Henley’s Heroics !

What a contrast, from towering spectacular snow covered mountains of Norway with their skinny roads to the " thriving metropolis of beautiful downturn Yerevan " . The capital of Armenia may have been reasonably new when Stalin was in nappies but now was a run-down decaying old Soviet era town where every male appears to stand around street corners smoking.
Then there's the car drivers . Speed limits of 60kph are treated as suggested speeds only and despite wet conditions and crappy roads some still insist on topping the 100kph mark with no regard for pedestrians or other drivers. They have underpasses at some major intersections as there would be multiple deaths per day without them , the traffic lights only give you 20 seconds to cross about 60 metres , good luck with that if you're elderly.
A major attraction in Yerevan is the Genocide Memorial, a commemoration to the 1.5 million Armenians slaughtered by the Turks in 1920 .
Mike and I decided to visit it but with no signs as to its whereabouts we went looking. We spied a huge building high on a hill and thought that has to be it , 172 steps later we arrived there only to find it was the new rather grandiose football stadium, stuff it .
Still no signs to the Memorial we headed back down the big hill then up a bigger hill only to find the Memorial was only 150mts from the football stadium, big time bummer . What an incredibly moving experience to read about the Genocide, something I knew absolutely nothing about.
Then the fun started next day . Hired a car at the airport and headed into the countryside for a few days.
The craziness of the drivers rose to a new level, overtaking when an oncoming vehicle is 60mts away ,
on blind bends and any other suicidal practice you could think of , super scary . Wouldn't like to see their road death toll.
Australia has potholes, Armenia has sinkholes.
It was like rally cross driving dodging here and there to only hit 50% of them , even the semis were coming to a near halt when going over some of them , we had some good laughs.
Unlike the city the countryside is magic with huge deep gorges and towering mountains, spectacular. How they managed to build Monasteries and Churches high up on some of these mountains up to 1000 years ago is beyond me , rough roads , no machinery, all by hand
Today we took a ride on the World's longest cable car ,
5.7kms long and 320mts at its highest point , amazing views. Just to complete the day we got dumped on by a storm as we got off the cable car .
Off to Georgia in a coupla days , should be an eye opening trip with the promise of being taken off the train by border police at 3am for passport checks .
Yummy
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