So having mastered driving in seemingly lawless Georgia, we crossed the border into Armenia.
We’d been warned a few times about the (apparently legal) need to buy local car insurance before we crossed the border.
As soon as we made it into Armenia we were swamped by thugs hawking their various insurance deals. Prices started around $100 with the assurance we weren’t being ripped off because they were putting our details into an “official” computer system (in Cyrillic, of course).
Jacket went back to border control to find out what the go was. After receiving blank looks and helpless shrugs from any number of officials, we garnered that it was in fact essential that we bought insurance, because if we were stopped by police and were driving uncovered, we faced a fine of $100 dollars.
As a side note, they also asked us what car we were driving and how much we paid for rental – before basically rolling around the floor in stitches, telling us we’d been taken for a ride(so to speak), and we should be cruising around in a Bentley! We weren’t.
Jacket was fuming by this stage and marched back out and and said he’d rather cop a fine than pay the same price for Insurance.
On announcing we were leaving, the official price, in the official computer began to plummet as the hakwers’ attempts to make an 11th hour sale became more desperate.
It was getting late and we had been stuffing around for quite a while and so we decided to approach the one guy who wasn’t hawking – a quiet man in a shed at the end of the row of insurance outlets.
He gave us a price straight off the bat which was about $30 (which we ended up bargaining him down even further).
We gathered our affairs, flicked the thugs the bird and sped off into the darkness (literally, there were no street lights) – towards Gymri.
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Early the next day we hit the road, hooning along the highway towards the capital, Yerevan.
It wasn’t long before we noticed the fairly familiar sound of sirens. We were on a two lane road at this stage and figured there was no need to pull over to let the police pass. I figured they must be chasing someone else and so kept on going. The further we went, the further they followed, so eventually I pulled over to let them pass, only for the police care to pull in off the road behind us.
Or throats and sphincters tightened as one of the cops – hand resting on gun – swaggered up to the car. Were we really going to live out the rest of our lives in an Armenian Prison? Probably not.
The cop came up to me and asked me to get out of the car. He was trying – to no avail – to explain to me what I’d done wrong. My Armenian (is that even a language?) is mediocre on the best of days and so after an excruciating exchange peppered with confused looks and shrugging shoulders – he resigned to drawing me a diagram.
Ohhhhhhhhhh I’d overtaken on unbroken lines… and while anything goes in Georgia – clearly the same wasn’t the case in law-abiding Armenia. He gave me a sorry look, wrote the equivalent of about $100 on and same piece of paper and asked for my license.
On noting that I was Australian his eyes lit up and he assured me I was the first Australian he’d ever met. He then proceeded to cross out the $100 figure before motioning to me and declaring: “For you, $60!” It was like a game show, and we were winning! We were ready to hand over the cash and get back on the road when things began to turn tense.
We had requested a receipt – or the actual fine – reckoning that the cops’ mates would probably stop us down the road and fine us again. The cops assured us there was no such thing as a physical fine and that we should just pay up and be on our way. We said we couldn’t possibly pay unless we were given proof that we had paid.
The arguments went on and on until Jacket got bored and started taking photos – mostly for funny Facebook posts – but also so when they found our bodies rotting away on the side of a secluded country road somewhere, they might be able to piece together our final moments in Armenia.
We locked horns for a little while longer until the cops gave up fearing, I suppose, that we’d report them and have photo evidence to back out our claims.
In the end the fine was about $20. They gave us change, a receipt, and a huge smile each. They shook our hands and sent us off on our way with warm wishes that we’d enjoy the rest of time in their country.
We figured that the Georgian number plates on our fuck-off four-wheel-drive would act as a red flag to the bullish Armenian authorities and so from then on we were super careful to stick to the road rules.
Oh, and they didn’t even ask us about the insurance.