Tag Tbilisi

Our introduction to Georgia was astonishing. While the country itself is beautiful but developing, the people could not be any finer. When we arrived in Tbilisi on the night train from Baku, it was 10:00am and people were bustling about outside the train station selling socks, ping pong paddles and other strange items. We quickly converted some USD to lari, and headed off in the direction of a hostel recommended in a guide book.We arrived at said hostel, which was supposed to be a home-stay of sorts, to be met with a friendly but incredibly drunk woman in her 60s who was scantily clad and perhaps raving mad. We went down the street and found another hostel called the Green Stairs. While the rooms were shabby at best (it could reach a staggering 130 degrees at midday due to the greenhouse-like roof) the owner was so friendly that we ended up staying in Tbilisi longer than planned just to be around him.

Tbilisi itself is an incredible city, but one in disarray. Every beautiful building has seen better days, and cracked paint and splitting wood is the norm. The back alleys are safe, and we gave ourselves a tour of the city while searching for a café with wi-fi (such is the life of a modern traveler).

Having found an area with wi-fi we discovered we were in the tourist hub of the city, with fanny-packs and tinted visors galore. We toured around from church to church, admiring the craftsmanship and the devout followers. The interior of each is unique but similar, with pictures of decapitated saints and skull and bones under the cross (none of which made sense to us). We sat around the city like two people who had just run a marathon, and lazed about for several days in Tbilisi, taking it all in. We planned out route through the Republic of Georgia, and generally moved at a pace not unlike a snails.

Pretty Kitty

We only had a five day transit visa for Azerbaijan. It is a relatively small country and while we would have liked to stay longer than five days, the visa was 130$ for 30 days or $20 for five days, so we took the later and decided to see as much as we could in the time we could afford to buy.

We spent the morning walking around the city as we weaved our way to the train station to reserve tickets for the evening’s 10pm train to Tbilisi. When we arrived at the station we wondered from window to window asking about a train to Georgia’s capital. Every window-attendant just shrugged, mumbled in Russian, and pointed to another window. We literally made our way, one on each side, down the entire 24 window ticket buying area asking each person, all of whom was rude, and down-right mean. Finally, I started asking other travelers. Most were friendly enough, but said that they did not know how to buy a ticket either. Everyone looked frustrated, annoyed and disgusted with the ticket salespeople. Finally, as I was about to cry, two Azeri boys said they would help us. They stood there patiently with Mike and made sure he got a good ticket for a fair price and then even helped translate from Russian to English for us. Without those friendly boys we might still be wandering around the ticketing office from window to window like lost children.

We headed to the train station at 9:30 a bit depressed that we already had to leave. Our time with the American family in Baku was great, and as we waited for the train to leave we found we already missed the fun loving antics of their young child, who had kept us company over the past few days.

The train was supposed to take 15 hours, but as with everything in the Caucus we’d experience thus far, the time was much more. But, this turned out (as it usually does) to be a good thing. We met Famil on the train, the young man who had helped us purchase our tickets earlier that day. His bunk was only a few doors down from our sleeper train compartment, so he spent the evening drinking beers on the train with us and chatting. His English was phenomenal, and he told us how he spent time in Barcelona and Turkey, as well as in Georgia and his home country of Azerbaijan. He speaks several languages fluently and is learning Spanish. An older gentlemen calling himself Frank (for our benefit) was also in our compartment. He tried to communicate with us in Russian and charades, the latter of which was more effective. A friendly and talkative cabin-mate, this gentlemen was fun to travel with and kept us all entertained with his storied (some of which Famil translated for us).