Slowly, slowly into the Achara thiefdom - keeping to the 50kph speed limit to avoid the attentions of radar cops. A few times in Georgia we came round the corner of a road to see a cop with the radar gun out looking happyIMPRESSIONS OF THE COUNTRY...

- Crazy and mixed up
- It was very apparent that the Soviets had pulled out and no real government had got to grips with the place
- Big swooping handshakes, and kisses on 2 cheeks
- Corrupt officials in some places and really nice ones elsewhere
- Wonderful, generous people and sneak-thiefs
- Expensive but terrible hotels
- Powercuts
- A little country, but with such bad roads that it takes days to ride across
- People with no concept of property (will you put my crash-helmet down and get your hand out of my pocket!!!)
- Wonderful fat black sunflower seeds
- The worst bread known to mankind
- Groups of men in restaurants proposing toasts and getting blathered on vodka
- Good vodka!
- Road-side vendors all copying each other and being unsuccessful
- Fresh cherries tied to sticks, nuts on strings covered with sweet goo
- Pigs wandering free everywhere, and tasty pork shashlik!
- 4 hours time difference from London, just so that they are not on the same time as Moscow

TRAVELOGUE...

We approached the border with great trepidation as another biker we met had been turned back. 15 minutes to cross the Turkish side, with the officials all being really nice to us (as they were when we entered the country).

Then through the sliding barrier to be processed by the Georgians. The passports and visas were ok and we got charged 3 dollars each and 10 for the bike. So the names of the Georgian officials we checked with in Trabzon would not be needed.

That bit took about 20 minutes.

And so onto a 2 and a half hour lesson in incompetent corruption with the Georgian Customs Officers. We knew that the region we were going into is being run as a little thiefdom and officials are allowed (or encouraged?) to extract money from hapless foreigners. The weapons against this is pleasantness (to everyone who asks about the bike or the trip) and stubborn pig-headedness.

Customs officers at 3 stages of the process tried to extract money from us, and we either professed ignorance (ya nye ponimaiyoo) or asked for receipts, until one by one they got bored with asking and let us through to be worked over by the next person. In the end it was quite amusing as we rode out of the border post with some jerk still shouting "seven dollars, seven dollars" at us.

Slowly, slowly into the Achara thiefdom - keeping to the 50kph speed limit to avoid the attentions of radar cops. A few times in Georgia we came round the corner of a road to see a cop with the radar gun out looking happy as he saw a "fast" bike coming, only to realise that we were well below the 80kph speed limit. Listen boys, if you want us to go quickly, you'd better get your bloody roads fixed!!

We drifted along though a subtropical landscape, filled with lush vegetation, sad old villas with peeling paint. Big old Russian cars and cyrillic writing added to the impression of "hey, we've just arrived in Cuba".

Moist Georgia

Up to a little town called Kobuleti - described in the Lonely Planet guide as "Georgia's most popular seaside resort". Not when we were there!! And then as we searched for a hotel we drifted into the "spider's web" which is the police checkpoint at the end of Achara region.

The sun had just set and we were still ok, but getting a little tired. And the police decided to try to extract 20 dollars from us "for registration". They had a go at Georgie for about 20 minutes (while I was entertaining the guards around the bike) and then we swapped over so that they could shout at me for 30 minutes. And then the nicer guards who we'd been talking to outside came in and helped to extract us from the mess - it was very obvious that they were saying "come on guys, these are nice people" and "they're not gonna give you the money".

Passports retrieved we sat on the bike and asked one of the nice cops "what now - hotel in Kobuleti or the next town?". He indicated that we should leave Achara while the going was good - we took his advice and drove through the concrete barriers!!

Riding into the dark, on a shit road surface with cars that had no lights and various farm animals wandering around. All very dangerous, so we rode slowly. I started looking for somewhere to rough camp - all around us were forests and fields, with a few homesteads here and there - seemed perfect camping terrain, just got to find a likely looking track off the main road...

Around a corner and there are 4 cars parked up, so I slow down for what I thought was another police check point. About 30 metres from the cars I hear what I think is gun fire - surely they can't be firing at the Lada that has just passed them - must have been a back-fire! Then a long burst of automatic gunfire - SHIT!! We freeze and decide what to do. I decide that if they were firing at us we'd be dead by now, and if we turn and ride off they might think we had something to hide (and then we'd be a good easy target). So we ride up to the cars shouting "Kargi? Kargi?" ("Good? OK?" in Georgian, thank goodness we had spent the time learning a few local phrases) and the guys with shooters all look as surprised as us.

We'd managed to stumble across the local Mafia, out after dark on a Saturday night testing their weapons!!!!

Now that idea of rough camping - SOD OFF!!

Note from Georgie: Mum, I promise you we're safe and that has been our only "incident" so far.

Now a piece of luck. We arrived at Poti and Georgie spotted a hotel (though heaven knows how as there was a power cut at the time). 30 minutes later we're trying to get to sleep by NOT thinking of the day's events.

NOTES FOR OVERLANDERS

Note 1 - Later in the trip we met a Turkish truck driver who told us that the smart way you get into Georgia is to take the ferry from Trabzon to Poti, cutting out the Achara Region all together.

Note 2 - A couple of follow BMW rides (Luc and Catherine from Belgium) came through the border a few days after us and had all the same shit as us. They then tried 3 times to get into Russia from Georgia and were refused, because of the tension in that region. They later got the ferry from Trabzon to Russia.

So a shakey start, but we are in the country that is famed for its food, wine and hospitality - let's persevere. Off to Kutaisi, with a National Park were we can camp and dinosaur footprints. Dinosaur footprints - yes, camping no, not allowed. Bugger! So we spend a night in a tatty but not cheap hotel - and I start to get a serious longing for a field with a view - the weather is perfect for camping.

Local bikers

In the evening we wander around Kutiasi and the locals come and befriend us. Really nice people with nothing to do in the evening and no work to do in the day. They give us sunflower seeds and a bottle of the local "village wine" - white with a strong taste of scrumpy cider. And I offer to take them for rides on the bike the next morning - my riding style must have got bad reports as none of them turned up at the hotel for a ride.

Third day in Georgia and I am starting to get seriously cheesed off with the place. In town while Georgie is getting money from the bank, a crowd of lads gathered round me and the bike - not unusual, especially as I was parked outside a college. But it all got a bit unruly and they started to try to pillage the luggage on the bike - I beat a retreat leaving them in a cloud of expletives. Oh give me a nice respectful MUSLIM country rather than this notionally Christian hell-hole!

We warily visit a couple of the local churches including Gelati monastary, which has really good ancient murals. And then a slow ride towards Gori - Stalin's birthplace.

More perfect camping country, and this time we're not to be diverted; not even by the hotel that had "camping" written on it but didn't offer camping. That was quite funny really, and one of 2 times when we got tripped up by language mistakes.

We asked the owner for "Camping?" and he seemed to say "Da camping, I'm a Turk". We see our opportunity to communicate in the Turkish that we'd learnt. But he didn't seem to understand and beckoned me to ride the bike into the hotel's foyer and tried to show us the rooms in the hotel. "No, No, we want camping" and point to the sign, which has a picture of a truck and "TIR" written on it. Turned out that place offered "camping" for "Ototurk" - the Georgian word for "truck", and the owner was not Turkish at all!

The other linguistic cock-up was when an official asked for "papers of your vehicle?" and we heard "purpose of your visit?". He was bemused when we told him "tourism".

A field somewhere had our name on it, and after a bit of searching we found it, with a view of the distant mountains, the sound of frogs mating in the drainage ditches and a pair of old cow-herders with about 20 milkers. The old boys greeted us like old friends, with big handshakes and a whiskery kiss on each cheek. After the usual introductions (this time in my pigeon Russian) we revealed that we are English. "Da, Karoshaw - Winston Churchill!!" - more hugs and kisses.

The old boys' memories of the war-time alliance seemed to seal the friendship, and we broke out the Christmas pudding that we had carried all the way from England. They seemed to like it. Eventually they wandered off and we thought about food and tents. Then a visit from the 2 owners of the land and their 3 lads. More handshakes and kisses and this time football talk when we revealed that we come from Manchester. More Christmas pud all round (2 pieces that we later found on the floor - obviously not to be a major export to Georgia!) Then farewells and to the tent - a much better day all of a sudden.

Next day off to Gori - a grim town and about the only place in the world still in love with Stalin. We went to the museum - full of old photos, a few artifacts and a deathmask laid out in dark room to look like a ultra-low budget version of the inside of Lenin's Tomb.

The low budget tomb-alike

Our minds are constantly drifting off to the next country (Azerbaijan) and the fact that we can't go there for 5 or 6 days because our visa doesn't start until 1st June - big mistake.

From Gori we investigate "the ancient capital of Georgia" - Mtksheva as it sounds like a good place to visit Tbilisi from (and the guidebooks says that the traffic in Tbilisi is dreadful). Nope - bugger all there - like Ripon on a quiet day. We decide to brave Tbilisi traffic, which turns out to be far less terrifying than Trabzon.

Eventually we find the hotel, a miracle as it doesn't have a sign outside it and the Georgians have recently replaced lots of major street signs (previously in Russian and Georgian) with new ones in Georgian that even the locals can't read.

Three nights of battling the old bag that owned the hotel over hot water, money and privacy (every morning she'd burst into our room and demand "money, money"). We're ready for the off.

Tbilisi

There were a couple of highlights of Tbilisi - leaving aside a very friendly internet club (sad that that could be a highlight), the main one was the "Georgian Folk Architecture Museum". Staffed by underpaid but hugely friendly people, showing old cottages gathered from around the country. It was full of interesting wells, clothing, furniture and the largest collection of wine making gear I've ever seen. We tried freshly made maize-meal bread - Georgie liked it but I though it tasted like MDF.

We asked one of the guides (George - the resident artist) about Georgia and its prosperity, trying to get to the bottom of the "faded glory" villas we saw everywhere. We asked "when was the heyday of Georgia", expecting him to say "1930 or 1960". He replied "in the 12th Century" with complete sincerity. It seems that the propoganda aimed at giving Georgians a sense of history has over-ridden recent advances and future potential. Come on guys - snap out of it!

We make a break from Tbilisi to a small town near to the Azerbaijan border so that we can get the hell out as soon as posible when our visas kick in. And having completely written of Georgia we get stopped at another police checkpoint. With a little fury and really heavy hearts we think "we can't be bothered with this - just leave us alone". And then the policeman turns out to be a real sweety. First he buys us ice-creams (or rather orders the local vendor to give us some) and then when I point out his cap badge to Georgie (because it still has the Soviet Hammer and Scickle on it), he takes he badge off and presents it to me (and he gets a Manchester United pencil in return).

Nice Cops get their piccie on the Internet

Finally in the town of our choosing for a night, we suffer soviet legacy for one last time. The Lonely Planet states that Lagodeki has one old soviet style hotel with rooms for 4 dollars and suites for 6. Well that is really cheap so we are expecting a dump and a dump we find. Water in the rooms is mainly staining the walls. The hotel's one working shower is in the basement in the old sauna room. We have to shower by candlelight after paddling through pools of water from leaking pipes. The price is a stupid 10 dollars and later they try to get another 10 out of us so we tell them to piss off and threaten to leave.

Showering by candlelight - how romantic?!

That night we felt no quarms in cooking in our room (the town has no cafe). In the morning, we investigated the rest of the hotel and found it to be completely trashed except for the floor we were on. In fact the best part of the hotel was the 4th floor, where the foyer window was completely missing, allowing a great view of the mountains through clouds of swallows that were nesting in the foyer. Georgie said she felt like a war reporter taking photos up there.

The view towards North Ossetia

Azerbaijan looked like a good bet. A very good bet!!

As we crossed the border out of Georgia into "no-man's land", a sign-post stated "the Georgian Customs Process is Free of Charge". A marked difference to the other end of of the country.

And the World Cup starts in 30 minutes ...