Greetings from Azerbaijan!

The longer I travel, the more quickly these monthly update posts seem to come. I swear I was just writing about being on the road eight months and, here I am, already writing about nine.

I’ve gotten gushy and emotional quite a bit over the last few months, talking about lessons I learned in Armenia and speculating as to how much longer I will be on the road. So I thought I’d change things up a bit for my nine-month update and talk a little bit about this blog – where it has been and where it is going.

I started this blog over two years ago, in January 2010.

At that time, it wasn’t much more than a poorly planned WordPress blog called Katie Goes Global. By August 2010, I decided to get a bit more serious and I invested in a domain name and switched to self-hosting (in case you’re wondering, www.katiegoesglobal.com was not available – hence, the switch to Katie Going Global). But even then, I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing. I had already dreamed up the idea of my current career break and I wanted to blog about it, but I didn’t really know what to do in the meantime.  Those first few months, I perhaps posted once a month and I was lucky to get a couple visitors each day (seriously, in September 2010, I had 93 unique visitors the entire month).

By this time last year, I was starting to get a bit more into a groove.

I decided to attend the Travel Bloggers Exchange (TBEX) Conference in Vancouver and I was preparing to give notice at work and announce my current adventure to the world. In May 2011, I had around 1,100 unique visitors during the month and 2,500 page views.

One year later, I just saw my highest traffic month ever, with over 4,600 visitors and more than 10,000 page views.

So before I go any further – THANK YOU to all of you for reading and commenting and sharing my posts with others. 

Knowing you all are out there reading and hopefully enjoying what I am writing makes everything worthwhile.

What does this all mean?

Well, it means I am in a place now that I never even contemplated back in 2010. For one, I am making a small amount of money from advertising and affiliate sales on the site. While I don’t anticipate that this would ever be enough to make a living as a full-time blogger (and that’s not really what I want anyway), it is a nice supplement to my current travel budget.

I have also been fortunate to start partnering with some great companies – typically, they provide me with something (a tour, accommodation, etc.) on a complimentary basis and I provide a review on my blog as well as promotion through Twitter and Facebook.  You may have noticed a few of these recently – a couple tours I took with Context Travel in Istanbul and reviews of the hostels I have stayed at in Georgia, courtesy of Hostelworld. Even though I am getting the benefit of the free tour or place to stay, I assure you that all opinions I share will be completely honest – I will only recommend things to you that I believe in and would recommend to my closest friends.

What lies ahead?

I will be in Azerbaijan until next week as I work on getting my visas for Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Then I will stop through Georgia (I think the border guards may soon get sick of me!) on my way back to Armenia for a week to see more of the country and catch up with some of my fellow volunteers who are still there.

On June 17, I fly to Tajikistan. I will spend a day in Dushanbe, the capital, before heading to Penjikent, near the border with Uzbekistan and close to an area called the Zerafshan Valley. After a day of training there with the Zerafshan Tourism Development Association (ZTDA), I will head to the mountains for a month to work with local families, teaching them English and coaching them on hosting Western tourists. I will also work with ZTDA on their marketing and fundraising efforts. I think this could be the most challenging, yet fulfilling, endeavor I have pursued on my trip and I am really excited about it!

While I should have internet access while in Tajikistan, I have no idea how reliable it will be (likewise with the rest of Central Asia). I am going to try to schedule several blog posts in advance, but bear with me if I don’t respond to comments, tweets or emails right away.

Finally, although I can’t go into details yet, I have committed to doing something in the United States in mid-October, which means I sort of, kind of, have an end date to this trip. Stay tuned to my Facebook page for more on that soon!

And even though I will be back on American soil this fall, I will definitely continue to travel as much as possible and to write about it on this site – just because my current trip will end doesn’t mean this blog will.

Not surprisingly, accommodation options in Mestia appeared a bit limited – my guidebooks seemed to offer a choice between homestays (the budget option) or just a couple hotels (the not-so-budget option).  While a homestay would have allowed me to immerse myself with a local family and learn about the Svan culture and traditions, I was a little burnt out on homestays by the time I headed to Mestia.

Luckily, I discovered a third option: the newly opened Nest Hostel Svaneti.

I’ll admit, if you’re looking for accommodation in Mestia with a gazillion amenities, the Nest Hostel probably isn’t for you (but then again, if that’s the case, I’m not sure why you’re headed to Mestia in the first place). The building kind of exemplifies “rustic” and aside from a relatively new bathroom, nothing has really been updated. That said, the two ten-person dorm rooms on the first floor are spacious and lined with wooden bunk beds with brand new bedding and decent pillows. There are storage lockers underneath the beds, but I wasn’t totally sure how to lock them (I was the only guest at the time, so I wasn’t too concerned).  The kitchen is lacking, but given the cheap café food available and the lack of much to buy in the local shops, you probably wouldn’t be looking to cook anyway.

If you want a place to relax after a day of hiking, drink some Georgian wine and chill with new friends, the Nest Hostel is perfect. 

The best feature of the whole place is the gigantic balcony facing the mountains and the famous Svan Towers that dot the landscape in Mestia. I spent my first night in town just hanging out on that balcony with the two owners, Maya and Nini, and another American girl who was working in town.  Maya joked that some guests had trouble dragging themselves away from enjoying the view.

Maya and Nini are great (okay, maybe they are the best feature of the place!). They speak good English, can give you the scoop on Mestia as well as almost anywhere else in Georgia and are determined to make sure their guests have a good time. The only reason we didn’t spend my second night on the awesome balcony was because they wanted to introduce me to traditional Svan cuisine at one of the local cafes and we ended up there most of the evening (tip: try the tashmijabi  – pureed potatoes with local cheese – yum!).

The girls also have good connections – especially with marshrutka drivers, so they can help you get both to and from Mestia, including door-to-door transportation if you stay at their sister hostel in Tbilisi. So when it came time for me to leave, they were able to arrange for a driver to pick me up straight from the hostel rather than me make my way to the center at 5:30 a.m. Even better, several days after I left, I was trying to figure out transportation from Georgia to Azerbaijan and texted Maya with a question. Within 15 minutes, she had made some calls and replied to me with just the information I needed. Now that is what I call service!

The Nest Hostel has been open less than a year, so the word is still getting out. I stayed there in late May, which is still quite early in the season to visit Svaneti. The season peaks in July and August and I have a feeling by that time, the Nest Hostel will be buzzing with backpackers and people will start to know it as the place to stay in Mestia.

The Nest Hostel Svaneti and Hostelworld teamed up to provide my stay free of charge, but the opinions expressed above are mine and mine alone.  If you want to stay at the Nest Hostel Svaneti, or simply learn more, visit the Hostelworld site.

Nest Hostel Svaneti: 16 Kakhiani St., Mestia, Georgia.

I stepped out of the Otogar metro station in Istanbul and looked around me in awe. I had no idea where to go next. I was expecting a single bus station with a few dozen buses sitting out front – not over 100 offices for various bus companies forming a circle around the metro station.

This was my first clue that traveling by bus in Turkey would be like nothing I ever experienced in the past.

Traveling by bus, even overnight bus, is nothing new for me during this year of traveling. Bus travel is quite common in the Baltics and I went from Riga to Vilnius, Vilnius to Warsaw, Warsaw back to Vilnius and Vilnius to Minsk all by bus.  On top of that, all of my inter-country travel in Ukraine was by bus or mini-bus.  Not that any of those experiences were bad per se, but compared to Turkey, I was definitely missing out!

So what can you expect when traveling by bus through Turkey?

Buses in Turkey are quite comfortable.

They are large coaches which seem to be at least somewhat climate-controlled. Many come with seatback television screens that play anything from Turkish television shows to American movies. Waiters come by offering coffee, tea or soft drinks and even snacks.  Some buses even offer free wi-fi (although I did not manage to access it on any of the buses I took).

Adding to the comfort factor, I personally appreciated that in Turkey, they seat people by gender on buses. On my overnight bus trips in particular, I simply felt a little bit better knowing that I would be seated next to a woman (even if it turned out to be a woman who coughed continuously, cried out “oy” on occasion, farted sporadically and took over half of my seat).

Bus rest stops in Turkey are impressive.

Buses generally stop every hour and a half or so and most of our stops offered a variety of shops and restaurants and, of course, toilets. And although they were all squat toilets, they were at least quite clean! Stops tended to last about thirty minutes, giving you plenty of time to take care of business and grab a bite to eat or something to drink. The only downside of these frequent stops was on the overnight buses – just as I seemed to fall asleep, I would wake up as they turned on the lights at a stop.

Purchasing tickets was easy.

When I first started looking into bus travel in Turkey, Anil Polat of foXnoMad sent me links to several bus companies (see below) – some websites were in English, some in Turkish, but all were easy to navigate and search for schedules. Unfortunately, when I went to book, I got rejected because I didn’t have a Turkish credit card.

Not to worry, as it turned out, going directly to the station was just as easy – maybe even easier.

For example, when I went to the office of Metro Turizm in Amasya to purchase my ticket for an overnight bus to Trabzon, the transaction went down something like this:

Me: “Trabzon” (as I point to the word for Saturday in my Turkish phrase book)

Clerk: Writes down 22:15 on a post-it note, indicating the departure time.

Me: Nods.

Clerk: Points to Saturday on the small calendar sitting on the calendar.

Me: Nods.

Clerk: Waves me behind the counter to look at a computer screen and choose my seat.

Me: Points to window seat #12.

Clerk: Writes “40 TL” on a post-it note – the price of my ticket.

Me: Hand the clerk a 50 lira bill and wait as he runs around the corner to find change.

Clerk: Hands me a pen and post-it note and points to me, indicating I need to write my name.

Me: Write my name.

Clerk: Hands me my ticket and says “otogar” – presumably reiterating that the bus leaves from the bus station.

I left the office less than five minutes after I entered, ticket in hand.

A few days later, I repeated basically the same transaction at an office in Trabzon, heading to Erzurum.

Buying my ticket from Erzurum to Kars proved to be even easier. As I stepped out of my taxi at the otogar in Erzurum, a man rushed over to me and asked “Kars?” As one of the most popular destinations from Erzurum, it was a good guess. I followed him inside to a ticket counter, where I simply handed over 15 lira and a man wrote out my ticket by hand for what turned out to be a very under-sold mini-bus heading to Kars thirty minutes later.

Bus companies provide shuttles to and from the city center.

As I read introductions to various cities in my guidebook, I noticed that the long-distance bus stations tended to be located anywhere from 3 to 5 kilometers outside of the center of town. This did not thrill me, as I figured it meant I would either have to stuff myself and my backpack into a local bus or dolmus or spend extra bucks on a taxi.

Luckily, I was mostly wrong. As it turned out, many of the major bus companies run shuttles between the center of the city to the otogar. So when I arrived in Amasya, I was ushered into a mini-van which dropped me off just a couple blocks from my hotel. The same was true in Trabzon, where I also enjoyed a shuttle back to the otogar for my departure as well. This was a perk I had not experienced while traveling by bus anywhere else and it was a very welcome one.

In the end, traveling by bus in Turkey was far better than I expected – and one of the best bus travel experiences I have encountered. If you are looking for an inexpensive, and often scenic, way to travel around Turkey, I can definitely recommend it.

Bus companies to try:

• Metro Turizm
• Ulusoy
• Varan
• Kamil Koc

Have you traveled by bus in Turkey or elsewhere? What was your experience like?

Photos: 1 courtesy of Flickr user yellow book; 2 & 3 courtesy of Andrew Couch

Once upon a time, there was a magnificent city on the banks of the Akhuryan River whose splendor and prominence rivaled that of Baghdad, Cairo and Constantinople. On the map since the 5th century, it became the capital of the Armenian Bagratuni kingdom in 961 A.D. and enjoyed a golden age during the reign of King Gagik I from 989 to 1020 A.D.

Alas, in 1064 a Seljuk Turkish army arrived and captured the city, slaughtering its inhabitants and marking the start of centuries of alternating rule by the Shaddadids (a Muslim Kurdish dynasty), the Georgians, the Mongols, a variety of local Turkish dynasties, the Persian Safavids and, finally the Ottoman Empire.

By the middle of the 18th century, this ancient Armenian capital known as Ani was completely abandoned.

Today, what remains of Ani lies in Turkey, separated from Armenia only by the Akhuryan River flowing below it. Due to its location, permits were required to visit as recently as 2004 and photography was once prohibited. Luckily, authorities have relaxed these restrictions and I was able to visit easily on a day trip from Kars, taking over 200 photographs during my two and a half hour visit. Here are some of the highlights.

Church of the Redeemer

Built between 1034 and 1036, a lightning strike in 1957 destroyed half of the church, leaving an open shell today surrounded by piles of crumbled stones.

Church of St. Gregory the Illuminator (Tigran Honents).

Built in 1215, this is one of 3 churches in Ani dedicated to the saint who brought Christianity to Armenia in the 4th century. The frescoes are the only ones that survive in Ani.

Cathedral

Built between 989 and 1010, the Cathedral was renamed the Fethiye Mosque after the Seljuks conquered Ani. It was designed by Trdat Mendet, who restored the earthquake-damaged dome of the Aya Sophia in Constantinople (Istanbul).

Mosque of Ebul Menuchehr

This mosque is said to be the first mosque built by the Seljuk Turks back in 1072. While the minaret is allegedly off-limits to climb, a friendly security guard named Orhan insisted on taking me up.

12th century homes

Church of St. Gregory (Gagik I)

Started in 998, the rotunda of this church would have been one of the largest in medieval Armenia, but it collapsed almost immediately upon completion.

Church of the Holy Apostles

Dating to 1031, this church was turned into a caravanserai by the Seljuk Turks in 1064.

City walls and gates

If You Go

Ani is an easy day trip from Kars – allow an hour driving each way and 2-3 hours to explore. I recommend hiring Celil (pronounced Jelil) Ersozoglu to drive you. He charges 140 Turkish lira (about $80) but will try to find others with whom you can split the cost. Celil speaks good English and seems to be the best known driver/guide in Kars. Your hotel can likely arrange things with him for you as the Grand Ani Hotel did for me or you can contact him directly at celilani@hotmail.com or +90 532 226 39 66.