Mestia, Georgia to Tblisi, Georgia to Moscow, Russia to Launceston, UK
In this blog: homeward bound via a sweaty night train and a sleepover in a Russian airport
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After a cracking final few days in the Caucasus mountains, it was time to head back to Tbilisi - the capital of Georgia, and indeed time to start making my way home to England.
In Mestia, I said goodbye to the other travellers I'd been hanging around with over the past few days and as ever exchanged contact details, knowing full well I probably wouldn't speak to most of them again, as no matter how well you get on and how much you intend to stay in touch, most travel friendships are fairly transient and often built on situation and convenience. That said, there are a good number of people from this trip that no doubt I will keep in touch with for years to come and hopefully see again one day.
I'd booked a night train for that evening, so had most of the day to tidy up loose ends, write, and chat with Roza, my great host at the homestay who spoke excellent English. I'd managed to stay in homestays almost the whole time in Georgia and really enjoyed it, since you get a real homely feel and a good insight into the local area and culture. Mid-afternoon I headed to catch a minibus back to the town of Zugdidi where the nearest station is. Roza had booked it up with the driver and told me where to wait, but upon getting to that spot none of the three drivers waiting seemed to say it was them who'd received the booking, and confusion ensued. A woman in her late thirties eventually got out from the back of the minibus and offered to help, funnily translating my English into Russian, which her boyfriend then translated from Russian into Georgian - a real life Chinese whispers it seemed!
We were soon on our way, and the woman started chatting to me, who turned out to be a Russian who had lived in Manchester, UK for the past seven years, on holiday with her Georgian boyfriend who she'd met over the internet. Her parents were also with her, who live in the very north of Russia but come from the Crimea and Ukraine originally, having lived in Cuba for four years along the way - a very colourful and interesting background from all of them I thought. All of them were very well educated, working as metallurgists, meteorologists and pharmaceutical researchers, and fascinating to talk to via the daughter, and I asked them for their thoughts on life under communism (it had some benefits), the Crimea (it's right that Russia has it) and the current war in Ukraine (sad). Stopping for a break, they invited me to join them and insisted on buying me a tea and some khachapuri (cheese bread), all of which rightly blew away some of the nonsense stereotypes of Russians that I formerly had.
Night Train
The night train waited on the platform at Zugdidi and I found the sleeper carriage which I ended up sharing with three young Israelis. Travelers from Israel are always interesting, as whilst always friendly, they only tend to hang around with other Israelis, and in this case their group of three had slowly merged over their trip into a group of thirty-odd. The train left on time, and whilst clean and tidy enough was swelteringly hot inside, lacking both air-con and a fan which made sleeping pretty difficult.
Tblisi
We arrived at Tbilisi at 6.30am, and with my flight not until 7pm I headed to the hostel I'd stayed at previously and persuaded them to let me leave my bag there for the day. After abusing their generosity a little by using the WiFi and making a cup of tea, I took advantage of the time of day and went for a wander through some parts of the city I'd missed a couple of weeks before, whilst the sun was low and the streets quiet. It was just fantastic, a good time to potter about and a good time to start reflecting on the fact that a day later I'd be back on British soil. I passed a cathedral, a crooked clock tower. I walked into a brand new funky citizens information building for a nose about, wandered along the river, and found an antiques market in a park which was great to look about, and bought some old Russian maps and military badges, because I could.
A Swiss horn band were busking in a nice public park which was entertaining for a while, before I went shopping for a souvenir or two, before eventually having my final Georgian meal in a nice cafe I came across. I'd left my tablet charger in a guesthouse a week or so before, and two of my hosts thereafter had arranged for it to be delivered back to Tbilisi by minibus. It seemed a bit of a long and protracted way of getting it back, and in fact it was, involving taking the Metro across town to the station, and spending nearly an hour showing bus drivers a piece of paper which said in Georgian 'do you have my phone charger', which inevitably resulted in the sort of confused looks you'd expect from a foreign man asking strange questions. Just as I was about to go though, a minibus roared in with a driver waving a charger in my direction and all was well.
I headed back to the hostel to get my bag and shower, before that was it. I was at the end of 12 1/2 months on the road, and I was now actually heading home. I remembered the same feeling, stood on a beach in Fiji five years before after a long trip, struggling to comprehend that there was another world of rain, bills, work and routine out there, and I was heading straight towards it. But since it felt fairly over-stimulated by having seen and done so much this past year, it didn't worry me as much as you might think.
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Thoughts on Georgia
Georgia had proved to be a good choice of country to end this trip - European enough to feel a bit like home, but rugged and raw enough to still be exciting and different. I experience kindness from some locals and generally felt safe, but I really can't say they I found them on the whole to be particularly nice or friendly people, certainly not compared to in some of the other places I'd visited on this trip.
Tbilisi was a total surprise as a capital city, being clean, tidy, and full of lovely old buildings and interesting sights, but was a total contrast to rural Georgia which felt quite poor and run-down. In fact, with some of the nasty toilets and the sight of cows and wild dogs wandering the roads sometimes, I was occasionally reminded of being in India. The Caucasus mountains however were just stunning, and Georgia wouldn't be half as interesting to visit without them. Interestingly I probably met more travellers in Georgia than I did in two months in Indonesia, despite Georgia being less well known, and I was particularly surprised by the amount of Americans I met, a nation that travels surprisingly little who'd I'd only really seen before in popular tourist places like Petra and Paris. Most people were just on holiday for a couple of weeks though, and following a bit of a set trail around the fairly small country so. However despite these tourists, the Georgian economy did seem very over-reliant on tourism though, which means they're a bit screwed in times of recession.
Georgian food, which included dishes such as cheese bread (khachapuri), dumplings (khinkali), and fried pork and chips (ojapuri) was excellent, though I felt like their repertoire of dishes was a bit limited once you'd tried everything on the menu. It was also interesting to see them so keen on growing and drinking wine - many people would grow vines in their gardens and make their own home-made grog, in this, one of the oldest wine-growing regions in the world. The roads were a mixed bag, sometimes excellent and at other times far from it, and the standard of driving atrocious - at least the bad driving in India happened as much slower speeds. Three vehicles amusingly dominate the road, in my mind at least: the Ford Transit, the Russian open back lorry, and the Mercedes saloon, the latter a funny choice since very few people can really afford them.
Georgia was well worth visiting.
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Flying back
Leaving the hostel, I took the bus to the airport and wandered to the terminal, getting accosted in the car park by a group of well-dressed gypsy-like ladies who were begging for money, before checking in for my flight, destination: Moscow. The Siberian Airways flight took me back over the Caucasus mountains, and with the sun setting and snow-capped mountain peaks sticking up through the clouds it was a really powerful moment, especially with a bit of Led Zeppelin playing in my ears. We soon entered Russian airspace, and when the clouds occasionally parted all I could see below were huge rectangular fields of corn below, which as we neared Moscow changed more to huge green forests, scattered with villages and odd-shaped fields of crops. The landing was a little dodgy but nothing to worry about, though to my surprise everyone broke out in applause, a first for me after quite a few flights now.
Moscow airport was one of the stranger ones I'd been to, with a huge graveyard of old Soviet places left on one side of the runway, which itself seemed as bumpy as a farm track, alongside what seemed like ten other runways but probably wasn't. The security staff were as dour-faced as I expected but I got through with no stress, and even the the terminal itself was a bit strange, laid out a bit like an ocean liner. I needed a drink, but everything was priced in roubles and there were no ATM's. Thankfully they took cards even for such small items. It was now 11pm, and with seven hours before my connecting flight, I had to sleep there the night. Luckily, the airport seating was made in Cornwall (Zoeftig) so I felt right at home.
It was not intentional, but I flew the final leg home on British Airways which felt pretty patriotic; the first time I'd used them since they were for once the cheapest. The staff were British, the on-board TV shows from the BBC, and the food from brands I'd forgotten about such as Yeo Valley - my acceptance that the trip was over was increasing by the minute. As we flew over London the planed banked over the city and I saw The Houses of Parliament, Canary Wharf and then Wembley. It was almost as if the pilot just wanted to remind me I was nearly home.
London
I collected my bag and took the train to the main terminal with the intention of trying to hitch-hike home - not because I'd spent every last penny but more because it felt like a fitting ending, one last bit of adventure. Besides I was curious to see if British people would actually pick me up, after the ease of doing it in Malaysia and Indonesia. The airport itself was way too busy for anyone to stop for me, so at the advice of a couple of cyclists who both stopped to ask if I needed help, I took a bus to the main road outside. There, no-one stopped for me in nearly an hour of trying so I tried by a petrol station, before a taxi driver told me I'd be better off at another spot again and drove me there for free on his way to collect someone. I found what seemed like a safe and sensible spot and tried my luck, before fifteen minutes later in the corner of my eye I saw a car roll up and stop nearby. It turned out the AA had seen me on CCTV and sent someone out as they didn't like pedestrians around that area as it supposedly disrupted the flow of traffic. Whilst they told me I was doing nothing illegal they also said I needed to move somewhere else, even offering to drive me there if I could think of a sensible spot.
I'd managed to go over a year abroad with no trouble at all, and within an hour of being in the UK I was having the finger wagged! They were very friendly and even curiously asked a few details about my trip. Eventually, after an unsuccessfully three hours of trying to hitch-hike I went back to Heathrow bus station and caught the next coach to Exeter. It was the most comfortable bus and smoothest road I'd been on in a year, but also the most boring. As if by magic when arriving at Exeter, the connecting bus that went onto Launceston pulled up in the next bay to where I was standing, and just a couple of minutes later I was on my way again. I contrasted this with the hassle of Georgia and some of the other places I'd been, and they seemed a million miles away already.
The bus journey to Launceston was a strange one, as by chance it mostly followed the route that I'd cycled on my way to Sweden just over a year before. Along the way, the entire previous year flashed before my eyes, like a movie on fast forward. The people, places, experiences. Highs, lows, food. The weird and wonderful, the beautiful and ugly. I started seeing changes that had happened since I'd last been home, a few shops had come and gone, lots of windmills that have popped up everywhere in the countryside. I realised that finally the names of Indian restaurants suddenly all made sense to me.
At Launceston my sister picked me up for the final few miles home, the first familiar face I'd seen in a very long time, and not long afterwards I saw my parents for the first time in a year, which was as nice as you'd imagine. It was great to be home.
In this blog: homeward bound via a sweaty night train and a sleepover in a Russian airport
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In Mestia, I said goodbye to the other travellers I'd been hanging around with over the past few days and as ever exchanged contact details, knowing full well I probably wouldn't speak to most of them again, as no matter how well you get on and how much you intend to stay in touch, most travel friendships are fairly transient and often built on situation and convenience. That said, there are a good number of people from this trip that no doubt I will keep in touch with for years to come and hopefully see again one day.
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| The finest host of all, Roza |
We were soon on our way, and the woman started chatting to me, who turned out to be a Russian who had lived in Manchester, UK for the past seven years, on holiday with her Georgian boyfriend who she'd met over the internet. Her parents were also with her, who live in the very north of Russia but come from the Crimea and Ukraine originally, having lived in Cuba for four years along the way - a very colourful and interesting background from all of them I thought. All of them were very well educated, working as metallurgists, meteorologists and pharmaceutical researchers, and fascinating to talk to via the daughter, and I asked them for their thoughts on life under communism (it had some benefits), the Crimea (it's right that Russia has it) and the current war in Ukraine (sad). Stopping for a break, they invited me to join them and insisted on buying me a tea and some khachapuri (cheese bread), all of which rightly blew away some of the nonsense stereotypes of Russians that I formerly had.
Night Train
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| Arriving in Tblisi, thankfully our train looked a little better than that one |
Tblisi
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| The crooked clock tower, Tblisi |
A Swiss horn band were busking in a nice public park which was entertaining for a while, before I went shopping for a souvenir or two, before eventually having my final Georgian meal in a nice cafe I came across. I'd left my tablet charger in a guesthouse a week or so before, and two of my hosts thereafter had arranged for it to be delivered back to Tbilisi by minibus. It seemed a bit of a long and protracted way of getting it back, and in fact it was, involving taking the Metro across town to the station, and spending nearly an hour showing bus drivers a piece of paper which said in Georgian 'do you have my phone charger', which inevitably resulted in the sort of confused looks you'd expect from a foreign man asking strange questions. Just as I was about to go though, a minibus roared in with a driver waving a charger in my direction and all was well.
I headed back to the hostel to get my bag and shower, before that was it. I was at the end of 12 1/2 months on the road, and I was now actually heading home. I remembered the same feeling, stood on a beach in Fiji five years before after a long trip, struggling to comprehend that there was another world of rain, bills, work and routine out there, and I was heading straight towards it. But since it felt fairly over-stimulated by having seen and done so much this past year, it didn't worry me as much as you might think.
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| Departures |
Thoughts on Georgia
Georgia had proved to be a good choice of country to end this trip - European enough to feel a bit like home, but rugged and raw enough to still be exciting and different. I experience kindness from some locals and generally felt safe, but I really can't say they I found them on the whole to be particularly nice or friendly people, certainly not compared to in some of the other places I'd visited on this trip.
Tbilisi was a total surprise as a capital city, being clean, tidy, and full of lovely old buildings and interesting sights, but was a total contrast to rural Georgia which felt quite poor and run-down. In fact, with some of the nasty toilets and the sight of cows and wild dogs wandering the roads sometimes, I was occasionally reminded of being in India. The Caucasus mountains however were just stunning, and Georgia wouldn't be half as interesting to visit without them. Interestingly I probably met more travellers in Georgia than I did in two months in Indonesia, despite Georgia being less well known, and I was particularly surprised by the amount of Americans I met, a nation that travels surprisingly little who'd I'd only really seen before in popular tourist places like Petra and Paris. Most people were just on holiday for a couple of weeks though, and following a bit of a set trail around the fairly small country so. However despite these tourists, the Georgian economy did seem very over-reliant on tourism though, which means they're a bit screwed in times of recession.
Georgian food, which included dishes such as cheese bread (khachapuri), dumplings (khinkali), and fried pork and chips (ojapuri) was excellent, though I felt like their repertoire of dishes was a bit limited once you'd tried everything on the menu. It was also interesting to see them so keen on growing and drinking wine - many people would grow vines in their gardens and make their own home-made grog, in this, one of the oldest wine-growing regions in the world. The roads were a mixed bag, sometimes excellent and at other times far from it, and the standard of driving atrocious - at least the bad driving in India happened as much slower speeds. Three vehicles amusingly dominate the road, in my mind at least: the Ford Transit, the Russian open back lorry, and the Mercedes saloon, the latter a funny choice since very few people can really afford them.
Georgia was well worth visiting.
---
Flying back
Leaving the hostel, I took the bus to the airport and wandered to the terminal, getting accosted in the car park by a group of well-dressed gypsy-like ladies who were begging for money, before checking in for my flight, destination: Moscow. The Siberian Airways flight took me back over the Caucasus mountains, and with the sun setting and snow-capped mountain peaks sticking up through the clouds it was a really powerful moment, especially with a bit of Led Zeppelin playing in my ears. We soon entered Russian airspace, and when the clouds occasionally parted all I could see below were huge rectangular fields of corn below, which as we neared Moscow changed more to huge green forests, scattered with villages and odd-shaped fields of crops. The landing was a little dodgy but nothing to worry about, though to my surprise everyone broke out in applause, a first for me after quite a few flights now.
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| Moscow airport |
It was not intentional, but I flew the final leg home on British Airways which felt pretty patriotic; the first time I'd used them since they were for once the cheapest. The staff were British, the on-board TV shows from the BBC, and the food from brands I'd forgotten about such as Yeo Valley - my acceptance that the trip was over was increasing by the minute. As we flew over London the planed banked over the city and I saw The Houses of Parliament, Canary Wharf and then Wembley. It was almost as if the pilot just wanted to remind me I was nearly home.
London
I collected my bag and took the train to the main terminal with the intention of trying to hitch-hike home - not because I'd spent every last penny but more because it felt like a fitting ending, one last bit of adventure. Besides I was curious to see if British people would actually pick me up, after the ease of doing it in Malaysia and Indonesia. The airport itself was way too busy for anyone to stop for me, so at the advice of a couple of cyclists who both stopped to ask if I needed help, I took a bus to the main road outside. There, no-one stopped for me in nearly an hour of trying so I tried by a petrol station, before a taxi driver told me I'd be better off at another spot again and drove me there for free on his way to collect someone. I found what seemed like a safe and sensible spot and tried my luck, before fifteen minutes later in the corner of my eye I saw a car roll up and stop nearby. It turned out the AA had seen me on CCTV and sent someone out as they didn't like pedestrians around that area as it supposedly disrupted the flow of traffic. Whilst they told me I was doing nothing illegal they also said I needed to move somewhere else, even offering to drive me there if I could think of a sensible spot.
I'd managed to go over a year abroad with no trouble at all, and within an hour of being in the UK I was having the finger wagged! They were very friendly and even curiously asked a few details about my trip. Eventually, after an unsuccessfully three hours of trying to hitch-hike I went back to Heathrow bus station and caught the next coach to Exeter. It was the most comfortable bus and smoothest road I'd been on in a year, but also the most boring. As if by magic when arriving at Exeter, the connecting bus that went onto Launceston pulled up in the next bay to where I was standing, and just a couple of minutes later I was on my way again. I contrasted this with the hassle of Georgia and some of the other places I'd been, and they seemed a million miles away already.
The bus journey to Launceston was a strange one, as by chance it mostly followed the route that I'd cycled on my way to Sweden just over a year before. Along the way, the entire previous year flashed before my eyes, like a movie on fast forward. The people, places, experiences. Highs, lows, food. The weird and wonderful, the beautiful and ugly. I started seeing changes that had happened since I'd last been home, a few shops had come and gone, lots of windmills that have popped up everywhere in the countryside. I realised that finally the names of Indian restaurants suddenly all made sense to me.
At Launceston my sister picked me up for the final few miles home, the first familiar face I'd seen in a very long time, and not long afterwards I saw my parents for the first time in a year, which was as nice as you'd imagine. It was great to be home.
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| Fields near Moscow |
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| Flea market, Tblisi |
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| Outdoor art market, Tblisi |
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| Flying over the beautiful Caucasius mountains, heading for Moscow |
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| Flying home in style |
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| British soil. It's been a while. |
