Chronicles from the Caucasus
 

Tomorrow I head out on my next trip: Georgia, Armenia, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. I’m stopping briefly in New York and Istanbul, before the trip really starts at Batumi on Georgia’s Black Sea coast on Tuesday.

In the past, I’ve sent trip reports to an email list run from my website, and recently I’ve posted here as well. But now I’ve moved (belatedly) into the new millennium and set up a blog and a Twitter account. There’s some pre-trip stuff on the blog, and I’ll try to keep it up-to-date, but since I’m traveling with a very small “internet tablet” tweeting (I think the verb should be twittering, but too late now) will be easier.

There’s so little interest in the Caucasus on Fodors that I’m not planning to also post here for Georgia and Armenia, so for the few who may be interested, here are the addresses:

mytimetotravel.wordpress.com
mytimetotravel at Twitter

Have a safe trip!

I LOVE your website... sigh if only i could figure how to do that sort of thing.....
Safe journey

I look forward to following along on the blog. I'll also follow you on twitter (I'm @wired2theworld if you want to follow me back).

If you don't mind, check back in here on the post every once in a while and let us know when you've updated the blog.

Bon Voyage, thursdays! Have a wonderful trip.

Thanks everyone!

<b>Smeagol</b> - for my original website (wilhelmswords.com) I hand-coded the HTML (I was still a techie back then) and it was a bit of a pain. That's why I haven't updated it lately! But wordpress.com makes it really, really easy to start a blog. If you go with their default format all you have to do is type. I did pick a different format, and put up my own header picture (the Himalayas seen from Darjeeling), but even that was pretty straightforward.

<b>Kristina</b> - have done. Love your background!

very nice, i will follow along.. bon voyage

Thanks.That background is a photo I took in Rome's Campo di Fiori. I knew your background looked familiar; I've seen those mountains from the other side (Nepal).

"I've seen those mountains from the other side (Nepal)" - wish I had! Maybe next year.

I'm packed and ready to go, trying to figure out why the luggage seems to have gotten heavier since last time.

I'm finally going somewhere off the map - Google maps shows NO roads for Georgia, just a few of the cities, not including a couple I'm planning to visit! But it has roads for Armenia and Azerbaijan, right next door - weird.

Hi Thursday--- FodorsTravel is now following you on Twitter (hey guys, you can follow us too at www.twitter.com/fodorstravel/). Looking forward to your updates!

Hope you consider adding some of your thoughts/observations here... definitely would be great to have current feedback from that corner(s) of the world available to other members.

Best of luck to you!

Loving your blog so far, I do wish you would post here.

Excellent blog.
I will follow along....have a great trip...it should be enjoyable. You have picked an interesting set of countries to visit. Looking forward to your updates.

New York was having great weather until today (Friday...rain), but NY is wonderful anyways.

Bon voyage.

Sounds like an AWESOME trip! Will def follow, safe travels.

Happy Travels, Thursday!

Hi Katie - that's so cool

Will try to do updates when I find an internet cafe. I'm traveling with a Nokia n800 - great for twitter but not for lots of typing! (I'm doing this at the Apple store on 14th - hate the keyboard!)

Really interesting list of places! I'm following along too.

Hello everyone, thanks for the good wishes!

The good news: I've made it to Batumi, along with my luggage, and am typing this from my B&B. More good news: I'm enjoying myself, but then I have a taste for off-beat destinations (not at dogster's level, but there).

Based on one rainy September Tuesday (hardly fair, I know), I wouldn't say this was currently a main-stream destination - even though Sheraton is building a wedding cake-style luxury hotel near the "beach". (Beach only in the English sense - it's all stones.) With the golden pyramid on top it looks like Sheraton is trying to outdo the quite new statue of Medea and the Golden Fleece perched on top of the very tall pedestal in the main square.

I'm not sure whether the desolate feeling of the waterfront boulevard is the result of the rainy off-season day (although Yalta was pretty lively in the off-season), or the after-effect of last-year's unpleasantness (no more Russian visitors, perhaps), or just a down day after the "South Caucasus III Youth Festival" that ended (thank heavens) on the 15th. But some places look like they've been closed for a while.

Nor am I sure whether the disastrous state of the roads in the "old town" section is the result of laying new pipes (which is certainly underway in a couple of places), or is normal. I never thought I'd write this, but these streets are actually worse than those in Moldova.

I'm hoping it will be dry tomorrow - there's a Roman castle to the south, and a Botanical Garden to the north, that I want to explore. But the English language brochure I was surprised to get from the TI says that this is one of the wettest places in the northern hemisphere. Hence the temperate rain forest.

Just caught up with you. Hope it's all going well at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. Any updates?

Check here for updates:
http://twitter.com/mytimetotravel

Thanks Marija. Still in Georgia. Plans disrupted by burst blood vessel in left eye (retinal not subconjunctival) and ophthalmologist didn't want me to go up to Kazbegi. Things seems to have settled down, retina is fine, but she thinks I need thinner blood. Now I have some kind of congestion.

Went to Telavi in the wine district (Kakheti), and leave for Borjomi (mineral springs and southern mountains) tomorrow, Armenia on Tuesday. Am keeping Twitter fairly up to date but am way behind on the blog, sorry.

Will post reactions to Georgia when I get back to Tbilisi. Quick summary - great scenery, great people, good food, wine needs work, infrastructure needs lots of work. Bring sturdy shoes and a torch! Serious budget destination - outside Tbilisi and perhaps Batumi, things can be unbelievably cheap.

Thursdays, sorry to hear about the burst blood vessel. Take care of yourself.

I'm looking forward to more on your trip.

Very exciting reading about not so common destinations. Am truly sorry about your burst blood vessel. Take care.

Yes, I'm with you too, thursday. This is totally unknown territory to me.

Thanks people! Nice to know someone's reading! Congestion has turned into a cold - I don't think cold and wet agree with me. Unfortunately it's raining again here in Borjomi - I'm hoping for dry tomorrow when I go to the cave city of Vardzia. Would be lovely mountain place otherwise. Hotel found me a portable heater, so I should be warm tonight.

Being cold and sick in faraway places is miserable. Hope it all improves. I have to get a map to find out where you are!

Put me down for another that is following you along. I am fascinated by your report.

I hope your health improves very quickly so you can get back to enjoying your trip.

Wow, what a day! I had a car and driver for the two hour drive to the "cave city" at Vardzia. (That is, elderly driver in an elderly car.) This is serious mountain territory, rugged and remote, but gorgeous, even in the rain. Yes, it was raining. Some patches of good road, more not.

15 min into the trip, driving past a particularly rugged slope, a boulder breaks loose - misses us by millimeters! 90 min into the trip, oncoming traffic has white patches, driver says something that sounds like "snake". Round the next bend or so - snow!!! It's September still... It wasn't sticking to the road, so I didn't call the trip off - the higher slopes that weren't covered in cloud were well dusted, and those lovely northern pines with the sweeping branches were nicely coated. Just before Vardzia it went back to light rain. After I manage not to fall down navigating the site, and we stop for bite to eat, we have a flat tire. Then an emergency stop when an old guy standing in the middle of the road doesn't react to the horn (this is definitely a horn country).

I'm treating myself to a slightly splurge hotel in Tbilisi tomorrow (Villa Mtiebe) - I may only go out to eat! (http://www.hotelmtiebi.ge/welcome.htm)

Snow on top of everything else! I have looked you up on google maps and they don't even show roads in Georgia. The link to the hotel didn't work but I hope it lived up to expectations. You sounds like you need a bit of splurge.

Hi gertie - I know, can't think why google maps doesn't show roads in Georgia but does for Armenia, next door! I'll be in that hotel tomorrow - take the ending parenthesis off the link and it should work.

I just posted this to my blog, but for those not following the blog, who haven't thought much about Georgia, I'll copy it here:

"...why the Caucasus? For me, two reasons: mountains and the Silk Road. I first seriously considered visiting when I planned my 2004 round-the-world trip, but it didn't fit with the railway theme. But I didn't forget those mountains.

This time, wanting to visit the western end of the Silk Road, I did some more research. Turns out, this area was inhabited long, long before the Silk Road. It's part of the "Cradle of Civilization", in on the development of pottery, agriculture and metallurgy (and, no doubt, warfare). Unfortunately, it went from cradle to crossroads, all the neighboring empires (and there have been plenty) have come, seen, and conquered. Much of the time, eastern and western Georgia were ruled by different empires, although I haven't noticed any special differences, I haven't been here very long. Georgia's golden age seems to have been during the rule of King David the Builder (1085-1125) and Queen Tamar (1184-1213

The docent in the Fine Arts Museum in Tbilisi assured her sceptical audience that at one time Georgia ruled territory that included Egypt. She got a more sympathetic hearing when she pointed out the the historic northern border ran along the heights of the Caucasus - putting South Ossetia firmly in Georgia's sphere of influence. (Abkhazia wasn't mentioned.)

Armenia was the first nation converted to Christianity, and despite waves of Muslim invaders, and incorporation into the Ottoman Empire, both Georgia and Armenia retain their distinctive brands of Orthodox Catholicism (they were otherwise occupied during some of the critical synods). The atheistic Soviets seem to have done the most damage to the religious infrastructure, and many of Georgia's churches are in sad shape - but there is plenty of renovation underway.

Although I take issue with some of Lonely Planet's more lyrical flights of descriptive fantasy, and I hate being rained on, I have found the trip interesting so far. And the mountains, what I have seen of them, are indeed worth visiting."

Last year I saw an exhibition of the Golden Graves of Vani.

Vani was a religious and administrative center in the ancient kingdom of Colchis, in the present-day Republic of Georgia. It has been regularly excavated since the 1940s, and its graves have turned up ancient jewelry, sculpture, and a variety of vessels associated with the making and ritual consumption of wine. (Colchis, which is known from Greek mythology as the land where Jason went in search of the Golden Fleece, was in fact, as the myth suggests, very rich in gold.)
It was quite staggering in riches and history.

Batumi has a very tall pedestal with a statue of Medea and the golden fleece - the fleece is golden. Unfortunately, the museums were more than a bit disappointing. One of them had lots of stuffed animals in cases - last time I saw anything like that was in Ulaan Baator, but at least they were arranged in dioramas.

Finally found your hotel. Looks perfect for a splurge. And sunshine too. Once your cold disappears you will be all set. Good luck with Armenia.

Arrived in Vanadzor, Armenia, yesterday. Got my visa at the border quickly, no problems. However, a Taiwanese guy on the same marshrutka took FOREVER. A nun on the same marshrutka didn't make it at all. The Taiwanese said she had too many Russian stamps in her passport. Apparently the Armenians are working on better relations with the west rather than Russia. There are talks right now on opening the border with Turkey (although Azerbaijan wants their issues with Armenia resolved first).

First impression - signage, buildings, people - is that Armenia feels much more Russian than Georgia did. Georgia, despite the lack of development (you know a country needs work when you see a sign about "Polish aid"), felt European. Armenia feels Russian, although the people on the streets aren't as dour.

Today I took a taxi back up the road towards the Georgian border (couldn't see much from the marshrutka) to visit Debed Canyon and some old churches. Great scenery! But taxis here use their meters, even for a trip like that! In Georgia you negotiated up-front, or just paid the going rate in town if you knew it (2 GEL in Telavi, 3 or 4 in Tbilisi, or 5 or 6 TO (FROM more difficult) the bus stations.

I just put the second Batumi piece up on the blog, but I'm having difficulty posting pix.

Am now in Aleppo. Internet access has been really problematic this whole trip and is super-slow here. My journal is up-to-date, I'm up-to-date on twitter, but the blog is way behind. First impression of Armenia pretty much confirmed - good tree-covered mountains in the north, much drier in the south, people more relaxed and friendlier in Georgia. Good kachkars in Armenia - stone crosses - elaborate carvings on big stone slabs.

I need to go back to Georgia for the high Caucasus I missed out on this trip - especially now I know it's easier to get there than LP suggests - lots of Israeli tourists going up - but probably not to Armenia.

Will post on the rest of the trip on the Africa board, but surprised to find lots of tourists in Syria - not Americans, I think, but lots of Europeans. Aleppo is packed tight, and I counted 8 big tour buses outside St. Simeon's (very impresive) church today.s

Thanks for keeping us up to date on your progress.

I'm here too.

Thanks for keeping us updated.

I am eagerly looking forward to your report.

Nice to hear from you. Saw Apamea and Krak des Chevaliers today - both great sites. Really felt the reach and power of the Roman Empire at Apamea. This is the wrong board - but consider Syria - for the sights, not so much the cities - dun-colored and poor inner cities, posh expensive houses on the outskirts, so far.

Welcome back! I'm looking forward to reading about your adventures.

Thanks Marija! I hope to finish up Georgia on the blog this week - will post here when done.