To The White Mountain - Mont Blanc

Heeeyy y'all, how is everybody doing these days?

I had an amazing weekend last weekend as I spent 4 days at the top of Europe - that is if you don't include the caucasus mountain range. Why only 4 days you ask? Well, I'm glad it's just 4 days as everything there was super expensive, just like in the swiss. I'm talking about paying over 2€ for an instant cup noodle. 

As you may already know me - I travel in tight budget. So the only option for me to travel from Germany to Chamonix was by bus. The price of Flixbus was alright. But on the day of travel, my friend and his girlfriend almost died of hunger due to a strict (and rude) driver that didn't allow any of his passengers to eat in the bus. This kinda reminds me of my night bus from Tbilisi to Yerevan where I also almost died of hunger. Long story short, they were somehow in better situation as we had a short 10 mins break after 4 hours of drive where they could breath in their McD burgers.

Upon reaching Chamonix the next morning, we were greeted by dark and cloudy weather. This was not surprising as we knew the weather was going to be bad the whole weekend. What caught us by surprise was that the apartment we booked didn't come with free wifi. 

The first hike we did on the day we arrived was called "Le Chapeau via the Sources de L'Arveyron". I know, such fancy name but really, the hike was not impressive and it felt more like a stroll in the park. The highlight of the hike is this pano view of the valley but too bad it was cloudy and the peak was not visible. 

The second day is the climax of the trip and imo the most memorable one. We attempted the Grand Balcon Sud + Lac Blanc Lake on the same day. This includes taking a cable car to Plan Praz and hiking all the way to Tre Le Champ as the Le Flégère lift is closed due to maintenance. According to our plan, this 13.5km hike was to be completed within 6 hours. But since our hiking skills were a little rusty - it took us 12 hours to finish the hike! 

There were a number of reasons for the extended hiking duration. 

• First of all, we could not start our hike earlier than 9am as the lift to Plan Praz opens at 9am.
• Secondly, we took our own sweet time in taking pictures and flying the drone a few times in almost every step we take. Here are some of the picturesque scene I took along the way.
• As we reached Lac Blanc, it started to rain and hail so much that we decided to spend another hour and a half in a restaurant hut drinking hot cocoa and lemonade beer. 
• Last but not least - the Le Flégère lift is closed. Damn. We couldn't even ride the lift even if we have the money.

The moment we reached reached the top - Plan Praz via cable car

A frozen Lac Blanc

That few minutes before the rain hits us

After that all i could remember was just being drenched from the rain. As we left Lac Blanc towards Tre Le Champ, much of the hiking path were still covered with melting snow. 

See the "crack" between the ladder and the snow? You can't even see how deep it goes. I still jump on it anyway - C'est la vie

.....and also taking tons of ladders as this (at that moment) seemed to be the shortest route back to the mountain bottom. It is only then I realised that I have a slight fear of height, especially when I know that one careless mistake will cost me my dear life. My hiking buddy on the other hand, was racing to the bottom to avoid having to hike in the dark. I wonder how she does it - my knees were basically jelly the whole way down. And she didn't even bother to wait nor look out for me *wailing*

My hiking buddy chasing the sunlight 

Feelings aside, we managed to reach Tre Les Champ before it turned pitch dark. Luckily it was easy to get a taxi - one of the hostel guy helped us order it. 
The 3rd day was a smooth sail - we make full use of the other lifts available. This one is my favourite. 

Sunny weather when we chill

What we regretfully didn't managed to do was to see the Mont Blanc due to the limited time. To do this, we would have to fork about 80€ (94€ round-trip) to ride a cable car to Aiguille du Midi. You know what this means - there will definitely be a second time when I finally visit Mont Blanc!

Caucasus unveiled - Svaneti Region

So after reading a travel blog of a friend of mine, my fingers started to itch and woila there you go, the very first post of my long abandoned blog. Don't bother searching for my previous post as I've already deleted ALL of them. And because I'm just too lazy to maintain my blog, I've decided to copycat my friend  adopt this simple habit of writing my travel stories. 

As the title already suggest, I have very recently landed myself in *drum rolls* Georgia and Armenia. All in all I've spent a total of just 2 weeks - 7 days in Georgia and 5 days in Armenia. Too long and too much to squeeze in everything into one post, I decided dedicate this post first to Georgia. Please do not missunderstand, not that I favor Georgia over Armenia, it's just that I landed first in Georgia. Armenia to be continued....perhaps in 3 weeks time.

Cutting to the chase, my journey started exactly at Kutaisi, which according to wiki, is the 3rd most populated city in Georgia. Why not fly to the capital Tbilisi you ask? Cos I'm cheapskate  a budget traveller - I opted for Wizzair for just over 72€.

Truth to be told, I didn't explore much Kutaisi except for the Bagrati Cathedral as Kutaisi was just a pit-over stop for Mestia. For those who fancy extreme sport, there is this cable car that flies over the Rioni river which looks super old and dangerous. 

Bagrati Cathedral 

Our first encounter with Georgian cuisine is the Khinkali. Basically it looks like the chinese dumpling but much bigger in size. Fun fact: the head of khinkali is not meant to be eaten. The proper way to eat a Khinkali is to grab its head with the finger, gently bite off the skin and suck the meat juice out before putting the whole dumpling into your mouth. Being an avid traveller who didn't do much research on food ethics beforehand, I was foolish enough to eat the whole dumpling while complaining about how "hard" the head was. 

Khinkali - brought to you by the Mongols

After a good night sleep in Kutaisi, we flew domestically with Vanilla Sky to Mestia, known to be listed in the list of UNESCO world heritage sites for the Caucasus mountains. As cute as the name Vanilla Sky sounds, the plane actually does not fit more than 15 passengers (and does not fly more than 30 minutes). Even the boarding ticket is a hand-written one. I repeat: a hand-written flight ticket in the 21st century. How cute is that?!

Scenic Mestia

Landing in one piece in Mestia, we went straight to what we do best: finding food to eat. My personal favourite is a dish called Shkmeruli. To put in simple words, it's baby chicken cooked with tons of garlic - together with bread this would make angels wanna piss in my mouth (as the dutch would phrase it). 

Shkmeruli

If you're in Mestia, you're in for a hike. We opted for an easy day hike (16km) from Ushguli to Shkara glacier, which according to google picture, promises an amazing view of the Caucasus mountain ranges. The road to Ushguli was winding and cliffy and....how to put it in word....full of living obstacles. See the video yourself. 

Only drive there yourself if you have the confidence of an elephant and a really good 4-wheel jeep/tanker. We paid 40GEL each for a to-and-back ride in a minibus. The only regret is that the minibus departed quite late from Mestia. As soon as we reached Ushguli (around noon), the sun was calling it a day. After 2 hours of hiking, the weather God then started to shower us with rain and thunder. 

Ushguli village - pretty much untouched

Despite the rain, we continued hiking untill we reached a stream of fast-flowing glacier water. That's when we decided we were wet enough and headed back to our minibus. 
So no, we didn't reached the Shkara glacier as planned - shame on us.  

The hiking path to Shkara glacier 

one last picture for a happy ending. This here is kebab. 

Stay tuned for the next post about Kazbegi.