Our travels to Russia, The Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan) via China had been a wonderful trip and one that we would highly recommend. The destinations were extraordinarily interesting; in some respects exotic, others curiously familiar.

In the Caucasus, at times we could have been in Central Asia, other times in Europe. In Azerbaijan, there were places strongly reminiscent of our travels in Iran. It was a striking confluence of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Sadly however, the looming threat of past and potential conflict was always apparent. The Caucasus countries are truly in the shadows of their powerful neighbours**.

A common theme to our travels in all five countries was just how incredibly friendly the people were. We established wonderful relationships with our guides and drivers, and also a number of local people who were so unbelievably welcoming and helpful to us.

This entry is a tribute to those remarkably friendly people who made our travels such a fantastic experience.

We would like to acknowledge the fabulous assistance of our Sydney based China Travel Service agent David Hu who organised our external air travel for our tour. David has been our travel agent for our China trips for over ten years. He has always provided exceptional service and we have established a wonderful friendship with him.

To all our agents*, guides and drivers who provided such exceptional service, and those friends we met during our travels, a very special thank you.

*Note: Contact details for all travel agents are included in the Introduction to this travelogue "The Inspiration: But Where are the Caucasus?" .

**Postscript: On Saturday1st April 2016, fighting broke out once again between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Al Jazeera media sources reported the outbreak of hostilities was the worst since the war that ended in 1994, leaving Nagorno-Karabakh under the control of local ethnic Armenian forces and the Armenian military.

OUR AGENTS, GUIDES AND DRIVERS - AND THOSE FRIENDS WE MET ON OUR TRAVELS