Mount Aragats tour – My first day in Armenia

“The women are extremely beautiful, traditional, homely and have an amazing array of looks and more importantly, intelligence & wits to match”. I already liked Armenia. By the way that was the information I found when I was researching about the people in Armenia. Yes, I always prepare myself before a trip. But even I didn’t predict that the Mount Aragats tour I were to do on my first day in Armenia would spring a surprise on me.

 

WHY I CHOSE ARMENIA?

We’ll get to the surprise but first, let’s continue the homework I was talking about. So, as a ritual, before leaving for a country I google if :

• the country is safe,
• the weather’s good at the time of travel,
• there are enough places to explore and
• the people are hospitable

Since the google results were giving me good vibes about the place, I knew I had made the right choice of destination.

Why Armenia you’d ask? Because firstly, it’s “Visa on Arrival” and secondly, it’s underrated, less marketed, unexplored & dirt cheap as far as travelling’s concerned. Brownie points for the fact that it’s stunningly beautiful as well!

 

 

All these reasons were good enough for my best friend Avafrin Mistry and I to finalize Armenia as our summer escape. It happened to be our fifth trip together.

 

 

I made our flight & hotel bookings through www.holiday-factory.com because it’s the biggest travel operator in Dubai (I was a Dubai resident then) & offers crazy cheap deals on flights & hotels, whatever be your budget (heartfelt review, not getting paid to advertise this).

This was also the fifth occasion I’d booked my vacation through holiday-factory. There’s a reason why they’re the leading tour operators in the United Arab Emirates.

 

LANDING IN YEREVAN, ARMENIA

We landed in the beautiful capital city of Yerevan post a 3 hour 10 minute flight from Dubai. We came down the escalator with our luggage and headed to the visa stamping office for tourists where we had to pay USD 7 per person for an immigration visa stamp.

The chubby cute immigration officer (a fairer version of Baloo from “Talespin”) messed up by stamping my old passport & not the attached new one, so he took time fixing it after which we bought local sim cards at the airport.

I recommend you to purchase your sim card at the airport because the packages offered give you lots of internet data and calling time for a cheap price.

Greeted by the board that said “Holiday Factory” we were guided by our driver and there we met our beautiful local guide for the day- Anna. Hair made into a ponytail, glasses with a black frame, Cowboy hat and boots with a jacket – she looked ready for a ramp walk in a fashion show.

After exchanging pleasantries and summarizing our travel plan for the day she joined us in our car where she introduced herself and our non-English speaking driver who introduced himself as “I don’t know English“. Irony.

Dropping our luggage at the Europe hotel – our beautiful 4-star abode for the entire duration of the holiday and with 1 hour of time at our disposal before we set out on our first day trip, we decided to firstly exchange our money & then scout for some local food.

 

YEREVAN’S SIMILARITY WITH INDIA

The streets of Yerevan reminded me of India. Following are the reasons why I felt the Indian vibe :

• Crowds in a constant seeming hurry walking briskly,
• People crossing the streets without a pass-by signal,
• Vehicles stopping midway, reversing and going the opposite direction on a one-way street (because, swagger).

 

FIRST MEAL IN YEREVAN – RESTAURANT NIMA

After walking for about 20 minutes and burning some calories, we finally zeroed in on a restaurant to compensate for the lost calories. It was called Restaurant Nima. This place was fascinating in more ways than one.

 

 

The interiors reminded me of the “old world charm” with brick walls and wooden benches but what caught my attention was a vase of flowers, with an English pointer written on it that read “Flowers” just in case you mistook it for something else.

 

 

All the dishes on the menu were written in the local Armenian language, so we couldn’t understand anything. We literally had to look at pictures and guess what we were ordering.

Another option was playing a round of dumb charades with the waitress (who was gorgeous and had blue eyes, ahem!) to understand what to order.

Nobody could speak English but strangely the restaurant played English music throughout our time at the restaurant. First meal in the country & I already had an interesting food-experience.

I was excited about the things in store for the rest of the day.

Coming to the food, it was fresh, succulent and well-cooked with aromatic spices. Vegetarian food comprised of only a couple of salads but the non-vegetarian spread was delicious & fresh. Definitely recommending you the grilled chicken here.

Just a tip – The bills don’t have anything printed in English & you can just read numbers so either pay it without questioning or politely ask them the breakdown for the dishes with good eye contact & a smile. This method works at all food outlets in the country.

 

MOUNT ARAGATS TOUR

 

Post our lunch, Anna came to receive us and take us on our first day trip – the Mount Aragats tour. With lovely Armenian music for company, we reached the first stop of our Mount Aragats tour (in northern Armenia) – Mount Aragats.

Now what seemed like a light spell of rain from inside the cosy coach turned out to be an angry hailstorm firing bullets in reality.

I stepped down from our coach and felt a hail slap on my face. Took me 2 seconds to figure I had stepped right into a fierce hailstorm.

Frozen rain pellets with a strong cold breeze woke up every sleepy cell in my body. An electrifying chill ran down my spine. It was my first day in Armenia and I was greeted by a hailstorm. Quite a wake-up call that!

 

 

Ears were ringing thanks to the temperature and hands were freezing cold. But I’d carried a pair of gloves with me so there’s your precautionary hailstorm prep tip before heading to the mountain.

 

 

Ava & I walked with Anna and others in the coach towards the snow-capped mountain and the air felt virginal – chilled & refreshingly different from the hot, dry and unrelenting winds of Dubai.

 

 

Mount Aragats is a compact group of 4 peaked volcano mountains with the highest peak measuring 4,090 metres. As there wasn’t any sign of another hailstorm, I climbed up the slippery slope. Finally, I reached a point where you could see a panoramic view of mountains all around.

The snow was arranged like a road leading you to the horizon. There was a pleasant fragrance in the air with an occasional flirtation from a hail pellet. Felt calm & a comforting quiet in the lap of nature.

 

 

Seeing fellow travellers including Ava and Anna struggle to climb up was a good ego boost. Besides, it was also a photo opportunity for me so I put Ava to the task of clicking me.

 

 

What followed was some posing for the cameras whilst dodging snowballs of fury hurled at me, owing to the display of an overflowing sense of pride & entitlement, for having climbed the slippery mountain.

Half an hour at the peak and it started to hail again so we got back into the coach & left for our next stop in the Mount Aragats tour – the Amberd Fortress.

 

 

Ruins of a castle with fortified walls and a church with clean blue skies & greenery all around provided for the perfect scenery.

The fortress was built on top of a hill. And the ruins stood like a monument, with a domed church in the background. It started as a stone age settlement which was then built into a fortress in the 7th century.

It’s a popular notion that the Amberd Castle was a summer residence for kings. Four centuries later the fortress and the surrounding land was purchased by the Pahlavuni family & rebuilt by the then prince Vahram Pahlavuni. Hence, the church came to be known as the Vahramashen church.

 

 

The site was occupied by Seljuc Turks but later a joint army of Georgians & Armenians fought with the Turks and liberated the fortress making it a key defence site. A bathhouse was located south of the fortress.

There was a separate deck for enjoying the view and taking pictures of the place. The spot was obviously, put to good use by our cameras. What interested me was the pathway for a nice hike to the top of the fortress.

Though Ava had her knee operated recently and had not fully recovered, she still climbed up the fortress. Also present were me, Anna and some new friends I’d made on the coach – Candice and her husband Nicholas.

 

 

We climbed right to the top of the fortress and the view was beyond description. The flag was flying high & wind blowing so strong that a lanky person could get blown away into the valley.

I could see the Amberd Canyon – adorned with green mountains. Also noticeable were the clouds, patched like thought bubble emoticons in a sea of blue.

 

 

I felt like a kid in a candy store. Euphoric. We clicked a few “Look! we’re on top of the world” groupfies, enjoying the fruits of our hiking labour.

 

 

Coming down the pathway, Anna & I got into a conversation about work, travel & our lives in general. She told me that she’d just started her journey as a travel guide (seemed like a pro though).

She was also studying fashion design simultaneously, with her end goal being – setting up her fashion label in Paris.

 

 

Despite being faced with a challenge to achieve dual qualification in such diverse streams, Anna seemed optimistic. I found her zeal for her goals extremely inspiring. It reminded me of a similar balancing act between acting & travel-blogging that I was working towards achieving.

Her positive attitude towards life and her yearning to constantly learn was impressive. We connected at the level of optimism & ambition.

I was loving how the weather stealthily transitioned from being cold, dark, gloomy & stormy to warm, bright, pleasant & calm.

After spending time at the third spot in the Mount Aragats tour – the Vahramashen church and successfully learning to pronounce Vahramashen (post a hundred attempts), I returned to Yerevan with my travel group to enjoy traditional Armenian dinner at a famous local restaurant chain called Qaghaq Pandok.

Warm, cosy, wooden interiors that resembled a Harry Potter film set, greeted us. Mouthwatering dishes made their way onto our table one course after another.

Thankfully there were more vegetarian options to choose from over here, besides the tasty wine. If you want a taste of Armenian cuisine with some fine wine, then this is the place to be.

From eating hailstorm pellets at the start of the Mount Aragats tour to eating tasty traditional Armenian food at the end of the tour, it’d been quite a role reversal of sorts.

We ended the day raising a toast to what was a memorable travel experience with an unexpected hailstorm for a guest appearance!

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