More border misadventures.

I definitely think the best border crossing are the ones where you have to physically walk across the border. Crossing into Armenia from Georgia we had to walk from outside of the Georgian side right through and out to the Armenian side and the bus would meet us there. The Georgian side was easy, knowing a little of the language, they took our photo and sent us on our merry way. 

The trouble started when we got to the Armenian side, I was all ready giggly due to lack of sleep and spending time with one of the funniest people I know. The people in front of us had to of been part of some bearded men's society. The all had long, long beards and more than one was a fiery shade of red. They were not Georgians and seemed like an odd group of people to choose to travel there. 

My turn at the booth I made chit chat with the man, just basic things, he was smiling and everything was going great. My friend walked up behind me in the line and that was when I noticed this guy had sauce on his face. Not a little bit. Like a least a teaspoon of tomato sauce smeared on his face. How could no one have told him? I turned around and tried to tell my friend about it, I couldn't hold it back any more and I started to laugh. My friend sternly told me that this is not the place to get the giggles. An Armenian border guard was directly behind me with an automatic weapon. I turned back to the guard, who began to giggle with me, thinking we must have shared some sort of joke. He stamped me through and wished me a pleasant stay.

My friend later told me that the stamping guard was still smiling when he got to the window, so my friend thought it acceptable to smile also. The border guard instantly went from happy, smiling to stone cold. 

Sharing the same irrational fear

One of the last weekends I spent in Georgia, I got very drunk in a bar in Zugdidi with some friends, there was four of us at this bar, we were the only people there. All night.

As 3AM rolled around we decided it was probably time to head to bed and let the poor bar owner shut up. Engela and Brent wanted to spend some alone time together, went to a hotel. Priyanka and I being stingy decided to go to the hostel which was a 15 minute walk outside of town.

We were drunk and hungry so we stopped and got some food and sat on the curb and ate it. Priyanka decided chips sandwiches would be good feast. That girl is a genius, they were amazing. One loaf of bed and a bag of chips was more than enough drunk food AND we had left overs for breakfast.

After we ate we walked to the hostel, it looked pretty quiet, but it was the end of the semester we just figured there wasn't too many people around because they had already started sending people home for the holidays. There was no one at the hostel. No staff. No patrons. They had shut up for the winter. There was a number to call if there was no one around, but at what was closer to 4 AM they didn't answer.

What were two drunk, traveller to do?

We built a cubby house out of the furniture they had left outside, took all the towels off the clothes line and tried to use them as blankets. It was winter, so it was freezing. We had been trying to sleep for about half an hour when Pri asked,

"Do you think it's cold enough to get frost bite?"

The thing was I couldn't sleep because I was being plagued with the same question. It was a completely irrational fear, it wasn't that cold and we weren't really exposed to the elements. I think in the end we got about half an hour sleep. 7 AM  rolled around, we got up and bailed, we didn't want the staff to turn up and try and charge us for using their furniture (the staff at this place were not very fond of TLG, I would not put it past them to charge us). As we were walking out of the hostel it started to snow for the first time that winter. Priyanka, being from India, had never seen snow before and previous to this day was so excited about snow that I thought she might cry. We were so tired, she didn't even crack a smile and sulked that it wasn't real snow, it was slush.

 We walked to the main road and hitched to Batumi where some friends of ours were, we made it there in two hours - a  record time. It took us four cars and about 20 minutes of walking down some creepy village road. The best ride we got that day was a man in a big, black four wheel drive who pulled over and picked us up. Drove us into into the city and didn't say a word the whole time. It allowed us to nap and refresh ourselves for another night of drinking. Pretty sure he only picked us up because he felt bad we were stuck in the rain.

The story of how I got the blood clot

Three days after the fall

I was really drunk in Tbilisi with some friends, we got back to the hostel quite late at night. Thinking I had a bit too much to drink I decided to go down stairs and vomit, thus reducing my hangover for the morning. I had forgotten though, that the bathroom floor was really wet and slippery. I fell over and smashed my arm against the edge of the sink.

At first I thought it just to be bruised, but it hadn't gone down in two weeks. So I had to go to the hospital which was an hour away. The hospital was a chaotic old soviet building, the x-ray technician I had was missing an ear. None of these things were building my confidence in the medical care I was about to receive.

After having my arm x-rayed I was taken to another room to wait. The technician came back and said that my arm wasn't broken it was just a very large blood clot and if I was married this would never have happened. I was given some cream and sent on my way.

UPDATE: The clot is still there.

Crazies on the bus. Part 2

It has happened. Not once, not twice, but thrice times I have been vomited next to on public transport. The first two were small children and the third was a middle aged man.

Berat, Albania

1. I will start with the middle aged man because that occurred last night and is still fresh in my mind. The thing I don't understand is, he was a local adult, he could speak the same language as the driver. Why didn't he alert the driver to the fact he was feeling unwell? He could have pulled over calmly and this man could eject the contents of his stomach into some shrubbery instead into a plastic bag less than a metre from me. But alas, it wasn't until after he had spewed, that the bus stopped. 
2. The second time. I had probably one of the worse hangover I have ever had in my life. I was supposed to hitch hike with my friend back home, but I just wasn't feeling up to it so I decided to catch a bus. (This was the day after I got the blood clot, a story for another day.) The driver made me take the seat right at the front, in between a boy in his late teens and a woman with a two year old daughter. Before we left the mother gave her child a bottle of coke and this cake thing that is the equivalent of a twinkie. About two hours into a five hour bus ride, this little girl was sick. All over her mother, the floor and the chair. The smell was vile, I probably would have retched even if I wasn't hungover. This time the bus did not stop, we waited until the designated rest period. I entirely blame the mother in this instance. That was way too much sugar for a child.
3. Which brings me to the first time someone vomited next to me on a bus. It was a 12 hour bus ride from Ho Chi Minh City to Nha Trang, during the day, this was not some cushy sleeper bus. I was with my sister who has the ability to sleep through anything so she was not phased by anything that was going on around us. Three hours into the journey a young family hoped on to the bus, two children under seven and a baby. The baby screamed - non-stop for five hours. The parents passed it around the bus and tried to make it hush but nothing seemed to work. Then it (I say it because it was wearing gender neutral colours) vomited. Everywhere. I don't know how it was possible for such a little person to create so much mess. But it was hideous, I started retching. Elisha told me to move away from it if it was going to make me sick. I would have had to step in it to get away. So I closed my eyes and dreamed of the beach. It will never be known if the child vomited because it screamed for five hours, or if it screamed for five hours because it was already sick. 

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

The Pro's of Hitch Hiking

I will start this post by saying, use your common sense. If something doesn't feel right it probably isn't and you should get out and this is a theory that can be applied to any situation.

In Georgia hitch hiking isn't frowned upon as much as it is in Western society. it can still be quite dangerous and I think everyone I know who used to hitch around Georgia has at least one horror story. But it's free and can be a good way to meet people so we often did it.


My friend and were heading to Tbilisi, from the West side of the country. I started in my town of Senaki and hitched a lift into her town of Abasha and from there we wanted to head as directly as we could to Tbilisi. It was the weekend we had places to be.

The intended root.

 We kind of expected that it would take more than one car to get there, it was long drive (about 5 hours,  give or take depending on the traffic and road conditions.) We had been waiting on the road for about ten minutes when a car pulled up. He was a youngish looking guy, probably about late 20's travelling by himself. he said he was only heading to Samtredia. Samtredia 's the next town, about 25km away but we figured we would jump out and continue on from there, it was progress. When we go to town the guy (we very much later found out his name was Giorgi) said he just needed to exchange some money, he pulled out a very large wad of US money and proceeded to drive around until he found someone to change the money. This was an odd situation to begin with but neither of us seemed to phased by it, we figured at least he wouldn't ask us for money for the lift.

Whilst my friend was in the bathroom he asked me if we needed to be there at a certain time, because he was actually going to go to Tbilisi but he just had to do something first, he needed to get a bag from his parents. As a rule of thumb if someone says they are only going part of the was and then change their mind and claim they are going the full distance it is completely acceptable to be suspicious  They may expect something when they get to the destination because they have gone out of their way for you.

When my friend got back to the car I explained the situation to her, she seemed to think that he was an all right guy so we went with him. On the way out of town he picked up two more people on the side of the road that he seemed to know**. Giorgi then proceeded to drive 40 minutes into the mountains, the opposite direction to where we needed to go. I immediately started thinking that this was  bad idea, he was taking us into the mountains to chop our bodies into tiny little pieces. We would never be heard from again. I only wished that I had a significant other so that I could tell them that I loved them one more time.

We stopped the car at a tiny little house, Giorgi asked us to come inside with him. There was not much we could do outside and I didn't want to be locked inside the car. Before we even got through the gate we were greeted with multiple cheek kisses by a middle aged Georgian woman who dragged us inside and sat us down at the family table. From the other room came Giorgi's grandparents who joined us at the table as his Mother started bringing out brimming plates of freshly cooked Georgian specialities. The Babua (Georgian for grandfather) dashed outside and brought back a bottle of his home-made wine and immediately poured us a glass. From there the toasts started, to family, to friends, to those in the ground, to woman, to children, to America and to Australia.

(Left to Right Deda, Me, Babua and in the front Bebia)

Giorgi had called ahead and told his mother that he had picked up some foreigners and was bringing them to the house. This spectacle was Georgian hospitality at it's finest. We stayed at the house for about two hours until our stomachs ached with amazing food and we had drank the obligatory amount of wine - four glasses, skolled quickly.

Giorgi did not join us for wine, and when all was said and one we hoped back in the car and made our way to Tbilisi. After the four glasses of wine we had a little buzz on and we wanted to keep it going. It was a Friday night after all.  Giorgi stopped in the village market and bought us each a beer. Which set the precedent for the rest of the journey. Drive an hour, bathroom break, buy another beer.

We didn't make it to Tbilisi in record time, but we had way more fun than the other chumps who caught marshutkas. This is both one of the greatest shows of Georgian hospitality and one of the greatest hitching stories.

Actual route taken

** Seemed to know - in Georgia this could be anything from your best friend from high school to your second cousins neighbours mother. 

I don't remember the sun setting, ever, and especially not when I'm on buses. I don't know what I am so engrossed in that I don't notice a giant orb dipping into the ocean or sneaking away behind the mountains. I hope on and then the next time I think about it darkness has fallen.

Which brings me to my main point.

I don't think is possible or me to catch a long distance bus ride without their being an insane person somewhere along the journey. What brought me to this conclusion was today on what should have been a three hour (it was six) ride into Macedonia there was an older woman who was yelled at my chair companion. I'm normally the first person to hate the person I'm sitting next to. Something about being confined in such a small place with a person you have never met before and have no desire to talk to (there is exceptions leads me to blind hatred for no explainable reason. I think the reason I like this one is because she didn't make me take assigned seat 41, the window seat; the worst seat. But this older woman in the coat that made her  look like she had skinned a Labrador had the same seat number as one of us, there was 30 empty seats though so it made no sense for to be yelling and screaming about it. The conductor told her the what I'm sure is the Serbian equivalent of "sit down and shut up."

But the award for craziest bus passenger goes to a woman on the overnight from Ankara to Sarpi. Her "friend" (pretty sure this woman was just another crazy) had trouble getting her on to the bus to begin with, I personally think this was the sign that we should have just left her behind. Every time the bus would stop she would scream and fight her way off and refuse to get back on. Eventually her friend would coax her back on and she would, settled and when the bus was moving she was silent.

I don't know where she went to from Sarpi... nor do I care to know.

Niš Fortress, Niš, Serbia

Vani, Georgia

Vani - Georgia

Four Months in Georgia.


I got really lazy when it came to writing about my Georgian escapades, so I have given up on that for now. I have promised myself as of tomorrow I will make more effort to write about my travels because I am loosing my mind and if I don't I will forget.


So here is a video I created: Four months of Georgia in a three minute song.


Music : British India - March Into the Ocean

....and sometimes your bored

After spending three hours de-husking corn your mind starts to drift.  I had called everyone I felt like talking to. I had sent many text messages in the hopes of evoking a reply, but after a while nothing.

As a keep saying to my sister, life is different here for us village folk. (Never in my life did I think I would refer to myself as village folk- I'm not particularly enjoying though.) I got to my school, teach my three hours a day and then walk home and watch the chickens run around the yard.

Until I had the internet I was going into the town everyday just to break up the monotony, there is nothing to do in town. But if I walked I had a good hour to just listen to some music and think. But that is how I unintentionally hitch hiked.

I was walking along listening to some happening jams, when a small beige car started to slow down. I glanced at the car but didn't recognise it. The car then stopped next to me, I looked through the window and saw who I thought was my host father; I climbed in. Sitting in the back seat was a woman I had never seen before, I assumed she was a nighbour. I looked to the front and realised I did not know the man, he was not my faux father.  The couple smiled at me and asked "Rustavi" (a city at least 6 hours away) I shook my head and said "Senaki." The couple laughed at my obvious confusion. They drove me into town and wished me on my merry way. it wasn't until later that I realised 

• I had not told anyone where I was going.
• My phone battery was dying
• I didn't have my translation dictionary (my soul way of communicating with people.)

I spent a really long time talking to one of my friends back home about assassination.  It went for about an hour till we had both created a very detailed plan on how to murder someone should the situation arise.

That's when the boredom set in. 

Wine Time

The grapes are being harvested, that can only mean one thing. The wines are coming.


:)

The Rock Star President and Volcanic Hot Springs

President Saakashvili is a rock star. Originally we were told we were going to meet the president. It was not so. The president was giving a speech (on what I am not too sure, I caught the word school. My Kartuli is not very good.) to several towns across the nation. Before he arrived in was a stage show spectacular of Georgian TV stars, Mingrelian singers, even Miss Georgia. The president's helicopter circled the town square a few times before depositing him off sight somewhere. The speech lasted no more than 10 minutes and then the thousands of people climbed back into the buses, the snipers put away their riffles and normalcy resumed in the town. 

The real fun is what we got up to after. (The 'we' I refer to is Engela and I, because we live so near.) We met up with 3 other TLG folks and discussed plans to go swimming in Poti over lunch. We didn't have any swimwear with us so we convinced the group to come to our town and go swimming in the mountain river. 

The taxi ride down was cramped and relatively uneventful - we did get to practice directions in Kartuli though. The cab dropped us at Engela's and from there we were going to walk until we could flag down a car. The first car to pass, A BMW, stopped and drove us. Life is Grand.

The river we stopped at has a bridge that I would say is close to 10m from the water. We ju as I was assured the water was very deep and we would be fine. 

It hurt so much. I feel like I have been hit by a car. It was totally worth it. You fell for so long it stopped feeling real. To soothe our aching bodies we headed to the volcanic hot springs- this time jumping in the back of a logging van. We lay there until we thought our poor host families would be worried. Hitchhiked back into town and called it a night.

What did we learn from today. Hitchhiking is great. 

Three Flat Tyres Later

Training is over and we have been shipped off to our respected parts of the country. Mine being on the exact opposite side to my sister in the village Menji, 3 km from Senaki in the Samegrelo region. The bus ride was hectic and I was lucky enough to have two other TLG-ers on the bus. The ride itself took six hours, we were run off the road once and blew out a tyre about a two thirds into the trip. We made it and I only suffered a small bump to the head.

But there were two more flat tyres to come...

My co-teacher who speaks wonderful English has only recently moved to Senaki so her husband took the both of us plus another TLG friend on a sight seeing expedition around the region. First up the mountain to a church that had a view over the entire city, then to the river that flows from the mountain.

The first flat tyre did not occur when we were travelling at 140kph down a road spotted with cows, but later when we were leaving the castle remains. A man stopped to help but it was soon apparent that it was beyond repair and our make-shift guide hoped into the car with this man to go find another tyre. We enjoyed a chilled lunch whilst we waited.

The third flat tyre occurred no more than an hour later, Natia and I left the car on the side of the road and walked home. I have been assured that people have lived here for years and never seen a flat tyre. But with three in two days I am doubting the validity of that statement.

Life is beautiful in Senaki.