Where eyebrows like to meet in the middle

Republic Square ...all hail the republic and her square
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Day 9

I arrived in Yerevan airport shortly after 6. I was highly relieved when I saw my rucksack on the conveyor belt as I did have visions that it might still be languishing in Riga where I had changed flights.

The arrivals hall was small and I was greeted by a number of taxi drivers touting for business. Thankfully, 'no' does mean 'no' to Armenian taxi drivers so I wasn't hassled at all.

The Cascade monstrosity - the photo doesn't do it the injustice
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I then had to wait at a cafe for one and half hours until the marshuktas (clapped out minibuses) started running at 8am. During my wait, I sampled the sweet tasting Armenian coffee as I watched out the window as the night gradually turned to day.

When boarding the bus, the marshrutka driver asked me something before I got on the bus and I had no idea as to what he was asking. This was to be the first of many language barrier problems. Another first also occurred at the bus stop which was when sometimes an Armenian person saw me, they would look me over, say something to a friend and then they would both look at me. This was the Armenian way of laughing and looking at the foreigner.

An Elvis Karaoke Phonebox......if only, it's an entrance to a tacky pub
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Otherwise, people here seemed friendly enough despite the fact that loads of blokes had eyebrows that met in the middle so naturally they looked a little shifty and untrustworthy. Thankfully, the women here did not have such monobrow problems even if good looking ladies were few and far between.

More language barriers before I got off the bus, I think that the driver eventually understood that I wanted to be dropped off near a metro and he duly obliged.

The soviet style metro (quick escalators, dirt cheap and fancy waiting platforms) was rather easy to use and I got off at the metro for the train station in order to hopefully book my train ticket to Tbilisi.

The Armenian 'Vatican', Echmiadzin - even I look better than it
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I found the ticket office and spoke to someone at counter 6 who told me that a ticket today for Tbilisi was not possible but then told me to wait at counter 7 next to her. I was expecting her to change counter but I stood there wating for 5 mins.

Another employee who had been speaking to the woman in counter 6 then said to me that the counter 7 would be open in 10 mins. I came back 10 mins later not feeling optimistic.

The woman in counter 7 then told me to go to Counter 2 (brilliant). I went over to counter 2 and the women there told me that I should go back to counter 6(priceless). By this time, the woman in counter 6 had changed to the woman who had told me that counter 7 would be open in 10 mins. After much messing about by the women, I eventually got my overnight train ticket to Tbilisi. Don't you just love Armenian merry go rounds!

The hidden beauty of Yerevan is very,very well hidden
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Now time to start exploring. The train station was rather impressive looking. Outside there loads of market stalls selling foods, fruits and crap trinkets and clothes. And they were bloody noisy (much have been loads of haggling going on).

This place was warm and it was only 9.30am. After taking a metro again, I decided that I needed another armenia coffee to buikd my strength up.

More language barriers but I got my coffee. I also learned what happens when you enter a cafe here and speak English, the waiter/waitress does not even look you in the face before walking off to get the English speaking waiter/waitress in the cafe (even though the English speaker only knows a handful of unhelpful English words).

A 'typical' street scene from Yerevan
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I then walked down a street where there were loads of fancy embassy buildings before I ended up at the Cascade which was a bit of fancy pyramid shaped monstrosity where the designer seemed to have ran out of ideas and just put any random stuff in his design. This was one of the 'highlights' of Yerevan and there were only about 2 or 3 other tourists about (that looked like homegrown tourists).

I then headed to the Matenadaran which housed manuscripts (mainly of gospel writings) which invariably dated from over 500 to 1400 years old. It was all abit similar - fancy writing and pictures. Thankfully the place was not that big so it did not take too long to see everything. I am not convinced about the authenticity of the manuscripts there either - there was one exhibit which showed a before and after restoration. You could absolutely see nothing on the before part but the after was some bright multi-colour specimen.

High brow art on the streets of Yerevan
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More walking around the place, saw the Opera house and more churches. I then saw the main square, Republic Square, which was a pretty impressive spectacle.

I then found a marshrukta that was going to Echmiadzin. The bus journey was over 20 mins and I was getting a little worried that I'd missed my stop. But I asked someone in my best voice 'Echmiadzin', they repeated it the correct way and then pointed ahead.

Got off ok, Echmiadzin was in the same style of all the other Armenian churches that I had seen and considering that it is known as the 'Aremenia Vatican', our hitler youth loving pope has nothing to fear from it as it was rather underwhelming.

I had some more wanderings and taking photographs and decided that, even though my train was at 7, that I should collect my bag from the left luggage before 5 just in case that it closed before then (as I did not really fancy the thought of possibly having to spend another night in the place as I'd seen enough).

And after hanging around the train station for over 2 and a half hours, I boarded  the night train to Tbilisi. It was very rough and ready and both toilets on the carraige stunk of urine. I was sharing a berth with a mother and daughter who could only speak a little English.

The mother had problems with the Armenian border patrol and then more problems with the Georgia border guards when she was taken off the train. The daughter (who looked over 20) stayed on the train. She told me that her mother would be ok. I'm not sure that I would leave my mum on her own in a foreign country stranded at a border and in trouble with the authorities.