David
Eating Xinkale
Political protests- more peaceful than Iran!
Georgian script with traditional drooping Georgian cross of St Neno
David
View of where the 2 rivers meet from Jvari monastery
Jvari monastery, the spiritual home of Georgia
The Shrine of St. Joseph - the house where he grew up in the foreground
Stalin's train
This is where he sat on his train in his living quarters!
Stalin's Loo!
Stalin's death mask
Best pals
The main street
Stalin's Statue
Chacha?
Monastery church (wedding guests in view- it is used for weddings at weekends!)
No Obedience on Sunday afternoons. Ioana is second from the right, and the lady who gave us the pendants is fourth from the right.
My room at the monastery
Passed into Georgia, thank heavens!On the 10th of June, I did indeed go for an egg mcmuffin in Trabzon, and it was absolutely delicious. The ham seemed like real ham, and the eggs were beautifully runny. There was the usual problem with getting change however- in this part of the world not even McDonalds carries a cash float!
That evening we were going to stay at Rize, however not particularly liking the place, we pushed on and made it to Chayeli, where I got a puncture and had a group of 6 incredibly irritating and very curious and friendly children to throw random questions at me as I tried to concentrate on my inner tube changing skills.
Isabel in the meantime had found a smart hotel that miraculously didn't mind us camping in their garden. As we arrived to go round the back, feeling mightily out of place among the smartly dressed businessmen, we were invited inside and given a lovely room for the night! As we were settling down, there was a knock on the door and we were invited to dinner! It turned out to be an all-you-can-eat feast of turkish cuisine, complete with soups, salads, vegetables, and meat dishes. Pudding was a mountain of baclava and turkish rice pudding, with profiteroles to match. As I am sure you can imagine, I found it hard to hold back.
During dinner we met another cyclist, John. He is a retured scientist, and was on the way back from Armenia and Georgia. He lent us his Russian phrasebook and we talked about the places we were about to visit accross the border. We had arranged to meet again the following morning, but we were not in the end invited to break our fasts so sadly we missed him.
The following day we had planned to spend the night in Turkey, but we had reached so close to the border by 4.30 pm that we decided to go the whole hog and cross into Georgia. As we approached the border we noticed that many of the shop windows already had signs in Georgian script, a very strange alphabet that borrows nothing from the Romans, and has curved letters rather similar to Thai.
The border was a veritable bunfight with people everywhere, cars and lorries everywhere, and no signs whatsoever indicating where one is supposed to go. A fight broke out between a lorry driver and a car driver in the crowds. Shepherded by a kind onlooker, we wheeled our bikes past the lorries, and eventually found the Turkish farewell exit post. When we were through this, we found the Georgian immigration (no indications either) and waited in a line. There was a pungent smell of BO- people in these parts do not seem to regard a bath or a shower to be a daily rite.
Having had our passports stamped, we didn't simply walk forward, but had to go around the back, and through the red customs lane (I think because the gates to the green lane were rusted shut.) It was a wonderful feeling to be finally into Georgia, and to see Christian Crosses as opposed to minarets everywhere. No more pre recrded call to prayer at 3.30 AM!
With fading light, we decided to push hard and make it to Batumi that evening, Georgia's seaside resort. We found a cheap hotel out of the guide book, and when we had moved our bags in the guy asked us if we were planning to take a shower. We had clearly just done a day of cycling and we were staying in a hotel. This gives an indication as to the Georgian attitudes! On hearing our affirmative response, he proceeded to get his screwdriver out and spent half an hour tinkering with the water heater in our bathroom. At the end he said "Nyet dush" unapoligetically, and showed me a very shabby bathroom in another room we could use. When you turned on the hot, the lights dimmed.
Batumi itself has some impressive European style buildings and the entire town is receiving a facelife, all at the same time. All the central streets are being dug up, and there is no fencing off- pedestrians simply have to make their way through the troughs, piles of gravel and pneumatic drills.
The town does have a waterfront area that has been completed, and it is rather smart. There is an enormous musical fountain that actually dances to the beat of various well known tunes in the evenings. It is rather clever and really spectacular.
We spent the following day relaxing in Batumi, and I went for a swim in the Black Sea from the pebbly beach. Not too cold, but not warm either. I ate an Ajaran Khatchapuri (sic?) which is a boat shaped doughy base, filled with an inch of cheese, and with an egg and lashings of butter on top. In the west these would probably be banned! The Iranian election was on TV and was being carried out peacefully, thankfully for us.
I was a little startled to see big macho men walking arm in arm- this is not because they are gay, but because they are friends. It is not unusual to see men rolling up their T shirts to expose their tummies and walking round town. Very odd. Most shops here in Georgia still use an abacus to add up groceries! I have not seen an abacus since I was learning about numbers at the age of 5, so this is really extraordinary to see.
The following day we rather aimlessly headed up the coast, and cut east away from the Black Sea for the last time after a month. In the evening, it became clear that we would have to find somewhere to camp, but the surroundings were full of houses, making it rather difficult to find a suitable place. Just as we were getting a little worried, we saw a sign to Sameba-Jikheti Monastery. Like all monasteries in Georgia, this was on top of a very large hill, (mountain?) and I was a little concerned at the numerous buses of schoolchildren who were returning from excursions.
At the top I asked a couple of serious looking nuns if it would be possible to camp in the monastery grounds, and they asked me to wait. 10 minutes later Ioanna appeared, a tall young looking nun who spoke excellent English (self taught). We were invited in, and invited to sleep in the monastery itself rather than in the tent! We were invited to evensong, however Ioanna told us that Father insists that we eat beforehand because the prayers last 2 hours and we must be hungry.
At this stage, having put our bikes away and donned some trousers (isabel a borrowed mandaroty skirt and headscarf), it was nearly dark and there was a thunderstorm outside. On top of the mountain, amongst the fireflies this was extremely atmospheric as we were led to the gently lit refectory which had 2 places set out, and an extremely generous spread of food. I had imagined that this would only be bread and cheese, but we were treated to chicken, comato and cucumber salad, fried potatoes, honey, bread, tea and the most lovely cake.
The nuns' singing in the service that we joined was utterly beautiful, extremely fast plainsong in Georgian. The church was lit by dozens of beeswax candles arranged around the many icons. After the service I was shown to my room in the boys' area (the boys being one chap who helps Father with the service), a basic little room with a candle and a bed, which I shared with a sparrow who was nesting in the corner.
At 4.30 AM the bells started tolling a slow, muffled funeral-type toll that waits for the sound from each ring to nearly totally finish before ringing again. I made it down to the church, but unsure about where to go, I waited outside for five minutes listening to the gentle yet quick female plainsong. A couple of gentlemen beckoned me into the church, and I was ushered to the back right hand side where there is a bench. Orthodox churches do not have pews; people stand during the services, however given that this service was 2 hours long, I was pleased to be put there! The men are from the church community, and come from time to time to help the nuns with building work. There is much kissing of icons and making the sign of the cross during the service, and people are free to come and go, sit down and stand up, as they please. It seems that members of the congregation make the sign of the cross whenever they like during the service, rather than at any particular moments. The Georgian method of making the sign of the cross is rather how you would imagine a rapper doing it, the hand rather rhythmically goes down from the head, and up to the very top of the shoulders, down again and right up to the other shoulder.
Outside the church, the day changed from darkness to light, and the gentlemen beckoned me to stand up and move into the centre of the church at key moments when Father walked round the church, blessing it with incense. At one stage in the service each of the nuns went up and knelt before Father one by one, and I think he was taking confessions. Later in the service everyone circulated round the church, touched the floor before the most important icon (the miracle working icon of the Virgin, given from the monastery at Mt Athos), kissed it and received a brush of holy water over their baptismal cross. I was very happy to sit and watch until one of the men beckoned to me to go up too. I don't know how to kiss an icon! Perhaps I would do it wrong, or forget to touch the ground before... I faced the icon and made a sheepish sign of the cross, and luckily Ioana caught me and said "Humphrey, you must not!"- cue for me to go back and sit down in my place, rather cross that I had initially been beckoned up!
After the service Ioana showed us round the nunnery, through the gardens and vegetable patches to some newly built churches, one of which to St George ("Father is very industrious!") Ioana was surprised that St George is also the patron saint of England. A new living quarters block is being built with a highly dramatic view over the mountains, however this is not going to be completed any time soon due to the difficulty in getting building materials and labour up to the site. I took a slip and fell on my back on the dewy wooden ramp up to the foetal building.
At 10am the bells rang for Sunday prayer, which was attended by many more members of the public, and the toll was much more jolly, less funeral like! The service itself was not that dissimilar to the ear that does not understand Georgian. Holy Communion was served (sadly as members of the C of E we were denied) which consisted of huge hunks of bread that everyone was gnawing on, and large gulps of communion wine. Rather more civilised than a wafer!
After the service, we were invited to Sunday lunch. The male congregation sat separate to the female congregation, but no nuns were sitting down to eat. The chicken casserole was delicious, as was the Russian salad and cucumber salad, but as I was sitting opposite Father, I was polite and didn't dig in too much. He never looked me in the eye and spoke to me through a friendly nearby medical doctor who had assisted with the service. One of the questions "Is Isabel your wife or your sister?" was a little difficult to answer. The response that she is the girlfriend of a friend wouldn't cut the mustard, so I said "She is my friend" - to which all assembled company sniggered. I was offered wine, which I accepted. Mindful of the fact that it is considered rude in Georgia to drink when there is not a toast I waited for a while, and when I noticed that I was the only one on the table to be drinking wine, I took a sip. To my horror, a couple of minutes later, the toasting started, and others had charged their glasses and were making toasts in order to drink. I hoped no one had noticed my previous indiscretion! We were toasted several times, and I then asked permission to make a toast in reply from the toastmaster-doctor (necessary) which went down with lukewarm appreciation. Lunch ended very suddenly with grace, exactly as it does at Cothill House, when, I imagine, Father had finished eating. As a prelude I was ordered to down my wine in one.
After lunch, the nuns were free to relax because ironically, like prep school, "there is no obedience on Sunday afternoons." We sat chatting away with them for a while and taking photos. They also took some pictures on their smart looking mobile phones. It was striking how young some of them were- in their late twenties and early thirties. One of them gave us each a little pendant made up of beads which depicted a sign of the cross, and encased a rolled up extract of scripture, probably from Psalms. It was her birthday, and we managed to botch together a birthday card of a postcard of the Queen's State Coach which she liked as she is a horse lover. Ioana gave Isabel her icon of St George. It was very das to have had to leave the monastery- they had taken us in and looked after us with such generosity and trust. Ioana gave us the contact details of her family in Kutaisi, and said we should contact them on arrival- and that we could go and stay!
The distance to Kutaisi was not long, but we lost a lot of time on the 14th June due to torrential rain and we didn't get there until the evening. Having spoken to Ioana's brother on arrival, we were given some really complicated directions, and a police car flashed their lights at us. We thought this was because we were going the wrong way down a one way street, but they just told us to carry on. We went down another street and they followed us there. We stopped and asked them (in my bad Russian) what the problem was, and I showed them the text message which contained the address we were trying to find. To our horror, the policeman dialled the number, and spoke to Ioana's brother. It turned out that the police in Georgia are exceptionally friendly, and we were given a 3 car police escort complete with flashing lights, and loudspeakers barking threats at motorists at junctions! Cycists' revenge! When we arrived at our friends' house, the police didn't simply leave us alone, but insisted on ringing the door bell and speaking with the family to make sure it is "safe" for us, apparently!
The welcome we received from Ioana's parents and her brothers Nugzar and Timur was as warm as that we had received at the monastery, and the showers we that we revitalised us. The monastery ascetically does not have loos or showers. We were treated to a wonderful supper of chicken and all sorts of accompaniments. It is Georgian custom to lay the table with a big plate on top of a small plate, and to discard the small plate whenever you feel like it in favour of clean new larger one. As all dishes are served at the same time, it is a matter of personal preference. Georgians eat with only a fork and use their fingers to help. We were given knives at the sighet of our cack handed approach to this method! This was all washed down with lashings and lashings of home made red wine (!) and home made cha cha. The cheese was also home made, as was the cherry soft drink, and Isabel thinks that the chicken was killed to order from the squadron of garden roosters!
Mr Cheishvili is a retired airline pilot, and latterly ran Kutaisi Airport. Mrs Cheishvili is an accountant who spends five days each week in Tbilisi, returning at the weekend. He has travelled all around central asia, so it is great to speak to some one who doesn't look at us with amazement when we tell him where we are going. The family are heavily aviation orientated- David, a son who lives in Tbilisi is an air traffic controller, Mrs C works for an airline, and the eldest son was a pilot who died in the Abkhazia civil war.
The following day, Timur and Nugzar took us out on an wonderful and enormous sightseeing tour, taking in the spectacular Gelati monastery which has extraordinary paintings and frescoes, and Motsameta monastery. Both of these are highly important to the Georgian people: President Saakishvili even chose Gelati for the location of his inauguration. The Georgian identity is necessarily bound up with the devotion to the church; to western eyes, the devotion may appear a little obsessive-compulsive. Buildings are reveered as icons in themselves, and a Georgian will usually make the sign of the cross three times when walking past, sometimes even kissing the railings. Nugzar bent down and kissed the tomb of David the Builder, the most important Georgian King, buried at Gelati. He explained to us that it is very bad form to walk behind an icon, or to even place your foot on the upper step heading up to the iconostasis. I had thought that it was only going behind the iconostasis that was forbidden. It is not unusual to see people kissing the ground in front of icons.
At Gelati, we met a friend of Nugzar, Father Iacob, who at 21 has been a "black priest" (monk) for the last five years. He was busy painting a holy icon, and was a very gentle man of few words. It was extraordinary to see a photo of him later that evening, earlier in his life, wearing a leather jacket!
Ioana had explained to be that the icon is not an idol as the catholics argued in times past, but it is an instrument of devotion- when you see the saint you are praying to in the icon, it helps your prayer to come alive. I suppose, this is in the way that seeing a person in the flesh is a better relationship than simply speaking to them on the phone.
They also took us to see some fossilised raptor footprints, and to some impressive caves before a sumptuous feast of Georgian food, that, despite our protests, they would not allow us to pay for. We feasted on shashleek (spit griled chunks of pork) and xinkale. Xinkale is a georgian dumpling, rather like an overgrown won ton. The correct method of consumption is to bite a small hole, and suck out the meat juices before eating the rest. They are particularly tasty.
In the evening, we were treated to another feast of chicken in a garlic creamy sauce. I played backgammon with Mr C, which is quite different to how we play in the UK. He holds a real presence in a room, and has a very masculine Georgian mustache, and without being unkind to him (he is a lovely man,) it was what it must have been like to play backgammon with Stalin! There is only one set of dice, and as soon as you have thrown the dice, they are picked up by your opponent and thrown- as it is then his turn! You have to move really quickly and I found myself forgetting what the roll was, and making tons of stupid errors. It was frustrating because I am actually quite good at backgammon! He must have thought I was a ninny!
Both mornings we were given lovely breakfasts, which consist of fruit, cherry juice, tea, cake, the previous night's chicken, and (which cannot be avoided) a large shot of the fire water chacha!
On the following day, the 16th June, we reluctantly left and the boys escorted us all the way out of town and kindly put us in the right direction. We were bought an ice cream by a kind local at a petrol station, and were fored to drink a little more chacha before finally escaping to carry on! That evening, contrary to reports, there was no hotel in Khashuri, and the gormless town police and petrol station staff didn't help us much, insisting we must cycle 20km to the next town where we would find a hotel. With very little light, this was not tempting, so cy cycled a bit out of town and asked at a farm if we could camp. My schoolboy Russian came in handy, but it still falls tragically short of the mark.
George invited us inside, and within 5 minutes we had been given beds. I used my Russian and the dictionary to make certain that everyone would have a bed, and that we were not taking anyone's bed. This was a totally different side of Georgia- rural life truly is basic even if the people appear to be happy, keep horses and animals, and enjoy fishing. The house was large, but in pretty bad disrepair, and there was no running water- it had to be carried upstairs. The loo was a shed at the end of the garden with a hole in the floorboards. The lady of the house was frying whitebait on the fir-cone-fuelled stove (we tasted one each), and we were given fresh mint tea. We had a long chat in broken russian (phrasebook fuelled), and found out that the home owner was Ossetian and that Stalin always spoke Russian with a Georgian accent! We were invited to go riding the next day, which we refused.
The following day, we left after another glass of mint chai, and made it to Gori. The entire town is a shrine to the "Great" man of Stalin. The main street is called Stalin Avenue, and has an enormous statue of the dictator in front of the municipal building. At the other end of Stalin Avenue is the "Shrine to Saint Joseph"--the Stalin Museum. The museum itself seems more like a cathedral, and outside the west front (if it were a cathedral) lies the humble home of Stalin where he spent the first 4 years of his life. The other houses that once stood in the area have been demolished as the town was re-designed in memory of St. Joseph. The house lies inside a Parthenon-like portico type structure to protect and further glorify it. Outside the museum is also Stalin's train, which went inside. It is a bit disturbing to tour Stalin's personal loo.
The museum itself has a hushed and dimmed light atmosphere, and it is very Soviet in style, with internal columns that are much wider at the top than at the bottom. A complimentary english speaking guide showed us around, and neither she nor the museum mentioned anything negative about St. Joseph at all. There were plenty of smiling photos of him, and inspiring Indiana Jones style paintings of how he must have looked when escaping a Tsarist Siberian camp when he was a young man. His death mask was on display in a darkened room with a bunch of dried flowers next to it.
Having paid our respects, we found a "homestay" that was extraordinarily recommended by the Lonely Planet. The floor was like a barn, and the [long drop] loo was revolting; the shower did not exist. The landlady was busy fixing her chacha still (a converted exhaust pipe) when we arrived.
We made good time the following day, and made it to Tbilisi and found a lovely little guest house recommended by the guide book. Dodo, the septuginarian landlady, is very kind and made us turkish coffee when we got in, and she speaks very good English. She has even forcefully pressed some boiled rice on me when I had an upset tummy.
We contacted David, Ioana's (our nun friend) air traffic controller brother. He took us out to see the spectacular and important ancient monasteries at Mtskheta, and Jvari which are incredibly important to all Georgians, and which also house stunning frescoes, icons and paintings. We also saw the new hulking Sameba cathedral in Tbilisi. It is built in entirely the old style, and within the huge courtyard, behind the high walls, it is an oasis of tranquility where you can only see the surrounding hills and nothing of the city. It was consecrated only 4 years ago, and work is still ongoing on some of the out buildings. So many of the churches we visit are being restored- this is clearly much more important to Georgians than making any attempt to repair the roads or look after the poor better!
David has been in constant contact since we arrived here, and has been really looking after us well- even asking to take an early finish to his working day to be able to show us around better. It has been great having some one to show us Tbilisi's finest places. With David, I have tasted Chinese food for the first time since England and we went to a wonderful French style restaurant, intricately decorated.
The central area in Tbilisi is very leafy and clean, and it is a real pleasure to be here for a few days. The street we are staying on is alive with market traders selling all sorts of fruit, and I cannot walk down without buying something. One lari (39p) buys a mountain of fruit. I had some mulberries and peaches with my breakfast yoghurt this morning! I have also bought some coffee- you buy 100g in the street for 1 lari and they grind it for you there and then. I have developed a taste for Turkish coffee, and made myself some this morning.
Outside the parliament building people congregate to enjoy the evening sunshine at the end of the day- some to protest against President Saakishvili's supposed poor democratic record, some simply to relax. There are some really quite good buskers who are a joy to listen to. It is lovely not to be subjected to the wailing Turkish cacophany, and to be able to enjoy music once more, rather to feel persecuted by it.
We have been waiting to receive the extortionate Letter of Invitation from a travel agency (come ON!) before we can buy our Azerbaijan visas. Recent events in Iran have meant that despite buying GBP 200 Iranian visas, plus malaria tabs, it doesn't look like we are going to be heading there. We are going to monitor http://www.fco.gov.uk/ for the latest travel advice, as well as speaking to the numerous contacts we have along the way, but for now it is not looking good. The alternative route, which is looking more likely is the less interesting, unscheduled and uncomfortable ferry accross the Caspian Sea (or lake?) to Kazakhstan. Either way, it will still be interesting.
It is really rather satisfying to have got so far already! I have cycled more than the distance as the crow flies since London than from Jacksonville Florida to San Diego. I am more than half way to the Chinese border from london (it is only 2630 km as the crow flies to Almaty, Kazakhstan from here) and my bike has notched up more than 6,600km since London (despite it only being a depressing 3,540 km as the crow flies.
Georgia has both a European and an Asian feel to it. Many people here look European, but have Asian habits, such as the way they can sit for ages in a squat position on the side of the street. The state of some of the cars on the roads is rather Asian too, each one with an icon on the dashboard to protect it. Wherever we go next, it will be an adventure, which is exactly what is written on the tin, so I can't really complain. Georgians also dress very modestly, and most wear at least one black item of clothing. Many of the ladies in the street are dressed as the nuns dress, and for men a black t shirt and jeans is normal.
I can be contacted on our local mobile number +995 55 285 685 by anyone who wants to say hello (please remember we are 3 hours ahead of UK time!)
That evening we were going to stay at Rize, however not particularly liking the place, we pushed on and made it to Chayeli, where I got a puncture and had a group of 6 incredibly irritating and very curious and friendly children to throw random questions at me as I tried to concentrate on my inner tube changing skills.
Isabel in the meantime had found a smart hotel that miraculously didn't mind us camping in their garden. As we arrived to go round the back, feeling mightily out of place among the smartly dressed businessmen, we were invited inside and given a lovely room for the night! As we were settling down, there was a knock on the door and we were invited to dinner! It turned out to be an all-you-can-eat feast of turkish cuisine, complete with soups, salads, vegetables, and meat dishes. Pudding was a mountain of baclava and turkish rice pudding, with profiteroles to match. As I am sure you can imagine, I found it hard to hold back.
During dinner we met another cyclist, John. He is a retured scientist, and was on the way back from Armenia and Georgia. He lent us his Russian phrasebook and we talked about the places we were about to visit accross the border. We had arranged to meet again the following morning, but we were not in the end invited to break our fasts so sadly we missed him.
The following day we had planned to spend the night in Turkey, but we had reached so close to the border by 4.30 pm that we decided to go the whole hog and cross into Georgia. As we approached the border we noticed that many of the shop windows already had signs in Georgian script, a very strange alphabet that borrows nothing from the Romans, and has curved letters rather similar to Thai.
The border was a veritable bunfight with people everywhere, cars and lorries everywhere, and no signs whatsoever indicating where one is supposed to go. A fight broke out between a lorry driver and a car driver in the crowds. Shepherded by a kind onlooker, we wheeled our bikes past the lorries, and eventually found the Turkish farewell exit post. When we were through this, we found the Georgian immigration (no indications either) and waited in a line. There was a pungent smell of BO- people in these parts do not seem to regard a bath or a shower to be a daily rite.
Having had our passports stamped, we didn't simply walk forward, but had to go around the back, and through the red customs lane (I think because the gates to the green lane were rusted shut.) It was a wonderful feeling to be finally into Georgia, and to see Christian Crosses as opposed to minarets everywhere. No more pre recrded call to prayer at 3.30 AM!
With fading light, we decided to push hard and make it to Batumi that evening, Georgia's seaside resort. We found a cheap hotel out of the guide book, and when we had moved our bags in the guy asked us if we were planning to take a shower. We had clearly just done a day of cycling and we were staying in a hotel. This gives an indication as to the Georgian attitudes! On hearing our affirmative response, he proceeded to get his screwdriver out and spent half an hour tinkering with the water heater in our bathroom. At the end he said "Nyet dush" unapoligetically, and showed me a very shabby bathroom in another room we could use. When you turned on the hot, the lights dimmed.
Batumi itself has some impressive European style buildings and the entire town is receiving a facelife, all at the same time. All the central streets are being dug up, and there is no fencing off- pedestrians simply have to make their way through the troughs, piles of gravel and pneumatic drills.
The town does have a waterfront area that has been completed, and it is rather smart. There is an enormous musical fountain that actually dances to the beat of various well known tunes in the evenings. It is rather clever and really spectacular.
We spent the following day relaxing in Batumi, and I went for a swim in the Black Sea from the pebbly beach. Not too cold, but not warm either. I ate an Ajaran Khatchapuri (sic?) which is a boat shaped doughy base, filled with an inch of cheese, and with an egg and lashings of butter on top. In the west these would probably be banned! The Iranian election was on TV and was being carried out peacefully, thankfully for us.
I was a little startled to see big macho men walking arm in arm- this is not because they are gay, but because they are friends. It is not unusual to see men rolling up their T shirts to expose their tummies and walking round town. Very odd. Most shops here in Georgia still use an abacus to add up groceries! I have not seen an abacus since I was learning about numbers at the age of 5, so this is really extraordinary to see.
The following day we rather aimlessly headed up the coast, and cut east away from the Black Sea for the last time after a month. In the evening, it became clear that we would have to find somewhere to camp, but the surroundings were full of houses, making it rather difficult to find a suitable place. Just as we were getting a little worried, we saw a sign to Sameba-Jikheti Monastery. Like all monasteries in Georgia, this was on top of a very large hill, (mountain?) and I was a little concerned at the numerous buses of schoolchildren who were returning from excursions.
At the top I asked a couple of serious looking nuns if it would be possible to camp in the monastery grounds, and they asked me to wait. 10 minutes later Ioanna appeared, a tall young looking nun who spoke excellent English (self taught). We were invited in, and invited to sleep in the monastery itself rather than in the tent! We were invited to evensong, however Ioanna told us that Father insists that we eat beforehand because the prayers last 2 hours and we must be hungry.
At this stage, having put our bikes away and donned some trousers (isabel a borrowed mandaroty skirt and headscarf), it was nearly dark and there was a thunderstorm outside. On top of the mountain, amongst the fireflies this was extremely atmospheric as we were led to the gently lit refectory which had 2 places set out, and an extremely generous spread of food. I had imagined that this would only be bread and cheese, but we were treated to chicken, comato and cucumber salad, fried potatoes, honey, bread, tea and the most lovely cake.
The nuns' singing in the service that we joined was utterly beautiful, extremely fast plainsong in Georgian. The church was lit by dozens of beeswax candles arranged around the many icons. After the service I was shown to my room in the boys' area (the boys being one chap who helps Father with the service), a basic little room with a candle and a bed, which I shared with a sparrow who was nesting in the corner.
At 4.30 AM the bells started tolling a slow, muffled funeral-type toll that waits for the sound from each ring to nearly totally finish before ringing again. I made it down to the church, but unsure about where to go, I waited outside for five minutes listening to the gentle yet quick female plainsong. A couple of gentlemen beckoned me into the church, and I was ushered to the back right hand side where there is a bench. Orthodox churches do not have pews; people stand during the services, however given that this service was 2 hours long, I was pleased to be put there! The men are from the church community, and come from time to time to help the nuns with building work. There is much kissing of icons and making the sign of the cross during the service, and people are free to come and go, sit down and stand up, as they please. It seems that members of the congregation make the sign of the cross whenever they like during the service, rather than at any particular moments. The Georgian method of making the sign of the cross is rather how you would imagine a rapper doing it, the hand rather rhythmically goes down from the head, and up to the very top of the shoulders, down again and right up to the other shoulder.
Outside the church, the day changed from darkness to light, and the gentlemen beckoned me to stand up and move into the centre of the church at key moments when Father walked round the church, blessing it with incense. At one stage in the service each of the nuns went up and knelt before Father one by one, and I think he was taking confessions. Later in the service everyone circulated round the church, touched the floor before the most important icon (the miracle working icon of the Virgin, given from the monastery at Mt Athos), kissed it and received a brush of holy water over their baptismal cross. I was very happy to sit and watch until one of the men beckoned to me to go up too. I don't know how to kiss an icon! Perhaps I would do it wrong, or forget to touch the ground before... I faced the icon and made a sheepish sign of the cross, and luckily Ioana caught me and said "Humphrey, you must not!"- cue for me to go back and sit down in my place, rather cross that I had initially been beckoned up!
After the service Ioana showed us round the nunnery, through the gardens and vegetable patches to some newly built churches, one of which to St George ("Father is very industrious!") Ioana was surprised that St George is also the patron saint of England. A new living quarters block is being built with a highly dramatic view over the mountains, however this is not going to be completed any time soon due to the difficulty in getting building materials and labour up to the site. I took a slip and fell on my back on the dewy wooden ramp up to the foetal building.
At 10am the bells rang for Sunday prayer, which was attended by many more members of the public, and the toll was much more jolly, less funeral like! The service itself was not that dissimilar to the ear that does not understand Georgian. Holy Communion was served (sadly as members of the C of E we were denied) which consisted of huge hunks of bread that everyone was gnawing on, and large gulps of communion wine. Rather more civilised than a wafer!
After the service, we were invited to Sunday lunch. The male congregation sat separate to the female congregation, but no nuns were sitting down to eat. The chicken casserole was delicious, as was the Russian salad and cucumber salad, but as I was sitting opposite Father, I was polite and didn't dig in too much. He never looked me in the eye and spoke to me through a friendly nearby medical doctor who had assisted with the service. One of the questions "Is Isabel your wife or your sister?" was a little difficult to answer. The response that she is the girlfriend of a friend wouldn't cut the mustard, so I said "She is my friend" - to which all assembled company sniggered. I was offered wine, which I accepted. Mindful of the fact that it is considered rude in Georgia to drink when there is not a toast I waited for a while, and when I noticed that I was the only one on the table to be drinking wine, I took a sip. To my horror, a couple of minutes later, the toasting started, and others had charged their glasses and were making toasts in order to drink. I hoped no one had noticed my previous indiscretion! We were toasted several times, and I then asked permission to make a toast in reply from the toastmaster-doctor (necessary) which went down with lukewarm appreciation. Lunch ended very suddenly with grace, exactly as it does at Cothill House, when, I imagine, Father had finished eating. As a prelude I was ordered to down my wine in one.
After lunch, the nuns were free to relax because ironically, like prep school, "there is no obedience on Sunday afternoons." We sat chatting away with them for a while and taking photos. They also took some pictures on their smart looking mobile phones. It was striking how young some of them were- in their late twenties and early thirties. One of them gave us each a little pendant made up of beads which depicted a sign of the cross, and encased a rolled up extract of scripture, probably from Psalms. It was her birthday, and we managed to botch together a birthday card of a postcard of the Queen's State Coach which she liked as she is a horse lover. Ioana gave Isabel her icon of St George. It was very das to have had to leave the monastery- they had taken us in and looked after us with such generosity and trust. Ioana gave us the contact details of her family in Kutaisi, and said we should contact them on arrival- and that we could go and stay!
The distance to Kutaisi was not long, but we lost a lot of time on the 14th June due to torrential rain and we didn't get there until the evening. Having spoken to Ioana's brother on arrival, we were given some really complicated directions, and a police car flashed their lights at us. We thought this was because we were going the wrong way down a one way street, but they just told us to carry on. We went down another street and they followed us there. We stopped and asked them (in my bad Russian) what the problem was, and I showed them the text message which contained the address we were trying to find. To our horror, the policeman dialled the number, and spoke to Ioana's brother. It turned out that the police in Georgia are exceptionally friendly, and we were given a 3 car police escort complete with flashing lights, and loudspeakers barking threats at motorists at junctions! Cycists' revenge! When we arrived at our friends' house, the police didn't simply leave us alone, but insisted on ringing the door bell and speaking with the family to make sure it is "safe" for us, apparently!
The welcome we received from Ioana's parents and her brothers Nugzar and Timur was as warm as that we had received at the monastery, and the showers we that we revitalised us. The monastery ascetically does not have loos or showers. We were treated to a wonderful supper of chicken and all sorts of accompaniments. It is Georgian custom to lay the table with a big plate on top of a small plate, and to discard the small plate whenever you feel like it in favour of clean new larger one. As all dishes are served at the same time, it is a matter of personal preference. Georgians eat with only a fork and use their fingers to help. We were given knives at the sighet of our cack handed approach to this method! This was all washed down with lashings and lashings of home made red wine (!) and home made cha cha. The cheese was also home made, as was the cherry soft drink, and Isabel thinks that the chicken was killed to order from the squadron of garden roosters!
Mr Cheishvili is a retired airline pilot, and latterly ran Kutaisi Airport. Mrs Cheishvili is an accountant who spends five days each week in Tbilisi, returning at the weekend. He has travelled all around central asia, so it is great to speak to some one who doesn't look at us with amazement when we tell him where we are going. The family are heavily aviation orientated- David, a son who lives in Tbilisi is an air traffic controller, Mrs C works for an airline, and the eldest son was a pilot who died in the Abkhazia civil war.
The following day, Timur and Nugzar took us out on an wonderful and enormous sightseeing tour, taking in the spectacular Gelati monastery which has extraordinary paintings and frescoes, and Motsameta monastery. Both of these are highly important to the Georgian people: President Saakishvili even chose Gelati for the location of his inauguration. The Georgian identity is necessarily bound up with the devotion to the church; to western eyes, the devotion may appear a little obsessive-compulsive. Buildings are reveered as icons in themselves, and a Georgian will usually make the sign of the cross three times when walking past, sometimes even kissing the railings. Nugzar bent down and kissed the tomb of David the Builder, the most important Georgian King, buried at Gelati. He explained to us that it is very bad form to walk behind an icon, or to even place your foot on the upper step heading up to the iconostasis. I had thought that it was only going behind the iconostasis that was forbidden. It is not unusual to see people kissing the ground in front of icons.
At Gelati, we met a friend of Nugzar, Father Iacob, who at 21 has been a "black priest" (monk) for the last five years. He was busy painting a holy icon, and was a very gentle man of few words. It was extraordinary to see a photo of him later that evening, earlier in his life, wearing a leather jacket!
Ioana had explained to be that the icon is not an idol as the catholics argued in times past, but it is an instrument of devotion- when you see the saint you are praying to in the icon, it helps your prayer to come alive. I suppose, this is in the way that seeing a person in the flesh is a better relationship than simply speaking to them on the phone.
They also took us to see some fossilised raptor footprints, and to some impressive caves before a sumptuous feast of Georgian food, that, despite our protests, they would not allow us to pay for. We feasted on shashleek (spit griled chunks of pork) and xinkale. Xinkale is a georgian dumpling, rather like an overgrown won ton. The correct method of consumption is to bite a small hole, and suck out the meat juices before eating the rest. They are particularly tasty.
In the evening, we were treated to another feast of chicken in a garlic creamy sauce. I played backgammon with Mr C, which is quite different to how we play in the UK. He holds a real presence in a room, and has a very masculine Georgian mustache, and without being unkind to him (he is a lovely man,) it was what it must have been like to play backgammon with Stalin! There is only one set of dice, and as soon as you have thrown the dice, they are picked up by your opponent and thrown- as it is then his turn! You have to move really quickly and I found myself forgetting what the roll was, and making tons of stupid errors. It was frustrating because I am actually quite good at backgammon! He must have thought I was a ninny!
Both mornings we were given lovely breakfasts, which consist of fruit, cherry juice, tea, cake, the previous night's chicken, and (which cannot be avoided) a large shot of the fire water chacha!
On the following day, the 16th June, we reluctantly left and the boys escorted us all the way out of town and kindly put us in the right direction. We were bought an ice cream by a kind local at a petrol station, and were fored to drink a little more chacha before finally escaping to carry on! That evening, contrary to reports, there was no hotel in Khashuri, and the gormless town police and petrol station staff didn't help us much, insisting we must cycle 20km to the next town where we would find a hotel. With very little light, this was not tempting, so cy cycled a bit out of town and asked at a farm if we could camp. My schoolboy Russian came in handy, but it still falls tragically short of the mark.
George invited us inside, and within 5 minutes we had been given beds. I used my Russian and the dictionary to make certain that everyone would have a bed, and that we were not taking anyone's bed. This was a totally different side of Georgia- rural life truly is basic even if the people appear to be happy, keep horses and animals, and enjoy fishing. The house was large, but in pretty bad disrepair, and there was no running water- it had to be carried upstairs. The loo was a shed at the end of the garden with a hole in the floorboards. The lady of the house was frying whitebait on the fir-cone-fuelled stove (we tasted one each), and we were given fresh mint tea. We had a long chat in broken russian (phrasebook fuelled), and found out that the home owner was Ossetian and that Stalin always spoke Russian with a Georgian accent! We were invited to go riding the next day, which we refused.
The following day, we left after another glass of mint chai, and made it to Gori. The entire town is a shrine to the "Great" man of Stalin. The main street is called Stalin Avenue, and has an enormous statue of the dictator in front of the municipal building. At the other end of Stalin Avenue is the "Shrine to Saint Joseph"--the Stalin Museum. The museum itself seems more like a cathedral, and outside the west front (if it were a cathedral) lies the humble home of Stalin where he spent the first 4 years of his life. The other houses that once stood in the area have been demolished as the town was re-designed in memory of St. Joseph. The house lies inside a Parthenon-like portico type structure to protect and further glorify it. Outside the museum is also Stalin's train, which went inside. It is a bit disturbing to tour Stalin's personal loo.
The museum itself has a hushed and dimmed light atmosphere, and it is very Soviet in style, with internal columns that are much wider at the top than at the bottom. A complimentary english speaking guide showed us around, and neither she nor the museum mentioned anything negative about St. Joseph at all. There were plenty of smiling photos of him, and inspiring Indiana Jones style paintings of how he must have looked when escaping a Tsarist Siberian camp when he was a young man. His death mask was on display in a darkened room with a bunch of dried flowers next to it.
Having paid our respects, we found a "homestay" that was extraordinarily recommended by the Lonely Planet. The floor was like a barn, and the [long drop] loo was revolting; the shower did not exist. The landlady was busy fixing her chacha still (a converted exhaust pipe) when we arrived.
We made good time the following day, and made it to Tbilisi and found a lovely little guest house recommended by the guide book. Dodo, the septuginarian landlady, is very kind and made us turkish coffee when we got in, and she speaks very good English. She has even forcefully pressed some boiled rice on me when I had an upset tummy.
We contacted David, Ioana's (our nun friend) air traffic controller brother. He took us out to see the spectacular and important ancient monasteries at Mtskheta, and Jvari which are incredibly important to all Georgians, and which also house stunning frescoes, icons and paintings. We also saw the new hulking Sameba cathedral in Tbilisi. It is built in entirely the old style, and within the huge courtyard, behind the high walls, it is an oasis of tranquility where you can only see the surrounding hills and nothing of the city. It was consecrated only 4 years ago, and work is still ongoing on some of the out buildings. So many of the churches we visit are being restored- this is clearly much more important to Georgians than making any attempt to repair the roads or look after the poor better!
David has been in constant contact since we arrived here, and has been really looking after us well- even asking to take an early finish to his working day to be able to show us around better. It has been great having some one to show us Tbilisi's finest places. With David, I have tasted Chinese food for the first time since England and we went to a wonderful French style restaurant, intricately decorated.
The central area in Tbilisi is very leafy and clean, and it is a real pleasure to be here for a few days. The street we are staying on is alive with market traders selling all sorts of fruit, and I cannot walk down without buying something. One lari (39p) buys a mountain of fruit. I had some mulberries and peaches with my breakfast yoghurt this morning! I have also bought some coffee- you buy 100g in the street for 1 lari and they grind it for you there and then. I have developed a taste for Turkish coffee, and made myself some this morning.
Outside the parliament building people congregate to enjoy the evening sunshine at the end of the day- some to protest against President Saakishvili's supposed poor democratic record, some simply to relax. There are some really quite good buskers who are a joy to listen to. It is lovely not to be subjected to the wailing Turkish cacophany, and to be able to enjoy music once more, rather to feel persecuted by it.
We have been waiting to receive the extortionate Letter of Invitation from a travel agency (come ON!) before we can buy our Azerbaijan visas. Recent events in Iran have meant that despite buying GBP 200 Iranian visas, plus malaria tabs, it doesn't look like we are going to be heading there. We are going to monitor http://www.fco.gov.uk/ for the latest travel advice, as well as speaking to the numerous contacts we have along the way, but for now it is not looking good. The alternative route, which is looking more likely is the less interesting, unscheduled and uncomfortable ferry accross the Caspian Sea (or lake?) to Kazakhstan. Either way, it will still be interesting.
It is really rather satisfying to have got so far already! I have cycled more than the distance as the crow flies since London than from Jacksonville Florida to San Diego. I am more than half way to the Chinese border from london (it is only 2630 km as the crow flies to Almaty, Kazakhstan from here) and my bike has notched up more than 6,600km since London (despite it only being a depressing 3,540 km as the crow flies.
Georgia has both a European and an Asian feel to it. Many people here look European, but have Asian habits, such as the way they can sit for ages in a squat position on the side of the street. The state of some of the cars on the roads is rather Asian too, each one with an icon on the dashboard to protect it. Wherever we go next, it will be an adventure, which is exactly what is written on the tin, so I can't really complain. Georgians also dress very modestly, and most wear at least one black item of clothing. Many of the ladies in the street are dressed as the nuns dress, and for men a black t shirt and jeans is normal.
I can be contacted on our local mobile number +995 55 285 685 by anyone who wants to say hello (please remember we are 3 hours ahead of UK time!)
