The Journey
Given the sheer size of this blog post, I am not going to
give an account of my travels is chronological order. That would simply be too
tedious, however big the challenge remains to make this lengthy narrative an
entertaining read. Yet, for you to have an idea about the sequence of my
travels, I add the below map, which depicts the route traversed. Starting and
ending in Tbilisi, and touching upon Georgia’s capital many more times in
between, the journey took me to the heights of Svaneti, to Georgia’s second
city Kutaisi, to the wine region of Telavi, to the cave monasteries of Davit
Gureja, off to Yerevan in Armenia, and to Goris and Tatev in the southernmost
part of the country, to Garni and Geghard, back to Tbilisi, to the mountains of
Khazbegi and to Gori, only to fly back from Tbilisi on the last day. What this
adventure of well over 3000 kilometres entailed you will find as colourfully
depicted as possible below. Enjoy!
Modes of transport
The embodiment of my nightmare of how to travel is big,
powered on diesel, has four wheels, one or two drivers, and 40-odd people of
varying seize, age, and gender, yet having one thing in common; a lack of
exploring independently. Yes, the tour bus. Even in the relatively
tourist-scarce Caucasus these giant monsters can be found, vomiting a busload
of tourists at every stop, who subsequently rush through museums and ancient
sites, swallowing up rustic auras with their superficial chatter and oblivious
camera clicking. You may now guess that however rich the diversity of my means
of transport may have been, the tour bus was not among them. Then what? When
exploring a new country I usually seek to travel as locals do, i.e. avoiding
taxis and organised (day) trips, but rather embarking on trains, busses and metro.
So it was that I found myself regularly squeezed in overstocked Marshrutky
(minivans), (sleeper)trains, city busses, on foot when the distance allowed it, on the efficient Yerevan and Tbilisi metro, and when necessary in shared cabs.
Although the Marshrutka is by far the most popular way of getting from A to B,
I would much rather prefer the trains, which are big, comfortable, allow you to
gaze out of the window into the endless landscapes, and take you back a few
decades in time when many a coach found their origin, manufactured and sprung
onto the rails by Soviet labourers. The Marshrutka, in contrast, does rarely
allow you to look at the surroundings, not in the last place because there are
too many people on it. The drivers, although skilled they are beyond
discussion, generally seem to share a suicidal and highly competitive driving
style, seeking to overtake any vehicle in front of them, regardless of upcoming
turns in the road, approaching trucks, or speed limits (speed limits??). The
experience of such a journey may be worth the risks for one or two rides, but
when the novelty has disappeared and death remains lurking around the corner of
the next turn, I opted for alternative ways of travel whenever possible.
Unfortunately, these options were often all too limited. Marshrutky are also
cheap. Very cheap. Travelling from Tbilisi to Gori takes about an hour and a
half and costs 3 Lari. That is a bit over a Euro. The train (which we took on
the way back) costs only 4, while the rule of thumb for travelling by cab is
0.6 Lari per kilometre. All very affordable, especially compared to our 60-Euro
taxi-ride in Istanbul, in order to get from international airport to
international airport on time, so as to make our transfer.
Yes, marshrutky. Very entertaining as well is reading the texts that many of these vans still feature, advertising the merits of furnishing your new house with furniture from this and this SME from Purmerend, or displaying the address and phone number of a transport company in Germany. Former Dutch public transport vans, redundant English school busses, vehicles previously employed by ardent German middle class workers; it seems that any unit that doesn’t get through the annual inspection in the West anymore is driven straight to Georgia to serve for another 10 years or more. Steering wheels can be on the right or the left, and seatbelts generally sway needlessly on the rocking rhythm of the bumpy roads. The place they all gather in Tbilisi is known as Didube, a big plot of unpaved land full of parked marshrutky, each leaving for another destination in the country, with their respective drivers loudly advertising their routes (as if they can change people’s minds of where to go that day!). What struck me as well is the overpowering dominance of German-manufactured cars on the roads, notably in Georgia. Almost every car one spots is an Opel, a Volkswagen, or a Mercedes, with the exception of Marshrutky, which are often Ford Transits as well. French cars are as rare as nicely perfumed bums while the occasional Toyota is often of a more recent built as well. Proof to me of the longevity of the mentioned brands and a much easier choice when I’ll have to buy a car myself (in the distant future!). An occasional glance at the mileage recorder of one of the many cars I sat in told me that the unit had already covered 270,000 km. Now I don’t know much about cars but it seemed to me as a fair number, given that it effortlessly took us over rocky roads and steep hills all the way from Tbilisi to Davit Gureja! Cars, marshrutky, and busses, I could go on endlessly about them. But in the end I prefer the trains, my gateway to the Soviet past.
Landscapes
One of the most calling appeals of the Caucasian countries I
touched upon are the gorgeous landscapes which are at the traveller’s display.
The Caucasus mountain range stretches in between northern Georgia and Chechnya
in Russia, and boasts a handful of peaks exceeding 5,000 kilometres in
altitude. I personally got to gorge on these mountains in Svaneti as well as
Khazbegi, although time, weather, and planning-deficient related excuses
prevented me from taking on these giants in a proper way. While I spent my
first full day in Svaneti travelling by Marshrutka to and from Ushguli, unaware
as I was that I was using my only day of decent weather, the second day I woke
up to pouring rain and a cold wind. Rosa, who runs the guesthouse I was staying
at, told me that the weather was not going to improve the subsequent days,
providing a grim outlook for my so much desired hikes in the blissful beauty of
Mestia’s surroundings. Yet I was determined to tread the slopes surrounding the
pretty mountain village, notwithstanding some rain or wind. Alas, I hadn’t
packed anything to protect me against these elements of nature. The weather
forecast I had looked up when packing the backpack featured 30-plus Celsius (in
Tbilisi) and I had naturally assumed that although it may very well be somewhat
colder in the mountains there was no need to take a jacket. Well, there was,
and a very big one indeed. Now I’m not the person to be put off by an impulsive
though necessary purchase, whatever the costs if rewarded by an everlasting moment
or experience. On the contrary, I would actually love to have bought a decent
rain-proof unit that would serve me for years to come, being the perfect
souvenir and tangible reminder to some great hikes in a really cool spot in the
world. Alas, those intentions remained intentions, as Mestia is a small village
tucked away in the Caucasian mountains, not featuring anything like a clothing
shop, let alone the high-end mountaineering store I was looking for. Well,
Tony, be a practical guy and look for another solution, come on, time is
passing, time that is much better spent up in the mountains! And so I entered a
store where I could allegedly find ‘anything you may need’. Looking around the
ramshackle building the collection of stuff the owners had gathered and
displayed for sale rather struck me as ‘everything I may not need’. One of the
old ladies running the shop had the perfect solution for my problem however,
and after about twenty minutes of cutting and folding I was leaving the shop
wrapped in a plastic piece of foil that indeed kept most of the rain away from
my clothes. This new fashion proved rather impractical to walk (or move at all)
in though, and the wind pulling away the corners to allow fresh rain droplets
to land on my clothes didn’t help either. In the end the foil lasted for about
half an hour, when I happily swapped it for the ugliest and most overpriced
second-hand purple semi-rainproof jacket I have ever seen in my life. Together
with my green shorts, blue Icelandic socks and sturdy Dockers it made for the
perfect outfit to finally tackle those big boys hiding behind the clouds. And
to be fair, for the larger part of the hike the jacket was doing fine, whilst
the view of the mountains around me was -with the occasional drifting of mist
and clouds- rewarding enough. Most importantly, the hike proved the
much-desired physical exercise, which I tremendously enjoyed. It was only after
I had reached the plateau above when it began to snow in earnest that my newly
purchased gear started to give in and I decided to call it a day. Rain wind or
snow, I did hike in Svaneti!
Other astounding landscapes I came across during my journey
luckily didn’t put my kit and self-respect as much to the test as the Svaneti
one. Transcending the caves inhabited my monks at the monastery of Davit Gureja
one gets rewarded by fantastic 360 views over the outstretched landscapes, from
the rough mountains in Georgia to the north to the rolling hills in the
semi-desert of Azerbaijan to the south. The fact that you’re standing on a
mountain in which monks have lived for centuries, literally hacking out
communities in the sheer rock formation, makes it all the more special, as is
the fact that the border with Azerbaijan is close enough for the presence of
heavily armed border guards.
Caucasian as Svaneti yet treating us with much better
weather is the region around Khazbegi, with equally impressive mountain
formations and gorgeous valleys. On day 1 we climbed the slopes up to the
iconic church on the hilltop, floodlit during the night and thus visible from
the village below around the clock. In our ignorance we didn’t proceed further
up to the foot of the glacier, which should have been a magnificent hike,
something we only learnt that night at dinner. The hill-top nap in the bright
sunlight and the pretty views over the church and the towering mountains in the
background were well worth our time as well though! Day 2 in Khazbegi was spent
hiking through a valley, until a destructed bridge prevented us from proceeding
much further. As the valley reaches till South Ossetia, subject of the war with
Russia in 2008 and still disputed land, the bridge may very well have been
destructed on purpose. Despite the human tragedy of the region (the few houses
we passed on the way had been left by Ossetians who fled to Russia), the
landscapes are gorgeous with the strong-willed river fed by melting ice eating
itself deeper and deeper into the valley it has created over the past millennia.
Food
Ahh… Kinkahli… Although I am not the biggest fan ever of
dumplings (an overkill of pierogy in Poland, a rather medium variant in India,
and the cheer abundance of so much tastier food in China) Kinkahli shall
henceforth rank among my global favourites. The juice you suck out first, the
gentle wrapping, the herby mushrooms / meat inside, and the customs to leave
the least tasty stub uneaten all make for a fantastic snack. Although Georgians
usually devour dozens of khinkali in one go, I liked all their other food so
much that I couldn’t resist complementing a handful of khinkali with a great
variety of cheeses, rich salads, sausages… hmmmm….. locally produced wine,
chacha…. Well, let’s say the food in Georgia is delicious. Great as well is
that it’s all locally grown and produced, which adds to the flavour (as it’s
all fresh) and significantly eats into the price. A pint of Georgian beer costs
you 3 lari in a decent restaurant in Tbilisi, while in ‘The Hunter’ in Gori
only 1.5 lari. Staggeringly cheap compared with the EUR 5.20 for a pint of
Carslberg in The Barge!
What was also a remarkable and most enjoyable experience food-wise were the day and a half spent at one of Yerevan’s many lounge bars. After two weeks of travelling non-stop I deemed a period of relaxing well deserved and hence sat myself down on the earlier described sofa at the ‘VIP section’ of one of the bars adjacent Yerevan’s large theatre in the heart of town. With a waiter bringing me soups, fish dishes, ice cream with fruits and chocolate, fresh juices and Italian coffees on demand, I watched the hours go by gazing at the sunlight making its way through my ceiling of leaves, staring at passers-by, or reading in the books I had brought along. Day 1 I didn’t leave the sofa for six hours straight while day 2 wasn’t much worse! Remarkable here again the sheer inexpensiveness of it all, as the gf and I walked away on day 1 paying no more than 30 Euros! And that included the VIP fee! Astounding prices, certainly given the European price tags on clothing anywhere in the city. Must be the locally-produced argument again?
We’re sliding off-topic. Food. Another memorable dinner we
had in Tatev, where Bo and I had secured a lovely home stay with an elderly
couple who didn’t speak a word of English. Their house was humble yet very
interesting to us outsiders, with little to no tourists entering the village
(the appeal of Tatev is the monastery just outside the village which is
connected by a cable car so most tourists zoom in and out of the picture-perfect
unit within an hour). When we signed up for dinner at 7 we expected the usual
tasty home-cooked dishes for the two of us, perhaps joined by our hosts
themselves. However, getting back from our great half-day hike we found the
place swarming with kids in their twenties; Armenians from a village in the
north of the country. They were on a weekend trip to Tatev and stayed at the
same home-stay as we did. How the old man managed to cramp them all in his
small house still confuses me, yet the vast barbeque they prepared was rich and
tasty, with wine and beer flowing freely and the bunch of Armenian
tourists-in-their-own-country proving excellent company! Grilled chicken,
vegetables harvested that very day, locally produced cheese, roasted aubergine…
and the abundance of it all! A night to remember.
As the above example illustrates it is common to have dinner
and breakfast included in your home stay in Georgia and Armenia, which
basically comes down to the mother of the family making you a huge and very
tasty dinner. Guesthouses generally attract backpackers for their low prices
and good value for money, yet the ultimate appeal to me was the insight into
local traditions and, yes, the food. Oh, the food.
People
Among ‘people’ we have the native inhabitants of the regions
traversed as well as the fellow travellers one meets on the way. As Bo only
joined the second week (she wasn’t up for three whole weeks of backpacking ;))
I found myself much more exposed to new contacts in my first week of roaming
around than in the latter two. As is usually the case when backpacking in a
region with a fair chance of spotting other backpackers it was very easy to
meet new people and make new friends, as I came across cool company every
single night. Starting with the bunch of mainly Aussie kids + fellow Dubliners
in Istanbul, I went for dinner and drinks with Peter and Maria on my first and second
night in Tbilisi, travelled with Veiko to Mestia and was joined by his three
Estonian friends later that evening, met some cool Israeli girls shortly
afterwards, spent the day in Ushguli with Leonie and her German friend, met up
with Chris (who I knew via couch surfing) and his annoying colleague later that
night back in Mestia, had dinner with a Danish couple the subsequent night at
my second home stay, travelled from Mestia back to more humane temperatures
with two cute French girls, shared a room with two really cool South African
lads -Paul and Cole- in Kutaisi, joined them for a day trip the subsequent day
to some nearby churches, and had lovely people taking care of me in their homes
all week long (as well as during the latter two weeks, most notably Annahit in
Yerevan!). Travelling alone makes one much more prone to new contacts than when
travelling as a couple –which has other advantages such as the sharing of
experiences together. The main exception was the bunch of Armenians we had dinner
with at our home stay in Tatev, who made truly exceptional company and taught us
a lot about what young Armenians are like and how they see the world. A young lass
called Mariam was pleasant company in particular, as we played games and riddles
for a fair while after the abundant dinner! Yet, generally it was the perfect
solution for me to start off on my own only to be joined by Bo in a later stage,
as one experiences new countries in such a different manner when completely
alone. A very insightful and special night was the dinner enjoyed with the
Danish couple Hennes and Linda. What started off as a perfectly normal
conversation became a rather remarkable one when I learnt that Hennes and Linda
live in a wooden house without electricity or toilet, spend half their time (literally)
travelling the world by bike or public transport, and generally stay far away
from cities and, for that matter, people. They have no social life, do not go
out for dinner, do not watch movies, and have no telephone. I felt rather
privileged to be their company for the night, an experience which was most
enjoyable to me and hopefully also to them, keeping in mind that it was a
rarity for them to have dinner with other people at all! Their story made me
think, even more than all the other impressions I got to absorb during my
travels, and had added a profound insight to my way of looking at the world.
Regarding the people, that is, Georgians and Armenians, I
can state I have grown fond of Georgians in particular, while Armenians are
also an above-average pleasant people to have around when travelling in a new
country. Naturally I compare these people with the other cultures I have come
across while being abroad, notably Moroccans and Indians. Why those come to
mind in particular is the sheer contrast between the recent experiences and for
example my month spent travelling in Morocco early 2012. In Morocco I was
constantly put to the test, in a fairly hostile environment where everyone
tried to take advantage of you or earn money off you. Constantly vigilant and
annoyed I quickly created an invisible wall between me and most of the natives
I came across, and as a whole, enjoyed the entire journey less because of it. In
Georgia for that matter, I had the idea that I could trust most people. A deal was
a deal and people stuck to it. Agreed was agreed. No excessive haggling with unrealistic
proposals and a lot of theatre. Bar the occasional taxi driver, I generally felt
comfortable among Georgians, who came across as hospitable, welcoming, while you
were not treated in a touristy manner that quickly becomes annoying because of the
commercial scent to it. Not only because of its gorgeous landscapes, delicious food,
or cheap marshutky, but in particular because of its fantastic people, I really
like Georgia.
Infrastructure
Infrastructure
As an economist, I cannot help looking at new countries and
societies from an economic angle, and so it was no different in the Caucasus.
How fast do they grow, what is their comparative advantage, would they export
more than they import, how can they afford such glamorous big shiny buildings,
how big is the influence of the government, how is tax money spent, … ? Some
questions are easily answered by roaming around a country, others are not. As
one of the most tangible indicators of public good provision by the government
–and of development in general- I am always particularly interested in is a
nation’s infrastructure, also because as a traveller you are constantly
confronted with the quality of roads, railways, internet connection, power
supply, etc. And I must admit, although Georgia struck me as more equalitarian
(thus assuming more tax money spent on public goods like infrastructure), the
road network in Armenia was of a notably better quality. Driving from Yerevan
to Goris, all the way in the south, passing through remote and arid mountainous
landscapes where sheep herding seems the main source of income, the roads were
superb. Where in Georgia the majority of the roads are double-laned N-roads,
where overtaking slow lorries involves a lethal gamble, Armenia features many
newly-built highways.
The most recent showcase of money being poured in modern flashy
infrastructure are the ‘Wings of Tatev’; a Swiss-built cable cart connecting
the main road from Yerevan to Goris to the village of Tatev, allowing tourists
to circumvent the steep and winding tracks down and up the valley separating
the famous monastery to the main infrastructure network. And as we soared
through midair to our most pristine and remote stay in Armenia, the contrast
couldn’t be bigger with my endeavours a fortnight before in reaching Ushguli.
While the route to Mestia –being the gateway to Ushguli- was already an
exciting one, with bulldozers regularly clearing the roads from avalanches of
stones and rocks that thunder down the steep mountain slopes, I wasn’t
experiencing profound unease until seated in the marshrutka taking us even
further north and up into the mountains. The road could only be discerned from
the surroundings because there were no trees or vegetation growing on it, as
elsewhere it was just as uneven as the landscape surrounding it. Potholes
having filled up as giant puddles, cows wandering carelessly in front of your
car, and slippery muddy ascents that our marshrutka could barely handle were
the distinctive features of this trip. At one point the rain had turned a
particularly steep hairpin bend in the road into a giant slope of mud and clay.
While this should have been paradise to many a pig our marshrutka drivers were
less pleased as they couldn’t manage to drive the vehicle any further up the
road, despite numerous attempts. While 4-by-4 jeeps were effortlessly passing
by I had left the marshrutka along with my fellow travellers of the day while
witnessing the futile endeavours of the drivers to climb the slippery slopes. In
the end it took a big and impressive bulldozer 2.0 lookalike to clear the upper
layer of mud and sufficiently smoothen the surface beneath to allow our
marshrutky to make it to the top of the hill, an achievement loudly applauded
by us entertained foreigners. As we had finally made it through the muddy part
we were awaited by a particularly steep climb for which we required all the
speed we had gathered in the hundred metre or so before, only to be awaited by
a bunch of cows, who, chewing on their lunch, couldn’t be more oblivious to our
evident struggles. Our driver, on the other hand, wasn’t going to be stuck for
a second time and thus of no mind to slow down. Despite his frantic honking the
cow that had assumed a particularly central position on the narrow road didn’t
move we resulted in a collision that left the cow slightly dizzy, our
marshrutka even more weathered than before, and our driver cursing loudly.
The adventure hadn’t ended though. A good hour later our
‘road’ featured a narrow ridge along two steep slopes; the one on our left
reaching to the skies and the one on our right forming a canyon to the roaring
river in the depths below. While I found it already exciting enough to be
gazing out of the window into the one hundred meters of air separating me from
the gorging water making its way past various rocks, the scariest part of the
trip materialised shortly afterwards when to my astonishment a waterfall was
crossing the road. The reason for this remarkably crossing was the heavy
rainfall that Svanetti had witnessed the prior days, with the abundant water
finding a new way down to the river crossing our road in one of its narrowest parts.
What worries me in particular was the force of the water coming down, eating into
the sediments of the road, and taking bits and pieces with it downhill with every
gush. See our road wasn’t made of concrete of asphalt or anything of the like, but
rather featured ‘mountain’ just as anything else, be it mountain hacked in a particular
fashion that it allowed cars to pass. My fears proved justified on the way back,
several hours later, when the crossing of water and road was no longer a mere crossing
but was taking on more permanent features, with the water having formed a giant
puddle that didn’t show any road surface underneath. There must have been some rocks
or sediments preventing the pool from breaking yet with new water constantly pouring
in I wasn’t too confident that this was going to last. My determination of walking
through the waterfall had become idle now that ‘walking’ a pool was no longer an
option, and oh how relieved we were once we had made it through! Writing this blog
I am evidently still alive yet I am glad my mom doesn’t take the effort of reading
about my adventures ;)
Extremes…
And in an effort to catch all that I have omitted in the
above texts, below the ‘extremes’ of the journey!
-
Best journey: the night train from Tbilisi to
Yerevan.
-
Worst journey: squeezed on a makeshift chair in
the Marshrutka from Mestia to Kutaisi.
-
Most relaxing place: Yerevan lounge bar
-
Least relaxing place: in the middle of the
Svanetti blizzard.
-
Most pleasant background noise when eating: the
artificial fountain at the Yerevan lounge bar.
-
Least pleasant background noise when eating: the
hostess’s fat son farting behind his computer next to the dining table.
-
Most annoying during dinner (1): wasps.
-
Most annoying during dinner (2): begging cats.
-
Most annoying during dinner (3): begging people.
-
Best wine: home-made wine at the Tbilisi
guesthouse in the old town.
-
Worst wine: the ‘potato juice’ wine near Telavi.
-
Most abundant supply of fresh produce: the food
market at the Kutaisi bazaar.
-
Most entertaining conversation: with Paul and
Cole and our home stay in Kutaisi.
-
Evening spent alone: before catching the night
train from Kutaisi to Tbilisi.
-
Evenings spent in great company: all the others.
-
Greatest frustration: tour buses.
-
Best way to shut out tour bus tourists at
otherwise tranquil places: earphones with Enya music.
-
Hero: David the Builder.
-
Best view (1): 360 degrees from the mountain top
near Tatev.
-
Best view (2): on the Georgian – Azerbaijani
border.
-
Best view (3): during the ride from Mestia to
Ushguli.
-
Biggest contrast (1): big shiny new cars in
Yerevan versus poor subsistence farming in the Armenian country side
-
Biggest contrast (2): travelling with and
without Bo.
-
Biggest contrast (3): The hard-working sympathetic
daughter vs the fat lazy unemployed farting pc-focussed rude son – Kutaisi home
stay.
-
Biggest contrast (4): the dirty, wretched,
utterly poor, limping man who opened the gate vs the priests in the shiny car
that drove through that same gate, tossing a piece of bread to the poor man.
God’s servants being served on earth? Repulsive.
-
Best food: can’t choose.
-
Best gateway to the past (1): the soviet-era
trains.
-
Best gateway to the past (2): the cathedral /
monastery in Telavi with vineyards, wineries, bathhouses, residences, and
cattle surrounding a huge church.
-
Most practical use of otherwise superfluous
languages: speaking Italian with the Italian/Georgian lady who joined our
(shared?) cab in Telavi.
-
Best live football watched: the poor performance
of the Finish team in the qualifier against Georgia.
-
Worst live football watched: the poorer
performance of the Georgian team in the qualifier against Finland.
-
Most underpriced (1): 4 Euro for a world cup
qualifier.
-
Most underpriced (2): 30 Euro for 5 wines, 3
waffles with ice cream and baileys, 2 freshly squeezed juices, a coffee, a
pancake, a sandwich, humus, a dessert, and VIP charge over a 6-hour stay at the
lounge area in Yerevan.
-
Most overpriced: 60 Euro for a taxi ride in
Istanbul.
-
Best live music (1): the performance at the
opera house in Yerevan.
-
Best live music (2): the performance at
Yerevan’s most famous jazz club.
-
Nicest surprise: the unexpected access to ‘Schumi’
winery.
-
Biggest unit ever tapped wine out of: 22,000
litre barrel @ Schumi winery.
-
Least eager to talk English: the two ladies
selling tickets at Yerevan train station, both pointing at one another when
asked who speaks English.
-
Worst purchase (1): the shirt in Yerevan
-
Worst purchase (2): the ‘jacket’ in Mestia
-
Best place to stay: at Annahit in Yerevan.
-
Smallest dog: Annahit’s.
-
Coolest dog: the stray dog in Ushgulli.
-
Two hours worst spent: driving around in a taxi
through Yerevan, picking up various people, only to pick up the last passenger
at the very place where we got in two hours earlier.
-
Towns – nicest surprise: Kutaisi
-
Towns – worst ‘surprise’: Goris. Goris properly
sucks.
-
Water that tastes as from a bottle: Tatev
spring.
-
Worst route description: The near-Tatev hike.
-
Most scrutinised piece of clothing: Bo’s shorts.
-
Most appreciated piece of clothing: Tony’s
(waterproof) scarf
-
Omnipresent on the roads (1): cows
-
Omnipresent on the roads (2): sheep
-
Conventional way of harvesting hay: by hand
-
Most annoying cab driver: Khazbegi to Tbilisi
-
Most pleasant cab driver: from Jvari to Mestia
-
Probably dead by now: half of our Marshrutka drivers
-
Hardest to cross: the blown-up bridge leading to
South Ossettia
-
Best price / quality transport: 1st class
deep sink-in red chairs in first class train carriage (Gori – Tbilisi) for 4 Lari.
-
City most visited: Tbilisi
-
Cheapest pints of beer: Gori (1,5 Lari)
-
Most oblivious to reality: Belgian guy on night train
to Yerevan (“Yerevan is the oldest city in the world. The city walls of Xi’an are
hundreds of years old”).
-
Coolest souvenir: the Georgia watch
-
Ideal travel companion: Bo :D
-
Most awesome countries to travel through: Georgia
and Armenia!!!
