Règle de trois

Not sure what the proportions are of each but we had three possible titles for this blog. Clearly, embarking on our third attempt to go round the world has gone to our heads!

 

So how about, 'Midnight plane to Georgia', or ' Lost in translation' or 'Waiting for Moto'?

We made it to Tbilisi early Sunday morning. the bike should also have made it on Sunday too. It didn't. Nor did it make it on Monday either. We think it arrived Tuesday. In the simple horizontal movement, or translation, from London to Tbilisi it seems to have got lost and we are just waiting for news.

All we have managed to achieve is a letter from a Georgian solicitor giving Power of Attorney to the Freight company to deal with the import customs formalities. We have the letter, but not the bike. UK Bank Holiday hasn't helped in finding out where the bike is.

We thought we had arranged to be at the solicitor's office at 09.00 Monday morning. But maybe something else had got lost in translation, as a cleaning lady in what might have been the solicitor's office seemed to suggest that there would be nobody there before 11.00. Having things done like this in Georgia seems quite commonplace - even though it was worrying us a bit, so we went elsewhere and just worried about the bill, for the secretary to type it, the translator to translate it and the solicitor to sign and stamp it. In three copies. Came to a little less than £10 all in. Bizarre.

So with time on our hands we used our feet to explore. We have become very proficient with the Tbilisi Metro - both lines. It shares its depth, long escalators and volumetric grandeur with Moscow and Baku - but either the bling so evident in Moscow has been removed, or it never got installed in the first place. It also shares the same little cabins top and bottom of the escalators occupied by heavily made up ladies of a certain age - maybe the make-up is protection against the train brake dust?

 

Besides the Metro we have churches and cathedrals. And Mosques and Synagogues. And Basilica. One has a choice. The latest two are the Holy Trinity Cathedral built to celebrate the end of Soviet occupation which was built on an Armenian graveyard - ouch! And the rebuilding of a church in the old fortress overlooking Tbilisi which was financed by the Chief of Police - clearly a well- paid post in the immediate post-Soviet era. And all the others are very old with bits and pieces of religious significance that somehow found their way to Georgia. The Georgian equivalent of Thomas Cook must have had a package to the Holy Land at the time of the crucifixion, as there are bits of the cross that Jesus was crucified upon and his robe at the time of his crucifixion and some bits and pieces of St Andrew, all in the churches we visited and we really haven't visited all of them.

There are also stray dogs everywhere. They do seem to have been tagged and don't seem that scraggy and spend their day lying in the sun. We don't think they are being fattened up for a reason...

What else? Well the alphabet is impossible and is like a cross between Arabic and Thai.








They are very environmental as large parts of most houses are made of timber and are falling down. Restaurants have the Middle East issue of everything being served at the same time 'No, I would like my ice cream after the main course and not with the soup.' Wine is everywhere in Tbilisi and is the equivalent of UK coffee shop culture. And walnuts and pomegranates are big here. People still smoke in restaurants and apparently there is a low crime rate. All traffic police carry guns.

It is now Wednesday evening. The bike has been found. We are reunited. We leave Tbilisi tomorrow!