Tbilisi

Very exciting to be back in Georgia, which was the subject of our first ever conversation - it's been 12 years for Elli and 6 years for Chris. We had an easy journey to the border, a fast train and then a taxi which we could order on bolt and who arrived immediately. There was absolutely noone at the border and we walked straight through; on the Georgian side they didn't even bother looking at our bags. We'd been warned about some very forceful taxi drivers on the other side but walked around them and over the bridge, stuck out a thumb and were picked up within 5 minutes and just before it started raining, by a border guard in army uniform.

Other than a near miss collision with an oncoming truck who was in the wrong lane, a very nice journey and he dropped us in Rustavi, where we could get another bolt in Tbilisi. This is so easy it feels like cheating.

Since Elli had only ever spent one night in Tbilisi and she was drunk for most of it, she spent a lot of the week gaping at what a disgustingly beautiful place it is and feeling bamboozled at how different 2024 Georgia is to 2012 Georgia. Since Chris spent 4 days there in 2018, he spent a lot of the week walking upon things he'd seen before and being surprised that the supposedly charming historic clock tower was only built in 2010.

Ate a lot of tasty food (a lot of great khinkali, especially with butter; lobio (bean) stew; several khachapuri; lentil soup) and were not entirely unhappy when a man brought us a jug of his homemade wine with our breakfast.

Met a lot of cats, visited a lot of churches, listened to a lot of polyphonic chanting, climbed a lot of hills, tried and failed to get into the zoroastrian fire temple, and Elli continued the theme of bathing across Asia with a hot sulphurous shower, followed by a scrub, a soap and a power cut which meant a lot of pitch black fumbling naked in a room with water pouring from the ceiling.

Thanks Tbilisi, great to be back 🇬🇪❤️ Czytaj więcej