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The Armenia Itinerary
Tag Archives: travel
Discovering Kazbegi: A Travel Guide to Georgia’s Northern Mountain Escape
We’re on Day 4 of the trip. We just arrived at Stepantsminda in the northern part of Georgia (close to the Georgia-Russia border). Our stay for the next 2 nights was at the Mountain House Kazbegi, a beautiful property with a view of Mt. Kazbek and the Gergeti church standing in front of it. Wherever you stay in Stepantsminda, try to get a room with a view of the mountain – trust me, that will enhance your experience multifold!
Travel hack (almost)
It was around 5pm and we decided to go for an early dinner. It was drizzling and there was a light breeze – so we couldn’t walk. We headed to the Rooms Hotel Kazbegi – the most luxurious and expensive hotel in the city. This is a nice travel hack which we’ve used before. Even if you don’t stay in the best hotel (to save costs), you can always go to the restaurant there for lunch or dinner and still experience the place.
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The Georgian Military Highway – a Scenic Road Trip
Towards the north of Georgia lie the Caucasus mountains and on their other side is Russia. Georgia and Russia have an open border – which means, Georgians don’t need a visa to cross over and the same is true for the Russians. While we didn’t have any plans to cross over, our next leg was a Georgian road trip to beautiful mountainous border district of Kazbegi.
If you haven’t yet read the previous part, you can find the links at the bottom of this blog. Let’s get started!
Continue reading The Georgian Military Highway – a Scenic Road Trip
A Rainy 2 AM Arrival in Georgia
Our trip to the Caucasus started in Georgia. Since we’ve already covered the brief history, geography and plan of the trip in our previous blog, we’ll get right into the trip of how we travelled and our arrival in Georgia.
There were 6 of us this time – Nam, Parth, me and our friends who also had a 2.5 year old toddler. We had done a couple of trips in our pre-parent days and this was our first one together with our toddlers. We were excited and terrified at the same time.
Flight and immigration
We started from Bangalore at 10 AM and took a domestic flight (Indigo) to Delhi. There was a terminal change at Delhi (we didn’t have to lug around our bags as it was a direct check-in till Tbilisi) and we boarded our Indigo flight to Tbilisi at 8:30 PM. It was really convenient to have such low cost options to travel internationally. Thanks to the Diner’s Club credit cards, we could have our meals of the day in the lounges at both airports.
It was a smooth flight to Tbilisi and we landed at 12:10 AM local time (1:40 AM India time). The immigration was the fastest we’ve ever had, it took hardly 5 minutes and the officers were really nice – this was in complete contrast to all the horror stories we’d heard of deportation of Indians from Georgia. So, a really good start to the trip!
The Georgia Itinerary
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The Pyramids of Giza and Cutting a Cake in Cairo
When we met last, we were on the VIB overnight train from Luxor to Cairo. We had a private coupe and it was a comfortable journey.
Day 6
It was a special day. Nam’s birthday! Also, our last day of sightseeing in Egypt – we would leave next morning to Amman, Jordan (don’t forget to check out those blogs after this one).
We woke up early expecting to reach Cairo. But to our dismay, the train was running more than 2 hours late. I was annoyed – this meant that we would have to cut off something in our itinerary for the day. Our tour operator, Massimo from Cleopatra Tours, called and told us to get down at the Giza station. Franco, our interim guide, was waiting for us at the station. We picked up our actual guide, Mohamed Gamel, on the way to the pyramids.
After turning at a signal, we spotted the pyramids at a distance – they were huge even from here! We went on a round-about route that gave us views of the pyramids from different angles. The pyramids complex had very high security – we had to unload all our bags from the car (we hadn’t checked into our hotel yet) and put them into the scanner.
These were the oldest structures that we would see on our trip.
Continue reading The Pyramids of Giza and Cutting a Cake in Cairo
Going on a Nile Cruise like a Pharaoh
After a thrilling drive to Abu Simbel, we were now on our boat, all set to depart for the Nile river cruise. Our guide, Ahmed, was also joining us till the first stop, Kom Ombo. After lunch and a short rest (we had started our day at 3:30am), we climbed up to the sundeck to enjoy the breeze and the view. We could see some giant pillars in the distance – presumably of the temple we were visiting next.
The Nile is the longest river in the world. It runs 6650 kms long starting in Uganda (the White Nile) and emptying itself into the Mediterranean Sea. It is the reason for Egypt’s existence (the Gift of the Nile) and was home to one of the most advanced civilizations of the world at its time.
Here’s a bit about the Nile cruise. There are many companies that operate these multi-day cruises on the Nile. Some go downstream the river from Aswan to Luxor and few even go onwards to Cairo. You can also find cruises in the opposite direction – it would depend on how you plan your itinerary. If you want to experience the Nile river’s glory and also not get bored by the long travel, we highly recommend that you pick the Aswan-Luxor stretch for your Nile river cruise.
The Southern Tip of Egypt – Abu Simbel and Aswan
We continue on our Egypt adventure (check out Part 1 – The Egypt Itinerary). It’s day 2 of the trip and we woke up in our hotel at Giza. Breakfast was included with our stay and we ate veggies, yogurt, sausages and croissants – I love breakfast buffets! Our cab driver was waiting outside to take us to the airport. We were flying out to the southern part of Egypt, to the city of Aswan.
At the Cairo domestic airport, a person met us who took our bags. He spoke to our guide as well – so we assumed they were part of the local team to guide us through check-in. He walked with us till the security check-in, turned back and asked us for money. It was a con! We told him to collect his dues from our guide as we didn’t have any cash. But he had our bags and we were forced to part with 50 EGP (roughly 120 INR at that time). Anyway, lesson learnt – do not accept help from anyone for bags!
It was a small airport with few check-in counters – we had to wait till our flight’s name appeared on the boards. We were travelling by Air Cairo and it was a 90 mins flight. On the way, the sight was desert everywhere. At one point, we could spot the Red Sea in the distance to our left.
We passed over a giant lake, saw a highway that was as straight as a road could be – thanks to no obstacles in the landscape (we would be covering both later in this blog) and finally landed in Aswan.
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The Egypt Itinerary
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An Ode to My Favourite Food – Dosa
Food is a huge part of the overall travel experience. Every place in the world has its signature dishes – food that is made better there than anywhere else. Whether it is the falafel of Amman or the kulcha of Amritsar or the vada pav of Mumbai or the croissant of Paris – once you’ve eaten them in their home ground, everywhere else seems inferior. Then there are foods that are adopted by different people who give their own twists to them. Today, we talk about one such food.
I woke up this Sunday with a craving. Sadly, we didn’t have the raw material to make it at home. And we couldn’t go out as other plans were already made. Basically, this blog is not a story of how I went about successfully fulfilling my craving. In fact, I take you through most of the versions I’ve encountered and how I loved (almost) all of them! This is one thing I could eat every meal of the day, most days of the week. Yes, I’m talking about the DOSA!
Dosa is a dish that instantly connects me to my childhood. My mother used to make the best dosas in the world – crispy but not lethal (yes, some dosas can be lethal – we’ll come to that), with the perfect amount of ghee and paired with some amazing versions of the versatile coconut chutney. No matter which restaurant we went to, nothing could beat this simple yet elegant version of the dosa. Over the years, my mother has changed her style of dosas but I’ve figured out how to replicate the OG version. Now, my favourite “nostalgic version” of dosa is the one that I make <humble brag>.
