Once again, a long time between adventures – I blame the lack of email in this former communist cess pool that is Georgia. And small fishing towns in Turkey arent the most wired places either.

Okay, here it begins. Left Istanbul by taking the boat out to the bus stop, then got in for 7 hour of night bus madness ending with me reading a 20 dollar National Geographic to some tootless old crazy Turkish guy in a bus stop early in the moring, waiting for the dolmus that I had to help load, while my large Kiwi friend Brent sits inside and my ‘muscles’ are strained to the limit. Old nutter proceeds to follow us around town, suprising some Turkish family as we pound on their door at 8 in the morning. Finally get old crazy to leave then enjoy the sites of Amasra, a small lovely town perfect for walking and picture taking. Also, a pretty decent place to watch large fishing boats sink, then get pulled out of the water tug-o-war style and see cats play in bins. Silly mother gooses!

Next day headed off on another nite bus to Trabzon, a journey of, I dont know, 15 #$%^ing hours. Fantastic, but at least the Turkish busses are nice. Super friend #1 Dilek met us at the station in Trabzon as Turkish bus company tried to drive off with our bags. Probably to go wash the bus…again. Got sorted in a nice hotel in the middle of the prostitution district – Natashas they call them, but saw few. Immediately took off to the Georgian Consulate where Dilek got us talking to some police/guard types who showed us their guns and were really cool! Thanks again Dilek! Sorry we ditched you! Visa procedure was easy, all that in 5 minutes,and now my passport looks better than any of yours, Wiliam, Tara, Andrew H and Brent excluded. The Consular General himself even hoked us up with 30 dollar plane tickets which seemed like a sweet deal. I’ll come back to that seems a bit later. CG applied some pressure citing horrible roads, and dodgy border guards that would try to extort money from us. Kinda seems like a guy in the know, y’know? Jumped at the opportunity, which meant ditching Dilek, but it needed to be done. Spent the rest of the day walking around and such, then motored down to the airport to rendevous with the CG and his crew of very hard looking gentlemen carrying big fuck off black taped up bags which were no doubt fulL of contraband. Brent and I worried about whether he was setting us up for a fall with customs, but decided to go ahead. I mentioned this to Brent prior to departure – he turned green and I chuckled to myself. Well, I certainly hoped not. Bussed out to the run way to walk up the arse end of one of Russias spectacularly designed plains, full of people and possessions, and I think one or two wild animals. It reminded me of the plane from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – the one that flies head on into the mountain. Not that I was worried or anything! Haha. Mentioned this new observation to Brent. I think he wanted to kill me here. Managed to sleep in the fetal position while Brent sweated like a whore in church, I had a much better flight than he did I think!

Landed in Tiblisi, got sorted quick and sped towards the centre of town, that is, until a group of people who baricaded the road with concrete and burning things forced us to detour. Nevertheless, made it to a palatial 10 dollar a night pension, where almost nothing has gone awry. Arrived in a bit hungry, so Crazy Georgian man #1 takes out to eat and have some grog. Georgian man necks his beer all the time, we try to keep up, but its 12 percent shite. And nummy yummy too. A few plates come out, then more and more and more. We could barely keep up with all the eating and drinking, but it sure was fun! Much nicer than fasting all day in Turkey anyhow. Crashed out pretty early and headed into town the next day.

Georgian food is the best food ever. Try it. Im right.

So whats Georgia like you say? Well, if you stay out of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the five other no go areas that the British and Canadian gov’ts explicitly warned me not to go to, I’d say it is pretty safe and sure is purty. What could go wrong in those places,
well, the first two have problems with civil wars, and rogue Chechen agents, so getting shot may be a bit of a problem, and not my idea of a holiday. That goes for Georgian hospitals as well – if they are anything like the roads, count this silly motha out! The other areas
have their problems with bandits and kidnappings, not to mention a complete absence of anyone with the faintest knowledge of the english language. If I knew Russian it would be okay, but like I know that.
Fortunately my Serbian knowledeg is coming in useful and my irish accent is performing brilliantly when I tell people how to properly pour Guinness. Can almost make out all of Russian cyrillic, but a bigger problem is the Georgian script, the most incomprehensible language I have ever seen. Speak english loudly and frequently and people will sort you out. Especially youngish girls who always stare at us anyhow. Guess they never have seen a young westerner before, which i think is the case! Crazy language, crazy script, crazy people. Getting off the beaten track sure is nice. Any clown can hack Turkey, this is real travelling, pardon the arrogance (but I am right). Some other dangers we have noticed as well include the step on me and it
shifts manhole covers, breaking your ankle on every crumbled sidewalk, attempting to cross the road in anything but a sprint while avoiding potholes, not getting to near to the buildings propped up by metal
poles (wait for the picture) and having to drink all the time.

Second day, got us sorted for new Visas (suprise – guess where!!!!!!) and went to a Georgian sulfur bath, that turned my earings a cool shade of black, making me look like some sweet arse goth guy who wears a shirt he took off a Japanese guy every day. perhaps we shoud have sprung for the prostitute massage like the other Georgians did, would have saved me the experience of middle aged paunchy Georgian male
shouting at me while scrubbing me arse and getting to close to the equator. Never felt so clean (and at the same time – dirty!) in my life. Four stars on that one. 1 out of 1 Brents agree. Georgian baths make Turkish and Moroccan baths look like tourist traps! Followed that up by going to a nice restauraunt where we had no menu in English and absolutely no way of communicating other than saying salad, and saying moo and oink. Drunken Georgian man (redundant)overheard us, fired a cork off the champagne bottle off of us, then apologized and asked if there was a problem, which there wasnt – yet! He came over with the champagne, asked us our business, then set us up for a traditional Georgian meal – ordering us delicious food, and buying several bootles of champagne we had to toast with him. Guy would ramble on for a while, then we downed our glasses, ours much fuller than his, every time! This proceeded for 2 and a 1/2 bottles while he kept ordering food, then he had to leave, but not before paying his bill – and ours
too! Sweet as. This is the sweetest country Ive visited – free food (see also Irish Pub – and free whole roast chicken), free alcohol and lots of shits and giggles. And to think, I could have wasted my time in Lagos doing nothing while having some loud guy chirp in my ear all summer!

On the 22nd, we headed off to Gori, the birthplace of Iosif Jugashivili, commonly known as Josef Stalin. Got a nice Stalin key chain, and saw a really cool museum, and the house he was brought up in, along with the only Stalin monument left in the ex USSR and Eastern Block. What a guy that Uncle Joe was, and the museum,
without heat or light, provided the perfect atmosphere for a full blown propaganda fest! Sweet deal! Spent that night of the in the Irish pub a friend invited us to, where we ate free food after pigging out at the affordable Indian restauraunt, drink copius beers and
Jameson, and paying 9 dollars each for all that stuff. Sweet deal, as was the free fashion show (nothing like we’re used to – Brent and I are far more upscale than that – see Brasov) and the belly dancing which was nice to see since the Orient Hostel in Istanbul kept
renegging.

Motored to Mtshketa yesterday, the original seat of the Georgian state way back like 1500 years ago, and saw some nice castles and the coolest cathedral I had ever been in, plus it was St Georges day, and everyone was paying their repects to this Jesus character I know little about. Got fairly stranded in the dark after Lonely Planets information about restauraunts ended like so much hot air blown up me arse. It was getting awfully dark and cold by this time, and the wild animals that roamed the street of the pretty little town were getting bigger and bigger. Wild bears and sasquatch were about to come by so we decided to hitch. Crazy Georgian man #9724 drove us back in his high pitched Lada, then some grub (Sturgeon and caviar – us high
rollers) followed by pints and wine had us back at the Hotel Riot where, as our alcohol ran out, the shit went down a floor below us, and we treated to shouting, screaming ad the sounds of violence for
about half an hour, and a sorry looking man (Crazy Georgian man #1) with a messed up eye. We bolted the door and rode it out, laughing and brandishing beer bottles in case they went for the foreigners.

Today I fucked the dog all day, emailing for three hours, and eating super bread covered in cheese and eggs.

Found the best and longest escalator in the known world – another reason Tiblisi rocks! That and exchange places called $exchange$!

Does it get better than this?

You all know it doesn’t. Peace.

7) Don’t just say "I did this, I did that" almost in a listing format. How did you LIKE what you did? How did you feel? What did it make you think of? (If I read another blog that lists ‘first we went to Big Ben and then strolled around the South Bank. Next we went to the London Dungeons. Cool. Then we took a bus and went shopping " blah blah blah, I think I’ll puke). Who wants to read a shopping list?

8) Quantity is often not quality.

Here’s my example blog about an adventure of trying to get to the foothills of the Himalayas with a government-hired driver in northern India:

"I mentioned my driver, right? His name is Mr. Singh and he speaks broken English and keeps offering me bidis and whiskey. We set out for Dharamsala at 7:30am and I reached his car, only to find that his son was in the backseat. Indian roads are a book to themselves. Imagine a road filled with rickshaws, people, motorcycles, bicyclists, cattle, goats…and then imagine trying to navigate a car through this! The journey was the most turbulent, frightening thing I’ve ever experienced. I would soon find that it would only get worse.

We stopped off in the town of Chandigarh, in the state of Punjab. Mr. Sikh said that his sister-in-law lived there and would give us lunch. Fine, fine, I thought. I was dying to get to Dharamsala, but I knew the journey was long – about 12 hours by car. We got to this family’s house and suddenly I was sitting there in this living room with people who spoke NO ENGLISH whatsoever, sipping chai and swatting flies. How did this happen? God knows how or why, but Mr. Singh managed to convince me to spend the night in Chandigarh with this family.

So then he took me sightseeing around the city. Interesting. We went to this "tourist" attraction called the Rock Garden. Really some idiot back in the 1980s didn’t know what to do with all the piles of rubbish in Chandigarh (the newfound capital of independent India’s Punjab state as of 1947) – so he commissioned the building of this atrocious concrete garden made from earthenware CRAP and mosaic pottery. Fake waterfalls, too. Everywhere around me, Punjabi families by the hundreds were walking through this maze of dump, enjoying the sterile concrete. Bit like that tourist trap in the States called "South of the Border." I thought it was a travesty – a good example of western exploitation. The worst part was the heat. I was wearing a white shirt and sweated through the cotton, leaving damp circles and a full view of my BRA!!!! How mortifying, not even wearing "common" dress, totally exposed and helpless in front of all these families. What a nightmare.

Back at the house in Chandigarh, I took a shower and froze when I saw the toilet – a hole in the ground. But, you know, you have to adapt, right? Then I sat around for hours with this family, not knowing what they were talking about, drinking whiskey and having snacks. Mentioned two words, "George Bush" and heard my first English word of the day: "Hate." Wonderful. My drunken generosity somehow led to me inviting the WHOLE FAMILY to go with us to Dharamsala!! Mother, father, two sons, whole lot. They were very poor and said they had never left Chandigarh. Bless them. Staggered into bed without taking my usual mosquito precautions.

Woke up in the morning with 15 new mosquito bites. Felt more ill than I had ever felt before. Had very swollen glands. Realized that a whole family was accompanying me to Dharamsala. Ugh.

The 6 hour car ride to Dharamsala was harrowing and I’m surprised I’m still alive. The uphill, steep, winding roads rocked every part of my body and I nearly threw up several times. Soon realized that I must be ill and thought maybe I had strep throat. That’s the danger of being a med student – you start self-diagnosing. So I’m thinking, well, if I get a rash and joint pain, I’ll know it’s rheumatic fever. If my piss turns brown, that’s glomerulonephritis. By the time we reached Dharamsala, I had convinced myself I was dying and just wanted to ditch the Punjabi family and lie the f*** down."

Who the fuck cares ???

Going on trips is mega, writing about your own and reading others is like having a nut twisted off.

Go figure. Teav logs are for noddlebrains!

I guess when you’re virtually illiterate, it’s difficult to appreciate the creative brilliance of others.

Interesting breed of lurker round here

Lying in wait where we ???

The j stands for jealousy!

Im sure if you wrote about supporting an impoverished Romanian family it would be great!

Sickpuppy,

quote:
Had very swollen glands. Realized that a whole family was accompanying me to Dharamsala.

Do you think you are the Michael Jackson of the Central Caucasus or what ???

wtf?

You confuse me with a girl and South Asia with, uh, yeah, the Caucasuses?

An impromptu rating of your reading level : Modulis

quote:
An impromptu rating of your reading level : Modulis

Ouch

quote:

You confuse me with a girl and South Asia with, uh, yeah, the Caucasuses?

Not your day to day hum drum, your sex tourism.

Gary Glitter at home,

Michael Jackson abroad.

It’s called drug tourism.

Sick’

Great post. That is one trip I’d love to go on, and your T-log only makes me want to do it more. I don’t know why the idea of burning roadblocks on the way to a destination does that to me, but it does….what can I say….

When did you go on this little sojurn?

-A

Good work, kid.
You’ve inspired me; I’m going to Georgia!
BTW, pick up Robt Kaplan’s book called Eastward to Tartary if you haven’t already read it. I may have my copy laying around if anyone wants it. http://tinyurl.com/6…