the numerous fountains and water features dotted around the city.  Indeed, the most popular activity during the evening is to sit near the collection of fountains in the city centre with some tea and a nargile, or even some freshly squeezed juice (the climate being perfect for a variety of fruit).

The problem only really became apparent at night.  In major cities like Duhok and Erbil, there has been a massive influx of workers seeking better jobs and better money in the last few years.  Needless to say the occupancy of hotels and flophouses in those cities has risen to the point that finding a place to stay has become the equivalent of an Easter Egg hunt with the Mad Hatter.  Hotel after hotel would be full, or far too high for my budget.  At this point I now had two other travel companions (Carol from Taiwan and Peter from the USA), but dividing the costs by three was still excessive.  Our only option in Erbil was a run-down flea-pit with no air-conditioning, communal squat toilets and a motley crew of guests that you wouldn't feel comfortable meeting in a darkened alley at night.  So the kind of place where I'd usually stay.

This time, however, the lack of air-conditioning became a big obstacle during our stay as the walls of the 'hotel' were so porous they would soak up the heat of the day and retain in throughout the night.  The rickety ceiling fan only managed to move hot air around the room.  Any time we went to the 'lobby' to get some ice-cold water from the machine, it would be warm a few minutes later!  This is when we discovered that it was actually cooler outside at night and hanging out near the fountains was a really really good idea.

It was during one of those late nights trips that we met a trio of siblings from Mosul.  They were in Erbil with their parents for a few days to have some peace and quiet from the fear of their daily routines; bomb blasts, kidnappings and other much much worse horrors.  The eldest daughter was also hoping to get a place at the art college there.  However, being Arab they had a tougher time of things due to the tight restrictions the Kurdish government put on applicants from other areas of Iraq.  It seemed that the Iraqi Kurdistan region was an inversion of its neighbour to the north, Turkey.  Whereas in Turkey, many 'Kurdish' people I met complained about feeling like second-class citizens, the reverse could be said to be true further south.

I had heard stories of Arabs being stopped at the 'border' coming from the other cities of Iraq and having their vehicles completely stripped apart and their luggage practically violated.  The Kurdish military, the Peshmarga, are constantly on the look-out for terrorist elements and although the result has been a dramatic increase in safety, it has also made it more difficult for innocent Arabs to get jobs and positions at universities and created a level of mistrust.

This was backed up by Jamil, the owner of the hotel we were staying at.  A couple of times while we were out drinking tea or he was showing me some place of interest nearby, I witnessed the mocking he would receive because he was an Arab.  He had a deep mistrust of the police, mostly stemming from the fact he didn't have any identification.  Later on, he quietly confessed that he was in fact a Jew of Arabic descent, but he would never publicly say so for fear of reprisals.  He did stress, though, that it was only a minority of people who had a problem with Arabs in the territory (after all, they were both muslim).  It was the politicians that were making relations difficult, mainly in its attempt to move towards independence.

However, for the present moment independence is not on the horizon.  The Iraqi Kurdistan politicians are fully aware of the struggles that lie ahead with both Turkey and Iran should they break away from Iraq.  For the time being, they prefer to keep the weather the only hot topic.


**  Of course, all the above is pure guff as those characteristics have nothing to do with being English, but for the sake of a handy intro I'm going with it.

Football and Presidents

Arjen Robben's face contorted into an ugly mess before launching another tirade at the match referee.  The Netherlands forward had already missed a sitter earlier on in the game and was now looking for a penalty to redeem himself.  As a lover of all things orange, but as someone who would quite happily see the former Chelsea and Real Madrid player fail miserably, I was quite conflicted in my support.  In the end, Andreas Iniesta - a player I do like, stole the show and robbed me of my Oranje dream.

That was when the car horns starting blaring out over the previously quiet city.  Those citizens who had been supporting Spain in the absence of their home country at the World Cup filled out into the streets of Duhok and got the party started.  That was when I suddenly remembered that I had been watching the World Cup final in a cafe in Iraq.

I had been doing a lot of that in the days after crossing the border from Turkey.  Hey, I'm drinking a juice in Iraq; wow, I'm eating a kebab in Iraq; ooo, now I'm watching the sun set and I'm in Iraq!  It wasn't so much that any of these things particularly stood out more than in any other country, but it was the first time I had been in a country with a war raging.  Not that I was in any real danger of stumbling upon the conflict, but still...  I looked across at my travel companion, Carol, and saw that she too was grinning from ear to ear.

A couple of days earlier when I was still in Turkey and visiting the city of Diyarbakir, I had gone online and left a message on Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree - a website for travellers to get the latest information about various places, looking for a travel partner to help cut the costs of my trip to Iraq.  Almost instantaneously I received a reply from a Taiwanese traveller saying that she was doing the same trip and would like to discuss strategies.  It also transpired that we were Couchsurfing with the same host, Hasan, and it seemed the Travel Gods approved of the union.

Our first port of call after crossing the border was the city of Duhok.  I had only originally planned to spend one day there and then move on to more interesting places, but the city turned out to be such a pleasant place with a good atmosphere, that we rejigged our plans on the spot and decided to use the city as our base and make trips out to the other places.

One day trip we made was to the sleepy village of Ameida, built up high on a plateau at the top of some mountains.  The village itself had nothing to offer the 'sightseeing' tourist other than a lazy charm and super friendly residents.  It was impossible to walk more than 5 yards without somebody stopping us and inviting us to join them for tea or some fruit.  Even without a common language, it was great to interact and exchange pleasantries.  Walking around the village, I couldn't help but notice that a lot of the houses sported various shades of purple, orange, green, blue and red.  I never did find out why, but it looked very pretty.

We hitchhiked back down from Ameida to the neighbouring town of Sulav.  While Carol and I ate a late lunch, we became aware of a large military presence.  Unsure whether something was happening or if the soldiers were just taking a break from their duties, we thought it best to do the rest of our exploration before the swarm of camouflage green got in the way.  However, that was easier said than done and as we walked up a narrow alleyway we found ourselves swept up in a crowd of people, who looked very official and important.  We found out that at the centre of the huddle was Masoud Barzani, the President of the Iraqi Kudistan region.  He was showing the new American Ambassador around and the picturesque backdrop of Ameida had been chosen.  We followed them up as part of the entourage until someone noticed us and asked us to drop back a couple of metres - though in a very nice and polite way.

Watching the photo-op and press conference didn't really appeal, though, so we decided to hitchhike back to Duhok and watch the football showpiece.  Even though it was a 'dry' experience (alcohol is sold and drunk, but not at most cafes and restaurants), the locals really got into the spirit of it all and cheered on either Spain or the Netherlands.  It wasn't to be a happy ending to a great day, but I'm sure the world will turn orange one day soon... and I was in Iraq.

The 'Other' Iraq

The thermostat read 50 degrees and the sun had been beating down hard.  I had assumed I had sweated any liquids out of my system by the time I got to the passport control office, but that turned out to be a false assumption.  As I waited for my turn to get my passport scrutinised, my bladder was also demanding attention.  Unfortunately for me, the door to the men's room was locked.

By the time the woman invited me into her office, I was on the verge of madness and I was getting worried about how my behaviour was going to affect my chances of a smooth crossing.  I needn't have worried as the woman took one look at me and enquired whether I needed some help.  I told her of my dilemma, and she bellowed at a colleague to go and unlock the door.  She held my place in line and waited for me to do my business.  When I got back she merely asked how long I planned on staying in the country and if I liked hot weather.  I didn't realise at that point just how hot it was going to get.  Within 2 minutes my passport had been stamped and I had been granted permission to travel in Iraq.

More accurately, I had been granted a 10-day visa to travel around the Iraqi Kurdistan Autonomous Region.  The area had gained its status while under the control of Saddam Hussein - it had not proven as easy to control as the dictator had hoped.  I'm fairly certain that the heinous war crimes he had commited against the Kurds in Iraq had not softened their appetite to gain independence.  The Kurds, then, had been allowed to control their own borders and govern themselves to the extent that when the Americans invaded in 2003, they had a heroes welcome prepared for them in the north of the country.

So while the Arab-controlled southern part of Iraq is still engaged in bloody conflict, the Iraqi Kurdistan territory has morphed into a low-crime, safe haven for foreigners; soldiers and tourists alike.  So much so that the last terrorist attack there occurred in 2005 and it has a lower risk of terrorism than the UK.

Although Iraq is known as the 'cradle of civilisation,' the Kurdish north perhaps misses out on the splendor of Baghdad (pre-2003 bombing blitzes, obviously) or the history of Babylon with its Hanging Gardens.  What it does have, though, are beautiful landscapes and curious people; eager and warm to show their appreciation for the better life they feel they now have after the end of Hussein's tyranny.

The region is still off the beaten track for most foreign tourists - indeed the only other tourists I saw during my trip were the two I was travelling with - Carol from Taiwan and Peter from the USA.  However, plenty of Iraqis from all over the country go to Kurdistan to unwind and allow their bodies and minds to forget the cares back home.  I met young students from Baghdad, a family from Mosul and two young friends from Babylon all enjoying themselves; laughing and joking and happy to not worry about snipers or suicide bombers.

This is the 'other' Iraq, one that is emerging from the dark times and striving for normality.  Instead of blood-thirsty dictators, chemical warefare and bomb explosions you can find 50 Cent and Akon blaring out from car stereos, kids playing video games, girls daring to make eye contact with boys and discover that Hannah Montana is popular enough to have a clothing store named after her.

The Wild Wild East

Every family has its black sheep; the uncle who drinks too much or the wayward daughter who hangs out with the wrong sort of boys.  Usually, a successful hush-hush campaign ensues and the black sheep is never mentioned in polite society.  However, sometimes it's not possible to keep a lid on this family 'embarrassment' and a whole can of worms is opened when an attempt to contain them is made.

For Turkey, their black sheep are the Kurds.  In the wild wild east of Anatolia, the Kurds are the predominant people making up around 85% of the population of towns and cities like Diyarbakır and Van.  They have their own language, their own history and their own ideas about their future - independent of Turkey.  For decades, the mere mention of Diyarbakır conjured up images of the PKK and terrorism.  Nowadays, the protests are less violent on the streets, but the determination to break free has in no way diminished.  I met countless numbers of people eager to declare that they were Kurdish and not Turkish.

If you travel east and keep going until you hit Iran, you will stumble upon once such Kurdish town with an almost complete 'non-Turkish' presence.  In fact, the only 'Turks' that I encountered in Doğubeyzit were the ones wearing the camaflouge green of the military.  Every other person would immediately identify themselves as Kurdish as an introduction.

It's not only the lack of Turkish faces that strikes you as different about this quaint little border town, though.  It took a couple of minutes of sitting outside a cafe sipping çay before I could put my finger on the oddity that was bothering me; I hadn't seen a single woman on the street in the 3 hours I had been in the town!  Later on in the evening I glimpsed a few old woman wrapped up from head to toe hurridley doing their grocery shopping in the bazar, but apart from that Doğubeyzit could comfortably be described as a town for the boys.

Sitting and talking to Edem, a local back home for the summer from studying in Izmir, the conversation naturally drifted to girls or more accurately the lack of.  Edem informed me that that part of Turkey was particularly conservative in its beliefs and that the women would stay at home and only the men were allowed out on the streets to socialise.  When I asked him how anyone ever found a wife, he told me that everyone had an arranged marriage; usually set-up at one of the countless weddings that took place.  Sometimes, he said, you were lucky enough to see your bride once before the ceremony so you both knew what the other looked like in advance.

The 'Kurdish' heartland of Diyarbakır isn't quite like that - for starters there are plnety of girls and women walking the streets and not all of them cover their heads the traditional way.  Saying that, it was rare to see teenage girls and boys mingling or young couples strolling through the numerous parks.  Another local, Rezan, invited me to sit with him and his friend for a nargile (waterpipe) and the conversation once again got back to girls.  They wanted to visit Europe because they had heard it was easy to find a girl to have sex with who didn't want to get married first.  I told them that the vast majority of 'western' girls were nothing like the stereotypical image many 'eastern' minds portrayed them as, but when pressed further I had to admit that it was possible to be intimate with a woman without being married first.  This seemed to please them at first, but after some reflection they decided that that wasn't really what they wanted as they could never marry a girl like that themselves.

This is one example of the 'backwards' thinking that a fair number of Turkish people alluded to when talking to them about the Kurdish people.  Stuck in the past and fanatical where just some of the ways that I heard these people described in the west of Turkey.  Many people are still unwilling to forgive the years of terror they went through as a result of terrorist attacks carried about by Kurdish 'liberation' groups.

In turn, the Kurds still resent their 'second-class' status in a country that claims them as their own.  Until recently, it was forbidden for 'Kurdish' to be spoken and taught in schools and music and films in their language were banned.  Edem still couldn't move on from losing the girl he loved in Izmir because her father refused to let her date a boy from the east.  In addition, they still feel shame that it was their grandfathers who were responsible for the deaths of so many Armenians, under the orders of their Turkish masters.

Istanbullus may be right about their 'brothers and sisters' in the east being behind the times in their ideas and customs, but one thing is for sure; the hospitality I received while I was there was genuine and very warm.

Hanging On Every Word

"Do you want one?"

I looked around, hoping to find some sign of anything that could be on offer.  I didn't see anything, but a couple of toddlers and I was sure they weren't the subject of my host's question.  I obviously looked as confused as I was because my host rephrased his question; "Would you like anything?"  I stared at the computer screen and typed in my response.

Murat read my answer and asked his mother for some tea.  This had been going on for some time and appeared to be continuing for a while.  I didn't mind, though, as this was definitely a unique experience for me - conversing soley through the use of Google translate!

To understand why, we have to go back a couple of days to my sudden departure from Georgia.  Faced with the pospect of spending a couple of days at the beach while construction crews dug up the city I would be staying in, I had decided to hop on the first bus to Turkey, for wherever it was destined.  It happened to be bound for Tranbzon, a city on the Black Sea coast.  As my sandals had fallen apart the day before, I spent my time waiting for the bus to depart searching out cheap footwear.

The journey itself was great, with an almost unbroken view of the sea for much of the 7 hour journey.  I was back in Turkey and ready to begin the next stage of my trip.  I took out my guide book and swotted up on my destination, a place I hadn't expected to visit and therefore knew very little about.

Trabzon turned out to be a nice place, and a million miles away from the seedy port town the book had portrayed it to be.  The sun was shining and everyone was in summer mode; performers singing and dancing, children playing in the park and everyone looking relaxed and smiling.

The highlight of my stay there, however, was my day trip out to the Sumela monastery, a Byzantine construction.  The monastery had been carved out of a sheer cliff and seemed to hang suspended high above the valley.  I had seen a similar thing with a Buddhist monastery in China, but it didn't make the feat here any less impressive.

A few weeks previous, I had arranged to have a Couchsurfing host in Ezurum as it was to be my first stop back in Turkey.  Due to my change of plan, I contacted my would-be host to inform him and ask if it would still be OK.  He assured me that it would be and arranged to meet me at the bus station of the town just prior to the city I had expected to stay.  As the bus pulled up to a deserted station, though, I began to worry that he may not appear and that I would be stuck in a town I knew nothing about at midnight.  Luckily, the guy sitting next to me on the bus saw that sometihng was not quite right and whipped out his phone.  A minute later, I had the mobile pressed to my ear and I could hear a tiny voice in English ask me what the problem was.  I explained my situation and the voice asked me to give the phone back.  A couple of minutes later I had the phone in my hand again and Tiny Voice informed me that everything had been taken care of.  I was going to stay the night with my bus companion - the brother of the Tiny Voice, and his family in Ezurum.

One of the most surreal encounters of my life, though, was complete when it turned out that among the household of 12 people no-one spoke a word of English apart from Tiny Voice, who was in Istanbul at that time.  The whole family obviously had questions to ask, but felt powerless to converse with me.  That was until the little 10-year old girl suddenly jumped to her feet and raced away, to return a minute later holding a laptop.  When she opened up the translation tool page I had to admit to being impressed by her ingenuity.  So, a couple of hours of questions back and forth between the whole family ensued and it was great fun.

The next day, Murat (my bus companion) took me to the otogar and helped me get the right bus for the next part of my journey.  That was how I spend my first few days back in Turkey and reminded me why I loved the country so much.

A Snap Decision

The train pulled into the station at 6:48.  I quickly gathered up my things, wiped the sleep from my eyes and alighted in Batumi after an eight hour journey from Tbilisi.  Although the Black Sea resort town had a reputation as a beautiful hotspot for Georgians looking to dip their toes in the water and get a taste of the Costa Del Sol, what I saw was a construction sight.  The whole city was being dug up and renovated; roads, parks, buildings.

The marshrutka into the city centre had to navigate pot-holes and tranches in order to get its passengers to their destinations.  I was tired, hot and of a troubled mind.  So far on the trip I had not been having the best of luck - though it could also be argued that my luck was actually pretty good.  Afterall, worse things could have occurred.

Little things kept happening that individually meant nothing, but collectively convinced me that the Travel Gods were not happy.  My messagenger bag had packed in 3 hours into the trip, just as I stepped on to the plane in Istanbul; I had misplaced my guide book for Amenian and Georgia on day two while hitchhiking; my sandals had fallen to pieces the day before; my Couchsurfing host in Batumi had cancelled the day before after breaking up with her boyfriend; and I had just discovered that I had left my Turkish SIM card back in Tblisi and I would need to buy another and subsequesntly a new phone as my current one would now be useless.  Sure, a 'rational' person would claim I was merely unfortunate and a little clumsy.  However, when the Travel Gods are displeased with you, even the most rational of minds cannot cope with their wrath.

And there I was in the middle of Batumi without a clue to where I was going to stay or what I was going to do.  The marshrutka turned along numerous back alleys to avoid the worst of the construction work and I gaze out at the rubble and the shops and information offices that were closed.  I needed to change things up a bit and get the Gods back onside, somehow.

In the centre, the driver looked at me; the last passenger on the bus.  Where did I want to go?  He seemed impatient with my lack of decisiveness and mistook it for not understanding his Russian.  I thought about my options and slipped him another coin.

Turkey.

Mickey Whist's Day(s) Off

As my time was short in Georgia, I decided to utilise the efficent transport links and my base in Tbilisi to make a few days trips.  The mashrutka bus station of Didube was a sprawling mess servicing all corners of the country, but finding the right bus was as simple as shouting out your destination and feeling a million hands dragging you in the right direction.

For my first trip I had planned on visiting the city of Gori; birthplace of Soviet Russia's most famous and ruthless father, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvilli - or Josef Stalin to his friends.  When I arrived though, it became apparent that there wouldn't be much to see after the locals had recently removed his statue and I didn't particularly fancy going to the museum to see how 'great' Uncle Joe was - even if he did butcher a huge number of his fellow countrymen during his reign!

Instead, I jumped on another marshrutka and went to the nearby village of Uplistsikhe.  A short walk away I came across an ancient rock monastery in the same vein as those found in Gorome in Cappadocia.  Spending a few hours exploring the caves and the rocks with their dazzling array of colours was much better than any museum trip.

The next day, I took a marshrutka along the Georgian Military Highway, a stretch of road that meandered northwards towards the Russian border.  Since the conflict between the two countries a few years ago, the border has been closed, so the road actually has a dead end; the mountainous village of Kazbegi.  The trip along the highway, though, was very scenic and was probably worth the journey just to gaze out of the window of the mini-van as mountain, lakes and villages passed by.

Kazbegi is a very small village, but is a very pretty one nonetheless.  The area is great for hikers looking to get away for a few days with it's trails leading up into the surrounding mountains and forests.  I, however, was there for the Tsimada Sameba monastery; a picturesque holy place atop a high hill nearby.  My good fortune with the weather wasn't with me that day, though, as the clouds descended and opportunities for that postcard snapshot were to be thwarted.  The setting was pretty cool anyway.

My last trip out of Tbilisi was to the nearby town of Mtskheta.  The Holy Land of Georgian Christians, Mtskheta, was a 20 minute ride out of the city and I had planned to visit on my last day in the capital as I had a train later that day and I didn't want to miss it.

In the centre of the town is the giant (for its time) cathedral, Svetitskhoveli.  The building is said to have been built upon the final resting place of a local woman who was in Jerusalem at the time of Christ's crucifixation and returned with the robes he died in.  When she died, she was holding his threads and no-one was able to pry them from her fingers, so the locals took it as a sign and built the cathedral.  Quite why nobody thought to ask what she was doing stripping the clothes off a dead man, I have no idea!

Overlooking the town, is the granddaddy of Georgian Christianity; the monastery of Jvari.  This half-ruined building is said to be holiness itself and people make pilgrimages here every year.  However, by this point I was no longer able to appreaciate any more churches and places of worship so I only gave it a cursoray look.

All in all, clambering over the rocks and acting like Indiana Jones in Uplistsikhe and riding along the highway to the mountains were much more fun, especially unwinding with my couchsurfing host and her friend at the end of the day with a White Russian.

Georgia On My Mind

Tblisi is a city very much more akin to those in Europe than in Asia.  The Christian churches that dot the skyline a stark contrast to the mosques and minarets you're more likely to see in this part of the world.  Although Armenia preceded it as a Christian country, Georgia is more obviously striving for piousness.

Divided in two by a river, Tblisi reminded me a little of Salzburg, with numerous churches lining the banks and an old fortress sitting high on a hill in the background.  However, Tblisi shows its scars from numerous invasions by different muslim factions, notably the Turks and the Persians, who left behind a mosque and bathing houses.

One thing that stood out more than the ridiculous amount of churches and iconography on display was the high number of young couples making the most of the romantic setting.  Down every side street, in every park and on every bridge a different young couple held each other close and ate each other's faces off.  The statue of the Mother of Georgia that oversaw the city seemed to have a playful smile on her lips that suggested she approved.  Even a priest didn't bat an eyelid when he stumbled upon one coupling heavily making out and groping at the feet of a giant icon depicting Jesus on the cross!

This is a city that seems very liberal in its practice of Christianity.  Indeed, on the marshrutka over from Armenia I got talking to an American guy who turned out to be a Mormon missionary.  My first question, obviously, was why two countries as historically Christian as Armenia and Georgia would need a missionary.  He answered that a lot of people there would say they were of the faith, but perhaps didn't really know what that meant.  I was a little perplexed as I had seem more churches that you could imagine and I had assumed that each church had a priest who told them exactly how they were supposed to behave.  Listening to his stories, though, it became clear that he was painting a picture not too disimilar from the one I had of Central Asia; people would call themselves muslim, but would drink, smoke, gamble, cheat and womanise like there was no tomorrow.

What really caught my attention was the story he told me about the Armenian and Georgia practices of 'bride kidnapping.'  A young man would spy a girl that took his fancy and he would arrange to have her bundled into the back of a van or car and driven away to his home, where she would be forced into marriage under the threat of rape.  He did stress that this was a tradition that was dying out and was confined largely to the more rural areas.  Usually, he continued, the guy would merely stalk her for up to a year and get to know her routine and habits before getting his family to make a less brutal approach.  I knew that this practice existed in Kyrgyzstan and a former student of mine excitedly confessed to a co-teacher that he had helped kidnap his brother's wife.  Not all of these marriages were actual kidnappings, however.  In a lot of cases a young couple couldn't afford the wedding 'fee' so would elope under the guise of a 'kidnapping.'

As I wandered the streets of this beautiful city and saw lovebirds happily exchanging saliva, I wondered how many of those young girls would still be so happy and in love in a couple of years time.

With God On Their Side

Throughout my trip in Armenia two things have been constant; churches and hospitality.  This is not to say the two are neccessarily related, only that I have seen a lot of both.  Just as you cannot trip over your own feet and fail to land in a cafe in Yerevan, the same can be said about churches, monasteries and forts in the rest of the country.

In Yerevan I stumbled upon perhaps my favourite little church down some side-alleys.  The church, 'Zorovator,' is a place of worship so small that many church-goers have to stand outside at important mass times like Christmas and Easter.  The best thing about the church, however, is that it is completely orange!

Now, after years spent living in countries littered with temples and mosques I thought I could give churches another try.  After all, they can be just a architectually beautiful and grandoise in scale.  In order so explore the vast bulk of these Christian houses of God, I had to engage in a lot of hitchhiking.  I have had mixed results with hitchhiking in the past (notably Belgians causing me the most grief with their wayward hands on the gear stick!), but in Armenia I found it to be great.

From Yerevan I took a marshrutka (mini-van taxi) to the town of Garni, where a still fully formed pagan temple stands.  Before Armenia converted to Christianity, it followed in the same vein as the Roman and Greek civilisations, woshipping various gods of the sun, war, love, etc.  Although much of the surroundings are now in ruins, the temple itself remains solid.  Intriguingly, when I was there I witnessed a young Armenia couple getting married on the steps.  The ceremony seemed to follow the traditional Christian format, so I'm not sure what the thinking behind the pagan setting was.

From Garni to Gerghat, a monastery high up in the hills, I discovered that there wasn't any direct transport other than the taxi drivers who were circling like vultures.  I ran for my life when I saw one approach and opted to try my luck at hitchhiking.  Almost immediately, a car stopped and the driver ushered me in and took me as far as he was going.  No sooner had I got out than another motorist took up the relay.  I ended up walking the final 2km, but I didn't mind as the scenery was great.  The only downside was that it was during this pursuit that I lost my guide book.

When it was time to head north to the towns bordering Georgia, my Couchsurfer's friend came to the fore and offered me the keys to the family apartment in Vanadzor, as no-one was using it.  I had only met this friend the day before so I was surprised at such a generous offer.  I promised not to burn the place down!

Around Vanadzor, there were probably two of the best monasteries in Armenia.  Sahnin and Haghpat are both listed by UNESCO as Heritage Sites, and they are both impressive structres in even better surroundings.  One thing I would say for the guys who designed these places is that they sure knew where to stick a church for the optimum view - and to piss off the actual construction crews who had to carry the stones and rocks up the hills.

On a couple of occassions, as I was exploring the various places, locals would stop and talk to me in Russian and offer me free food and tea as well as a place to take a little nap for half an hour out of the sun.  There were no catches, just the opportunity for them to showcase their generosity to a stranger in their country.

A Troubled Past

I feel as if I should put a disclaimer above these blogs about Armenia and Georgia.  I lost my guide book while hitchhiking on my second day of the trip so have had to piece together all the different places I have been from what other people have told me.  This cannot always be verified as being 100% accurate, but it does sometimes make things more interesting.  For example, when I travelled to Moynaq in Uzbekistan to see what had become of the Aral Sea after decades of it being drained, I was armed with knowledge from multiple sources stating that the Soviets had done the deed in order to make more room for cotton plantations.  Recently, I met an Uzbeki-born Russian who was eager to wave off such suggestions and instead pointed the finger of blame at the Koreans.  Central Asian saw an influx of immigrants during the 70s, most moving to Uzbekistan, where Korean car manufacture and electronic companies had been set up.  According to my new source, Uzbeks grew rice that didn't need water whereas the Koreans needed it for theirs.  Thus, they drained the sea in order to grow their crop.  Despite this almost certainly being a case of Soviet propaganda at the time to shift the blame from themselves, I can't help but wish that this was indeed the case.  Gangs of naughty Koreans cyphoning off one of the largest in-land seas because they couldn't abide the local cuisine is just too good of an image.  That is the problem with trying to accurately report anything; there are always two sides to the story and a lot of blurred lines.

Up on a hill overlooking Yerevan is a monument to Armenia's most recent history.  A tall column reaches up to the sky with a flame - concealed by marble tablets shaped like a yurt, burning brightly next to it.  This is a poignant reminder of Armenia's strained relationship with Turkey.  I usually try and stay away from politics as I don't really know enough about such topics and, frankly, it bores me.  However, the events between 1915 and 1923 are so integral to the future of both Armenia and Turkey that it would be impossible not to talk about it.

The facts: one and a half million Armenians were killed during this period by Ottoman Turks during the last days of their empire.  Many more Armenians were forced to march into the Syrian desert to whatever fate awaited them.  The Turkey argument is that they were provoked by Armenians who attacked first and kept on killing innocent Turks throughout the years.  However, those forced to march into the desert included vast numbers of the old, sick and the young and 1.5 million deaths, relatively speaking, actually puts the Holocaust into the shade a little.  That number is actually equivalent to over a third of the population.  It would be like wiping out New York three times over, if such a thing were to happen in the US.  Both sides are adament that they other was in the wrong, but one thing is clear to me... regardless of anything else, the Ottomans engaged in a campaign to wipe out any Armenian presence in their empire.  The word 'genocide' is something that I'm sure my Turkish friends would be aghast to see me use, but under the UN charter such acts cannot be called anything else.

As I said, there are always two sides to any story and I can be called ignorant of many things.  Despite my love of history, I'm not really interested in the rights and wrongs of the past.  I have always been more interested in how the past has shaped the present.  Travelling through Armenia, I waited to see what reaction I would get when I told people that I lived in Turkey.  Many of the older generation hesitated before continuing with their next question, as if the mere name conjured up distate.  Many of the younger generation, though, didn't blink and were interested to know about life in Istanbul and how it was different from England.  Young Armenians are getting tired of the 'conflict' with Turkey and also with their problems with Azerbaijan.  Most just don't understand or care why something that happened so long before they were even born is so important now.  I generally agree with this view; after all, which 'progressive' nation can honestly claim to not have blood on its hands.  I would certainly never try to justify the massacres in India, Africa and many other colonies carried out by the British, for example.

The problem for such a touchy issue is that it's almost impossible not to offend somebody by offering an opinion.  Look at the reaction Barack Obama received when he attempted to sit on the fence over the issue.  Whichever way you lean, though, surely both sides must agree that dwelling on such things won't help heal the rift or the hurt and that what is important is that acts like this are not repeated in the future.