As Max previously mentioned, I’d been ill, the full Voldemort with all the trimmings. It had not been a great week, birthday fun marred by flu, mentally retreating to Southsea Seafront as I drifted in and out of sleep. But I was now fit enough to cycle again – kind of.

7.7.24

Having finished our cereal, we were delighted to see our host drop two sets of pancakes with cream and apricot jam on our table. She’d been so kind to us and ran a very impressive household. She had a toddler on the loose (and maybe another on the way), 5 kittens, 2 mumma cats, and an array of guests coming and going to care for. This was all effortless and provided a distinct feeling of home away from home. If you ever get the lurgy in Kutaisi I’d highly recommend Banuri Guesthouse.

With the pancakes annihilated, we gave the bikes ye old pump and lube before finally making our way out of Kutaisi. I’d not seen much of the city, so passing landmarks was refreshing and reminded me to take in the inbetween.

As the city slipped away, we joined a peaceful road that could’ve been taking us through the New Forest. It was shady and cool, lined by ancient woodland that kept the sun a-bay. We passed cows, farmers, and sleepy townships before reaching Zestafoni.

Not much to say about Zestafoni, the hotel we stayed in was named Hotel in Georgia, which was probably as nondescript as the town itself. But you cannot knock a town that has somewhere to eat on a Sunday evening, even if it’s beige and sad.

8.7.24

I was at about 80% lung capacity when I woke up. Still tight chested and scared for a semi proper day of cycling.

We started by going up hill to get some fruit and yoghurt and I had my doubts. I was struggling big time to fully inhale, and when I did it was fume mccgee. But after a slow start with a long ascent, we finally reached a plateau which provided fairly comfortable cycling with just the occasional marshtrutka powering by us.

We stopped for a little hike to a UNESCO monastery built on a standalone rock stack. It was impressive, and hard to imagine how they ever built a monastery atop of such a sheer rock face.

The final 10km whizzed by and we reached the town of Chiatura in good time. Chiatura is a town known for gondola public transport, a huge digital clock on the mountainside, and being a project of Joseph Stalin. We ate at cafe Paris which was pretty ghastly, before heading by gondola to our airbnb for the night.

Our airbnb was in one of the many Soviet housing blocks, but perhaps the most distinct one in town. It sat atop a hill with various colours splattered all over it. At the base of the tower block families sat and chatted over the sound of the German shepherd puppy someone had locked in a basketball court.

The apartment was nice enough, the kitchen sink did give an electric shock when the water was on, and someone was using disc cutter outside of our door (literally on the landing), but as the sun fell behind the hills, stillness enveloped the strange town of Chiatura and we dozed off easily.

9.7.24

After consulting Lord GIS Max Bancroft, I said ‘nah’ to the 1000m+ elevation and had my sights firmly on catching the train.

We waited with the locals at what appeared to be a train station from the Last of Us. One local got talking to us, must’ve been mid 60s, mentioning his service in Kamchatka in the USSR army, Winston Churchill (he gestured thumbs up), Margaret Thatcher (also thumbs up, but thumbs down from us), and then said I looked like Kevin Keegan – I’ve had worse.

On the train, we purchased our ticket from a distant relative of Walle and enjoyed a 2 hour ride for 28p. Glug glug. Very happy Max.

Pulling into Zestafoni we disembarked with little grace, the platform wasn’t raised so we tumbled off the train with our bikes. Still, train one was successful, now for train 2 from Zestafoni to Gori.

Max dashed to the ticket office and just about understood that our train was at 1.30pm (contrary to the departure board). We hiked our bikes aboard, being ordered to pay for their transportation and then asked to remove the wheel then not remove the wheel, then put them upright wedged between two walls in front of an exit. It was an authoritarian Simon’s says, but I always enjoy the chaos and frustration that radiates in these moments.

Sweating buckets we found our compartment and sat very still. In a matter of minutes I had keeled over and slept for most of the journey.

Arriving in Gori, the hometown of a one Joseph Jughashvili (Stalin), we again fell onto the platform. Luckily the bikes were okay and we managed to find our rather grimbo baggins booking.com – mosquito breeding ground, sewer stench, and zero aircon.

We dashed out for a quick dinner and climbed up the fort in the city centre. It is an epic fortress providing panoramic views of a landscape not too dissimilar to Red Dead Redemption.

10.7.24

6am. Waterfall? Flash floods? Max sleep showering? Nah, the bog had exploded during the night. Water was firing out endlessly in the wet room, luckily not faecial matter. I couldn’t deal with it at 6am, so went back to sleep and alerted mr booking.com when I awoke, he sorted the issue very quickly thankfully.

After the flood had subsided, we showered and headed for the Stalin Museum. It is as tasteless as it sounds, of course it’s interesting, but very little explains Stalins true nature and the horrible things he did. It was more he was from Gori and went on to be a name known world over – yay!

One particularly enjoyable part was seeing the interior of Stalins armoured train carriage that he went to the Yalta conference on, if this was imperial war museum it’d be mega bucks, but I took full advantage, touching every door handle and windowsill in sight.

Experiencing early signs of museum legs, we grabbed some very average noodles, sat in a beautifully designed park and returned to our room to get out of the sun.

The day concluded with us watching the England game on our phones until 1am. Bad idea considering the 90km of cycling we had ahead of us the next day.

11.7.24

Despite England riling us up in the early hours of the morning, we were cycling by 10am with a gentle headwind keeping us cool.

An hour in, we pulled off to explore Uplistikhe, one of the oldest settlements in Georgia. It was an amazing place, pure Dune vibes (I’ve done well to not pull the Dune card earlier). Smooth eroded rock with soft edges, deep caves where people once lived, and even larger caves for the royals to rule over the people. Best bit was you could free roam, jump from rock to rock chasing skittish lizards before darting into a cave to cool down. It was great.

Feeling pleased with tourism, we gobbled some scran before giddying up. Cycling was pleasant, the fields mixed with dry wildflowers, shades of purple and green blurred in my periphery. Max was content listening to the cricket and I was content listening to Angel FM (one of Portsmouths oldest pirate radio stations that plays music circa 1940-1980). Cars still gave us a spook, but the cycle had long downhills and moderate uphills that kept me stimulated. Soon enough we were on the outskirts of Tbilisi enjoying a sparkling water in a gas station.

The city isn’t exactly cycle friendly, cars pull out without looking and hills suddenly appear with every turned corner. Finding our hotel and laying our bikes to rest was a great relief, they’d now have some downtime before being boxed up and transported to Kazakhstan.

Exhausted, we ate at a Thai restaurant nearby then finished the night with two glasses of wine under Tbilisi TV Tower.

12.7.24 – 16.7.24

Our time in Tbilisi flew by:

– We did a great walking tour with a very transparent tour guide called Nika, who works for Tbilisi Free Walking Tours

– We ate the best pizza we’d ever had from Ratto Bistró. It was vegetarian and it took me to places no pizza had taken me before. It was pear, Gorgonzola, truffle oil and honey. It was perfect. Not too sweet, not too savoury, every bite was met with eye closing bliss

– My sister kindly paid for Max and I to have a Sulfur bath and massage. This was so needed and knocked us both out for a couple of hours. Relaxation station

– We visited Art Cinema, a lovely local cinema that was essentially in a living room, but the screen and sound quality was epic and tickets were £4 each. We watched Her, which Marina Hyde might not like, but I still love despite tech bros. Highly recommend as they show nonstop bangers

– We found and paid £10 each for half ripped bike boxes. Painful but saved the faff. Boxing the bikes was hilarious, what should be flat pack boxes are both bulging tape covered monstrosities, the type of cargo to go mysteriously missing

– We watched England lose in an expat bar. There of course was a larger than life American being so so obnoxious, luckily two girls told him to shut the fuck up in the sixtieth minute. This gave us something to cheer about. The bar itself served good Guinness but Reform UK vibes, less said about their toilets the better

– The local MoMA was great. The artist Zurab Tsereteli is controversial, being Putins and Trumps favourite artist n all, but he makes some really outstanding artwork that you’ll either love or hate, for us it was the former

That just about concludes our time in Georgia and ‘Europe’. Georgia has been a slight blur, maybe that’s down to me being ill for the most part or because of near death experiences on the marshtrutkas. But overall we’ve met some lovely people, experienced some very soft/kind hospitality, and vibed with the varied Georgian landscapes.

It must be the coolest country in the world in terms of youth culture and I’ll bring my other half here in the future for sure. For now though, we fly to Aktau and begin the Asian leg of the Slow Way Round…