Talking about Georgia

I haven't written an update in a while, and in the meantime I've forgotten some of the stuff we've done, so this one will be slightly different.

We've visited: Gori, famed as Stalin's birthplace and host to the Stalin museum; Kazbegi, a rural mountain village with a hilltop church pictured on the cover of the Georgia edition of the Lonely Planet guide; T'bilisi, the capital of Georgia; and a winery in the Kakheti region.

All this variety has just highlighted to me the similarities of people around Georgia: their curiosity, openness, friendliness and hospitality are almost universal. Almost, because the people of T'bilisi proved to be the exception, at least in my case. I did not enjoy the city overly much, passers-by being particularly rude in cases. This probably speaks of the dehumanising aspects of large cities, the loss of community, the loss of respect for fellow people, the victory of the rat race over the human race. Or it may be just me, as no one else I spoke to experienced the same level of disrespect. The other cities and the countryside were much more pleasant in terms of the manners of the locals: they were just as curious but not randomly condescending like in T'bilisi.

I wonder whether this is how foreigners feel when they visit the UK, a country not known for its generosity towards strangers? I would like to think that we Brits are more tolerant of differences, at least in part due to the many rules governing "anti-discrimination", but possibly I am mistaken.

Speaking of differences, the Stalin museum in Gori presents a wholly different picture of the man to that which we in the west are used to. A family man, dedicated to his cause to the end, with no skeletons in his closet. According to the guide, anyway. She gave us a comprehensive tour of the great man's life, with nary a pause so that we couldn't ask any awkward questions. For me, the highlight of the tour was Stalin's own train carriage, in its original condition. A comparison between this and the state carriage of, say, Queen Elizabeth II, neatly encapsulates the differences between communism and the decadent west. Stalin's carriage had berths for other people, the fitments were good but not grand, overall it was on the quality side of functional. It did feature a very comfy wooden-seated toilet: even communist leaders must have their little luxuries.

We are heading for the border with Azerbaijan now, more pointless formalities taking several hours methinks.

Pics are the church from the cover of the Lonely Planet, with memorial, and an illicit view of the bridge to Azerbaijan.

Mestia

We had a long, long drive to get here, not because of the distance, but because of the appalling road. Mestia has one road leading to it, only built in 1935, and never improved since. Allegedly.

This road barely qualifies for the term, winding its way along the side of a steep gorge always with unguarded precipitous drops to one side. The road has evidently collapsed on numerous occasions, with repairs ranging from shoveling earth into the gap, to propping up the road with metal girders or wooden sticks, to digging new tunnels barely big enough for the truck. For some reason the Georgian police insisted on escorting us most of the way up the road, but they frequently stopped to chat with locals and had to catch up with us later.

One of the unique features of the truck is the four roof seats at the rear. They are a bit like the dickie seats sometimes found on really old cars: two metal hatches open from the roof and four can sit with their legs dangling into the truck interior. I tried these seats, and they are fantastic. You can see, smell, hear and feel everything around you, and the sheer exhilaration of being next to nature dulls the pain of being battered constantly by the potholes. I have named these seats the Nutcracker Seats, as anatomic

Georgia and Batumi

One more country ticked off, Turkey is done and dusted, but not without problems at the border: Georgia has some new procedures due to swine flu. Procedures which seem to be less than second nature to the border police as the queues were unbelievable. The truck magically becomes a bus for border crossings, so we were able to drive straight past the mile or so of stationary HGVs, but we couldn't avoid the pedestrian and domestic traffic. Three hours, one irrelevant form and three queues later, we were through.

One thing that has been really noticeable on this trip is how different opposite sides of a border look and feel. In this case the difference was marked, Georgia just isn't anything like its neighbour. The first obvious difference is the cows everywhere. And I mean everywhere: they are not confined to fields. They happily amble around the roads, oblivious to traffic, I imagine that India must be somewhat similar.

We stayed in a hotel in Batumi, called the Old Boat Hotel. And it genuinely was an old boat, moored in a harbour with rigging, a non functional wheel, and wooden fittings of questionable durability. The wheels on my bag actually fell through the floorboards on deck, the hotel staff nearby apparently neither noticing nor caring.

We took part in a traditional Georgian night at a local restaurant, which was also a boat, but this one was a fake land-locked one. This was a restaurant aimed at locals, so our group were the only foreigners there. There was live music provided by two singers and a chap manipulating some sort of backing band synth, consisting of well known foreign music and apparently well known Georgian songs. The locals regularly jumped up to dance to some song which none of us had heard before, it would have been rude not to join them. The food was large in selection, large in quantity and excellent in quality, every dish was delicious, and very hard to describe to someone who has not experienced Georgian cuisine. And a good time was had by all.

The pics are of the upper deck of our hotel, and the view from aforementioned upper deck.

Sumela and Trabzon

There was no sign of the Turkish army today, because we camped in a proper campsite. I say proper, but it barely qualified as a field, let alone a campsite. The "facilities" consisted of two toilets, each also containing a shower. One shower was unheated and so slow as to be useless, the other was lukewarm at best. The roof of this mighty edifice was comparable to Gore Tex, it being the total opposite of this material, guaranteed to let in all external water.

And external water we had lots of. It rained almost all the first night, and all the next afternoon. Luckily when we visited the Sumela monastery it was sunny and fresh. This monastery is situated on the side of a cliff, twenty minutes walk up the very steep side of a mountain. After hiking up, the first notable feature, apart from the stunning landscape, was a busker. It didn't seem to be a very profitable patch, but maybe that changes in the height of the tourist season. Soon after, we came to a ticket office and fortunately a drinking fountain. The monastery itself was astonishing, but in some disrepair due in part to age, and in part to large amounts of graffiti. I understand that the money from ticket sales is going toward restoration work, which should make more of the building accessible.

I finally managed to buy a towel too. Trabzon, a city of some half a million inhabitants, featured one towel shop which I could find. Why it is so difficult to find a towel in Turkey will probably remain a mystery.

Two pictures of the most notable buildings of my stay here: the Sumela monastery and the Sumela campsite facilities. We are going to Georgia today, there is no mobile data access there, so blog updates will be more sparse until Azerbaijan.

Unintentional camping

When we bushcamp, what happens is that Tim and Cheryl, our crew, find a likely looking spot away from the road, and we set up camp. Everything goes smoothly and we head off the next day. What happened last night was not quite as planned.

Tim found a nice looking spot next to a lake, drove the truck along the track, and got stuck in the mud. Much effort later, the truck was freed, to become even more stuck ten yards away. So we had found our camp for the night. A group of mud loving lads all pitched in to dig the truck out, whilst I went for a walk.

After a tip from a passing farmer, I noticed a large yellow digger still working about a half mile past the next corner, this was at about 6pm. We went to talk to the guy driving the digger, and after showing him a photo of the truck along with some discussion in Turklish we had a tow vehicle. This area is very rural, so what he was doing moving gravel around at 6 at night is anyone's guess. So the truck was rescued by the JCB guys, and returned to the tarred road.

All this had obviously attracted the attention of everyone living within several miles of us: every passing vehicle tooted and waved at us. About four hours after we got stuck, we received more visitors, who arrived in a van with flashing lights, jumping out of the back carrying huge guns: the Turkish army. They turned out to be really nice chaps, despite the weaponry, and told us to phone their captain if we needed something. All this excitement didn't really affect us, most of us just looked at them, said, "Oh they've got big guns", and carried on eating dinner. We are all getting a bit blasé.

Pictures are the stuck truck and view from said truck. Quite a nice campsite, apart from the mud.

Goreme

This is one of the reasons I came on this trip, to see places I would never have considered going to otherwise. Goreme is a small town in the Cappadocia region of Turkey, surrounded by some of the most unique countryside I have seen. Apparently formed as a result of volcanic activity millions of years ago, along with water erosion afterwards, the landscape is surreal and Star Wars in equal measure. The ancient inhabitants carved their homes out of the rock, adding to the impression that a strange alien is just about to accost you to try to sell you a carpet.

First we all went on a bus tour for a day, our local guide Faruk telling us all about the history of the region in encyclopedic detail, in excellent English. We visited several landmarks, including an underground city, a town cut out of the cliffs, a church inside a pillar of rock, and even a wine shop. All this was very interesting and impressive, but pales in comparison to my next day's chosen option, a hot air balloon ride.

Twelve of us decided to pay the high hundred-odd pound fee for one and a half hours of ballooning, this meant that we all went in the same large balloon. The downside of this activity is getting up at 5am for it. Those who know me, know that I am not a morning person and that I don't like heights, but I can honestly say that this was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Floating above an alien landscape with literally dozens of other balloons, the silence punctuated by blasts from the gas burners, is awe inspiring. Definitely one of the hundred things to do before you die.

Back to earth, and one of my companions, Denis, and I walked from the campsite to Goreme town centre to investigate hiring bikes and quads. He hired a bicycle, and I decided to wait til the next day. The owner of the shop then insisted on giving me a lift back to the campsite on one of the hire scooters. At high speed, on switchback cobbled roads. This was also an exhilarating experience but for totally different reasons. Needless to say, safety equipment consisted of holding on for dear life, and prayer.

The weather put paid to my planned quad excursion, so an easy day of wandering around town was had. In the afternoon I managed to display my almost total lack of fire lighting skills in the campsite's underground cave bar, where some of us were trying to dry our clothes, since it was raining outside. One smoke filled cave bar later, my work was done.

The pictures are mostly from the hot air balloon, with one taken at a church carved from a pinnacle of rock.

Easy days and crap nights

After hectic Istanbul, we have had a relaxing two nights in Akcakoca, on the Black Sea coast. It has basically been a chance for everyone to just do nothing for a whole day.

I have managed to do slightly more than nothing though. Clothes washing came first, then losing at backgammon. The following day Tim, who is one of our crew, and myself were shown the sights of the town by the enthusiastic campsite owner and the president of the local tourism and environment committee, a German lady who moved here twenty years ago. The sights were somewhat slim on the ground, as this is a small town, but the reason people come here is for the scenery rather than tourist spots.

Scenery which I was able to admire from the sea as the truck's two inflatable canoes were deployed for adventurous types to paddle about. The canoes had to be carried down a steep slope and flight of steps, then over some very slippery rocks to the sea. I ended up sliding down these rocks on my behind, which endowed my white trunks with nice green seaweed stains. These stains are now firmly attached.

Our choice of destination was one of the tourist spots shown to us by our guides in the morning: the local beach. The beach was perhaps two kilometres away, and fairly average as beaches go. Lots of off duty school kids were there, and showed some interest in us for a short while.

Truck life was poor today, I was part of today's cook group, which so far has not been a bunch of roses. Each of the five cook groups helps to prepare the food until they have prepared one dinner, then the group changes. Today, frankly it sucked. I would happily pay for 24 dinners if it meant not doing this tedious drudge.

Tomorrow is a nine hour drive to Goreme, joy. Tedium comes in twos, it seems.

Pictures are views from and of the campsite, by the way.