Tbilisi, Georgia

If hospitality was a nation, it would be Georgia. I had always told to Kim the quality and the attention a visitor receives from his Georgian host. And we met again with Devid and Elizabeth Abuladze six years after. I am now received unofficially as a friend, not as the UIA President. We thought they would only take us out for dinner, which they did at the best restaurant in town Kopala. But they have in mind to organize every single moment of our stay, from the visa applications to Azerbaijan, to taking Kim to snowboard and even driving us to Yerevan and Baku.

Batumi - Tbilisi by marshrutkas

The marshrutkas taken from Batumi to Kashuri and then to Tbilissi was something! We thought we were travelling economic class till now, but there is another class belowJ , with feet into car tyres for 3 hours and our backpacks resting on our legs. The driver managed to fit 18 persons in a 12 passenger minibus. There is some sort of solidarity between the travelers accepting to squeeze in those who have waited so long along the road. The lunch stop was a great time with mini hamburgers and purée. One Lari toilet break before boarding again. And the final leg to Tbilissi with the same CD full of lively Georgian songs for the 5^th time!

The Tbilissi metro is a typical fast and efficient soviet style metro. I felt like in Tokyo unable to read any station name, counting the numbers to disembark at the right station. 

Batumi: The décor and he backstage

Batumi, on the Black Sea

Batumi, Georgia

Batumi is a town with two decors, the stage and the backstage. The stage is set on the Black Sea front with the new hotels transforming the coast with Radissons and Kempinskis. All set in front of traditional houses sometimes renovated in an exuberant luxuriant pastry style. The season has not yet started in this holiday town of the ex-USSR when loads of Russians used to come to their datchas.

The backstage still reminds us of the earlier soviet days with all the buildings falling apart and the roads looking giving a post-war or a post-earthquake feeling. The backstage is slowly being converted into front stage.

Trabzon-Batumi: Turkey - Georgia border crossing

Car de Trabzon à Hopa, 3 heures de route le long de la côte de la Mer Noire. De Hopa, nous prenons un minibus (taxi partagé) pour Sarpi, petit village coupé en deux par la frontière géorgienne et turque. Nous passons la frontière à pied pour éviter le long contrôle des bus qui traversent. Une première qui nous déconcerte par la facilité. Et de l’autre côté, re-minibus jusqu’à Batumi où nous avons réservé un petit hôtel par skype hier.

Trabzon Market

Trabzon

Longeant la Mer Noire, nous avançons vers l’est et au fur et à mesure nous constatons plusieurs choses. Nous nous éloignons des touristes et rentrons réellement à l’intérieur du pays. Peu de gens parlent autre chose que le turc. Même à Göreme, les seuls qui partaient plus loin étaient les quelques rares vrais voyageurs. En même temps, la population rencontrée est d’une gentillesse extrême. Il nous découvre avec une curiosité toute enfantine. A Göreme, les paysans regardaient passer les cars de touristes comme nous nous regardions les vaches et les moutons. Un contraste des deux mondes. Loin d’Istanbul nous pouvons sentir le contraste des attitudes avec une élite urbaine occidentalisée d’une part et un monde paysan plus conventionnel.  La plupart des femmes ici ont la tête couverte naturellement et sans intention ostentatoire.

Mais partout jusqu’aujourd’hui, l’image de Mustafa Kemal reste absolument présente. Il jouit d’un prestige et d’un respect incontestable et inégalable par aucun politicien depuis 1938. Chaque bureau, chaque école n’ont qu’une photo de lui jusqu’à maintenant. Aujourd’hui est la fête de l’Indépendance, le peuple exprime à la fois son identité nationaliste très fortement et aussi une reconnaissance éternelle à Ataturk.

Cappadocia: Goreme - Fairy Chimneys

Cappadocia: Goreme

Excursion with a full load of Koreans. Obviously we were all considered as Koreans. The fairy chimneys of Cappadocia are totally unreal, like carved by giants. We finally booked the Goreme – Trabzon trip for tomorrow evening which means that tomorrow will be an easy day with late morning sleep. The bed is quite a treat by itself. One has to choose which muscle is to be supported by which mattress spring.  Once this is achieved, a good sleep lies ahead. Tonight we are out for a special dinner with Anatolian delicacies 

Istanbul: Roman underground cistern

The rainy cold weather discouraged us from the Bosphorus boat trip and visited the Basilica cistern instead. Wonderful Vth century underground water storage to feed the whole of Constantinople. Romans were great architects. When I think in Mauritius, we are not able to repair a broken pipe properly.

Istanbul: Blue Mosque - Sultanahmet

Istanbul

Monday 18 April 11
Café Palatium after dinner with all the pseudo-explorers like us sipping çay or Turkish orta coffee or smoking narguile water pipes seated on kilims. Great pasha feeling in western imagination resting away from the Grand Bazaar animation

Departure

Sunday 17 April 11
05H00 on a Sunday morning is tough. 8 kg each for 90 days is harder but is the minimum we have managed to squash in our back packs. This trip is finally starting and yet it seems totally unreal. We have been talking about it for years and today is the first day of this dream of many years. Being driven by Ved, our Mauritian Paris driver in his Mercedes seems contradictory to the spirit of the trip.
Paris – Istanbul on Turkish airlines.