Armenia

I spent about 10 days in Armenia in Summer 2016.  Not sure why it's taken so long to publish the below - as you can see, it didn't take long to write.

I'd previously been hanging out in Georgia so got to the border and then was driven to the capital Yerevan by one of the office drivers.  We didn't share a word of a common language, but he gave me the most delicious hot cheese sandwich i have ever had so I thanked him by bowing in a kind of Japanese way.  On the way we passed Lake Sevan which looked cold.

Yerevan has an array of attractions for the lazy traveller, all within half a mile of each other.  Best is the Cafesjian Art Centre (photos below).

Some of the Cafesjian Centre's wildlife

Another indigenous Cafesjian species

The Armenian Genocide monument and museum is a couple of miles out of town, is very moving and is rather hard to make any jokes about so i'll move on.

Toasting marshmallows not encouraged

This charming fellow is not remembered fondly by the Armenians

The Museum of Art has some excellent items but the way around is very badly signposted so I kept walking into closets, ladies lavatories and so on and had to be retrieved and set back on the right path by museum attendants.

The historical museum has all sorts of weird stuff, including an object purported to be the world's oldest shoe which interestingly was in almost the exact shape of my Nike Tiempo astroturf football boots.

The Armenians are on very bad terms with most of their neighbours, most notably the Turkish (genocide) and the Azerbaijanis (war at the moment, sort of).  I tried to discuss the Kurds with one of them, thinking he might see them as a similarly oppressed people, and it turns out that the Armenians hate the Kurds as much as anyone else for their part in the genocide - supposedly the Turkish tricked them into carrying most of it out.

Mount Ararat loom over the city like somewhere Noah might have beached an ark.  Unbelievably, I don't seem to have a single photo of the only thing anyone seems to take a photo of in Yerevan, but you can look a photo of it up online.

This chap clearly hasn't been to the genocide museum lately

The Cairo Metro

I wrote this post a little over a year ago and didn't publish it for some reason.  I hope that publishing it now will buy me some time to write the next one.

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Every day I travel to work on the underground, which is marvellous.

There are often tradesman hawking their wares, and the weary commuter can choose from an array of delights, including beard-trimmers, classroom sets, hotel coffee sachets, inflatable Spongebobs and spinning tops (complete with full demonstration).

People are very generous with each other and will give up their seats for anyone who looks in need.  When someone stands up and gets off, those sitting either side will select the oldest or most infirm looking person left standing up and yank them onto the seat.  People are also happy to catch englishmen if they fall over when the train brakes suddenly.

A curious feature of the system is that the doors only stay open for a fixed length of time, and will shut suddenly while people are getting on and off.  Therefore positioning yourself by the door and packing down like the All Blacks front row are necessary to ensure that your whole body makes it off and not, say, just your head and one arm.

There are two ladies only carriages on every train, which I've found a great place to meet women (joke).

A metro ticket costs the equivalent of around ten American cents (hard to calculate as the Egyptian pound can't make up its mind how much it is worth).  You need to put your ticket in the barrier to get onto the platform, and when you leave the station after your journey you have to hand it to an official, who will then put it directly in the bin.  Having this system has solved Egypt's problem of what to do with soldiers when you have an enormous army but sadly no reason to invade Israel.

Doubtful whether I'll be able to get on this train

Gezira Sporting Club

Founded in 1882 as a place for British expats to drink gin and pretend to play croquet, the GSC occupies a number of acres on the island of Zamalek in the very middle of Cairo.  It's not as good as it was, as the lefty Egyptian government of the 60s very unsportingly gave half the golf course to a youth club next door, but there are a number of attractions for the weary Cairene who is feeling weighed down by the world and his wallet.


Swimmers, runners and tennis and squash players are all catered for, and there are ponies for the use of spoilt children.  No one has a garden in Cairo, so the children not quite spoilt enough for a pony career around the club's grounds on bikes, skateboards and roller skates, and it's hard to walk from the entrance to the pool without getting run over.



The golfers are viewed with disgust by the rest, as their golf course could be converted into a beautiful car park.  The course is good, with a number of fine bunkers as sand is readily available.  There are decent practice facilities, although the putting green has been colonised by a number of stray kittens.  Don't ever use the practice bunker, which is in use as a latrine.  Next to the golf course is the dog area, where an enormous Alsatian named Bimbo is regularly shouted at by an assortment of small children.



I have had a few golf lessons with one of the resident pros, who gets through about 20 cigarettes during each hour long lesson and occasionally swigs from a coke can before tossing it nonchalantly into the nearest water hazard.  Part of the course used to be a botanical garden and there are some curious trees, including a few fake palm trees that are actually there to hold up PA speakers.


The club operates a kind of rent control that means that a family's membership will never increase in price.  Given that 90% of the families at the club have been members since the 1950s, this means that the handful of recent expat members are essentially bankrolling the entire operation.  The membership cards are glorious - mine says SIMON RANDALL in huge letters, and Caroline's says SIMON RANDALL in huge letters, followed by a modest c.millet underneath.  Quite right.

A bit of the golf course, with a real palm tree in the foreground.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is just behind the trees.

Some spherical mice making for a hole

Cairo

On packets of dates and in glossy travel brochures they call Cairo 'Mother of the World', although they omit its other traditional names of 'Father of Traffic', 'Uncle of too much street noise in the middle of the night' and 'Grandfather of your snot turning black.'

We live on Aziz Abaza Street, a few blocks north of 26^th July, a street that runs underneath 15^th May Bridge.  The Egyptians love naming streets after the dates of dubious military victories over Israel.  We are three doors down from the Indian embassy, and two down from the wholesome-sounding Russian Information Agency, who haven’t yet invited us round for tea.

The apartment has a fabulous Nile view, where the occasional felucca or suicidal windsurfer can be seen dodging the neon-flashing party boats.  These play the latest hits at full volume, an ideal accompaniment to a romantic cruise on the river.  And it’s not just the boats – if you hire a horse and cart for a spin around Zamalek it will have booming speakers.

Of the fifty-odd shops within five minutes walk are two gun shops, two small supermarkets and a Subway – the rest sell a mix of soft furnishings and antiques.  Many sell lamps, and possibly magic carpets.

Zamalek is an old part of Cairo, and was very much not built for cars.  That hasn’t stopped the cars from trying, and the streets host the traditional Cairene traffic jam pretty much all the time, apart from at Friday morning prayer time.  Colleagues who drive to work arrive two hours late about once a fortnight after being stuck in epic traffic jams – at least that’s what they tell me.

Downstairs in our apartment building you will find the bawabs, which are a cross between doormen, bodyguards, errand boys and moral guardians, and basically run a kind of protection racket.  Opposite is a primary school, and we are awoken daily by shrill voices chanting numbers and warbling the national anthem.

Some river or other

India - Udaipur, Goa and Nasik

The main purpose of my visit to India was to attend the splendid wedding of Arradhya and Ian in Udaipur.  The wedding lasted three days, and during those three days I had neither food nor drink that was not at the wedding.  In some ways it was a gruelling experience, as Indians are tremendous boozers and I am nothing if not competitive.  I now know what an Indian Bloody Mary is - a glass of vodka with a dash of tabasco and a tot of tomato juice.

As you might imagine, my memory of the wedding is hazy, but a sure highlight was the dance-off between the friends of the groom (mostly British and malcoordinated) who attempted a crude variant of the Scottish reel the Dashing White Sergeant, and the friends of the bride who performed a beautifully choreographed and synchronised Bollywood extravanganza.

Team Honeymoon in Goa was also a highlight.  Yoga, incense, traditional healing - we didn't have time for any of those as we were too busy stuffing ourselves with shrimp curry and playing football on the beach.

From Goa I shelled out $10 to take the overnight bus to Bombay.  This sounded brilliant as you get a flat bed, and it was only when I boarded the bus that I discovered that the beds are made for 5 foot something Indians and not 6 foot something Europeans.  In Bombay I spent a happy hour going in various directions on local trains and getting not much nearer my intended destination.  In the end I somehow found myself on the train to Nasik, where I became BFFs with everyone in my carriage (I think I am now facebook friends with most of them) and ate a lot of food I couldn't identify.

Nasik is India's wine country, so it was a shame that I visited during one of the hindu festivals where consumption of alcohol is forbidden and the vineyards were shut.  Not to worry, as I had a marvellous time with my friends Paul and Claire, and their children (who think that it is normal for people to throng to take your photo when you go for a spin in your pushchair).  From June to September 2015 Nasik will host the Hindu festival Kumbh Mela, when everyone comes and jumps in the river.  To give you an idea of how many people are expected, on one day in 2013 Allahabad saw 30 million people turn up for a dip.  Given that Nasik station can fit around 600 travellers at a push on its platforms, Paul and Claire have quite sensibly now left town.

Bloody Mary time

The wedding ceremony.  Fascinating, but not such essential viewing after someone discovered that the bar was still open outside

At weddings in Udaipur, the groom wears an awesome turban and rides a horse while his friends dance up the street.  I suspect that this is not in fact true, but was done to amuse the locals.

I wonder if this gives you any kind of complex?

The Godavari River, definitely ready for 30 million bathers

These locals were very excited to find another white face

India - Delhi and Agra

I spent a fortnight in India in January - the reason I have waited so long to blog about it is not due to some traumatic experience in an ashram but because my photos are so poor that until now I couldn't bring myself to illustrate a post with them.

I was told that everyone in Delhi would try to con me, and at the airport I was glad to be able to ignore the advice I received from a passing taxi driver that the underground railway was shut due to fog.  In town I found a rickshaw driver who suggested I call my hotel to get directions.  He let me use his phone, and was even kind enough to key in the number himself when I read it out.  The hotel explained that they were terribly sorry but all the roads around had been closed due to the huge religious festival in town that weekend.  The driver suggested he take me to the Official Tourist Office of India so that they could find me a hotel.  He took me to a building which in hindsight may not have been the Official Tourist Office of India, although they did have a poster of the Taj Mahal.  The man there invited me to speak on the phone to a few hotels, which were all full and which I now realise were being voiced by someone in the next door office.  The only thing for it was to go to Agra for the night, and by happy chance this fellow owned a travel company that could sell me a trip there for a very reasonable price!  And so it was that I got to see the Taj Mahal and returned to Delhi in time for my flight to Udaipur a satisfied customer of this intricate and impressive scam.

This might be the worst photo ever taken at the Taj Mahal

The dream tourist site for a Brit.  No idea what the queue was for.

I don't think this photo is bad

Magnificent view of Taj Mahal from Agra Fort

None of this sign makes sense to me, but nonetheless I would like a wazoo tank installed in my flat.

The Turkish Bath

A visit to a Turkish bath on a Sunday evening is just the thing, although probably best avoided if you have a problem with public nudity, either yours or that of the very fat Turkish man sitting opposite you.

The bath house in the Antakya market can't have changed at all for the last 100 years, apart from the electronic massage chair just inside the entrance.  It is open to both men and ladies, only at different times, and I believe the opening hours for ladies are a little restricted.

You are given a loincloth, and first you hang around lying on marble slabs in a very hot room.  Then a man attacks you with a brillo pad and removes about a pound of skin from your body.  His friend then washes you all over with some sort of carbolic soap – this is a little disconcerting as they begin by covering your face with soap so you can’t open your eyes and then suddenly whip off your loin cloth or hurl hot water at your chest or give you a good thump on the stomach with a wet sponge.

The end result is that you are so clean that surely there is no need to wash for at least another week.

The outside of the bath house - you really don't want to see any photos from inside.