I
had been planning to visit the Caucasus for some time but my, the package price
from KL is off-putting. Finally at the beginning of 2018 I thought that it’s
high time I consider going to that region on my own. So I started searching for
air tickets and routes (you can’t enter Armenia from Azerbaijan and vice versa
because of some decades-old dispute over Artsakh Republic (Nagorno Karabakh) so
your route is either Azerbaijan-Georgia-Armenia or Armenia-Georgia-Azerbaijan).
As Wizz Air flies into and out Baku in Azerbaijan (but only to/fro Budapest) and
Kutaisi in Georgia (to/fro more destinations), I decided to fly into Baku and
out of Kutaisi. Of course this meant I had to travel from Baku to Tbilisi to Yerevan
and back to Tbilisi again. I also searched the local transportation options. I
could take the train from Baku to Tbilisi but it would cost more and is slower.
And I could also take the train from Tbilisi to Yerevan and back again but
trains between the two cities run every second day and I didn’t have the luxury
of time to do that. But there are plenty of marshrutkas so that’s the
alternative for me.
After
that, I looked for air tickets to Baku and finally chose to fly Etihad as the
ETA is 13:50 local. Then after working out how many days I can potentially stay
in any one city, I firmed up my travel plans for the Caucasus, firmed up the
itinerary for the trip following the Caucasus, sorted out accommodation and confirmed
that Malaysians can obtain Azerbaijan and Armenian visas upon arrival.
I
usually travel in early May for I love spring time but I was earlier assigned
to handle an event which was then reassigned to another team following internal
reorganisation and as it was too early to go on the trip then what with limited
groundwork done, I decided to travel in September instead and avail of the Maal
Hijrah and Malaysia Day public holidays (only realised Agong’s birthday is now
on 9 September, a Sunday, which meant we got Monday off too, yippee). Travelling
in September only allowed me to spread out my expenses: the train tickets in
Italy, the hotels paid for in advance (sometimes better because I don’t have to
struggle with forking out money when I arrive especially for destinations which
use currencies other than Euro), the air tickets to fly out from Kutaisi and
then Milan, etc.
Then
of course I did my Excel worksheet with a tab on my final itinerary detailing
where I’d be on any one date, where I’d be staying, how I’m travelling from one
city to another. One tab on prayer times of the cities I’d be visiting, another
tab on ground transportation which includes airport transfers and schedules, and
a few tabs on train schedules in Italy. I also had to do a bit of adjustment as
I planned to visit seven cities in Italy excluding Rome and Milan (Ferrara,
Ravenna, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Mantua and Modena) all cramped in three days. Which
city should I cover first? Which next and next? Finally I managed to firm up my
plan and everything finally fell into place. Alhamdulillah.
