Relaxation Day Marred by Rip-off Taxi Driver and Insects Hide

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Today was a relaxation day, one to recharge after all the recent day trips, ready for more tomorrow. Some years ago, I’d planned our itinerary for our self tour around Japan, ensuring not a minute was wasted. By the last few days, I was sitting in a park in Tokyo, absolutely exhausted and looking forward to the flight home so I could sit still for hours. It was awful feeling like that, when in a place as exciting as Tokyo, so since I’ve always tried to ensure we have chill days. It is meant to be a holiday after all!
So no alarms were set and we didn’t leave the accommodation until around 10.30! It’s a nice enough place, but not somewhere we’d want to hang around at all day.My plan was too have a slow wander around the outdoor Museum of Ethnography, where there’s lots of old buildings from all over Georgia. Then relax, read and chill at Turtle Lake, maybe take some macro photos of the insects. Good plan eh?
It would be almost a 2 hour walk and public transport appeared to be complicated. Looking up the cost of a taxi online it was quoted at 11 laris (around £4) which is good for a 12km trip. We walked to the nearby tourist square and asked a taxi driver how much, he said he had a meter, so I thought that would be ok.

The guy hadn’t a clue where it was and I had to show him on my Google maps. He was very friendly, shared his sweets and off we went. I was concerned that I couldn’t see the meter, but he was all chatty about how he’d been to Spain and asking where we are from. Being a Monday, the traffic was heavy in places, so it ended up taking 35 minutes. I expected it to be more than 11 laris, but I didn’t expect it to be 179 laris! The ‘meter’ was on his phone, and tbh, it could be anything.

Now this was uncomfortable. We asked why when it was only 12km and he said it was based on time, not distance. Now his English wasn’t very good, so it was hard explaining. But I said it was only 35 minutes, he also claimed because it was a tourist taxi it cost more. I guess we could have just refused to pay, but part of me wondered if that was true. We found him right outside a place that sells day trips, what if he was part of a company and it wasn’t his car? What if he went back without his fare and got sacked? However, I also thought, this guy is ripping us off with a smile and pretending he’s trying to help and this thought in hindsight is the truth.

He offered to wait an hour and take us back for free, but we were going to be a lot longer than that and wanted to relax with no time constraints. We ended up grudgingly giving him 150 laris which is about £46. I should have photographed his car or him. I should have refused to pay and see what happened, but I guess I didn’t want any trouble.
I’ve been mad at myself for the rest of the day and left a message on TripAdvisor to find out if I was right or not. At least I can warn other tourists, suggest they demand to see the meter if the drivers claim they have one. There are similar stories of other people being ripped off when getting taxis from the airport, quite a bit more than we did, I should have investigated beforehand or took a bus.

To add salt to the wound, I’d also not investigated opening times and the damn museum wasn’t open on Mondays. Glyn was very understanding but I felt so rotten, he’s organised all the day trips and I couldn’t get one day right.Turtle Lake was a 17 minute walk uphill of course. Plus today was the hottest since we’ve arrived, getting up to 32 degrees.

Turtle Lake was small, with a few open bars, cafes and drink stalls along one side. We had an early lunch and relaxed in the shade.After walking around the lake, we found a square metal frame crossed with ropes that was big enough for two to lie on. In the shade it was nice, the lake wasn’t particularly picturesque, but had a few ducks and geese. The scorched shore was littered with cigarette butts and bottle caps. But it was fairly empty, with the sound of slow pumping music from a nearby bar.

Glyn didn’t trust at first that we were actually going to relax. He still recalls the time in Kos when we’d paid for 2 chairs on the beach, only for me to quickly get bored and wanting to go up the only mountain. However, we stayed for many hours. I looked in earnest for insects to photograph, but totally failed. Either it was too hot for them, the wrong time of day or they’d been wiped out, but only a few fast moving butterflies whizzed by that were impossible to catch. So that plan also failed.

I listened to my book, drank a beer and lay down for some time. Eventually Glyn decided that we could walk to a restaurant he’d found on the Happy Cow app. It was to be a 90 minute walk, but that was ok, I needed to work up an appetite and it was downhill. Some of the downhill was incredibly steep and slowed us down as the path had a lot of loose sand and stones that begged for us to slide over.

The walk took us through parts of Tbilisi we’d not seen before, some of it looked wealthier than areas we had previously seen. Still apartments, but not high rise, in good condition and fairly new. I also noticed lots of random dog kennels set up in communal grounds, I presume for the many stray dogs. I also saw a couple of cute kittens that a little girl was trying to feed bread, they weren’t having it.

After around 2 hours, we found the restaurant, down some very pink steps. The young staff were punky/goth/grunge types, very friendly and it was hard to work out who was staff and who was customers. They were very impressed with Glyn’s Viagra Boys t-shirt, jealous because we’d seen them live a couple of months ago.The food was good, the wine fine, plus Glyn had vegan milkshakes and a dessert. He’d left a good review before we left.

The walk back took us via the Peace Bridge so we could photograph it lit up in the dark. I also walked through the main square in case I could see the taxi driver who ripped us off, but he wasn’t there. I need to let it go.

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Comments

[Alan Rust]

Lucky Escape
I think the driver was lucky you didn't see him again while walking back to your hotel.

[RedPlanetClaire]

Lucky
Damn right he was!