Goodbye Turkey, hello Georgia! Chapter 11 in The story about the traveling band Caspian Caravan and the Journey Over Land to India
It has been a while, but Welcome again to the story about when I travelled overland to India with a band, funding all our expenses with music. A journey that took 1 year and 8 months, through 32 countries!
In the last part I told about the beautiful house we occupied, right next to the biggest waterfall in Turkey! That was our last adventure in Turkey, and in this pert the trip goes to..
Georgia! (the country..!)
June 2011
Sparrow and Jeff with our last Giant Turkish Bread!
We got seriously addicted to tahini in Turkey! Back when we had too much!
After having a great tahini and bread meal, we started hitchhiking towards the Turkey/Georgia border.
Usually the hitchhiking went extremely smooth and easy in Turkey, but for some reason, this one needed extra effort! ;D
We finally got a ride, and started the journey through the beautiful mountainous part of North East Turkey. This is the only place in the country where tea is grown - actually I didn't even know beforehand that tea was cultivated in Turkey - but they do drink a very good amount of it, so in that way it is not surprising!
Tea plantations
I really liked the lush foresty feel of these plantations, and since I love tea, tea bushes are always very dragging to me!
We arrived to the border!
And the first thing Matt did was to throw his clothes and jump in the Black Sea! It was nice at last to be free from the Islam dress code!
After swimming, playing some music on the border and getting to know some people from this new country..
We continued to Batumi
We quickly felt that Georgia is a quite different country from Turkey. Of course the religion is different - Georgia is Orthodox, but it also quickly becomes apparent that Georgia has it's very own culture with deep roots.
They have a very special language with it's own very special and very beautiful alphabet, and even though they were occupied and part of the Soviet Union, there it was always the periphery of the USSR and there has always been strong opposition towards the russians in Georgia, and still is!
Georgian street sign with Georgian writing, isn't it beautiful?
Sparrow playing music in the park
Of course we had to try khachapuri - one of the most famous Georgian dishes, which is basically a cheese filled bread. And we had great local music to the meal! (looks like I didn't take any pictures of the food...)
We found a very nice "bamboo forest" in a park right in the center where we pitched our tent and were quite hidden from view! That's luxury City Camping!
Another meal I did take a picture of though! This was our first free "meal" - cake and chips and a bowl full of... ketchup!
Georgians are extremely hospitable! They usually invite you for chacha - homebrewed moonshine kind of spirit or wine, but sometimes you can get lucky and get invited for bizarre meals ;D
Here's another traditional food, a kind of sweet bread, sold in these cute road stands
We hitchhiked on from Batumi all the way to Tbilisi, where we had contact to a guy who owned a hostel that he let us couchsurf in! Yes Georgians are so hospitable that they will gladly let you stay in their hostel for free!
Also in the hostel, not surprisingly, Georgian drinking culture was dominant. Here chacha on fire. Strong stuff!
Actually we were so unused to drinking alcohol after spending 3 months in Turkey and Iraq, and generally not being big drinkers that we were very overwhelmed by the Georgian drinking culture! It all went a bit crazy in Tbilisi!
Cheese man on the streets of Tbilisi
The streetview from Tbilisi Hostel
Tbilisi is an interesting mix of old and new. It is a very ancient city with many old buildings. Then it has the poorer areas with badly kept houses and then there is this fancy bridge in the middle of it all
at night it had a quite enchanting light show..!
There was also a new park with water fountains great for water fights!
We quickly got contact to a local bar called Bude Bar, where we played a few concerts
A quite bad recording... if you dare..!
Afterwards we went to get some food at the restaurant next door. They didn't like our style and threw us out for being dirty hippies...
So we played a concert outside..
And that was it for this time!
Still a long way to go in the story to India, but we will get there step by step :)
Thank you for following this adventure!
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wow so many amazing experiences, it is great that you have so many photos, which trigger so many memories, looking forward to the next chapter xxx
Amazing what an adventure.
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Thats a great journey there, have you written about Iraq already? Be interested to read that.
Btw, I'm part of the @SteemitWorldmap curation team and it would be great to see your post on the map. You can find out more about it on http://steemitworldmap.com. Just click on the 'code' at the bottom of the map and follow the instructions or check out the FAQ to get your post on the map. Hope to see you soon and that you will follow us @steemitworldmap for our daily #TravelDigest!!!
Yes, I wrote a few chapters from Iraq, here's one of them: link - that definitely was an interesting chapter!
And thank you! Yes, I put one or two of my posts on the world map, but I always forget about it! I will add it, it is such a genius idea!!
That was a wicked trip in Iraq!
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Haha the amazing journey of your band never ceases to amaze! Glad you made it out of Georgia alive and soberish and nice to see a blog again from you!
Cool stuff. I enjoy your blogs, I feel like following you around. Yes, Georgia has a strong culture, I have some Georgian friends. Tough, stubborn and vodka drinkers. 🤪
You had me at cheese filled breads. Two of my favorite things, musicianship and travel. Looks like you had a fantastic time.
Brilliant post! Georgia seems like an absolute must see! I look forward to seeing more @frejafri... What an epic journey this must've been, you have a wealth of material to draw from..
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Thank you! Yes, I have more material than I can keep up with it seems XD But that's a luxury problem! <3
Georgia is definitely one of the more interesting secret spots on the planet!