Hotel Lux Batumi

... we got it upright. The bike looked a right mess now with both sides mangled. I left Baz at the roadside with the bike and trailer and went on to try to find Pete who had gone on ahead not knowing of our problems.<br><br>I eventually caught Pete and we both hunted the local towns and villages fruitlessly for replacement tie-down straps before rejoining Baz who had thankfully calmed down but was not happy!<br><br>We ...

... what. Russians are the travelers here, the backpackers as well as sight-seers as well as gamblers. The ATM gives US dollars right from the spout, so I do that right on the spot, 3 x $100 crisp and ironed and... 2003? Those wouldn't work at all in Djibouti. Freakin' human kindness barely works in Djibouti. The bus finally rolls on through, so we make our way on to Batumi on the other side. It's a mini-Las Vegas, slots and such ...

... where else can one send real USSR postcards nowadays;). After writing them, the next step is to send them...also nontrivial. The post is an institution on decline, no people use it and some of them even don't know their own address. The main post office (as in LP) is moved but I haven't managed to find the new location. To end the story, I found a real post couple of days later: on 44 Davit Aghmashenebelis street, south of Marjanischvili. In the evening I meet up with Tamar ...

... for my Ilford girlfriends . Well I said i wasn't feeling well and why and finished off by saying I was just grumpy and probably best laft alone. He obviously didn'y listen very well because he then went on to say "How do we tell the difference between when you are grumpy and just your normal self?" My response- "Carry on with comments like that and it won't take you fu**ing long!!" He didn't speak to me again for a couple of days. i did go and offer my apologies but he ...

... del paper de water (que ja no te rotllo de cartro, sino que comenssa enrotllant se sobre ell mateix...com tantes persones per altra banda). No canvia el blanc del cel que es mante encapotat i ensopit, ni el negre del mar, que s ha fet lleugerament mes simpatic. Hem entrat a les ruines, en us, de l ultim imperi caigut.

... including terracotta plumbing. I walked the walls for a while (not too long) and when I returned, the front gate was locked. The man who sold me a ticket had booze on his breath and I'm guessing that when the wedding party left, he decided to close shop. Since the place was deserted, I had no choice but to find a good rock. Two aimed hits later, the huge lock was apart, and I was on my way ...

... to view the Ishakpasa palace of a 15th century kurdish chieftan. And now we have moved on to Diyarbakir ,A city that is considered the center of kurdish nationalism. The old city is serrounded by a wall dating to pre christ and is the oldest wall know and second only to the great wall of chýna ýn lenght. Add in many old churches ,circa 300 AD ,a few old mosques and a whole bunch of real friendly kurds and you ...

... and breathes like a sleeping rhinoceros. i kept sneaking looks at him, sure that he was fast asleep, only to find him wide awake and returning my glance. DOH!!! luckily, halfway through the night, i woke to find he'd moved to an empty seat. PHEW!!! arriving after 24 hours of eastward travel from istanbul at the georgian border with two georgian women who had befriended me on the bus from rize to hopa, was like being thrown into a vat of boiling fat ...

... I have no idea if the spell worked though, because in the end I realized that Bat'umi just left me feeling utterly bewildered.<br><br>The marshrutka dropped me off on an unknown street. A little knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet and a decent map helped to navigate, but still, the majority of signs were written in the indecipherable Georgian alphabet. But the breeze was balmy and off by the ocean the pleasant silhouettes of cypresses and ...

... the border took about 4 hours. Still we made it across into the wonderful country that is Georgia - we're huge fans and are currently considering applying for citizenship - I mean what's not to like? Drinking wine it seems is a national sport / pass time / religion and is taken extremely seriously. So to Batumi, which until the Russians arrived was a sleepy little fishing village but has expanded rapidly into a ...