Dubai

Once we checked in we were so very glad to be in the air conditioned comfort of our room!

However we decided to head out for a few ciders to celebrate the last day of our trip!

We went to an Irish pub at the Le Meridian resort next door and ended up eating there also enjoying a yummy butter chicken curry!

So tired now though and looking forward to a big snooze!!

Time to go......

We got up early and had breakfast at the hotel. I was sneaky and took some glad bags along and made sandwiches to take on the plane - lol!

We caught the airport bus, an absolute steal at about 80 cents for the ride! It left from around the corner from our hotel and we arrived at the airport within 20 minutes!!

Once at the airport we checked in and found out our bags would go straight through to Melbourne so we had to separate some stuff out and then just took carry on with our clothes for Dubai and on the flight home to Melbourne.

We departed on time and even had a spare seat next to us, lets hope that works out for the Melbourne leg!!

We arrived into Dubai around 3pm and by the time we cleared customs it was around 3:30pm.

We were going to catch a taxi but soon learnt that the taxi drivers did not want to take us as it was not a far enough trip from the airport, they told us their credit card machines were not working. They were also trying to force us to use the more expensive black taxis as the cheaper taxis did not want our fare!

So being stubborn we decided to walk!

Yes, it was 38 degrees and hot as all f**k but the metro station was not that far away so off we went sweating bullets!

We ended up arriving at the hotel around 4:45, it took us a decent amount of time but we felt like we had won the taxi battle!!

Last evening

We went back to the local Armenian restaurant we ate at the first night.

The waiter gave us extra wine and some free dolma!! It was delicious!!!

Great way to end the trip :-)

Yerevan .... final day

It was our last day in Yerevan, we really admittedly did not do much but I've come to the realisation that in cities that feel a bit like home you just don't feel like being touristy.

We were going to go to a museum but it was really difficult to get to! So, we took a bit of a cruise about, it's such a lovely city and we just enjoyed the vibe of the place!!

Ooh and we ate burger, we really very rarely eat burgers but when we are on holidays, we do enjoy a burger!!

Nearly the end

As the trip draws to a close we are munching on as much of our favorite food as possible.

Tonight we enjoyed some more delicious Kinkhalis!!

Gerghard cathedral

Next up we visited Gerghard cathedral.

It was quite lovely and we were treated to a beautiful choir inside the church performing a beautiful song!

Yerevan day trip

On Monday we took a day trip to Garni temple Gerghard cathedral.

Garni temple was first up, it's like a mini acropolis.

Chilling out in Yerevan

Beers in the afternoon and then cruising down by the square in the evening!

Yerevan is a bright and vibrant city!

Yerevan statues

Whoops I'm a bit behind in the blog!!

Sunday we took a bit of a walk up to an area called the cascades where there are a number of cool statues.

After visiting the cascades we pretty just pottered about Yerevan enjoying the sun and ended up spending the afternoon in a nice bar drinking beers.

There is not heaps to do here but it's a really
pleasant city to be in and it's nice just to chill out and enjoy the last few days of our trip.

Dinner

Food in Armenia is not all the dissimilar to Georgian food.

We had some yummy Dolma and a couple of veggie dishes and of course some home made wine!

Yerevan

After arriving into Yerevan by train we caught the metro into the city and dropped our bags at the hotel. We were told a room should be available at 9 so we wandered about before heading back to the hotel to check in.

It's quite a modern city, nicer than we expected it to be. Loads of outdoor cafes and bars, nice parks and wide open streets.

After checking in we spent most of the day just cruising about the city enjoying the sunshine.

We looked into some day trip options will do that on Monday.

We had a really nice Armenian coffee, helped us stay awake after a night on the train!

After the night on the train

Killing time

When you have a night train it's always a case of killing a bit of time. We found a good bar with some decent shade and had a couple of beers - there was even a cute kitty enjoying the shade!

We grabbed dinner at a cheap place we'd eaten at before, no Kinkhalis tonight!!

Before we knew it, it was time to head back out to the railway station to get our train.

The train was already on the platform so we picked up our bags from left luggage and made our way to the train. Man, the train was like a sauna!!

We took off on time and soon came to the realisation that there was no air conditioner and the cabin window did not open!

Thank god we had bought extra water.

We crossed the Georgian border at 10pm waiting about 1 hr for everyone to have their passport checked. The train then took off again and next thing at around 11:20pm we were at the Armenian border crossing.

The immigration officers actually came into the cabin and went over our passports with us, they did question our travel to Azerbaijan but once I showed them hotel documents they seemed satisfied.

By 1am we finally took off. By this stage the train was finally starting to cool down. We settled into bed and actually ended up sleeping for about 5 hrs! It was quite good! In fact I actually woke up feeling a bit cold in the end.

Our train arrived into Yerevan right on time, we traveled past Mt Ararat which is in Turkey and this gave us a beautiful sight to wake up to.

Goodbye Georgia, hello Armenia

Today (Friday) was our last day in Georgia and we had a big trip ahead of us traveling from Kazbegi down to Tbilisi and then waiting for the night train.

We decided to leave a little later as there was no point getting to Tbilisi too early given our train was not until 8:20pm.

We took the 11am mini bus, it actually left at 10:45 as it was full and ended up being a pretty quick trip. We had a stop on the way at a castle (only a loo stop, but a good place to stop) and we arrived into Tbilisi at 1:45pm.

As we had all day we decided to drop our bags at the railway station left luggage so we did not have to lug them around.

We found the left luggage easily and then headed into Tbilisi to do some final souvenir shopping and of course grab some beers and dinner!