Blogs from Georgia, Asia - page 4

Today we had a self proclaimed friendly guide, Gorba and a very safe driver, Archie who can speak English but chooses not to. Koba certainly was very friendly and talkative. He also is an artist and created drawings for each of us whilst in the moving vehicle. We may laugh now, but in 10 years they’ll be worth €300 each. Our vehicle for the day was an 8 seater 4-wheel drive and we certainly needed it when later we were off road in the Causcasus mountains. The other tourists were Pavel from Poland, Alex from Russia and a couple I thought were from the UK, but it turned out that the guy only sounded English but was from India. Gorba was quick to point out that we’re all friends and that no one was responsible for ... read more

Day 7 Georgia. Friday 16th Sept. Going off road with bats and monks in Georgia A veritable lie in until 7am this morning but I was still awake before the alarm went off. We then wandered down to Europe Square to meet our guide and driver for the day. An 8-seater normal-looking car was waiting for us and we were going off-road so I presumed we were changing to another vehicle later. But no, the car has been adapted and so the six intrepid tourists piled in. Today we were joined by a German couple, a chap from Italy and a chappess from Switzerland. There are lots of solo travellers here which reflects how safe the country is. We headed off out of Tiblisi and stopped after a while, at 9am, for our last toilet stop ... read more

Today was our second day trip and it started at 7am with a very different company than yesterday, the guide was more of a driver than guide. Apparently he has been a truck driver in Coventry, they must have given a collective sigh of relief when he left. There were only five tourists, so we were in a six seater car, one guy was in the front (Oleg), plus a couple who live in Dubai, the lady, Darli is from Burma and the guy from Algeria, I think his name is Mahmoud. Oleg and driver-guide were chatting in Russian, everyone in Georgia learns Russian and English in school and I think our driver-guide maybe skipped many of the English classes but turned up to Russian. The sun was shining as we drove through brown and green ... read more

What a day, I’ve learned so much about Georgia in the past plus current politics. I had to take notes! Today was our first trip outside of Tbilisi and Glyn had booked it online before we’d arrived. The meeting point was outside a metro station and we were the first to arrive. I heard Glyn talking to a lady with a recognisable accent, as she was from Manchester and on the same tour as us. The rain began to pour and we sheltered until we were directed to a nearby office where a few tours were to meet. Our guide was a very bubbly Georgian lady, 28 years old from Tbilisi, Catherine, who gathered us by shouting ‘Stalin is calling us’. We were a small group on a minibus, two blokes from Malaysia, a couple from ... read more

Day 4 Georgia. Tuesday 13th Sept. What goes up in Tiblisi…. This isn’t a place for disabled people or for anyone who struggles going up steep hills or steps. The pavements are, I think, based on the Caucasian mountains and the hills on Mount Everest. If you’re in a wheelchair, forget it as you’ll barely make it out of your hotel before they stick some obstacle in your way. I wonder what they do with all the disabled people here? Maybe there’s an area somewhere outside the city that’s totally flat….?? Either way, disabled tourists…..forget it. If you’re here to lose some weight though, you came to the right place. If you’re looking for a challenge, Tiblisi is your town. There will usually be something interesting at the end but you will have to put in ... read more