Adventure to the far of Eastern Europe / Asia, Georgia, the beautiful surprise on my adventure.


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Asia » Georgia » Tbilisi District » Tbilisi
November 9th 2012
Published: December 24th 2012
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It all began with an early early wake up in Prague, a bus, a long wait at airport, a plane to Minsk. Minsk airport with its 'no maning of the transfer desk and basically no order or clue was an adventure in itself. As was waiting there for 7 hours without food, water or anyone who spoke English....

But finally we all boarded the plane to Georgia...where in the cue I met my first Georgian man. He blatently stared at me for a good 10-15mins while the cue went no where and I got the giggles as he was being completely ridiculous. Eventutually he grabbed the girl he was with, put her in front of me and then shoved his hand on her face and said "my friend, not girlfriend, definately not girlfriend (she squirmed out of his grasp by this time and her and I exchanged 'looks'😉. Do you have boyfriend? I am Georgian man, I need a wife, you pretty, what is your phone number, want to date?". As much as I was flattered, I didn't take him up on his offer. He continued to woo me with his winning ways and broken English til we boarded the plane. It was hilarious.

Going through customs I got a free bottle of Georgian wine on arrival. Score, I like this country already! Luckily I didn't have to navigate the airport alone as Miki and Aaron were there to greet me and provide me with long needed bug hugs. I had been 24 hours in transit by now and at 3am when I arrived, all I wanted was a bed. However, the drive into Georgia was so pretty, their nightscape is stunning and I was extremely surprised at the modern architecture.

My first official day in Georgia began rather late as you may guess, we caught the metro which involved crazy fast escalators, and, as we were the only Westeners, LOTS of staring...very like my Georgian man from the plane. In fact, I mentioned to Miki, I had seen at least 5 'look a-likes' from my airport romeo. Georgian men have a definate 'look'. We had a yummy pizza lunch (Mik and Aaron were very Western food deprived), did some shopping, bought some earings from a street seller and walked through the main town at night. Miki and Aaron were thr 1st to see my 'alien' sighting photos from Prague, but for some reason, they just didn't believe me? :-( Georgia at night was fast becoming one of my favourite European night landscapes, just so beautiful! The walk home showed a different story. The front of the buildings are so new and beautiful, but walk around the back, and you see where they started. It is a 'front' in more ways than one, mostly for political reasons, but if you don't look too closely it is a good stunt. Picnic nibbles for tea and a crazy hostel owner who liked his music insanely loud made it hard to help Miki with her resume and even harder to sleep! A few directed comments on my part unfortunately fell on deaf ears (pun intended).

Saturday was an early wake up to shower and catch the metro to the meeting point where Mik's Georgian friend had organised a day trip. Nothing was open, so it was Maccas nuggets for breakie. Too cold Mik, I and another girl hopped in the waiting bus to warm up...and then he shut the doors and drove off....without anyone else from the group. Mik said not to worry, we were probably going for petrol. But no, past one petrol station, then another...off on a highway, down another road....we were on our own early morning adventure! We think he went to his house to pick up grog, but who knows?! Apparently these adventures were typical of a normal day here? So back we went, everyone piled on the bus, 45mins after our start time (fairly early by Georgian standards) and down the highway! But wait, did we miss something? Oh yeah, a girl by the road back there, so we'll just stop in the middle of the highway. No worries, we'll just REVERSE up the highway - on the main lane. Pick her up and we are off....many hours later through some of the most beautiful countryside, rivers, mountains, basically what I thought Turkey would look like and it didn't. Georgian landscapes had answered all my green and golden needs for a glorious wilderness.

We came to Rabati where we had a guide who spoke only Georgia and a very dodgy translation by our guide. We did however find a great museum where everything was translated to English, so it was great once we left the group. It had plenty of history about how the area had developed and some amazing artifacts from household items, religious books to armour to jewels and clothing. I will give you just one guess as to where Mik and I spent the most time! :-) A good view from the tower, a quick purchase from the souvineer shop and we.....almost missed the bus. Hmm missing the bus due to shopping, old habbits die hard hey?! They realised luckily they were missing a few and stopped down the street, off we ran, and our next adventure was the supermarket, then the fresh fruit market (make shift stalls of ppl selling out of their car boots), then we drove back up the street where we just came from. Hmmmm. Then back to the supermarket, and fresh fruit stall....Deja vu?! This time our guide bought potatos! Adventure number ?? for the day so far.

Off to Vardzia where I am sorry to say I slept, but I woke to an incredible view of the caves which were cut out of the mountain. Have I mentioned enough how beautiful the country is? Come here, it is amazing, so untouched. It reminded me of the pigeon houses in Cappodocia, we walked up the hill and through the church in the caves to explore the tunnels. Miki and I are both not fans of small dark spaces, so watching Aaron disappear into a hole which was up a ladder? Not so inviting, we were both tempted to leave him there and explore the caves which saw the sunshine. However, Lexie was brave, and my curiosity mostly dominates my fear so eventually I also followed. It was a little uncomfy but we were rewarded with a view so amazing from thr upper levels of the caves so it was all worth it, especially when Miki arrived also. Aaron, Lexie and I all walked to the end of the caves and Mik followed the others back through the church. We all gathered for our 'supra' bbq lunch/dinner at 4pm and listened to the Georgians get drunk and do a rounds of 'cheers to........' every 2 minutes. Fun and good food. Excellent times! Reminded of why I love travelling.

Mik and I stayed awake for the views of some of the most amazing, untouched countryside on the way back to the highway. I wasn't expecting to fall in love with Georgia, but it was very quickly drawing me in. Many hours later...still driving, we stopped for a broken van (not ours, must have been a relation or friend of our bus driver). So imagine, our bus parked infront, their van parked behind, 10 european mostly English teachers milling around our bus with our token 6 authentic Georgian travellers with us either peeing in the bushes or just stretching our legs. Then the van's breaks give way and begins to slide down the hill toward our bus! Ahhhhh our 10-15 people try to stop it along with the 4-5 people who were 'fixing' it in the first place. All to no avail, it keeps sliding....and sliding. Everyone abandons it....except our Georgian guide from our bus, a tiny girl of maybe 20 who decides it is time to play hero and step infront of the van which is cm from crushing our bus (Mik was currently inside the bus, oblivious). Bad idea?!? Yep. Except the van owner managed at the exact same time to jump in and stomp on the break. Wooow did this give our guide a hero complex. Haha All those men, and just look at her go. Adventure number ?? Back we all pile on the bus and so begins the 80's sing stars in the way home, especially led by the drunken Georgians up the back. It was a special moment. Led by a quote from one of the English teachers " Phillapenos, Aussie's, Americans, and Georgians all come together through love and music". Hahahahaha Finally after a few more noneventual stops were were back in Tiblisi.

Sunday began with breakie wraps and the most delicious fruit covered with yoghurt and sweet breadcrumbs. Delish. Definately something I will attempt to recreate back home. A walk across town led to the dry bridge markets where I bought some cute vintage earrings and checked out the numerous weird and wonderful things to be found....like posters or Stallinn and Hitler (who are still revered by Georgians....eeek), surgical impliments, old soviet memoribilia, cutlery, jewels, art, hand made wool-wear. You name it, you could probably find it here. Aaron even found a stuffed deer. Back on the metro we visited a nifty bookstore and hand made souvineer store, visited station square markets which were very muddy. I was hopping around the mud like a sparrow who didn't want to get her feet dirty when a georgian guy said something to me which sounded like 'muddy or mudgaurd'. Not realising I was in another country (I don't know how, but I tend to forget sometimes) I said, yes, very muddy. Aaron cracked up because in Georgian the guy had just said I was very pretty. Haha Blonde moment number one for the day. Miki and I bought some cute flower accessories and a pair of 'Ray Bans' or close to it anyway....for $5! Tourist moment number two came when a lady dropped her jacket and I returned it to her, she turned around to thank me and was about to speak Georgian when instead she did a double take, realised immediately I was foreign and said "thank you". Haha We really did stick out like poop on a polar bear. Next was the underground shoe market. Hmm I so which my bag wasn't already full! Miki and I were almost hyperventialting with excitement, until I realised hers was because we were far too closed in and underground with no space to move or fresh air to breathe. Off we went to the 'european' supermarket to grab ingredients for our spag bol extravaganza and we got photos with the squirrel mascot of the store, who must have been bored cus he then followed us through the whole store. Haha

Monday we had left over spag bol for lunch, its always better the next day, checked out the designer traditional Georgian store, had a dvd afternoon and took some much needed chill time watching Burlesque, tried to re-pack but got given a lot of cheek by Miki and Aaron for my millions of 'little bags'. Very funny, not. I honestly am just very organised....I didn't realise it was because I had a bag for everything....I do have a tiny bag, or medium sized bag, or large bag.....for everything in my backpack. Hmm, perhaps they have a good point?! Went out for traditional Georgian, which had turned into and Iranian place....hmmm no, lets try....Indian?! Haha Sometimes you just need to go with what your belly craves. I will be eating traditional Georgian food in the village anyway. :-) Up in the cable car to the top of the hill that overlooks all of Tiblisi and we had an amazing view of the city. I am still in love with Tiblisi at night. Number one favourite nightscape. The walk home was obviously too slow for Aaron who decided that if we all walked liked dinosaurs and instead had "Raptor arms" then we would get there sooo much faster. As you can imagine the resulting giggles from Miki and I did nothing to increase our speed or momento to get us home quicker.

Our last day in Tiblisi began with our last chance for a shower, communial for Miki and I (wall and shower curtain only between our dulcit shower serenades). Then first breakie, and after some debate, second breakie (Miki is half hobbit....just no hairy feet, thank goodness! Not good for wearing sandals, hairy feet.) We went to an Irish pub - yes there is an Irish pub in every corner of the world - ate lots of food, pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns...yum. Took a taxi to get Miki fitted for her designer Georgian dress, fast walk which was much enhanced by Aaron's introduction of 'raptor arms' which this time Mik and I joined in. Quick toilet break, bag grab, nearly stepped on a kitten, nearly dropped 20kg bag on kitten...took another taxi to the Shilda bus stop which is called a Metrushka, and thankfully caught the bus just in time! Off to Shilda for the next stage of adventures! :-)

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