Ganja, Azerbaijan to Haghpat, Armenia involved crossing two borders, first from Azerbaijan to Georgia and 40 minutes later from Georgia to Armenia. I had to visit Armenia after Azerbaijan because if I had a Armenian stamp in my passport Azerbaijan could have denied me entry, at the very least I may have been questioned about my time in Armenia. I have already covered the Georgia and Azerbaijan border crossings and nothing changed. Just before you enter the Armenian border complex there are money changers and I changed my remaining Manat to Georgian Lari.

Crossing into Armenia from Georgia, the Georgian side took all of 5 minutes and then on the Armenian side (no queues at all) I was asked the reason for my visit and the guy recorded the name and phone number of the hotel I was booked into for that night. Next to the Customs building where the guy recorded my bike details and printed off a form and said take it and buy Insurance, so I rode a short distance and paid 44 euro (in 120 Georgian Lari, they preferred the Lari for some reason) for 10 days insurance, exorbitant compared to any of the other countries. I passed through 4 customs check points at the 2 borders and none of them asked me any questions or asked me to open my panniers. Quite painless and quick overall.

The road from the border to Haghpat was the worst I have encountered on this trip so far, more potholes than road which made for an entertaining ride.

I stopped at Haghpat because it was fairly close to the border and also because it has an old monastery that looked interesting.