Have you ever been to any of the following paces?

ammuctsngames

Would you recommend them for independant travel?

Greenland
Georgia (Country)
Azerbaijan
Armenia
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Kazakhstan
Uzbekistan
Turkmenistan
Afghanistan
Mongolia

ammuctsngames

And Macedonia and Albania

ammuctsngames

I am considering a trip to an unusual location in August or September, and I have narrowed it down to the aforementioned places.

dory

ammuctsngames wrote: »

And Macedonia and Albania

I've been to both a few times. Great little spots. I wrote a piece about Albania in the Travel Reports and REviews forum. I'm planning a trip to Mongolia soon. Will let you know when I'm back!

Any particular questions about Mace and Albania ?

ammuctsngames

dory wrote: »

I've been to both a few times. Great little spots. I wrote a piece about Albania in the Travel Reports and REviews forum. I'm planning a trip to Mongolia soon. Will let you know when I'm back!

Any particular questions about Mace and Albania ?

nothing in particular, just a few do's and donts would be great.

can you link me to your article?

dr strangelove

If you do the Mongol Rally you'll be able to visit a fair few of those places. Did it in 2007 and was bloody amazing.

(Although when i got to Tehran and tried to get an Afghan visa they laughed at me and told me not to be silly)

Info here: http://www.theadventurists.com/

stringed theory

I found places like Ulaanbaator, Astana, Almaty etc. boring compared to other Asian cities, and Central Asian states tie you up with restrictive visas, and visa registration requirements, and can be frustrating. Can't talk about the Caucausus, but go to Uzbekistan, if you're hankering after that region - and visit Samarkand and Bukhara, and learn a bit of Russian first.

Columbia

I'm living and working in the Republic of Georgia at the moment, and I can tell you it's an amazing country. In 5-10 years time I think tourism will explode here.

Tbilisi (the capital) and Svaneti (the highlands) are utterly unmissable. If you're here in the summer you'll also want to visit my home city of Batumi for a day or two, it's the main seaside resort in Georgia and it has a certain character I haven't seen anywhere else.

Getting around, you'll do a lot better if you speak the basics of Georgian or Russian. Despite what some online sources say, I've never encountered a Georgian that had any problems speaking with me in Russian (which is somewhat better than my Georgian). It may be worth your time learning the Georgian alphabet though, if you're travelling around by marshutka (minibus) the destination will probably be written in Georgian script only (maybe 10% of the time it will also be in Russian, I have never seen it in latin script). To hire a taxi for the day will cost 100-150 lari (45-65 euros), depending on how well you can bargain and how far you want to go. Relatively speaking, petrol is shockingly expensive here (about a euro a litre, in a country where a manual labourer earns 120-150 euros a month), so the driver will be forced to charge a fair bit more for longer journeys.

I went over to Armenia for a long weekend last year, and I had a good time. However, unless you're into old churches, there's a limited amount of stuff to do and see outside of Yerevan. If there's a group of you going, check out Envoy Hostel in Yerevan, they'll do a minibus between Yerevan and Tbilisi, stopping off at various sights along the way, and also for a lunch of Armenian food (barbecued pork with various fixings). The train is reasonably comfortable and takes 12 hours, but you'll be woken up by border guards in the middle of the night. The level of English is much better than in Georgia, but Russian may still be useful. I didn't learn a word of Armenian when I went, nobody ever batted an eyelid when I spoke to them in Russian.

I haven't yet made the journey to Azerbaijan (thinking of going for Eurovision!), but if you go there after being in Armenia apparently you can get some guff from the border guards.

snoopy12

Apologies op - terribly off topic.....

dr strangelove I have just googled the rally and what an achievement! Do you have separate posts recounting your adventure?

dr strangelove

snoopy12 wrote: »

Apologies op - terribly off topic.....

dr strangelove I have just googled the rally and what an achievement! Do you have separate posts recounting your adventure?

yep, i have a website for the Mongol Rally:
RustBucketExpress.com

and one for a trans India-trip with the same people:
DuckworthsWanderingCalamity.com