Hit the Wall

Sunday May 31.
We woke up in the guesthouse in Tevali with plans to tour the countryside for wineries, monasteries and fortresses. Did none of that. Instead we just lounged around the guesthouse and its garden for the morning and into early afternoon. While the guesthouse needing some updating care, the gardens had wonderful rose bushes of many colors. Realized that we needed a break so we read the NYTimes, swung in the hammock, watched the antics of three little, but energetic kittens, drank coffee and caught up on some correspondence and bill paying. One of the kittens acted as if he had swallowed a Mexican jumping bean and he hopped around. Another climbed up a tree to investigate my tea cup, but then could not get down without my assistance. The mother warily observed.

We roused ourselves in the afternoon and began a walk around the town, The area is rich with fascinating places to visit, but even though the town is the biggest in the Kakheti wine region and was a major medieval trade center, there is not actually much of interest in it. The Batonistsikhe Castle is very large and was the site of the capital of the Kakhetian kings in the 17th and 18th centuries after the Persians drove them out of Gremi, but it was closed for restoration. Outside there was a giant statute of Erekle II, who was a wise and benevolent king in the 18th century

We walked up to old town. It was recently renovated and had a lot of nice looking typical Georgian homes, featuring the large wooden balconies that protruded in the front, but not much else. Even the dogs were just lying around.

By mid afternoon we found a small cafe that was pleasantly appointed where we proposed to eat lunch. Sat out in the patio, but we needed more help with the menu than the staff could provide with limited English. A tall man approached our table to help. He was not Georgian and he spoke South Asian accented English. Turned out he is the owner of the cafe. He is a retired officer who had served with the UN peacekeeping force on the Arkhazia border following the 2008 conflict. (One of Russia's many frozen conflicts in the countries that surround its borders.) He married a Georgian woman, retired and moved here.

After lunch he sat down with us over cigarettes (his) and coffee and we had interesting and multi hour discussions, ranging from Pakistani relations with the US and India, the Pakistani army, his impressions of Georgia and how to improve the economies of these countries. He stressed the need for education and infrastructure, and told us about his experience as an entrepreneur and economic opportunities and issues facing Georgia and other developing countries.   I was surprised that he felt that the average Pakistani is better off than the average Indian.  We will soon have the chance to see firsthand India, and after our wonderful conversation, perhaps Pakistan as well in the near future.

We resumed our walk around town. Saw a 900-year old tree and a sculpture that to me looked like Robert Taylor's time machine from the Julius Verne novel. From another angle it looked like a set of three snails.

We had dinner at a local brewery restaurant. Had some kabob without a stick and a lamb stew. Renewed plans to tour the countryside the next day. Kittens were asleep.

Monks and Munitions

Saturday, May 30
We got up at The Renaissance Hotel. It isn't the other side of the river, but  high on the river bank just across from Old City and next to the Tsminda Sameba Cathedral. Not nearly as fancy as the Rooms Hotel, but actually more space in the room and a much more moderate price.

As we were eating breakfast with our Russian friend from the wedding, we discovered that we planned to go to the same place that morning, the ancient (that is almost redundant to say here) monastery at Davit Gareja. He had made arrangements with some Georgian "30-somethings" he had previously met at a drinking establishment to go there with them. They graciously agreed to let us follow them there. I had Google directions using the hotel's wifi, but since my carrier does not provide internet service in Georgia, I feared that I would not make it there on our own.

Thus began a wild ride. The "30-somethings," who were driving a nice silver Mercedes, got lost getting out of Tbilisi. A little part of me felt good about that since I now knew that I was not the only one getting lost in Tbilisi. However, after we got out of Tbilisi, we got really lost. They were following Google maps, which was giving them the shortest, but not fastest route to the monastery. We went through the very southern part of Georgia, passing what appeared to be Georgia's version of the rust belt. Lots of abandoned factories and other rusting industrial equipment.

After a while the road began to deteriorate. Periodically the "30-somethings" would stop the car to ask directions. One or two of them would jump out and come to our car to make sure that we were ok. After a lot of gesturing we would drive on. The road then deteriorated to a dirt road. As the ruts in the road got bigger, we were slowed to a crawl. Lots of animals began to appear on the road accompanied by shepherds. Then we encountered a large flock of sheep that brought us to a complete standstill. After slowly crawling past the sheep we came to a fork, and they stopped to ask directions. One of the "30-somethings" came running back to our car with bananas and a bottle of lemonade. One of them grabbed what appeared to be two large beer bottles from the trunk and took them into the car. Almost immediately thereafter the driver popped out of the car with the beer bottles and returned them to the trunk. I assumed she did not want any drunk passengers. We later learned that they were filled with water for cleaning the car, not for drinking.

We then backtracked, again having to crawl through the sheep and turned up another dirt road. On top of the hill was a large structure that appeared to us to be a military installation or a prison, but the "30-somethings" said it was the monastery. Turned out to be a military facility with warning signs that we were entering a free fire zone. Over the hills we could see a series of guard towers and we realized that we were at the Azerbaijani border. We drove for a long time on a dirt track that I thought roughly paralleled the border. Turned out that a post trip review of our route by Google maps indicated that we periodically crossed into Azerbaijan and without a passport stamp.

At one point along the road there was a sign with three flags on it, one of which was a US flag. I jumped out of the car to see if this held the secret to our journey, but was surprised and chastened to learn that the US was part of an ongoing program to clear mine fields in this area. We took some pictures and backtracked to the cars.

The road by this time was really better-suited for a 4-wheel drive vehicle. Ruts and potholes littered the roadway. Surprisingly, the little Twingo was in some respects better-suited for the road than the Mercedes, since it had a smaller wheelbase and could more easily avoid the potholes. We periodically encountered vehicles coming in the opposite direction and we invariably stopped for more directions, finger pointing and inquiries if we were ok.  After what seemed to be an eternity, we encountered a sign indicating that the monastery was 3km away.  And so it came about that after almost 4 hours of driving we came to our destination. The monastery was pretty impressive. It was built into the side of a mountain and incorporated many caves into its structure. Even though this is a semi arid area, at this time of year it was covered in green and punctuated with many wild flowers. Davit came here in the 6th century to spread Christianity. He constructed the first monastery which later grew into a complex of 16 monasteries that became a repository for learning and art.  The complex was destroyed by the Mongols in the 12th century and rebuilt, destroyed by Tamerlane in the 15th century and rebuilt and finally utterly destroyed on Easter night in 1615 by the Persians, who massacred 6000 monks. After that it fell into disuse. The site was revived after independence from the Soviets and is again inhabited by monks, although the only monk we saw was in the gift shop.

We toured the complex for over an hour and then the "30-somethings" broke out a picnic. We through in our store of fruit, nuts and water. We learned that the Georgian "30-somethings" were a pair of brother and sisters, who were also cousins. They were all programmers, as is the Russian, and one had spent a few months studying at Washington State University. His sister is scheduled to attend a seminar in San Francisco later this year. We had a grand time.

On the return trip we took the longer route, with better road conditions. We parted company with the "30-somethings" when we approached the Tbilisi Sighnaghi road. We were going to Telavi and they directed us to the right. Wrong direction, but we eventually got there.

However, along the way to Telavi we got pulled over by the police. In Georgia they drive like madmen. Passing on curves, exceeding the speed limit, driving in the opposite lane, and generally seemingly obeying only their own rules. I could not understand what we had done wrong.   The police spoke no English and seemed to be referencing a stop sign. I did not recall any stop sign. We were out of the range of Google translate. I handed over our passports, then the car registration and insurance paperwork, then my drivers license. Their eyes seemed to light up when they saw California on the license and waved us on.

When we arrived in Talavi, we did not know that we were there. A conference in a market confirmed our location and we got directions to our guesthouse. While those got us to the immediate vicinity of the guesthouse, we could not find it. So we parked the car near a park and carrying our tour book with the guesthouse's address we intended to ask for directions. The first person we approached asked if we were looking for our guesthouse, and then proceeded to lead us by car to it. We never found out who he was.

Tushishvili Guesthouse is hosted by a Ukrainian grandmother. It is in an older home that has seem better days, but we are the only guests and thus have an entire floor to ourselves. Dinner outside at the adjacent restaurant and then after using the Turkish toothpaste, early to bed.  

The Little Black Dress is Universal

May 24. The Big Day

This was the wedding day, the reason we had traveled to Georgia.
But first we did some touring. We got on the bus with the tour guide shortly after 10 (This group, like most, does not get started at the scheduled time. There are some who are always timely and others who are chronically late and even then, there is usually someone who has to make some last minute change. Just one of the things that one has to accept and put up with if you travel with a group.)

The bus took us to Mtskheta, a small town about 40 km north of Tbilisi. This area is the cradle of Georgian religion and culture, since it is the place where St. Nino converted the early Georgian kingdom to Christianity in the 4th century and it was the capital for about 2 centuries, until that was moved to Tbilisi. Plus it has several old and spiritually important religious buildings (some of which have been placed on UNESCO's Danger list). So our pre ceremony activities consisted of church viewings.

The first was Jvari Church. This sits high on a hill and is visible for miles. The road up to the church has lots of switchbacks. It is a small building that goes back to the 7th century. It marks the spot where in the 4th century King Mirian erected a cross to mark his conversion to Christianity by St. Nino. From the church you can see the town below, with its many churches and the convergence of the Aragvi and Mtkvari rivers, which were flowing pretty swiftly.

St. Nino was born in western Turkey, the daughter of a Roman general. At age 14 she experienced a vision telling her to convert the Iverians (predecessors to the present day Georgians) to Christianity. She went to Iveria, performed some good deeds and miracles, and when she saved Queen Nana with her prayers from a serious illness, she got the attention of King Mirian. When she restored his sight after blindness from a hunting accident, he made Christianity Iveria's official religion in 327. It became the second kingdom to officially convert to Christianity.

Next we went to Samtavro Church. It is a large church that was built in the 12th century and has some kings and queens buried on the grounds. It also has a small church on the grounds marking the spot where St. Nino prayed in the 4th century. It survived the Soviet period by serving as an orphanage.

Finally the wedding. It took place at the Svetitskhoveil Cathedral. This dates from the 11th century. It is a very large building surrounded by a large defensive wall. Tradition teaches that Christ's robe is buried beneath the Cathedral. The story goes that a Jew from Mtakheta was in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion and returned with the robe. He gave it to his sister who promptly died in a passion of faith. The robe was buried with her and when it was decided to build a church there, the large center column could not be raised. However, with St. Nino's prayers it was miraculously both raised and moved to the sister's burial site.

Enough about old buildings. The wedding in the Cathedral was something out of a Hollywood movie.  The priest had a long gray beard, flowing robes and an ornate headpiece (which must have been very hot since when he took it off his hair was plastered to his head with sweat.) The groom wore a traditional Georgian military uniform with metal canisters across his chest that were either bullet canisters or cigar holders. The couple wore golden crowns during a portion of the ceremony and there was kissing of walls and frescoes. A central feature seemed to be three processions around the alter. A pretty grand and ritualized performance.

Then off to the wedding party. It was held at a beautifully landscaped facility. There were some preliminary drinks (brandy and chacha) and food, but when the seated dinner began I was overwhelmed. Throughout the evening the food and drink never stopped flowing. The table was loaded with a dozen dishes when we arrived and more kept coming. We had missed lunch and so I was hungry and began to eat too much. I slowed down to try to taste each dish, but gradually succumbed to at first sloth and then culinary paralysis. Periodic trips outside to the grounds for cigars and some more drinks were the only thing that kept me vertical. There was no dessert except the wedding cake, but I would have been too stuffed to eat it. A real culinary celebration. I was told by the groom that in the past such feasts were accompanied by a feather that guests would use to induce vomiting and then they would return to the food.

There was a local troupe of dancers in traditional costumes as entertainment, as well as singers who offered up a mixture of western (several Sinatra songs) and Georgian music. I think the guests were about 20% American, 65% Georgian and 15% other nations. I counted Russians, Ukrainians, Swedes among the attendees. Several of the younger women wore little black dresses, which cross borders very nicely.

It seems as if the Georgians largely did not mix with the others. They were probably extended family and I think that most did not speak English. Lots of dancing by the guests, some traditional Georgian, and even Conga lines and circles of dancers who took turns being in the middle "hot spot."  I was  particularly struck by two 20-something sisters, probably cousins of the groom, whom we noticed in the Cathedral, who did not wear head scarves and one wore a bare shouldered dress. We wondered how they got away with that.

By 10 we were exhausted. The bus took us back to our hotel where we promptly collapsed into bed.

My KIngdom for a Map, or Will I ever Get Out of this Country

May 14. This was a very trying day.

We awoke in Sarajevo, had breakfast in the apartment, gathered my clothes from the clothes line and pulled out of the parking lot on time, confident that we were securely on our way to Sofia, Bulgaria and our hotel there. We had no general Internet service in Bosnia, but we had plotted out the route in our apartment using the wifi.

We had a couple of missed turns leaving Old Town Sarajevo, (incredible maze of narrow streets), but we finally got on the correct road thinking that we were heading for the M5. We saw signs for the M5, but we did not meet the turnoff onto the M5. We went several km and then through a tunnel. Then we saw a big sign welcoming us to the Republika Srpska. That should have been a warning sign, especially since we had gone beyond the 8.4km that our directions said would lead us to the M5. Instead of turning around and retracing our steps, I asked a policeman for directions. He spoke a little English and I thought that he understood that we were looking for the M5 to take us to Bulgaria. He (as a representative of the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska was clearly contemptuous of the fact that we were coming from Sarajevo) directed us to a road on the left which he said would take us to the border.

I took that road for a bit, but it did not seem right so I turned back, found a gas station and again asked for directions. Two people there said to take the same road that the policeman had directed us to take to get right to the border. So we took the road to the border.

Turns out they were sending us to the border with Serbia, going north, away from Bulgaria. However I did not realize that until a few hours later when we saw road signs for towns that were near the Serbian border. Not that big an issue, a few hours out of the way since I thought that we could go south through Serbia into Bulgaria and use Internet GPS to guide us. We had taken with us travel books for all the countries that we planned to enter. However while in Croatia we decided to make a change to our plans to go east into Bosnia rather than going south into Montenegro, so we only had small maps of Bosnia from the Croatia book, and no map of Serbia.

We approached the border and the immigration post. No road or border signs in English and the Serbian and Bosnian languages bear no resemblance to English so I did not know if it was a Serbian or Bosnian post. Turns out it was a Bosnian post. No problem there. Crossed the bridge and approached the Serbian post. A small post looking very ramshackle. The Serbian officer spoke absolutely no English. We thought that he was asking for car information after he reviewed our passports, but even after we gave him those documents he still seemed to want us to do something. Finally after a few tense minutes, he just waved us through. I suspect he just got fed up with us.

We crossed into Serbia and made our second big mistake. The GPS Internet did not work ("no service") and we were confronted with a road sign. To the left, and what I thought was north was "Beograd". I thought that was Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, but I correctly thought that it was geographically out of the way. Turns out it would have been better to go there and catch the toll road south. Instead we went right, going south and what I thought would be a path to Bulgaria.

The roads we travelled turned out to be impossibly narrow, winding with no towns beyond small villages and after a while seemingly leading to nowhere. We passed through a medium sized town, but we could not find anyone who spoke English or or a place to buy a map. We continued further on with the same results in another town, even going into a bus station seeking directions. I think that lady was sending us back into Bosnia, but we at least found a map posted outside a public building. That seemed to offer a route to Serbia's southern border. So we continued for a few more fruitless hours until I really had no idea where we were, other than we were generally going south according to our navigation by compass. By this time I had an emotional belief that I would never be able to get out of Serbia.

Finally we stopped in a gas station. No maps, but we found an English speaker, He sighed when I described our situation. He said we would never be able to navigate our way south on these small, rural roads and suggested that we follow the signs  to Beograd, which would take us to the toll road which would securely lead us south to Bulgaria. So we turned around and headed north with my hopes now completely dashed that we would get to our Bulgaria hotel that night, since we had to get there by midnight when it closed down and I had no way to contact them.

Along the way we saw a series of large stones that seems to be a monument. Looked like a Serbian Stonehenge. The office was closed so I could only assume that it was a monument to the WWII partisans.

We reached the outskirts of Belgrade by about 8. We had now been driving for 10 hours. Got on the toll road and headed for NIS. We stopped for gas on the toll road. About 400 Serbian dinars to one dollar. My gas bill was 3250 dinars. But we also were able to purchase a map. We were then slowly driving to the adjacent bathroom when police lights began flashing in my rear view mirror. Turns out they only wanted me to get out of the way. I parked near them. While Karen went to the bathroom, I stayed with the car and watched several uniformed security offices jump out of the vans and unlock the rear doors from which emerged scores of men. I asked who they were and was told that they were prisoners being transported to where or why I could not understand. Several of the prisoners approached me and started to talk. They assured me that they were "good criminals." I think they were not pulling my leg. The Serbia toll road was the cheap.

We finally got to the Bulgarian border about 10:00 pm. I was now hopeful that we could get to the hotel before it closed at midnight. Crossing into Bulgaria, we had to purchase a vignette for 5 euro. That and another 5 euro got us a sticker which we affixed to our car and permitted us to drive in Bulgaria for a week.

The road to Sofia was very dark, narrow, winding, and truck-laden. Passing was a white-knuckled affair until I started following a car that was going my desired speed.   We got to Sofia almost on time for the hotel, but it did not matter because we entered a new time zone when we entered Bulgaria so we lost an hour. Sofia was pretty much shut down when we arrived. We found one other hotel but it was full. So we parked our car outside our hotel, L'Opera, next to the Opera House, locked the doors and windows, pulled out the blankest and pillows and prepared to sleep in the car. I was tired so I was able to get some sleep. Watching the city in between naps was a bit surreal, an occasional car or pedestrian, the street cleaners walking by and finally at 4:00 am the first trolleys rumbled by. They appeared with increasing frequency as the dawn approached so I got less sleep. The hotel opened at 7:30, we got some breakfast there, checked in and went up to our room (no elevator so we lugged our bags up to the 4th floor, but a nice big room) and slept until 11.

Bare Bodies Bathing

May 22.

Awoke in Tbilisi in the Rooms Hotel. This is a new experience for us on this trip, an upscale hotel. A large spacious lobby, 24-hour desk  manned by staff that speak English and a nice bar and restaurant. The breakfast offered cooked-to-order eggs and lots of other choices. Very good.

Others from the group that are here to attend the wedding began to stagger into the lobby area, in some cases looking a bit bedraggled since they had a very long trip from the US on multiple flights and had arrived in Tbilisi in the early morning hours.

Karen went off with some locals to a hair appointment, so I and one of the earlier arrivals took a walk into Tbilisi. A short time on Kostavas St (that must be like Washington Street because it showed up in virtually every Georgian town we visited) and then through Rustavelis Square and onto Rustavelis. All named in honor of Georgia's preeminent poet. It seems to be Tbilisi's main thoroughfare and is lined with important buildings and upscale shops. Many of the buildings appear to have been built in the late 19th and early 20th century and need some maintenance. They were residential but have largely been converted to commercial use.  It also has a lot of traffic, which would be difficult for a pedestrian to cross and no traffic lights. Cars turn using roundabout lanes while pedestrians use one of several underpasses, which themselves are little commercial centers. We walked almost to Tavisuplebis Square (Freedom), but instead took the Metro back to Rustavelis. It was confusing at first, since the automated machine was not for the purchase of new Metro cards. Instead, it is an all-purpose payment center to pay a variety of bills or add to a Metro card. We purchased a single card for 2 lari and fares were .5 lari each. Got on the right train and road one stop. The system was constructed in 1950 (during the "Soviet era"). It seems old but well maintained.

After Karen returned, we did a similar walking tour, slower, understanding more of what we were seeing and taking more pictures. The large Parliament Building is undergoing renovation. It seems the last regime wanted to move the capital to another city, but that decision has been reversed. A country's growing pains. Built during the Soviet era, it was the site of the killings of the 19 hunger strikers in 1989 that ultimately lead to Georgian independence and the Rose Revolution demonstrations in 2003. Lots of history here. We thought that we were being sent to the post office. That was a mistake. We did not have time to find the real post office, so we returned to the hotel to get back in time for the scheduled trip to The Baths.

The Baths are part of the legend that leads to the founding of Tbilisi. In the 5th century, Kind Vakhtang Gorgasli was hunting and wounded a deer, which fell into hot sulphur springs and was miraculously healed.  He started the town there and its name is based on the springs -- tbili, means warm in Georgian. The current bathhouses date back to the 17th century. They are subterranean with beehive domes rising above ground level so approaching them presents a weird sight.

Alex Dumas and Pushkin both bathed here. Our visit started out with a bit of a snafu. One contingent was coming from the mother-in-law's lunch which was held up, others arrived late, and I think that one group ended up in a different bathhouse. We were the first ones there, by cab, which are inexpensive, but require a negotiated price. Once all arrived, we really did not know what to do. Ended up that the old folks disrobed (no changing rooms) and  wrapped ourselves in sheets, which when we entered the hot bath turned out to leave little to the imagination. The young folks wore bathing suits. The baths were warm and relaxing, but then we took the next step, the massage and scrape. That entailed a complete disrobing in an adjacent area. One by one we lay on a marble slab and were massaged, rubbed, scaled and washed with a giant application of soap suds. In between, we got doused with buckets of hot water. An invigorating and revealing experience.

After that, a group of us had dinner at a restaurant in Old Town very near the baths.  We ordered communally and had a variety of Georgian dishes. Wine, beer and a Georgian clear liquor made from the remainders of the wine-making process called chacha. Very potent stuff.

After we returned to the hotel, we went out on the patio for more drinking (that turned out to be a recurring theme throughout the Georgia experience) and awaited the arrival of more wedding attendees. Flights from Europe seem to come into Georgia late or early in the morning, so I lasted only until the first arrival at 1:30.

Independence Day

May 18

We arrived in Samsun about 8:30 Sunday night after a long drive. The GPS was working, but it had a strange way of counting the exits on the roundabouts so we had a few wrong turns and the final approach to the hotel was a confusing maze; but on balance it was 100% better than the prior evening. We stayed at the Neba Royal Hotel.  Contrary to advertisement, no English was spoken here, but the desk clerk spoke French, so we muddled by.  The US credit cards did not work so we agreed that we would pay Turkish cash the next day. The hotel was bland and fine. It was a business hotel and it had a very nice breakfast. No character and no opportunity to speak with anyone.

The hotel was close to the waterfront. After entering our room, checking out the view of the harbor and the Black Sea and opening the window, we heard lots of noise and music, as if a parade were occurring. We went downstairs and found ourselves in the middle of a pre Independence Day celebration. May 19 is Turkish Independence Day and it carries special weight here since it was from Samsun’s harbor that Ataturk launched the revolution. 

There were lots of dancers, whirling dervishes, drummers and musicians, but the most striking was arial luminairals that were being lit and lunched by many attendees, They were orange paper cones with a light metal frame at the bottom which contained a reservoir of fuel. When that was lit, it created hot air that lifted the structure. Scores of these were being lit and were floating upward, in some instances hundreds of feet, creating a strange image of these orange objects languidly floating above us.

The drummers were very loud and active. After they broke up we spoke with one. He told us about the history and advised that this was just a rehearsal for the main event in two days. However, he also informed us that a Turkish national election was imminent and that the Turkish President, Erdogan would be speaking in town the next day. He added a very colorful epithet after referencing the President.

In Samsun I could not change money at a bank and had to find a money changer. That was hard to do since the main square and surrounding streets were largely blocked off due to the President’s imminent arrival. Finally got some lira, took a walk in the harbor area (lots of orange debris) and unsuccessfully sought a Tourist office to help us with our tolls issue. We followed the signs but no success. I think all the tourist offices have been closed.

As we entered the main square to get back to our car, we were caught up in the preparations for the President’s visit. We ended up with Turkish flags and a hat, which I think celebrates Turkish youth sports day, but fearing gridlock we left before the President arrived. 

Samsun is a big city and port. The road on the way out of town was lined with heavily armed soldiers. And was well-decorated. When we passed the airport turnoff, though, that all disappeared. We drove east along the Black Sea. A great bike path, but very few beaches and those that existed were very rocky. I did not see one person in the water. We had lunch in Unye at a restaurant along the shoreline. I found a free parking space. As we left the closed tourist office, two young men approached us in the square and tried to help. First time that has happened since Ireland visit.

We resumed the drive along the coast and missed the one sandy beach on the coast. We arrived at our hotel in Giresun before dark. The Giresun hotel was a disappointment. Our first real dud of the trip, but the price was ok as was the breakfast. Our window was partially obscured by a gigantic Turkish flag. It was on the waterfront, but that was all industrial. It was across a footbridge crossing the main highway from Atapark ,which had the obligatory statute of Ataturk. We walked up (steep) the pedestrian main street, which was very alive well into the evening. Ice cream for dinner.

  

We checked into our Hotel and a concert broke out outside our window

Thursday, May 21, 2015

We awoke late after our post midnight wanderings through Batumi.

Before I move on to my daily observations, I want to give a big SHOUTDOWN to the travel book publisher, Lonely Planet, whose books I have been using. I have used them in the past and have been very pleased to the point that I purchased several hundreds of dollars of books for this trip. However, they really did me a disservice with their failure to address the issue of how to use the Turkish toll roads. The book had a section on bringing your car into Turkey and it addressed the need for proof of ownership and insurance, etc. However, it made no mention of the fact that you need to go to a PTT office ASAP after entering Turkey to get a transponder or sticker to lawfully use the toll roads and avoid a major fine. The absence of that information caused us lots of grief, although we managed to talk our way out of the fine. I know that these books cannot cover everything and there will be mistakes about addresses, opinions about facilities, etc,, but this omission in my mind is travel malpractice.

No guesthouse breakfast. I miss that. It is convenient and usually good and filling, plus you oftentimes get a chance to interact with the local host. Instead I went out to get some lari, the Georgian currency. Shopped around as I found that while the currency traders give a better rate, they charge a commission, so I ended up in a bank that had the best rate I could find.

Upon trying to return to the hotel, I again was lost. I later realized that the street our guesthouse was on did not extend through. However, I did find an insurance agency. After packing we went back there to purchase local auto insurance. Apparently road and driving conditions are so bad in Georgia that western insurance companies will not issue primary auto insurance for that country. The agent spoke good English and we were able to get two months of expensive liability insurance. So now we have primary and secondary insurance on the car.

Managed to drive out of Batumi without getting lost even without GPS, but it is not very big. Took off for Tbilisi along the Black Sea and then into the mountains. Most of the roads are pretty well maintained, but they are virtually all winding, not flat, and single lane each way. There is lots of truck traffic and much of it moves slowly, particularly uphill. Passing is a wild ride, particularly around the many small business vans that are so top heavy they go very slow around the curves, but speed up on the short and infrequent straightaways. The Twingo’s limited power does not help. The Georgians are far more advanced at the process that I am, with my training in that art limited to trips on the 395 up to Mammouth Mt. before it was widened. They are particularly adept at passing you when you are behind a truck, even when you leave no room by just cutting you off and essentially daring you to hit them. As a result, you are left one spot back in the passing game. I learned to hug and even cross over the middle lane to cut them off before they jump ahead. Lots of white knuckle passing near curves.

A world class four lane highway greeted us about 50 miles outside Tbilisi, so we got in before I planned and when it was still light. GPS magically reappeared and we got to where the hotel was supposed to be. Traffic was a madhouse, so I pulled into a parking lot to get my bearings. Two attendants came over and were giving us directions. Either I did not understand or they were wrong, so that led us on a wild goose chase. Turned out we were across the street from the hotel.

Drove into underground parking. The attendant smiled and said, “a small space for a small car.” He was not kidding.

The hotel is very nice. We requested the cheaper interior courtyard room. Turned out there was a wonderful concert with a 9-piece band in the courtyard, so we simply flung open the window and enjoyed virtually front row seats while we ate chocolates, bread and jam, and drank wine.