“Pakistan🇵🇰 ~We Are Going to Armenia!”

• November 17, 2020
• By Pen
• 0 Comment

We are going to Armenia!

Unlike pre-pandemic travel, where we got to pick where we wanted to go, and just go; now it takes a bit more planning and preparing, as visits are now dependent on whether or not borders are open for tourism. Plus, finding a county in Asia we haven’t been to has turned into quit the short list! (no complaints). Our plan was to go to Oman from Pakistan, but no dice, since they have closed their borders to tourism, again, and are not processing Visa requests at this time.

We’ve been looking forward to the day, we would get to self-tour the Caucasus: Armenia 🇦🇲, Georgia 🇬🇪, and Azerbaijani and Russia 🇷🇺. With Covid19, I no longer plan in advance. It’s one country at a time, now, because each country has their own COVID19 rules and they change all the time. Armenia requires we must fly in, as land border crossings are not open to tourists. What this will mean for getting to the other parts of the Caucasus? We do not know, yet. But, we hope its like our touring of the Balkans, so we can rent a car and really have freedom to explore! If we can’t cross borders, due to the pandemic, we will happily stay in Armenia for Christmas and New Years.

What are the Caucuses? The Caucasus region is separated into two parts, which fall into two continents; the North Caucasus or Russia (Ciscaucasia) in Europe, and the South Caucasus (Transcaucasia) in Asia, respectively. The Greater Caucasus mountain range in the north, is mostly shared by Russia and Georgia, as well as the northernmost parts of Azerbaijan. The Lesser Caucasus mountain range in the south, is occupied by several independent states, namely, and mostly, by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Believe it or not, we do not need a visa to enter Armenia 🇦🇲; with a stay of up to 180 days. We also do not require a PCR test this time, prior to arrival, but the airport is set up for PCR testing, should we be instructed to test, after arrival into the country. (so much easier). 

Here is where we decided to have some fun. To help keep the airfare costs down, we chose a longer route for less money ($997 for the both of us is still a lot, but it could have been worse). The hassle of flying is never our first choice, but often our only choice. So, if we have to go through the security and layovers, why not choose an interesting layover location?

We will fly from Pakistan to Dubai, first. We’ve already visited Dubai and loved it, so no big deal there, and it is the shorter layover stop. But, from Dubai, we fly to Moscow Russia and have a five-hour layover there. 

We have not flown to Russian, before, but we have had to apply and pay for an “Incidental Visa” while in Mongolia, since we were on horseback, searching for the nomadic Reindeer tribe, who often go as high north; as Russia. If by chance, in our searching, we crossed into Russia Territory for our (2) nights stay with the tribe, we had permission to do so, from Russia The area is so remote, there are no fences or official border crossings. Anyway, it is most likely we crossed into Russian Territory on that trip, but nobody could confirm this.

Why did we not plan a trip to Russia after Mongolia? Well, we wanted to, BUT, in order to apply for our Russian Visa, we can ONLY apply from our home country. In our case, home is America. With our own nomadic lifestyle over the last several years, plus more years to come, we are unable to obtain our Visa from “out in the world.” Due to this fact, our planned Russia visit will most likely take place after we are done galavanting around the world, and back home, living our RV life; a few years from now. Then, Russia will be planned as a vacation, getaway.

In the meantime, we will technically, not only say we have been in Russia, by the time we get to Armenia, but we will also get to claim being in all of the Caucasus countries, by the time we are done visiting Georgia and Azerbaijan. When we make the planned trip to Russian, in the future, we will be focusing on a boat trip between Moscow and St Petersburg.  

We still have a few fun things lined up for Pakistan, before we depart on November 28th, right after we celebrate Thanksgiving, privately, just us two, here. We might not eat turkey, per say, but we are familiar with spending our Holidays in foreign lands, by now

Gobble Gobble and Ho Ho Ho