“I would rather own a little and
see the world than own the world and see a little of it!”
Travelling to new places is
adventurous and of course, addictive. I have always loved travelling. So, a
sudden plan to go on a trip to Tbilisi, Georgia, is like getting paid for
tasting sugarcane. We readily went ahead to decide for a short trip, only
enough to accommodate 4 days in our routine schedules. Travel is one thing
where you act the moment you think of it. I set out to check on the places to
visit around Tbilisi, the flight schedules, accommodation etc on Google. After
obtaining some knowledge on the place, we were checking on options whether to
plan our travel on our own or look out for packages from a tour agent.
Considering the travel plans at very short notice, hardly 15 days before the
planned date, we contacted a few travel agents. Out of the responses, we were
happy with the itinerary provided by Al Mulla Travels and booked our trip
through them.
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| Tbilisi International Airport (Pic courtesy: Internet) |
Visa to Georgia, for Indian
citizens with GCC residency is totally free. One must just carry his residence
ID to get entry to Georgia. However, travel insurance is compulsory to visit
the place.
We got our booking ready – flight
tickets, hotel voucher, travel insurance and we were all set to go.
The day of our tour arrived – 17th
July 2019. We boarded the Qatar Airways flight which reached Tbilisi via
transit at Doha.
Tbilisi Airport – A very small
airport and the immigration process hardly took any time. We picked up our
baggage and came out to find Mr. Beqa, our driver waiting for us with our name
in a placard. We bought local sim card, as guided by our travel agent and
proceeded towards the hotel. Enroute, we felt the city quite very familiar with
similarities with suburban Chennai. The very first look of the city revealed
that it is quite a poor country unlike many countries in Europe.
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| Holiday Inn |
We reached our hotel Holiday Inn
and checked in. A wonderful cozy place to relax; they also had other facilities
like gym, swimming pool, lounge bar, casino and a restaurant. We didn’t have
any tour plan in the itinerary on that day. So, we decided to chill out for a
while in the swimming pool. After some time, the alarm bell rang from the
stomach. Yes, we realized we hadn’t had lunch. It was 3.30 pm already. So, we
quickly took a shower and went around looking for an Indian restaurant.
We located ‘Indian Express’
restaurant in 1.2 km radius from our hotel.
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| Indian Express Restaurant |
We took a walk on the streets and
found that Pekini Avenue was a hub for shopping. Happily watching the stores
and shops from outside, we headed to Alexander Kazbegi Avenue where the
restaurant was located. The weather was just right for a relaxed walk. Indian
Express restaurant had wonderful North Indian dishes which we relished. A
restaurant run by a Gujarati and his wife being the Chef. We had a good talk
with them while we enjoyed our food. We noticed that all supermarkets &
restaurants had wine and alcohol as well. With all the tiredness in travel we
headed back to the hotel and relaxed with a nap.
Since we had already heard of
night life of Tbilisi, we started our tour in the night. We took a taxi to
Bridge of Peace to start with. The Bridge of peace had a bow shape and
illuminated with numerous LEDs with a wonderful sight.
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| Bridge of Peace |
It is a pedestrian
bridge across the Mtkvari river and connects both the banks of the river. There
was Shangri La Casino across the road. We took a walk on the bridge of peace
and we found several people persuading for a boat ride. We decided to go on a
boat ride. Initially it was only the two of us and the boat driver and he was
playing music on his speaker. We connected to the speaker via Bluetooth and
played Tamil cine songs. After say, around 10 minutes, we had more foreigners
onboard. To our surprise, they enjoyed our songs – mass maranam, guleba, aaluma
doluma, rowdy baby etc – and started dancing. We too joined and had a good
dance on the boat. The boat driver also joined the dance and wah, what a fun
time even with strangers. When the boat ride ended in half an hour, we had happy
memories to take along.
After the boat ride, we walked our
way to Rike park. There is a cable car operating from Rike Park and takes you
to the Narikala Fortress up on the hill, across the Mtkvari river over the
rooftops and buildings of Old town in just less than 2 minutes. The cost of
travel is also very nominal and here they use something called as ‘Metro card’
for journey in cable cars, metro rails and buses. We travelled in the cable car
and it was a splendid view from the top. We reached Narikala Fortress; however
since it was already late in the night, we didn’t attempt to enter the
fortress.
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| View from Hill top |
We just strolled around upto the statute of Mother of Georgia.
Despite being late in the night, there were several tourists like us, who were
taking a walk around and enjoying the beautiful sight of the city in the night
from the top of the hill. Again, we came down in cable car and walked thru the
Meteki bridge and reached Meteki square. This area is the city center of Old
Tbilisi. Several shops, pubs and bars were open and full of activity. There are
few Indian and Pakistani restaurants too at this place. We selected Taj Mahal
Restaurant for our dinner. Quite an okay food. After dinner, we headed back to
our hotel in a taxi to rest.
Next day, 18th July
2019, it dawned with our super excitement to visit Kazbegi. We finished our
continental breakfast at Holiday Inn. Our guide Mr. Santino arrived along with
our driver Mr. Beqa on time to take us on our tour.
After pleasant introductions, we
started our tour, first to Zhinvali water Reservoir. It was such a beautiful
place.
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| Zhinvali Water Reservoir |
The guide explained how the water level got to be very high this year,
as the snow from atop the mountains had melted due to global warming increasing
the water level at the reservoir.
Our next stop was at Aragvi river in the
southern slopes of Caucasus Mountains. Two rivers Tetri Aragvi and Shavi Aragvi
combine here to form Aragvi river. The tetri aragvi is in normal colour whereas
shavi aragvi is black in colour, due to high content of minerals in it. The
mixing up of white and black waters was a wonderful view.
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| Aragvi river - white & black |
Then we headed towards Gudauri. On
the way we saw a hotel by name Club 2100 and the guide explained that it is
located at 2100 meters high from the sea and hence named Club 2100. The
mountain route was delightful with scenic beauty around. It is always exciting
to see the big cities look small from the top of the mountains. It reminds us,
how small we are, considering the size of our earth and of our universe!
At Gudauri, the main attraction
would be the ski resorts and winter games, however that happens only when it is
snowing – November to March. Since we visited only in July, we had to miss
them. We visited the Russian Georgian Friendship Monument at Gudauri. It was
built in 1983 to commemorate the friendship between Russia and Georgia. The
view from there was breathtaking.
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| Gudauri - Breathtaking view from top |
Paragliding activity was available at this
place. However, we did not opt for it there. We spent some good time embracing
the fresh air and beautiful sight for eyes and the headed towards Stepantsminda.
Stepantsminda is a small town in
the center of Kazbegi municipality. Writer Alexander Kazbegi was born in this
town and rose to fame. The guide claimed that Stepantsminda was named as
Kazbegi in memory of this writer. But we also heard a story that this writer’s
grandfather was nick named Kazi-Beg and was very loyal to Russia and hence the
town was named Kazbegi.
The main attraction of
Stepantsminda is the Gregeti Trinity Church.
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| Gregeti Trinity Church |
The Church is located at around
2170 metres high from the sea. We took a different vehicle to reach the Church.
The Church which was built in 14th century was also serving as a
treasure house to safeguard the treasures of Georgia whenever it faced attack
from enemies. From the church, we were able to view the Mount Kazbegi and its
shining snow capped peaks. We wished to go there as well, however, the guide
informed us that it was around 5000 metres high from the sea and the only way
to reach the top is by trekking and it took more than 10 days to reach by
experienced trekkers. Unable to move our sight away from its beauty, we just
heaved a sigh and continued our journey.
It was time for us to take the
return route. We travelled towards Ananuri and on the way we stopped at a place
where water with more iron content was available and the rocks on which the
water was flowing had a totally different colour and texture. The guide said it
was due to the high mineral and iron content that the rocks had a different
colour; it looked brownish orange and the rocks looked slippery.
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| The rocks & water with more iron content |
However, when
we climbed on them, we found that it had good grip and the slippery look was
only deceiving. We tasted the water and it was almost like drinking soda!!
We were hungry already and it was
nearing 6 pm. So, we took a break at a Georgian restaurant, the tables were set
on natural setting near the river and it was a delight to have food in a scenic
location. We wanted to try the Georgian cuisine, though there were only very
few options for vegetarians.
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| Georgian Khachapuri |
We tried our hands on Georgian Khachapuri (a pizza
type bread with cheese stuffed inside), Cheese momos, brinjal with walnut, and
some French fries. Sure, it turned out to be too heavy for us that we had to
give away some momos.
On our way back, we visited
Ananuri Castle at the banks of Aragvi river. The guide explained how the castle
was destroyed as the Dukes of the castle were attacked by rival forces. A few
years later, a church was built in the castle complex. We visited the castle
and the church.
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| Ananuri Castle |
We also had a quick walk through the tunnel which was used as
escape route for the dukes to lead to the river, whenever there was threat by enemies.
The guide showed us an underground prison as well, which has now become a
garbage bin.
Wherever we travelled, we saw lots
of walnut trees, beehives, grape trees and, we were informed that loads of
fruits and vegetables grow in the country.
After a long day, we relaxed back
in the hotel. However, our day wasn’t over yet. We rested for a while, and
again set out for a night walk and dinner. We googled to find Maharajah Indian
restaurant at Akhvlediani Street and had our dinner there. The food was very
good. Later, we took a walk to a nearby supermarket and picked up few items and
headed back to the hotel.
To be Continued...
