Advertisement
Published: July 30th 2010
Edit Blog Post
It felt good stepping off the plane in Tbilisi,for one the bucket of bolts made it over the Caspian sea and two, it took us back to civilization and a great city.With our bikes wrapped up in some bedding material bought from a Kazakh market we were soon unpacked and pedaling into the night to find an easy camp a kilometre from the airport.
Tbilisi is a great city to visit,especially when you've been on a diet of Kazakh desert and oil towns.Its green with parks and a tree lined river flowing through the city valley.We stayed in the same place we did five years ago with Nasi an old lady at her house which is right in the middle of town on the vibrant Marjanishvili. Shes okay,some people give her bad press but shes just set in her ways.
Did the whole Tbilisi thing,went into a load of churches,climbed up to a park overlooking the city and took in a few bars and restaurants eating more than our fill of the local pastry filled with cheese called Khatchapuri.
There are a lot of derelict and empty buildings here in Tbilisi and the rest of Georgia for that
matter.This country used to be one of the richest of the soviet states but looking around the place now that status seems a long long time ago.Broken houses,empty factories,overgrown public buildings and closed shops give frequent reminders that all is not well within the economy and political problems are rife ,ranging from the recent war with Russia to freedom of speech within the media.
But ask a Georgian what they think of their country and you only get one answer, they love it! And for good reason too.Tbilisi has a lot of charm BECAUSE of its tumble down nature,there's a kind of colonial aspect to the old residential buildings with old iron wrought and wooden balconies covered in grapevines and the stonework has an Art Novo appeal that works in its crumbling nature.
Enough of all that though!We had a world cup final to watch.There was even an English man in the final!With front row seats we watched from an outdoor restaurant. Howard Webb the ref tried his best to keep 22 men on the pitch,but after one too many clogs flying into the faces of Spanish players something had to give.Best team won in the end.At least
now I can concentrate on cycling matters and stop chasing scorelines down.
Headed west towards Gori after we had sorted out new cassettes and chains from Queja at the old velodrome track,felt good not to be slipping every time the pedals went round(its the small things in life).Gori is the birth place of your friend and mine ,Joseph Stalin.His statue outside the town hall is currently being taken down.Not forever though.Hes going back up in front of the Stalin museum.They wont hear a bad word about him here.He's a hero and that's that.Purges?Well we all make mistakes.And Stalin made about 30 million of them!
Decided that 11 lari(4 euro) was too much for a ticket to see the museum again.Seems like the old communist has become something of a capitalist since we were last here.
Georgia has no motorway and with the M1 being the main road east to west we had to contend with sharing the road with the Turkish trucks and Georgians hell bent on being home before everyone else.Not a place for bikes.Once again we were out with all that's bad with distance cycling and decided to take matters into our own hands.
There is an alternative route along a dirt road that will take us through a town called Kharaguli,the road is pretty bad but crap road beats crap drivers every time. It was a great ride too,passing through walnut,hazel and sycamore forest and although the road was bad, after a short climb it descended pretty much all the way to Kharaguli before rejoining kamikaze George and his friends from Turkey.
Kutaisi is Georgia's second city.We took a couple of days here at the home stay of Suliko and Mediko. Now,Georgian men like a drink and they like it with food.They also like you to drink with them and make toasts to all occasions every couple of minutes,usually with homemade wine or chacha(Georgian brandy) drunk from animal horns in true viking style. Suliko is a gold medal drinker,this guy has out drunk Russians and even Glaswegian's.Sadly I'm on a course of antibiotics (giardia) and was worried my willpower would crack at the first toast but I was in good hands,Suliko decided I was to stay off the piss and concentrated instead on Newa the young Japanese backpacker who got so drunk in the end he asked me where I learnt such
Detour
through to Kharaguli good English.
''In England Newa"
''Aah So''
Which is when I realized Japanese people actually say that.
Home stays are a good way to learn about the Georgian way of life.Its a shame not to join in the horn drinking,I've been off the ale for 10 days now,that's almost a month!Mind you one sip of the home brew made me glad for the first time that I had giardia.
After a visit to the local monasteries where we took in several wedding's and atmospheric chambers we hitched back into town and bought odds and ends for the mountains.The market had all we needed including new strong plastic covers for our panniers,a sharpening stone,torch and plastic Tupperware for coffee and sugar.
Were all set,just need the rain to stop now.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.258s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 13; qc: 57; dbt: 0.0443s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb