Blogs from Georgia, Asia - page 41

Ah... Georgia, sweet Georgia... You make me so drunk!! The last week and a half I have spent in Tbilisi, the charming capital of this country, and the mountains... In Tbilisi I met some great people at Irena's Home stay, both travellers and the family and friends of the family. This lead to some good parties and lots of consummation of vodka! Of course I also looked at some sites; I strolled around the town, took daytrips to Mtskheta their religious capital, Davit Gareja an old monastic sight on the border with Azerbaijan and took a dip in Tbilisi Sea a reservoir just outside the capital. But admittedly I spend much of my time tending my frequent hangovers in bed at the home stay... After a week of this I left to the Caucasus together with ... read more

It was our last night and we had another amazing dinner with Georgian dishes and (of course) a bottle of vodka to clear our throats... uhumm uhumm..There was me, Johan, Tiko, Lika and her friend, Natia and Gigi - all enjoying our final night in Tbilisi. So after dinner we had a short stroll in some 'fashionable' streets of Tbilisi - where a cup of tea costs more than a regular workers daily wage. We took a taxi back to the hotel to get our suitcases. My backpack and the souvenir wine bottles that our precious hosts had presented us earlier went into the trunk of the car since they didn´t fit inside. To make the story short, I managed to forget everything when we arrived to the hotel and the taxi driver had taken off ... read more

Gamarjoba! Some of you know already that I am here to finalise my masters thesis on Capital Markets in Developing Countries. ALL of you know that combining work and pleasure is essential for me to enjoy what I do. It has been possible for me to have both during this trip. Together with my partner, Johan, I have interviewed several institutions and actors in Tbilisi, but equally important I´ve have gained a great insight in the culture, mentality and way of living in the country. As usual it is hard to describe all of the experiences and nuances with words and I find the lens of the camera doing a good job for me at times. Still there are some things that needs to be told as I remember them: First memories We first arrived to ... read more

Georgia...is it in Europe or Asia? The question needs only to be asked to be answered. Welcome to Georgia, a land filled with magnificent history and beauty. Archeologists find that the oldest traces of wine production (7000-5000 BC) are traced to this region in the Caucasus. For those of us in the West, we unfortunately get precious little exposure to this stretch of land between the Black and Caspian seas. Hopefully that is changing. Georgians are not Russians and they are proud of their own language, which is in its own language group, completely unrelated to Indo-European or Slavic languages. Georgians have have been embroiled in struggles against their neighbors for centuries. The countryside is dotted with towered fortifications, many of which house ancient churches and monastaries. The Georgian nation enjoyed brief independance as a republic ... read more

Hotel: Hotel Lile (Tbilisi, Georgia) $40 After a decent breakfast, a taxi driver arrived and we set off for Vardzia, the cave city. The landscape soon changed from rolling meadows to more mountainous terrain. The driver had agreed to take us to Vardzia and Akhaltsikhe (~50 miles) for $50. The road was in pretty bad shape for most of the trip, and our driver was flying along. Vardzia is a cave city located about 15 miles off the Akhalkalaki to Akhaltsikhe road, the royal city in the late 1100's consisted of over 700 caves carved into the cliffsides, supporting a population of tens of thousands. The caves are still inhabited by monks to this day. They are a good climb up from the valley below. There is a secret passageway carved through the rock that was ... read more