Day C3: Yerevan to Noosh Guest House

July 28, 2024

Via Aremnian Genocide Museum

The people at the bike shop recommended that Noosh Guest House should be the first stop, and it makes sense as it's all uphill. What's more the route happened to pass by th eGenocide Museum so I would obviously check that out.

While still furious over the airport incident and how these people were so bitter I tried to do a little more research to understand the reasons. As always it was not a simple matter. The dots started to connect. I found out that their enemy Azerbaijan trades the most with the Gulf countries. Combine that with the fact that Azerbaijan produces their own oil and sends it on pipeplines to Turkey (with another one under construction) and it completely bypasses Armenia. So naturally they're not exactly thrilled on missing out of this wealth.

If the oil was completely bypassing you I guess you would be pretty bitter about it

What's more, in light of recent developments, they are deeply worried about losing their territory and cultural heritage piece by piece. Combined with what I later saw next at the Genocide Museum, I began to understand this more.

There are in fact several ethnic groups in this world that don't have a nation state. The Kurds are an example. So are the Palestinians. So it would be perfectly understandable for Armenians to be worried they could lose their state and become like one of those groups.

On the other hand, I also checked to see staggering economic growth in Armenia that all happened post-covid. In 2022 it was upwards of 12% and it has since slowed down a little. So clearly there is wealth being built and much of that was seen in Yerevan. It's just that I'm not sure what the main industries and drivers are.

Historically, they were a huge empire called the Kingdom of Ararat and were a proud conquering people. In many ways this reminded me of Cambodia which used to be the same, i.e. the Khmer Empire. It was probably around the same time too in 500 BC. In both cases today those two countries have been reduced to rump states. So that might also explain the bitterness.

Having found at least three reasons for the bitterness, it was easier to let some of the stuff go. But it's not like these people are poor innocent victims. There have been documented cases where the Armenians also occupied territory and committed ethnic cleansing against the Azeris. So who knows who is right. They can't both be right.

Anyways. It was time to bike out of here. The people at the Marriot hadn't exactly provided the top notch service you would expect. Even last night they said, "It's ok to leave your bike on the street." Are you kidding me? No it isn't! I insisted they put the bike in the storage room. When I picked it up this morning after checkout, they were none too happy and stared at me stonefaced as I wheeled the bike out and assembled the panniers.

First stop was a bookstore to offload several books that were weighing me down. The girl at the desk wasn't really sure why but I told her and said, "You probably don't see this very often. I'm on a cycle tour and need to reduce my carrying weight. You can see the bike outside. These are good books, I hope you enjoy."

Even with offloading the books, I was still carying way, way, way, way too much stuff. This would be a major problem as the ride went on for the first day of cycling really.

Next stop would be the Genocide Museum.

Without a doubt some horrific tragedies took place and it put to light more of those earlier comments. I wanted to find more information at the museum to read about this and learn more, but there was none to be found. Trust me I looked everywhere. So a museum with no information, what was this? Did they do this on purpose to bury the past? But then why the monument? Was this a cultural thing to not display information? While I could easily find all this on the internet, it didn't make sense why they would make this monument to a horrific piece of history and then leave the traveler to fill in the blanks as to what happened.

Deeply disturbed in more ways than one, I cycled off and bounced.

Finally the main road out of the city. From this point on things can only get better.

It was becoming clear that the abundance of alcohol was insane in this country. I guess it only made sense, but this was WAY over the top. It was beyond excessive. Every market or shop had drinks for sale including the very strong and hard stuff. Ordinarily you would think this is a party paradise as I had mistakingly believed: eat good food, dance at clubs, drink wine, enjoy brandy, and be merry. But this wasn't what I was seeing. The vibes were depressing. Nobody was inviting me to parties anywhere. Even the women, many of whom were gorgeous, looked at me like I was from outer space or something. My wife explained they want to date westerners to escape the country and leave their alcoholic abusive husbands. Not that I would seek that out for obvious reasons, but if they were interested in westerners they sure weren't making any effort.

Maybe the alcohol was simply there for people to escape the depression and drink into obvlivion. That was the only thing I could conclude. It was super sad.

Nobody's dancing. Even if they were I wouldn't want to enter.

While eating, surprisingly an Indian guy came up and started chatting. This was the first real English conversation I had in this country. He asked me many questions about my cycle trip then he started to share what he was doing here.

He explained, "My agent helped me find work abroad in other countries and I'm here as a waiter. I really wanted to find a job in the UK or Canada and I applied for a work study program but the competition is severe. For every 1 lakh applicants, only 1000 get in (1 lakh = 100,000). Maybe I'll stay in Armenia for a few months and that is all."

I asked, "So what's the main industry here anyway? I've been seeing nothing all trip."

He said, "Yeah that's right, there's nothing."

I said, "Well that's what I thought. How do these people make their money? Is the economy all based on alcohol or something?"

He said, "I have no idea. I'm just here until I can find something else"

We wished each other well then I took off.

Another stop for drinks. The load was becoming too much.

The ride was an absolutely relentless uphill drag that never seemed to end. I must have consumed over 5 liters of fluids and it still wasn't enough. On arrival I then put down another 3 liters. With all the stuff I was carrying this was no good. No good at all.

Looking back at Yerevan some 50km away now.

The turnoff was a godsend. It would be only 5km to Noosh Guesthouse from here which I had pre-booked in Airbnb.

The hosts were two amazing metzmama, basically the word I learned for grandmother, or the equivalent of the Russian/Ukranian babushka. They were the most hospitable people I had met this entire trip and they wouldn't stop feeding me. Communication was a bit difficult with the language barrier but we managed. They insisted on making both dinner and breakfast and asked me for the times of each. They were attentive to all the little touches, and saw how thirsty I was. The food unfortunately I could not finish since I was feeling weak from the biking and mainly sapped from energy. Fluids were the only thing I really needed. But I tried my best to finish as much as possible to be polite. They were super caring hosts.

This was the legendary Armenian hospitality I was waiting for and it really helped change my perspective. The initial entry was madness but things were on a better note now. It's not that I'm retracting my position on the stuff I said earlier with geopolitics, but there is something about the warm and caring hospitality of these people that surpasses all that.

Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 493 km (306 miles)

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