Asia Trip 7 Part II - Georgia to Yerevan to Dubai to Oman
Published March 25, 2024
Tbilisi and The Night Train to Yerevan
Tbilisi was better. Most of it looks like a Latvian warehouse, but not in an entirely terrible way. It had some feeling to it, feeling was the thing missing in Batumi.
I went back to the same accommodation, the small rooms near the train station.
After a few days enjoying my tiny room and the streets around it, I went out to see everything I wanted of the Georgian capital.
I started at the cathedral, one of the nicest, the golden sand colour of its exterior was a majestic statement from the country itself. If only my son wasn't hanging on a cross inside it. They did have one nice non-crucifixion painting of him though, I did appreciate that.
After the cathedral I walked through the centre of the city to the fortress up on the hill.
A denim-wearing Russian offered me coke or cock or something up on the hillside. I pushed past him and continued on the snaking path. At the end of it was a blank space, a platform to look at some depressed trees. I turned around and walked back to the entrance of the crumbling fortress.
Inside stood a dark, disturbed church and a pit of powdery orange. It would be a sugary scramble to the top for one of Earth's great urban views.
I smashed my hand into the broken rocks and a large shard of glass embedded in my hand. I looked at it, irritated, knowing all the possibilities. Luckily, my iron skin had protected me, what at first looked dirty and diseased, quickly turned a non-issue.
At the tippy top I caught sight of what that snaking path had been for… the Mother of Georgia.
Fuck. Cunt.
Cunt. Fuck.
Another trip, back the same direction.
To stare at her giant arse and giant tits and then call it a day.
I was hurt and hungry. It was dark when I left the metro. I bought ramen from the store and a large stick of bread. Breaking it, dipping it, slurping it. The steam in my eyes and up my nose.
True healing.
On the last day a film crew rudely tried to stop me and others from using the public street. I walked into the street anyway, Georgian production staff running after me, screaming, some crying, grown men crying.
Public streets should never be used for filming unless I'm in the production, then yeah and fuck the public.
After seeing a few more things in the capital I grew bored and developed a mystery fever. I headed back to the central station early for my night train to Yerevan.
Before the train I ate a large pasty and creamy pasta at the station's dining hall. For an old Soviet station, beaten black and blue, this was a nice surprise. The green-walled hall was spacious and had a dystopian tech start-up feel to it, and the food wasn't bad.
After dinner I took the steps to the platforms and walked in darkness between two old trains, both seemingly abandoned. The one to the right looked more suited for an international overnight journey but it was the little train, only a few carriages long, with the Armenian railways logo faded into it, that would claim the honour.
I had a top berth, but for now I sat down on the lower. A Russian couple appeared opposite me. They looked nervous, something I've found of Russians since the war began. The girl was somewhat beautiful, perhaps even beautiful.
She had the biggest lips I'd ever seen on a girl…
two swollen
wet shiny
sticky pink
boiled sausages
yet they somehow fit her face.
The train stopped just as Beautiful Big Lips had slipped into her pyjamas and tucked into bed.
I stepped off the train to three barking dogs. A mix of wild and mascot within them.
We lined up on the cold platform for the passport exit stamps out of Georgia.
The dogs jumped and play bit my fellow passengers while I stood ready to kill.
My mind replayed last December and this January and the international rabies vaccination hunt that commenced after a dog attacked me in Northeast Thailand. I didn't want another saga of chasing injections, like I had in Laos and Vietnam.
I approached the window, some fingers flicked around inside my passport. Passports are funny things. Both authoritarian and romantic. And a soon to be relic of international travel.
I pocketed the burgundy book, avoided a bite and got back on the train to sleep until Yerevan.
Soviet Nice Feels and The Mountain
In the morning I got off the train feeling energised. I had barely slept, but the quiet rocking of the train through the night was enough rest for me.
Some dirt started talking in the station, exchange cash this... need a ride that... I didn't even look at him. He returned a few times before finally fucking off with some Russian swear words.
Aboard the old mentally destroyed and physically insane metro women were looking at me with deep lustful stares as our bodies shook in violence.
Lustful stares, not too unusual for me.
But these Armenian ladies weren't even trying to hide it. I had so many pairs on me. These eyes undressing me, dreaming of baths of banana milk and beds of chain, bright red stinging skin and cream-covered faces.
These naughty bitches.
Nice ratio too. Although, each and every place I go I tend to notice the hot ones first and within a few days, things usually balance out.
The government of the land releases the ugs from hiding just after I form those first impressions.
Sneaky little things.
Walking around the city in the morning, I felt like I was in a really nice Soviet country. Not a former Soviet country, but a future in which the block didn't fall and here I am in 2023, a nice terrible place.
After sleeping off the train and long day of odd shit in my capsule hostel bed, I went and got some fried chicken.
This was the first chicken I'd eaten in weeks.
A big deal. I had learnt that I need some animal meat in my diet to be fully healthy.
I'll fight for better treatment, the best treatment for these blessed little protein balls. But I do need the meat.
There's a giant staircase in Yerevan.
And it's more than a staircase, it's an artificial mountain carved up into clean sliced ledges.
And for an artificial mountain in the middle of a capital city it was strangely hard to find. I spent an hour looking for it. A few trees and some low rise buildings somehow managed to hide it off one of the main streets.
As I sat down on one of the marble ledges, I saw Mount Ararat shining through the clouds.
Woah.
Cutie patootie.
She planted a flower in the garden of my heart.
A tree in the forest of my soul.
Many Christians believe Noah's Ferry is there. It's not. But it's fun to pretend.
At the top of stair mountain was another great view of Ararat and some unneeded boring obelisk in the centre of a concrete square.
I stood there for a long time. Focal-switching between the penguin graffiti on the concrete edge and the snowy peaks in the distance.
The mountain towered above the city with a stoic love. You felt its strength and wisdom.
Mother Armenia was standing about in a park nearby. I decided not to go see her up close, from the photos online - unlike the Mother of Georgia - she had weird tits and a flat arse. I don't expend effort, don't waste calories on weird tits and flat arses.
I have standards.
The next day I went to the genocide memorial, a calm place with another impressive view of the mountain.
I stayed a long time there too. Warming my heart with the eternal flame. Admiring the museum’s doom art.
I walked the trees planted by various heads of state and government and sang along to the piped in haunting tunes.
There was a beautiful thing that happened after that horrific slaughter. Operation Nemesis.
A group of Armenian men got revenge. They killed the bastards responsible.
And yet the Nemesis memorial was a sad nothing. It was miles from anything, thrown at the side of some blank park. Revenge is beautiful, and that revenge was beautiful. The current sculpture should be trashed and a real one erected, it should stand side by side in memory with the victims they avenged, a reminder, standing tall high above the city for the world to see. Make it a warning, not an annoying walk ending in disappointment.
Armenia.
Armenia was a dark horse.
Armenia was an underdog.
I really quite loved this little nook.
I left knowing I'd one day return.
The van ride out to the airport was a scenic tour of Mount Ararat in all her resplendent, awesome glory.
Resplendent Awesome Glory.
RAG!
We headed towards it in pink filter. Bubbles. An unreality in the scene… the kind of moment you return to when your head slams into concrete.
The mountain stays with you.
If I were Armenia I would have already invaded Turkey with surprise nuke lasers and flying spiders and taken that mountain back. It has to be the first priority of every Armenian leader. The fact that the Armenians' sacred mountain is on Turkish land is deeply painful for the nation. It's deeply painful for me.
The only thing I hated about Armenia was the fucking airport, in competition for Ho Chi Minh City airport Burger King. It had some of the worst inflated prices I'd ever seen. £6 for a simple fucking sandwich.
Supermarket bread and cheap-arse chicken in a cardboard box with a window of thin plastic.
SIX POUNDS. It might have actually won the prize. Dis—grace—ful. Tut fucking tut.
I ate the sandwich, felt sad a fat girl was sitting near me and looked out at the mountains. I wasn't looking forward to the UAE. Oman, maybe, possibly, yeah. But the UAE, no. At this point, I wanted to get to Malaysia, get to Brunei and get to the Philippines. In many ways, I wanted to be at the end of the trip now. Relaxing. Knowing I'd done it. But in order for that to happen I did have more to do. So more is what I did.
The Great Sickness
On the plane my mood changed.
The Filipino mother and daughter next to me moved a few rows back on the half-full plane and I had the window seat all to myself.
The scene outside the window changed every thirty minutes.
Marshmallow Marmite. Gatorade Peanut Butter.
Mountaintops. Ocean. Skyscrapers. Desert.
Sauce and glue, death and chic.
Poetry. Porn.
This is my world, my planet.
We getting deep into the
sword slash!
Fun stuff and fuck it, the Emirates would be fun stuff too!
New country 17 of the year, and my 55th country overall!
There was some novelty in the short flight too. Usually stops in the UAE mean a seven or eight hour flight followed by another, it took barely three hours from Yerevan.
On the ground I boarded a bus for Dubai. My first impressions were ones of potential.
This city was a lot already. But I felt there was much more for it to do, much more it wanted to do. I appreciated that. Even if the people were a hodgy-podgy crew of irritating twats. This was a special city and a special thing.
I had one full day in Dubai before the great sickness of the trip slivered under my skin and into me bones.
I went to Dubai Mall and the neo-cyber-punk-funk area around it.
I laid down in the grass. My view a blue field with the tallest thing humans have ever built in the centre of my vision.
It was tall. But as usual with these landmarks, the height didn't live up to the hype.
‘I would have gone taller.’
I laid there as birds flew by and chirped their hellos. The national flag waved in the wind.
Skyscrapers all owned by the same company with the same name and logo slapped on top ringed my position.
I felt the grass, I smelt the grass.
;D
I refused to go inside the Burj Khalifa.
Two things about it disgusted me.
The observation deck was positioned only half way up!!
and
These tits charge double the cost of the flight that got me to the country for a ticket…
?
Fuck. Off.
FACK AFF!
No.
I'd rather not be bum fucked and that is a bum fucking.
In the morning I felt the first signs of sickness. I was sitting outside with an egg mayo sandwich, a milky bar and a can of Fanta Lemon. By the time I checked into the second hostel of the stay I had a fever, headache and knives in my throat.
I fell into a feverish sleep.
I knew who this disease came from. From another disease.
The cunt at the Whizz check-in desk back in Yerevan had coughed her disgusting guts into my face. We need robots, we need fluffy animals, we don't need too many humans. The less of them, the better.
In Armenia I had started binge watching The Inbetweeners. I continued in Dubai. I watched episode after episode and the movies while my immune system and this disease went to war.
With the exception of that one day at the mall, on the grass, I had a pretty terrible time in this pretty incredible country.
Muscat, Oman
I landed in Muscat International Airport and found a nice area of carpet to sleep, and later a comfortable bench. I pulled my hat over my face and slept a sleep that wasn't sleep. My goal was to have a few hours of not making things worse for myself physically.
As the sun rose I went outside and took a look around. This wasn't your freedom boom booms and dead brown children Middle East. This was pleasant.
No explosions, peaceful emotions, ya. Ya.
I got off the bus and walked the 20 minutes to my hotel, sick and tired and under attack from the desert sun.
I chose the hotel for one reason, cheap whores with giant anal caves and an early morning check-in time you hardly ever see.
So maybe two reasons then… 🙂
I opened the door to the balcony and looked over this city of white buildings. It looked like Muscat, it looked exactly like Muscat. I felt horrible, but here I was.
I fell into bed, turned the room black and went to sleep. I woke at noon and headed out for groceries. I walked around in a circle before deciding to do another one, searching for the tiny grocery store listed on the map.
I was too sick to be spending this much energy on finding a shop to buy some fucking crisps.
Finally I spotted a giant green 'GROCERIES' sign hung above a small shack across the dust parking lot.
I laughed. It looked like it was placed there to mock me. Fucking stupid shit. I was sick of the world.
I went to the mall, I walked the area. I went out on the balcony. The sickness came and went but never truly left. That was Muscat, Oman.