Armenia is independent now. But still heavy with Russianness.

The art in my room, in my hotel in Pushkin Street. 99% of the tourists here are Russian or Iranian. All school children learn Armenian and Russian and then either German, French or English. Which is 3 separate, very different alphabets. Also, chess is compulsory ;).

Heavy, clompy architecture. Incomprehensible statues of poets and architects every 50 meters

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‘Display’ missiles etc, soviet era apartment blocks and factories, children climbing on old tanks, nuclear power stations, ‘demilitarized’ border crossing with watch towers and lots of military, ironically. Armenia/Russia facing off against Turkey/NATO. It feels strange to be on the other side of NATO.

Armenia is an ally of Russia and Iran. The USA has their second biggest embassy here after Tehran. ;).

This is the land of the Lada (and the Volga). A lot of cars and buses use gas. This is a 1960’s school bus with gas tanks on the roof. Gas is super cheap and comes from Russia. Oil is from Iran. And Armenia produces nuclear power which they sell to Georgia. The roads are SHIT. Mostly because of the climate. 35-45 during summer and 20 feet of snow in winter. Its hard to maintain roads in those conditions.

Yerevan is clean, orderly and ultra-planned. Youth Boulevard. Sports Quarter. Opera District. Its as pretty as a post Soviet, artificial city can be.

Last week I knew F.A. about Armenia, now I’m an expert 😉 – so here’s a short Armenia 101.

It’s not officially called ‘the unlucky country’, that’s just my name. Most stories in their history go like this …”and there was a great battle, and we lost and everyone was killed …”,  over and over. Its just in the wrong place.

Armenia is bordered by Turkey, a closed border – they hate each other, politically. Azerbaijan – hate. Nagorno-Karabakh, or Republic of Artsakh, depending on who you ask – contested/war. Iran – very friendly. And Georgia – friendly.

They’ve been invaded and ruled by (in no particular order) Byzantines, Sassanids, Persians, Romans, Russians, Ottomans … The current Armenia is only one 10th of the original country. Most of it is in Turkey now. And it used to go from the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea.

The country’s most significant symbol – in art, literature, all of their culture is Mt Ararat. Which is now in Turkey. Also, Turkey killed 1.5 million Armenians after WW1 and won’t admit it. One of Turkey’s requirements to join the EU is to admit to the genocide. But they won’t. The hate is very deep.

Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity in 301AD. Religion is a big deal here. Especially after being banned under the Soviet Union for so long.

It has it’s own curly, wurly 39 letter alphabet. The 4 million Armenians here speak it. And another 14 million diaspora Armenians. It’s not a mixed country. 98% Armenian. The rest are mostly Yazidis, who are Zoroastrians.

Theres also a few Vlachs, Mordvins, Ossetians, Udis and Tats.  Which sounds extremely Game of Thrones to me.

Their money is the dram.

They became independant from Russian in 1991, just after they had a massive earthquake, and went to war with Azerbaijan. So really they’re just starting to get their shit together now. A very new, sweet, kind, tidy, orderly little country.

Now I’m in Yerevan. The capital of Armenia.

Can I say firstly, that Beirut airport is the worst worst airport in the world by a factor of 10. Just so AWFUL and TERRIBLE.

Yerevan is all elegance and refinement by comparison to Beirut. Traffic has rules. You don’t throw your rubbish into the street. (In Beirut is is collected and dumped into the sea, Greece is justifiably very angry about this).

There are leafy tree and avenues. Flower shops and cake shops. Every third shop is a beauty salon. I may be able to solve my dreadlock problem. The architecture is modern and affluent (where I am) in a shabby, run down way. The old buildings are very heavy and monolithic and ugly. But I have spotted some shiny churches – Yay. They like a nice gold onion top here, Russian orthodox style.

It is illegal to have grey hair here, regardless of age. or natural lips. Or untattoo’d eyebrows. I realise now the Kardasians didn’t just happen.

• I am two days away from dreadlocks. I’m rocking my huge, curly white girl fro. Hard water and no hair dryers.
• FINALLY, I have travel insurance. Yay, I can feel more reckless with pedestrian crossings, gun fire, rabid dogs and terrible wiring.

• Checking out of the hotel early this morning the concierge stuck his hand into my cleavage. Saying there was something on my dress and he was wiping it off. So I slapped his hand. And we had a talk and he admitted it was a stupid thing to do. And he just wasn’t thinking. It was very early. And I must forgive him. And I mustn’t mention it on Trip Advisor. And he was so sweet and tearful that I wasn’t even angry.
• Theres a solid Kombucha trade here, among other vegany-hipster shizz

Beirut was called the Paris of the East and was ruled by the French for a long time (among others). Its history is Egyptian, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Christian, Muslim, Ottoman, French … And was a very chic, elegant, international, wealthy place. Until the wars. The beautiful shells of old villas and palaces and apartments are everywhere, either being reclaimed by homeless Syrians or filled with tiny urban forests. Or in various stages of rehabilitation.

When I go back I’ll probably stay in Hamra. Its insanely busy and crowded and but better than the embassy/bulgari/soliders neighborhood I was in. Gemayze is a very evening/night time restauranty bar place/ Mar Mickel is all about bars. Achrafieh is nice too.

Beirut is divided into east and west. West is Muslim. East is Christian. Theres a bit of Hezbollah in the middle. And in the southern suburbs. During the war there was a line, the green zone, through the middle of the city. (That where I stayed this time). It was green because there was no traffic, blown up buildings and no one could go there because off the snipers. So the wild figs and forest came and grew all over it. I like that.

The country is tiny. Only 4 million people, but 2 million refugees. (New Zealand is 100,00 square miles. Lebanon is 4,000 square miles and very mountainy). I’m confused about the impact of the Syrians. It’s a very soft border. They come to work on construction sites, laboring kind of jobs, and take their wages back to Syria. Which is hard for the economy. Aleppo is completely destroyed but Damascus is fine. I could have gone there for the weekend.

This is a city I will definitely come back to.

Most marvelous day of filling my cakehole. For breakfast I had Lahmadjun (in Armenian and Lachmacun in Turkish). This must be a pan Ottoman thing because there variations everywhere. The Armenian version is a paper thin dough with a spiced meat topping. Like a little thin, thin pizza. Sometime with Armenian spices, sometimes just with pomegranate syrup, which is sour and delicious; and used here like balsamic on salady things. Its cooked in a pizza oven for about a minute because its so thin. And you eat it rolled up. They’ve been making this one thing since 1946.

There also a lovely fresh flat bread here. More wholemealy and chewy than the regular bread (which is served with everything!). Its cooked on a sort of upside down wok by handsome men*. Sometimes*

Then I went to an old bakery in the East of the city. There was baklava in a million forms. Cashew, pistachio, walnut. Pastry and nuts and semolina. All tiny and perfect. A man was hand rolling and stacking phyllo. I ate an amazing pikelet-thing with clotted cream and orange blossom jam. Could have eaten 20.

And a tiny ice cream shop in the only undamaged corner of a condemned building. The oven has a bullet hole in it. A lovely man and his mother have always had this business. I ate rose water sorbet, pistachio, milk and mastic which is what they use in Turkey. It’s hard to describe the flavor. Its very subtle. Mostly it changes the texture to make it chewy.

I went to a very beautiful little hipster restaurant. Gorgeous inside and out. They had rows of amazing home made pickles. Pickled green almonds. Plums. Figs. Peppers. and lots of dried herbs and spices. Zatar. Sumac. Strings of tiny baby dried okra. Rosemary water. Sage water.

Baby Okra – another necklace for Sofia 🙂

This one is dried intestine. Maybe not for Sofia’s jewellery  :).

Lots of cheese. Everything is goat or sheep here. If its cow is probably Bulgarian. Not so much hard, aged cheeses, just fresh feta-y cheese and labneh. Somtimes dried labneh in balls, preserved in oil.

Lebanese manti is baked first then put into the hot yoghurt. So its crunchy. Its really good. But I prefer the Turkish one.

I had the best falafel I’ve ever had. Part chickpea,part fava. Crispy. Fluffy on the inside. Tiny bit of anise and coriander. In a sandwich with yogurt sauce, tomato, pickles fresh herbs.

And the best charwarma in Beirut – but I still prefer the Turkish doner. Which is slightly different.

Grilled meat is fabulous here. Taouk chicken is marinated and grilled. The good stuff is cooked over charcoal rather then electricity. And they have amazing chain places. Everyone delivers , so there millions of motorbikes, because the bladerunnerish traffic congestion prevents parking.

Different types of figs and plums. I’m too early for persimmons but I had juice in Istanbul

Armenian tabouli. Where everything is cooked down into a thick salsa-ish sauce. Tastes way better than it looks.

Lamb cooked with cherries and cashews –

My eating companion was a gorgeous chef/ food blogger/ Palestinian man. Definitely one of my people. I loved him. We just gave up after a while and drank wine and talked about boys. He is in a clown troupe that perform for the kids in the camps. He is fabulous. I wish he could be my Beiruti souvenir. But he’s very at home with all the lovely bears in Beirut. Eyelashes to die for.

An amazing day trip out of Beirut. My Lovely Driver* and I drove up over 3,300 ft over the mountains. We stopped in a Druze village and saw the oldest mosque in Lebanon, the Fakhreddine Mosque in Deir el Qamar (Monastary of the Moon), built in 16th C. There’s also a very old synagogue here – 17thC, but I couldn’t find it. There are mostly Druze and Maronite Christians in the mountains here. Even when the Ottomans built the old mosque its been a very mixed community.

Here’s a short study in magnets of Lebanon’s most famous foods. 🙂

We drove to the other side of the valley to see the Beit ed-Dine Palace which was lovely and then drove up even higher up the mountains into the famous cedar forests. There is exactly zero health and safety in this area so the roads are really rough, one lane, steep gorges. Lots of reversing up banks to avoid on coming trucks, although once you’re in the cedars there’s no traffic. I didn’t see any other people but there was a lot of gunfire. It wasn’t machine gun fire, just rifles. Lovely Driver thought they were probably ‘hunting’ although fuck knows what for in 46 degrees on a mountain top. Lizards? Anyway I didn’t like it. It made me feel like spewing. And I couldn’t tell if I was walking towards it or away from it.

Here’s some cheerful, deserty mountain flowers.

We drove down the other side of the mountains towards Syria into the Bekaa Valley, which has a bad reputation, but is OK. Hezbollah militia control most of the border regions as the Lebanese Army proxy.

I spent a couple of hours at an amazing Umayyad ruin site built in the 8th C. Its a whole city that been used by Armenian refugees and the Syrian army but is still surprisingly intact considering there’s no funding (other than from UNESCO) to protect these kinds of places. Its very beautiful but bleak and distressingly hot.

There was a camel but Lovely Driver just rolled his eyes and said it was just there for tourists. I was the only tourist so I gave it a little pat. And it blew snot at me and tried to bite my arm. Because its a camel.

Its right on the Syrian border so theres a lot of makeshift housing around. Although theres some kind of arrangement for workers to come across the border everyday here to work on the farms. So theres truck loads of Syrians coming backwards and forwards rather than staying here as refugees. Its confusing.

Wild figs everywhere.

We had lunch at a weird trippy very Arab place and I don’t want to think about it because I’m so sick today. Look at the photos on Instagram @icysees. I can’t be thinking about any food today. Heres a Druze man with marvelous handlebar mustachio pouring coffee.

And then I went to Chateau Ksara, the most famous winery in Lebanon. I’ve tried some really nice wine from them before, but the ‘tour’ they do is very cheesey and underwhelming. There were a bunch of drunk Lebanese-Australians from Melbourne there. Need I say more.

*Lovely Driver is simply a lovely driver. He is 24 and Sunni and in love with a Shi’ite girl and they plan to get married and move to Canada. He spent approx 9 hours on the phone to her telling her he loved her. It was very sweet.

Poor old Beirut got off to a bad start. I was hungover. And broken hearted. 😦

The flight took an hour and a half from Istanbul (after a lot of tears at the airport). Perfect flight. But when I arrived I spent 2.5 hours in a queue? maul? scrum? for passport control. An old lady in front of me fainted. A man started getting shouty, so some soldiers took him away. They do not like people traveling on new passports – which I am. The only stamp in it was Turkey. So I had to reassure them I’d never been to Israel, otherwise I wouldn’t get entry to Lebanon. The outside temperature at the airport was 38. Fuck knows what the temperature was inside.

The suitcases were just all in piles around the airport. I took an hour to find mine among some that had come from Paris. I’m trying to think if I’ve been to a worse airport … ?

The driver who was supposed to pick me up wasn’t there.

My (fancy, pretty expensive) hotel has no hot water. But I imagine that won’t be a problem after I’ve been walking around for a while.

I’m staying in Downtown which is nice. A pretty fancy neighborhood. Chanel, Armani, embassies. The parliament buildings are here so lots of soldiers and checkpoints. I feel like I’m in an episode of Homeland in places. Old churches. Mosques. In the morning I’m woken by church bells and the call to prayer. There can’t be that many places with that combination in the world.

The air is very hot. Its already 30 degrees at 8am. But a breeze is blowing off the sea. The buildings are all pale, sandy colored and the sky is a piercing bright blue.

The city is divided into two parts – Christian (civilized, very western, French, wealthy) and Muslim (not all those things). Hezbollah are in the southern suburbs so shan’t be going there. The city is on the coast looking out onto the Mediterranean. There’s a very busy, hustling corniche. And hills running up the back of the city towards the mountains.

The food is great so far. And the local beer is ok. Served with fresh carrots weirdly. Thats a thing here apparently.

That’s Pigeon Rock in the back ground, from a roof top bar. Today’s my 3rd day here so far, although the first day was just recovering from the airport mare. I’m hoping to get out of the city to the Bekaa Valley to visit some vineyards. And Cedar trees. Organising a driver/tour is surprisingly difficult. Maybe because its Eid.

There is no way I could be having a better time here.

So much great food. Vegetarian heaven. Turks, (like a lot of other people) are a bit xenophobic about food. Auckland is a city of hundreds of cultures and cuisines. We forget how spoiled we are. Istanbul is a city of Turkish food – but it’s quite regional. Every city has a famous dish – Samsun Pide or a Turkish variation – Aleppo kebab. Basically, you’re screwed if you don’t like Turkish food.

These are manti – perfect, tiny little meat filled dumplings.

And its a city of football (my team is Galatasaray 😉 ). And CATS. And music and books. So many books … mostly very high brow literature and classic novels. Not these.

I’ve been to the Islands in the Marmara – Adala. And done seaside things – ice cream, crispy little fish, martinis in a sudden Summer storm. The islands have no cars, just horses and carriages, galloping at 120km; beautiful old stately wooden holiday homes; and one million Arab tourists, with badly behaved children, sucking up souvenirs like shopping vacuums. The don’t walk far from the shops so the rest of the islands are empty.

Fried mussels

I’ve visited Palaces and museums and art galleries. And amazing mosaics (my favorite thing) in out of town churches.

Dolombache Palace gate

Chora church

And I’m learning which Istanbul craft beers are best. Street food here is interesting because its essentially all very healthy. Stuffed mussels, grilled corn, chestnuts, little donuts (not so healthy) …

I took the ferry to the Asian side and ate beautiful stuffed eggplants in Kadakoy, which feels like a neighborhood in San Francisco. Cute little shops. One million cafes.

The Modern Art Gallery, which has a fantastic restaurant with the best view over the Bosphorous. Then more book shops.

The hipster neighborhood of tiny bars and gorgeous old Armenian buildings. Raki with old men in narrow alleys. A cool, underground wine bar in Galata. Late night coffee. Street music everywhere. And stuffed mussels and beer in bed at midnight.

How could there be a better city?

The 17 hour flight from Auckland to Dubai was surprisingly OK. Then 5ish hours in Dubai. As boring as any airport in the world. A brief moment of excitement when I remembered that there’s almost boiling, desert heated water in the toilets so when you sit on the loo your bum gets steamed. A gentle wake up. I ate steak and drank beer and bought really strange Arab perfume. Then the short 4 hours to Istanbul.

I’m staying Besiktas. Which is fantastic. Very busy. Restaurants and bars and coffee places. There are 20 million people in this city, so there are more people just hanging in this hood than in all of Auckland. Super busy and crowded and fun.

My hotel is very, very strange and loopy. Tourism has completely changed in Istanbul. Western people don’t come here anymore and Arab tourism has taken over. All the tourists are from Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, UAE, and Saudi. And they really like bling. So my hotel is all gold and neon and gaucheness. I feel quite at home.

And its Eid this week – a 10 day long public holiday here because it’s combining 2 things – so all the Turkish people are away visiting family. So there’s just me and every Arab person in the world. Its weird.

Turkish people think of Arab tourists the same way with think of bus loads of Chinese.

Flying over Iran was gorgeous. Turquoise rivers. Lapis lakes. And an amazing huge bright pink lake near Tabriz which I entirely failed to photograph.

My first night here I just wandered around the neighborhood and then had dinner on a rooftop near Taksim. Really good Turkish red wine. Beautiful fried fish. Lamb cooked with eggplant. I’m going to get so fat.

The next day I walked for a thousand miles. The Museum of Innocence which I’d always wanted to see. Sublime. An antiques festival which was torture. SO MUCH STUFF. Three thousand years of bric and brac. Lots of stops for tiny coffee, beer (its 30 degrees so its a medical requirement) and continuous eating.

Lavish breakfasts of 20 dishes and liters of black tea. Really interesting cheese. Somewhere between mozerella and feta in long curly twisted strips or pulled tubes or sliced. Watermelon. Strawberries.

Walking along the Bosporus you could be in the South of France or Italy with beautiful tall ice cream colored buildings, seagulls and promenades. Interspersed with palaces and thousand year old crumbling walls. We walked to Bebek and stopped for stuffed potatoes and Ayran (yoghurt) and tried to get rice stuffed mussels from the most famous places – but the queue on a Sunday afternoon was too long. Everything was calm and elegance. I’m learning a lot about the hisoty and current politics. A lot about Ataturk and his life and values. Went to a museum near the Dolmabahce Palace and saw all the furnishings from the last Ottomans and Ataturk’s time there.

Dinner was exactly the sort of deep fried thing you have anywhere in the world after 8 beers talking philosophy and politics. 🙂