Kings of Krunk

I was basically at the crux of my escape from Nagorno Karabakh, and began my descent down back towards Armenia.  As I set off by foot an ice cream delivery truck immediately picked me up and dropped me off at the bottom of the hill.  Then as I walked barely any further another ice cream truck stopped and picked me up.  But this was no ordinary ice cream truck, either, and at this point I was pretty well-versed in Armenian ice cream trucks.  It was doing some sort of express run from Stepanakert to Yerevan in one day.  Come to think of it, I have no idea why this ice cream truck was going all that way, but I can assure you that there was definitely ice cream in the truck because they fed me some.  Revellos!  My favourite!

Oh. My. God.  I had no idea how interconnected Lil Jon and Armenia are.  Look at those teeth.  Kings of Crunk is all about making it in Armenia and making sure people know you've made it. 

The ice cream truck drivers loved me.  They absolutely loved me.  And if you only could see how good I was at Russian at this point.  I was bullshitting with the best of them.  They told me all about politics; what they think an Azeri moustache looks like; what the president of Armenia is; how Kim Kardashian is an even bigger one of what they think the president of Armenia is; and countless other tales.  Both had fought in the war in the 90s and both of them were not phased when we passed something called “Café Krunk” and I absolutely lost my shit and screamed, “STOP! STOP THIS VEHICLE NOW! IT IS NEEDED BY MY THAT I MAKE PHOTOGRAPH!”  Then I tried in vain to explain what “crunk” means in Russian and they just laughed, handed me another ice cream and said, “Foreigners.”

3-6-9
Damn you're fine
Move it 'til you sock it to me one more time
Get low, get low, get low, get low, get low, get low, get low

The drivers also insisted that I go to Jermuk, to the thermal spas.  Normally I brush this kind of stuff off but this was the first time that an Armenian did not insist that I go visit the local monastery so I believed they must be on to something.  I decided to get out at the turnoff to Jermuk and began the long walk.  I made it pretty far before a bread delivery truck picked me up and drove me right to the heart of town.  The two men driving it told me they didn’t speak Russian well so I was happy to be on even footing.

Jermuk was definitely a spa town that gouged every tourist dollar (but in this case rouble) one had.  I thought that maybe I could just break into the old abandoned Soviet hotel at the end of town and sleep there but upon approaching it I realized how eerie it was.  So eerie.  Instead I inquired at a hotel that seemed reasonably cheap but the catch was that they offered me dinner and breakfast and ended up just not giving me change.  I don’t like that kind of sneakiness.  Then there was a Slovak also staying there and the woman put us in the same room because she no doubt did not want to have to clean two separate rooms.  I would have been more unimpressed if the Slovak wasn’t ballin’ and bought champagne at dinner.  I was totally living the glamorous life of a Ukrainian coal miner sent to a spa in the Caucasus to recharge.

There was also a massive chess tournament going on because if there is one thing that Armenians seem to love, it’s reminding the world that Gary Kasparov is of Armenian descent.  I don’t think I actually got to go to any “spa” as it were, as much as it is my dream to lie naked on a cold marble slab and have some 300lb Armenian woman lather me up and just go to town on my back to work out all the kinks from carrying a 23 kg backpack for 10 months.