Driving In Georgia (Country)
I
passed through Georgia during my Silk-Route adventure and It was really special
to enter this country because I had visited this country in 2015. I had tried to
arrange a motorcycle on rent but couldn't succeed and returned back.
This
time I came to Georgia from Turkey through Batumi border
with Oman residency card which required no Visa at that time (2017).
I
entered Georgia from Turkey and it was a funny / irritating / annoying Entry.
Before Immigration, the Customs searched my bike for drugs etc. But they were not so
skilled to deal with two wheeler opening parts. First I cautiously let them
play with my bike and when they tried hard to open the seat of bike but
couldn't then I agreed to help them on one condition that if I open the seat
cover and show them what is beneath there, they will clear me from this
inspection (of course they found nothing there). Because they had been struggling
from last 20 minutes and had tired, they agreed. Deal done and I was freed from
customs inspection but that was the only fun part. Later at Immigration, when I
claimed the free visa entry through my Oman resident card, it took me 3-4 hours
to get entry (I guess changing Visa rules by countries do not perforate to the
Land-borders and are limited to the airports entry only. The difference between
a capital and a rural area).
I
stayed for 2 days in Batumi and roamed around. It seemed to be a Touristic City
because I saw many touristic attractions here like Arabic belly dance on a
boat and flying boats on the black sea etc. I regret that I didn't try the
flying boats that fly over the Black sea.
When
I was talking to the hostel lady, I came to know that she is an MBBS doctor by
degree but right now working as a caretaker of this hostel because there are
not much jobs for doctors in the country. I was surprised at the condition of
doctor in Georgia. May be too many medical colleges here.
Anyway
I decided to go the last point of Georgia in North and I came to know that you
cannot go there because that area is occupied by Russia and is called Abkhazia.
I
read in Google about that, I read about the passportization which is basically
occupying the region and giving them the Russian passport.
I
stayed in the border town which was holding Georgia electronic music festival
(GEM Festival). Many people had come from across the country. I met couple of
people there. One such group was in my hostel. They invited me for weed. One man
was ex-army man and when I asked him did he kill anybody in his career. He was
thinking that I am judging him because I guess it's human life and more value
in the countries who still has less population density compare to India,
Pakistan and Bangladesh. Firstly his friend spoke in his defense that 'you know
when you are a solider, you have to kill people sometime blah blah blah.... but
when I said I am not judging him, but am just asking him and how does it feels,
Ex-service man said that one time he fired across the border post to one solider
and he could see that person fell down on the ground but he didn’t know whether
he died or not. I felt that he was not so happy to tell the incident than I was
thinking of the people who took pride in killing of people in the name of
religion or country.
Anyway, apart from this serious talk, I stayed in that hostel for two days and when I used
the kitchen for preparing my food because I am vegetarian, this homestay family
and this village women (who used to come to that house to meet the owner
lady) watched me closely with such a curiosity that I felt like I am a
magician and doing something strange like magic. I enjoyed the attention and
sometimes tried to explain them the recipe. I stayed in that village
comfortably, roamed on nearby river and then decided to go directly to Tbilisi.
Georgia
is a small country so I reached Tbilisi in one day from the border. It was a
bit nostalgic for me because I came to this city after 2 years again.
One
interesting thing I noticed when I was driving towards Tbilisi is that people
put the picture of their loved ones on their grave. A picture below:
I
stayed in a hostel in Tbilisi and meet many wonderful people there including
Hostel owner lady and her husband. One Ali from Egypt who lived in Turkey
and came to Georgia for buying car. He told me that the cars are very cheap
here and also in this country both left hand side and right hand side drive type of vehicle are allowed. You can also drive your car as a taxi. You just need to
buy a sign board of the taxi and put it on your car.
I
also feel that Georgia is very cool country just like Thailand with bit of better
weather and beautiful people and not much so restrict and quite tourist
friendly.
I
met with one couple from Kazakhstan, one girl from Poland living in France and
few more people and the hostel lady was really like the Jewelry and Dresses of
Indian culture because I saw her watching getting astonished by Aishwarya
Rai's dresses and jewelry on YouTube. She also seemed feminist. She was so
impressed with the girl from Poland because the girl was judo champion and she
proudly introduced her to people. Her husband was too much annoyed with her and
he used to talk with me a lot although he didn’t speak much English. I found
many common things in marriage relationship across the planet and also same
issue with neighboring country. I found that most of the leaders and rulers
always fill hate in the mind of the country about the neighborhood countries to
secure their position i.e. if there is no threat there will be no need of unity
or a leader.
I
stayed in Tbilisi for 5 days and it's a really cool life here. You can say life of
European city at the price of Asia. I started towards Azerbaijan because
I had applied for e-Visa and I got it. Just before the border I meet
Daniel, An Irish biker who was driving from England to New Zealand and I will
tell you about interesting story and my drive with Daniel till Baku in the next
blog.
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