11.30 pm, Georgian time (and Armenian too)… We’re somewhere in Armenia, close to Georgian border. We just had an almost hour-long break for passport control… How did we get here and why did we choose the night train?
Yerevan. The capital of Armenia, our goal and starting point for further exploration of the country.. One dilemma: how to get there from Tbilisi?
There were several ways to do it that we considered:
1) a rented car
2) a little bus called marshrutka in Georgia and Armenia
3) Tbilisi – Erywań Tbilisi-Yerevan train
Theoretically option no. 1 seemed to be the most attractive. We love travelling by car, as it gives us the sense of independence, especially when travelling with a child. We don’t have to care about the timetables, the length of the trip or long distances, because contrary to the bus or a train, we can always stop if Maks gets tired. Ideally, we would rent a car in Kutaisi right after arrival, see Georgia and Armenia and return the car at the Kutaisi airport again. Unfortunately, renting the car in Kutaisi is more expensive than in Tbilisi and much more expensive than in Yerevan. You also need a permit to cross the border and a bunch of other things like that. Therefore, we’re not planning to rent a car until we reach Yerevan.
Marshrutka? Looks quite tempting! 5-6 hours, 6 dollars per person, but… after the Kutaisi-Tbilisi trip (approx. 4 hours) we quickly lost interest in marshrutkas. Listening to Maks complaining about constant stomach ache and praying for him not to puke all over himself, me and the bus does not make perfect travelling conditions. And he usually feels great when we travel by car! Add my nausea and hot flushes caused by motion sickness and then the numbness caused by the medicine (yes, I get numb, don’t care about anything and only want to sleep, sleep and sleep some more) and suddenly marshrutka looks like a nightmare.
And then, there is the train! We check it out, the price, the time, the conditions. We already had a night train experience in Vietnam. It was OK, but a bit tiring. Maks complained about the “stomach ache” a bit, the trip was very shaky and our co-passenger sighed every time Maks did something (there were two other passengers travelling in our compartment). This time we decided to do everything to maximise the chances of our trip’s success.
Tbilisi railway station in the evening, right before the departure
We decided to travel by the night train, but in the first class compartment. The train from Tbilisi to Yerevan departs at 8.20 pm and arrives at 7 in the morning even though it’s only 300 km! First class costs approx. GEL 75 which makes PLN 120. Per person. The child travels for free. Not a fortune. 2 hours on a train to Cracow or several to Wrocław or Tricity cost more. Therefore it’s a good price for an international journey, especially with a theoretically 2-person compartment on first class. What’s more, we travel by night and save on accommodation. Clever!
You can buy the tickets at the railway station in Tbilisi or online, but only 40 days prior to your journey or so which makes it a solution for the really deterrent ones. Remember that you have to have your passport with you to buy the tickets at the railway station (!!!) – we forgot about it and had to ride the taxi twice – back and forth.
How are the conditions? Is it safe? Will there be any other passengers, since I’m afraid of empty trains, especially at night?? How will an almost 3-year old take such a long trip? Will he sleep? Won’t his stomach hurt?
We’re going to find out! They train to Yerevan is quite easy to find on the railway station in Tbilisi. However, try to rely on oral information. There are some electronic timetables, but we only found those with arrivals. We communicated using a combination of English, Polish and a few words in Russian. If you speak Russian at least a little, it’s even better since both the Georgians and the Armenians often ask “gawarit pa ruski?”.
here it is! nothing special, but not horrible either:)
maybe the green one? 🙂
The train doesn’t look immaculate from the outside, but our own railway services aren’t perfect either. Inside it looks better and the first class compartment indeed consists of two beds only! That’s some relieving news! I wasn’t counting on it :). There’s also a table, lamps and fresh bedding wrapped in foil (no linen). Not too luxurious but cosy enough. The staff is helpful – especially if you travel with a little blond one (one of the advantages of travelling with a child!). The customs officer on the Armenian border also smiles when he sees Maks handing him the passports. The kid really comes in handy!
The train is not empty, actually just the opposite. All seats in our cart are taken. There are some foreigners and the members of the staff show up once in a while. We feel safe, the door to our compartment is open and I’m writing new blog entry on my computer. It’s nice, I guess it’s nicer than in Vietnam.. maybe because it looks more familiar? 🙂 Toilets are a bit worse than at home, there’s no water, no toilet paper and we use it only in extreme situations. We expected some door-to-door food sales, but there’s nothing like it here. Fortunately we have some khachapuris from our lunch!
ready to go – our kingdom for the next 10 hours
I’ve got so many stamps in my passport!
The funniest thing is that in our compartment on a little entresol, there are some boxes with vegetables: beans and capsicum. We get really surprised when suddenly in the middle of the night, somewhere in Armenia, 3 people in a row enter our compartment and see what’s in the boxes, flashing their flashlights and discussing something. Maybe there’s some kind of passport control for the vegetables too? 🙂
are they providing fresh food for the trip?
In the beginning, we hear some Russian songs from the speakers which makes me wonder why don’t they do it in Poland?! I like this idea! Maks seems happy too. Unfortunately he slept well right before we left and therefore the evening is going to be long. What do we do? We eat a banana and some Kinder sweets, play on the iPad for a while, browse through the pictures from the trip on our cell phone, stick some stickers and daddy tells some fairytales!! It’s the first time I see him tell stories so creatively! As you can see, night trains are good for him! 🙂 Maks is specifically interested in… a flashlight we got from VARTA. It seems to be his favourite toy during our trip. By the way, it’s a good way to test it and see whether the flashlight called Indestructible is really so durable. Maks has already broken more than one at his grandfather’s! This one works great, especially during impersonating Peppa pig characters 🙂
new toy: let’s see if Indestructible is really so durable 😉
“Attention, don’t get too scared by the magnificent Candy the Cat” – Maks stages a play
The train trip gives us the first occasion to try VARTA’s Powerpack. Our smartphones are a bit tired after the day (too many photos, too much Instagram and Facebook!) and we still need to stay in touch. In the morning I need to send an SMS to my mother so she knows that we haven’t died in a train crash in the Caucasian countries :). I don’t like my phone dying on me as I know that my mother might call the police or get a heart attack as soon as she finds out that I’m unavailable. Therefore a dead phone or a phone with no network makes me nervous… right now my mother probably gets surprised that her little daughter actually thinks about her sometimes.
From the more practical perspective – thanks to Powerpack, my computer isn’t going to die on me either, and I can kill time with browsing through the pictures on my phone. And make new ones on the railway station in Yerevan in the morning and officially say hello to Armenia on Instagram 🙂 Just connect an iPhone cable to your powerpack charged with 4 alkaline batteries and you’re set. The device is small and practical and you can easily throw it in your bag or rucksack. We like it. My phone battery went flat so many times during train trips! I can’t count the occasions on which I got so annoyed that my phone and computer both died on me during a business trip to Cracow or Gdańsk. And electrical sockets on Polish trains are still a luxury 🙂
portable energy bank – VARTA’s Powerpack working good
the set includes some adapters and cables, but iPhone 5 needs its own cable, which isn’t much of a problem since I carry mine with me most of the time
Our train arrives in Yerevan early, we’re already in a cab at 7 am, even after a few lengthy stops on different stations, especially during passport control in Georgia and Armenia. As you can see they calculated it into the time of journey. After the trip we can say that there’s really nothing to worry about when it comes to night trains in Georgia and Armenia: it’s similar to trains at home, or even better (no delays!). Bu beware! I can only speak for fist class, I read in the guide than the third one that’s three times cheaper is not that cool 🙂 But maybe it’s more adventurous?
Welcome to Yerevan. It’s sunny, the sky is blue and the streets are quite deserted as for 7.30 am…
right after getting off the train, Ararat seen in the distance
*the entry was written in cooperation with:
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