McDonald’s Qatar: The McRoyale

The McRoyale, in Qatar (and other Middle Eastern countries) is a 1/3 lb beef patty, sesame bun, ketchup and mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, pickle, and onion. It’s the closest thing McDonald’s offers to a real hamburger. The way I see it, there are two kinds of hamburgers–real hamburgers, and fast-food hamburgers. Hardee’s offers something pretty close to a real hamburger, and it works for them, because God knows nothing else was working for them. For the other chain restaurants, and McDonald’s in particular, their offerings are simply not real hamburgers. That’s okay–they’re still delicious. But they need to recognize that people like them because of what they are, not in spite of what they are. (This is how Burger King has gone so far wrong with the liquid smoke flavoring.) Honestly, the McRoyale is okay. But if I wanted an authentic hamburger, I’d wouldn’t go fast food. I wanted a McDonald’s hamburger, and instead I got an imitation of a real hamburger. It’s the international version of the Steakhouse Burger line that they were (or, yikes, are) selling domestically. Better to stick to the classic items.

McDonald’s Egypt: The Chicken Big Mac

From Egypt, the Chicken Big Mac. I’d expected great things from Egyptian McDonald’s (Lamburger?), but it’s a pretty standard menu. The most unique item is the McArabia, but it’s the same thing as the Greek Mac that I had in Russia, only marketed under a different name.

They did, however, offer the Chicken Big Mac, which is exactly what it appears to be. Take a Big Mac, trade the 1/8 lb beef patties for McChicken patties, and trade the special sauce of mayonnaise. I’d love to tell you more, but it’s basically a bigger, better McChicken. One thing I’ll say for it–the slight crunch of the McChicken patty fits nicely with the softness of the middle bun.  I never understood the middle bun in the Big Mac, but here, it works.

Pictures of Asian Tourists Taking Pictures of Asian Tourists

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Istanbul

I’ve long believed Istanbul to be the most beautiful city in the world, because of the combination of an incredible natural setting, amazing architecture, and a history that goes back millennia. That said, I’ll let it speak for itself.

Mosques of Sulthanamet

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The Golden Horn and the Bosporus (There is a destroyed Genoese castle where the Bosporus opens to the Black Sea. It’s my favorite place in the world, but is also a Turkish military outpost, so is now off-limits to the public.)

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Istanbul by Night

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Leaving Karabakh

I mentioned earlier that there are two roads between Armenia and Karabakh, the northern route and southern route, and that you may only enter by the southern route. I chose to leave by the northern route, and now understand why you can only enter by the southern route. It took 8 hours to do 130 miles of unpaved road that tested the Niva, and it’s driver, to their limits. By far the most terrifying part of visiting Karabakh was the drive out. In fact it was the most terrifying part of my journey–way worse than run-ins with the police in the Philippines, being attacked by dogs in Georgia, flying over the fighting in Donetsk (which didn’t end well for the Malaysian Airlines flight that tried it), or hearing (and feeling) nearby shelling on the frontlines in Karabakh, in addition to myriad other traumas that I’m sure I’m forgetting at the moment.

The road passes through the most beautiful terrain, and bombed-out villages, and through canyons barely wide enough to accommodate the road.

 

But the real fun begins with the hill-climb, in the fog. The entire mountain is slippery gray clay, that’s so steep and so slippery that you can’t stand still on it, a lesson I learned the hard way. There are no guardrails. The fog was so thick that you couldn’t see 100 feet in front of you. Once I had forward momentum going uphill, I didn’t dare slow down, but I never knew when the next hairpin would come. Going downhill, the slightest touch would lock up the brakes and the car would actually pick up speed as the car slid downhill–the only move was to slow the car by spinning the tires in reverse and at least getting the arresting force of the mud slung forward–Newton’s 3rd law at work. A number of times, I’d slow the car going uphill only to find that as I lost momentum, the car would come to a complete stop… and start sliding backwards. The only choice was to put in reverse and drive my way out, or try to slow it by spinning the tires in forward. So why didn’t a find a flat spot and just stop? In a word, nightfall.

I was actually happy to finally reach this most-potholed-road, because of, you know, traction.

When I finally cleared the mountains, the most beautiful vistas appeared and made it all worthwhile. It did not, however, immediately stop the trembling.

The rental car agency had a surcharge for returning a visibly dirty car. I gladly paid it.

“…But You Cannot Go to Agdam.”

Without exception, when was told “You must go to Karabakh…” it was followed by “…but you cannot go to Agdam.”

I first heard this from backpackers, then Armenians, and finally from the Karabakh Foreign Ministry. Naturally, being told that I couldn’t go only encouraged me. What was this Agdam? What had happened there? And why was everyone that I met telling me that I couldn’t go. I resolved to find out.

Agdam in in Azerbaijan proper. That is to say that it is not in the area of Karabakh, which claims independence. It is instead in a buffer zone that the military maintains around the region. Even Karabakh recognizes Agdam as part of Azerbaijan, and yet they occupy it for military purposes. Agdam was formerly a city of over 100,000, primarily Azerbaijani. It was completely destroyed during the war, and, save for some looting, has remained that way ever since.

I find being told where I can and can’t go distasteful, and so have some experience going places that I’m not allowed to go. There are lots of strategies, but all successful ones amount to playing dumb. You can go by yourself and act lost, or you can go with a local and act ignorant. The area is largely carpeted with anti-personnel mines, so going alone didn’t appeal to me. You have to strike a perfect balance between not appearing to be an idiot and not appearing to be an intelligence agent. My advice–go when it’s raining (because even soldiers, or maybe especially soldiers, don’t like rain), wear neutral colors (but not like a soldier or cat burglar), say as little as possible, and look for someone who NEEDS the money (drivers of barely-alive cabs that are low on gas are perfect.) Have them take you somewhere legitimate first, and feel them out. Then ask them to take you to the place that you cannot go. But you may observe that none of that keeps them from thinking you’re a foreign agent. That part is easy–drink a juicebox, or, failing that, a can of soda through a straw–no foreign agent in history has sipped from a straw. My guy (who’ll remain unnamed) agreed, and at a fair price, but he was wily–he demanded that I not take a camera or phone in the car. It’s one thing to be there, and quite another thing to take photos–this is the frontline of a war, after all. It’s not arrest that you fear, because arrest is very much a civilian concept. Detention is probably a better term, but it’s even more complicated here, because this is an unrecognized state, and so there is no consular support here.

The focal point of Agdam is a 150 year old Persian mosque, now used as a stable. A local rite of passage for Karabakh youths for the last 20 years or so has been to desecrate the mosque by climbing to the top of one of the minarets and drinking a beer as fast as he can, in full view of the Azeri frontline. Azeri snipers particularly dislike the desecration of their mosque, and so have both minarets perfectly sited–hence the rite of passage. Because the driver insisted that I leave all cameras behind, I don’t have any pictures of downtown Agdam–not that there’s much to see. But I look sort of Armenian, and my Lada Niva looks very Armenian, so I went back on my own–not into the center, because the rain had subsided and the patrols were out. I went as far as I could, before I was going to have stop for a roadblock and explain myself*, but the troops seemed comfortable enough with me turning around and heading back the way I came.

The outskirts of Agdam.

 

A cleared minefield, thanks to the UK-based NGO, “The Halo Trust”, who do fantastic work all over the world.

Agdam in the distance.

An Armenian/Karabakhi bunker from behind, facing Azerbaijan.

An Armenian/Karabakhi bunker from the front, facing Armenia.

An uncleared minefield between the lines, with the hulks of tanks and APCs from the war.

An Armenian village, totally destroyed by the fighting. It’s on a smaller scale, but gives a flavor of Agdam.

 

A blown up bridge.

 

*If I’d had to explain myself, it was all planned. As I said, the game is to act ignorant, confused, and oblivious. The conversation would have gone something like this:

Soldier: What are you doing here?
Gray: Captain, I’m sure glad to see you. I’m looking for a place called Agdam, and I’ve gotten myself half lost. I’m visiting from America, why do you ask? (always address him by one rank, but only one rank, above his actual rank)
Soldier: You cannot be here. This is a restricted area.
Gray: You don’t say? But I think I have the proper visa here in my passport, see?
Soldier: This allows you into Karabakh, not Agdam.
Gray: Ah, I see. But I have my papers here, from the Foreign Ministry, and they plainly say that I can travel to Agdam.
Soldier: Your papers do not say that you can go to Agdam.
Gray: Of course they do, look here. (points at “Askeran”)
Soldier: That says “Askeran”, not “Agdam”.
Gray: Ah, I see that now. That Consular Officer really has the worst handwriting. I had no idea, but it’s a good thing you stopped me before I got to Agdam.
Soldier: We’re in Agdam now.
Gray: That can’t be right, my GPS shows that we’re in Askeran, see?
Soldier: No, if you zoom in, you’ll see that you’re in Agdam.
Gray: I see that now. Well, good thing you found me, I could have gotten myself into trouble! You know, this place is a real mess, and looks dangerous, what with the soldiers and landmines and all. You all really shouldn’t be encouraging tourists to come here. (walks away)

(If things get particularly dicey, you go straight to “Is there any way that we can resolve the issue right now?”. If they’re dense, you follow it with “I’d by happy to pay any additional charges or fees.” Finally, if things get really bad, you can use the “ejection seat”. But it should be treated like an ejection seat, it’s expensive and dangerous, but it works when nothing else will. Produce a $100 bill–it needs to be USD, not Euros or the equivalent in local currency. Fold it twice, slip it into the front shirt pocket of the person you’re dealing with, without saying a word, and walk away.)

“You Must Go To Karabakh…”

“You must go to Karabakh…”

So said literally every person I’d spoken to about Armenia. For Armenians, it is considered the most beautiful part of the region. For backpackers, it’s a wild and remote region, largely inaccessible, often dangerous, and therefore likely to improve their feelings of self-worth based on “authenticity” and “adventurousness”. Either way, everyone suggested that I go. For some reason, the statue that is pictured in the banner of the post is considered the symbol of Karabakh.

 

 Nagorno-Karabakh was once an autonomous republic within Azerbaijan. The people there were majority Armenian, and voted to secede Azerbaijan and join Armenia. A war resulted, with Armenia fighting on behalf of Karabakh. It ended with Armenia/Karabakh occupying Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as some adjacent parts of Azerbaijan proper. Both sides behaved dreadfully, and Karabakh is now bereft of Azerbaijanis. Ethnic violence including targeting of civilians and destruction of towns and cities happened on both sides. It’s now de facto independent but also largely a client state of Armenia.

“Nagorno” simply means “mountainous”, so everyone refers to it as simply “Karabakh”. The Armenians consider this an Azeri term, and so properly call it “Artsakh”, but even they slip up and call it “Karabakh”. The region is entirely forbidding terrain, and is considered the most beautiful part of Armenia, or Azerbaijan, or whatever. If you look at breakaway regions, you’ll learn very quickly that people only fight over beautiful places. (Or, in a few rare instances, resource-rich areas.) No one, for example, is fighting over western Kansas anytime soon.

Once again, the trip was overland and off-road, so once again, I arranged the local crag-hopper, the Lada Niva. Getting in is a relatively straightforward and beautiful drive from Yerevan. There are two roads between Armenia and Karabakh, but foreigners can only enter via the southern road. In recent years, it’s been mostly paved, primarily thanks to the Armenian-American community, primarily Kirk Kerkorian.

Once you cross the border, you have only three hours to reach the Karabakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs (a skeleton operation, as they aren’t recognized as a country, and so don’t have “foreign affairs” per se). There you apply for and receive a visa, which grants you access, and insures that you can never again visit Azerbaijan. You also receive your “papers”, that specify exactly where you can go. If you aren’t specifically granted access, you cannot go. Think Vichy France.

The main town, Stepanakert, is nestled in a small saddle valley, and looks and feels much like any other town. But nearby, things are much different. It’s only a few miles to the front-lines, and fighting has increased in recent months. Also nearby is Shushi, formerly a majority-Azeri town (inside Karabakh, a majority Armenian-region, which was inside Azerbaijan, a majority-Azerbaijani country), now occupied by Armenians who fled Azerbaijan. There are similar towns in Azerbaijan, where Azerbaijani refugees moved into the homes of Armenians who’d fled.

There is an airport that was constructed with Armenian financing in 2011. It is brand-new, and state-of-the-art. But no plane has ever landed or taken off. Because no state (including, strangely, Armenia) recognizes Karabakh as an independent state, the International Civil Aviation Authority considers it Azerbaijani airspace. And so it seems that no traffic is likely for the foreseeable future. (Realistically, it’s almost certainly intended not as a civilian airport but as a military airstrip in the event of hostilities, disguised as a civilian airport. Surely they knew beforehand that no one would be able to fly in or out.)

There are a number of monuments around to the Karabakhi/Armenian forces, mostly tanks from the conflict, now outdated, with their turrets always aimed toward Azerbaijan. (Don’t worry, the explosive reactive armor on this T-72 was removed, and only the boxes remain.)

Nearby is Agdam, a strange and almost mythical place, closed to the outside world. Tomorrow, that’s where we’ll try to go.

Armenia

The Caucasus is home to some of the oldest religious traditions in the world. The Georgian Jews, for example, are neither Ashkenazi nor Sephardic, instead tracing their history to the Babylonian Exile when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the First Temple in the 6th Century BC.

But Armenia is particularly known for deep religious tradition, largely as the oldest Christian country in the world, adopted in AD 301. Even today, the Armenian religious tradition is deeply archaic, having split from what is now known as Eastern Orthodoxy in 451. Monasteries abound, tracing their lineage back well over a thousand years. The monastery pictured below once contained the spear that pierced Christ’s side–one of multiple claimants, to be sure, but the senior claimant if nothing else.

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Nearby is a Greek temple dating to the 1st century AD, and the only such “pagan” temple in this part of the world to have survived.

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The economic development of Armenia has been restrained since the war with Azerbaijan. To Armenia’s west lies Azerbaijan. To the east lie Turkey and an Azerbaijani exclave. Those borders have remained strictly closed since the early 1990s. That leaves land borders to Iran in the south and Georgia in the north, which have had myriad troubles of their own in that time. Being in Armenia may be as close to being in the USSR as still possible. (With the exception of Belarus, which I’ve not seen.)

Just across the Turkish border is Mount Ararat, pictured below, famous as the resting place of Noah’s ark, according to the Book of Genesis.

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Just south of Ararat is Iran. The houses in the photo are in Armenia. The  mountains in the distance are in Iran, and this is as close as I want to get for the foreseeable future. (Bizarrely, the small dark hill behind the tree behind the houses, but well in front of the mountains, is in Turkey. I might be <10 miles from Iran, but at least there’s a NATO member between me and them.)

Armenia is also home to one of the largest Yazidi communities in the world outside of Iraq. The Yazidi are one of those ancient ethno-religious communities that no one had ever heard of until last month, when ISIS began executing them in Iraq. The Yazidi are often called fire-worshippers, descending from ancient Zoroastrianism (Zarathustrianism). They are ethnic Kurds, and so are disliked in the Arab and Turkish worlds. They also have a term for a deity called “Shay-tan”, often perverted into “Satan” in the Muslim world, and so are accused of worshipping Satan (the devil, not Sam’s brother). Being Kurds and apostates, they start life with an 0-2 count in the Islamic world. As a result, they’re pretty secretive, particularly when it comes to religious practices. Pictures of their village and temple (I don’t know the proper term) are below. The village looks like any other Armenian village, and the temple, as far as I can tell, is used for playing pool.

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