Road to Tokyo

8 days and 984km (Total: 62 days and 12,874km)

Churches instead of mosques, sitting on the toilet instead of squatting over it, and beer instead of shisha... It felt like we were back in Western Europe.

We spent most of our time in Georgia travelling the West of the country — back in luscious green landscapes, through the summer-version of ski towns, and over the highest inhabited village “in Europe” (I’m not really sure what continent this is…). We were aiming for the famous Zagari Pass but, along the way there, we were hearing mixed reports of too much snow, recent landslides, and/or uncrossable rivers. Fortunately the night before we got to the apex we met some German bikers travelling in the opposite direction who told us the pass is all clear. So we passed over it the next day and, despite having to ride through mud trails on the edge of a vertical drop, it was well worth it.

We didn’t camp once in Georgia because the guest houses were relatively cheap — often €20 for a private room with a balcony and view to remember. It’s also staggering the difference in cleanliness standards between Turkey and Georgia. A Booking.com “Cleanliness rating” of 10/10 in Turkey is equivalent to a 5/10 in Georgia, equivalent to a 1/10 in the UK. In some guest houses we were the only guests and we enjoyed the peace and privacy; others were full and we met new people from so many different walks of life.

The latter type epitomised on our fifth night as we pulled into a guest house in a small town called Tskaltubo. The man who greeted us spoke enough English to tell us there was one room left with a balcony and reeled off a ton of other benefits. When we tried to negotiate the price we discovered he wasn't the host, just another guest! My initial suspicion of a pyramid scheme quickly evaporated when the genuine host (I hope) came over and we learnt he didn’t speak any English and this guest had been staying here for quite some time, so was helping a friend.

The host gave us a tour of his house and our room on the top floor. I put it down as a 9/10 on the Turkish cleanliness rating which I was accustomed to (4.5/10 in Georgia, 0.5/10 in the UK) but we liked the vibe and it was a good price, so we took off our helmets and unloaded our gear. The host gave us a glass of his homemade wine, which tasted bloody fantastic, although I’m starting to realise almost anything does after you’ve been riding a motorcycle in scorching heat for two hours non-stop. We asked if the bike is safe outside on the street and the host said it’s so safe that we could leave the keys in it and it won't be stolen. (We still locked it.)

He gave us a lift into town in his beat-up car (which no one would bother stealing, probably hence his advice) after telling us he knows where we can get cheap beer. When we arrived at a local pub we thought he'd misunderstood — we only wanted bottles we could take back. But he waved away our concern, asked how many beers we wanted, before translating to the guy behind the bar who whipped out a two litre plastic bottle and filled it straight from the beer tap. We had to quickly tell them we only needed one beer, not two. They charged us €2 — equivalent to about 40p per pint — and we were back in the car and on-route to our home for the night.

It was a warm and wonderful evening. Whilst we drank our beer, the other guests chatted away around us like a big happy family. We started to connect some dots: The owner was man from Abkhazia and had been expelled from his home during the “ethnic cleansing” of Georgians in 90s; the mother and son were Russian Jews who had recently decided to leave their home in Israel; and the guy who we first thought was our host was Ukrainian. All of them spoke their common language of Russian and enjoyed wine and smiles all evening. The host’s son made the picture even more real-life playing games on his phone in the corner.

We finished our time in Georgia with three nights in the capital, Tbilisi. Our motorcycle needed a good service, and so did we. So as the bike got fixed-up we spent two days walking around the city, reading in the parks and enjoying the huge variety of pastries you can find on almost any street corner, with the language barrier making it a fun exercise as to what would be inside each time (we chanced upon kidney beans, cheese, beef, potato, and nothing). To burn off the added energy I even had the chance to run again with the stray dogs more manageable having tags on their ears to indicate their safety: green meaning friendly; yellow meaning safe; and red meaning dangerous.

Georgia is a wonderfully beautiful and wonderfully undiscovered country. As it invests more in tourism I expect it’ll change a lot between now and the next time I’m back, even if that’s only in a week’s time…

Next stop: Armenia.