Glorious Georgia

On the whole, the Turks were much happier to see me leave than enter and the whole departure exercise was completed in 30 minutes. Entry into Georgia took 10 minutes but that was completely down to the customs official having a problem reading my vehicle registration document. I entered a land that uses spaghetti for an alphabet and was immediately completely lost. Georgian writing is indecipherable to the western eye. No map, no GPS, no money and no clue. To give you a taste, the town I crossed at is called SARP in the roman alphabet and something completely else in Georgian. I pressed forward and headed into the nearest town to see if I could improve my situation.



In sweltering 32C traffic, I located a bank with two of the most gorgeous assistants I have ever seen behind a counter and asked for help to find an ATM and a map. They pointed me at another bank a mile up the road with had another honey on point duty (I was beginning to see a trend at this point) and got hold of the necessary readies. Outside the bank, a guy approached me and got chatting and I asked where I could get a map and he offered to get me one for free. Unfortunately, it was one of those wall covering/poster types so I politely declined and began a search for the tourist office. One hour later after visiting the local Sheraton hotel and casino (VERY nice), chatting to the local police, I had what passes for a map of Georgia and set off.

According to the map there was a road directly east along the border so I took it. At first, it was a beautiful smooth curvy blacktop with the occasional cow on it, following the path of a river. After about 50km, it suddenly changed and we had an adventure on our hands. The road surface disappeared and rubble replaced it. I asked a guy on the side of the road how far the road surface was buggered and he held up 4 fingers. Fine, I can stand this for 4 km I thought. After 25km of bone shaking, bike disintegrating rubble I reached the top of a pass and took a break.

The local farming community gathered round and asked me the same question that everybody has asked that I have met on the way…."How much does the bike cost?" I guess my answer must have been compared to what else they could have bought with that about of money because they didn't look that impressed. Nevertheless, they offered a vodka but I declined saying I needed to drive straight. By the time I had gone 50m, I began to regret saying no to the invite…..so I say I WILL say yes to every sensible invitation I get from now on.

Another 20K of bone shaking on the way down the pass and I realised I was nowhere near where I thought I would be after my first day in Georgia so I stopped at 6pm to avoid a thunderstorm in the local big town. As I was sheltering under a tree, an older guy came up to me and we chatted for a while. He offered to guide me to a cheap hotel. I was a little wary at first, but then my rule 'say yes' kicked in and the fun started. I checked into a relic of the cold war and am loving it. They opened the hotel doors and I drove the bike right in and parked it on the lobby.



My guide (Nickolas), waited for me downstairs and then took me to his local cafe (for some excellent turkish food run by a Chechen in Georgia) where we chatted drink a beer and then the vodka came out. Sometimes life is tough, but you have to deal with it….afterwards we went to his house where I met his family and watched the footy on TV…..can you see this happening in the UK?


I like Georgia. The people have been extremely friendly, courteous and helpful everywhere I went today and I can say nothing but good about my experience so far. When I stopped to take a picture by the side of the road, cars would slow down and ask if I needed help, people waved at me to say hi as I rode past and strangers walked up and chatted wanting nothing in return. Fantastic place. Strange Cows though, about the same size as a deer and roam like goats all over the mountains. This one was standing on a bridge 10m in the air just chewing the cud, not a bother on it.