Apparently I have travelled sufficiently that my accent has become ambiguous even to other British people.
I made it to Batumi. Which, as promised, is a super weird place. In a good way. But not before the bus company copped out at the border (Sarp) and said I was on my own. The border crossing itself was insane, super hot, crowded, people dragging carpets around, and even a small fight broke out. The Georgian side was more civilised, and after passport control is a helpful tourist information place, a toilet, and air conditioning. Outside the doors (you can't get back in again) is the beginning of the border town Sarpi, with an array of definitely poor-value money changers, and a chaos of busses. I hopped in a marshrutka which set off for Batumi when it was full (entirely of locals as far as I could tell). You pay the driver on the way out, and it was 1GEL, about 20 minutes. After checking into my hostel, I wandered around, tried to pick up a ferry ticket for in a couple of weeks (they told me to buy it online), picked up a SIM card, drank coffee, and went on a walking tour. And up the Alphabetic Tower, and ate lobiani in a small cafe. Discovered Sunday trains are sold out, and booked a bus to get to Tbilisi instead. Sooo close to getting a train, but alas. My fate is bus.
I'M ON A BOAT It started raining heavily in the hour before I needed to walk to the port. I walked anyway, and was as usual faced with a giant impassable highway completely unfriendly to pedestrians, and no indication of how to get to the port. I found it eventually, completely soaked. Waited for almost two hours under a lean-to with other bedraggled passengers, and went through some half-hearted attempt at passport control I think. Or at least checking the ticket name and passport name matched. Boarded, waiting around some more, got a room key. I have a two bed room, and so far it doesn't look like I'm sharing it with anyone. So far there are many male truck drivers, a couple of families with kids and old people, and three sets of travelling young couples from various locations, who speak English. I haven't seen any of them since I boarded though. This ferry apparently has a sauna, and wifi that only works once it's in Ukraine (by which time it's not much good). Mealtimes are in strict 30 minute slots, but I'm not sure which timezone they run on. Currently still in port; no idea when we'll actually leave.
I have a few new Bosnian laptop stickers, and the bi-lingual 4.5 year old came over to ask what they say, and I'm like I dunno kid you're the one who speaks Bosnian but duh she can't read.
Croatia won and the FERRIES are honking their horns WTF lol
There's also an eggplant with walnut paste salad and I for some reason I ordered it and it was super delicious and today my walnut allergy (or whatever it is) - a very specific head pain - is manifesting in my left ear. Totally worth it though. Since 80% of veggie Georgian dishes contain walnuts, maybe I can use the next couple of weeks to desensitize myself.. if it works like that.. I hope it works like that??
There's this Georgian dish - ojakhuri, "family meal" - of potatoes slow cooked with mushrooms, and sometimes tomatoes, onions and slightly hot green peppers. I mean. They know what I like. (The mushroom version is the weirdo alternative to pork, obviously, but common everywhere.) On a related note I have extreme potato bloat right now.
The thing I like about hostels is that it's equally socially acceptable to talk to any person about anything as it is to completely ignore everyone who crosses your path.
The thing I don't like about hostels is, somebody else's alarm just went off for a full ten minutes and it was like an industrial siren sound. GOOD MORNING.
Me: I would like potato khinkali please. Waiter: :o but you're alone and the minimum order is five Me: My good sir, let me tell you about the time I ate ten khinkali. (in case you were wondering, I ate all the khinkali. And a salad. And then the waiter hit on me and I ran away. But the important part of this story is KHINKALI)
I discover a new kind of lobiani every day.
Lol my ferry from Georgia to Ukraine just got pushed back a day and redirected to Turkey. Eh, same same. I go where the sea sends me.
Nomad life is deciding what I'm going to wear this morning based on the fact I'm going to be wearing it for the next 2+ days, through 3 countries with different climates and cultures.
Odesa is at least as weird as Batumi, but for half the price! And maybe slightly nicer.. though the beach is ridiculously packed.
Odesa is FULL of cute little places to get nice coffees and fancy juices. It's wonderful.
This week I'm in Tbilisi for the #OGPSummit. I work for Open Data Services, and if you're so inclined, you can talk to me about open data for anti-corruption, beneficial ownership and open contracting, from the data standards and tools perspective.
A few days of enjoying Batumi, in all it's supreme weirdness. Bizarre architecture, empty buildings, black stoney beaches, hot rainy skies, far more Turkish food than Georgian food. I went up the Alphabet tower (which displays the Georgian alphabet around its spiral) and wandered around the coast and town. The center is chaotic and difficult to navigate and learning to play chicken with drivers and potholes is a necessity. I did a walking tour, which included a sneak peak into an old banya which is now embedded in a hotel building, and a 1+ hour break for a wine tasting... this is Georgia.
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The ferry was delayed a day, so I checked into a hostel and took the opportunity to take the cable car up to the big hill overlooking Batumi. And to eat more khinkali of course, on the beach.
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Giant bread supplies for my upcoming voyage, and then killing time before departure. My last meal in Batumi was from the one Chinese place. And eventually I managed to find the port and board the ferry across the Black Sea.
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Farewell Batumi. A few days on the good ship Kaunas, across the Black Sea to Odesa.
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A week on the island of Iz, Croatia. Yoga, TRE, sleeping, eating, reading, chilling, with lovely people in a beautiful place.
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A day wandering around Odesa. Food at Vegano Hooligano and True. Walks around the old town, parks and beaches.
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A few days gently exploring Sofia. Food and cafe-working from some nice veg*n places, a walking tour, and general wandering before boarding a bus to Istanbul.
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Ajarian khatchapuri and coffee for breakfast, then a dramatic mountain bus ride from Batumi to Tbilisi. A pizza in the wonderful Kiwi Cafe before settling in for the Open Governance Partnership conference, which was up the cable car on the hill.
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Traditional Georgian dancing as well as general pretension at the OGP Summit reception in the Georgian Parliament..
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More OGP Summit hillside theme park antics, and some wandering around town.
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FINALLY khinkali (5 potato, 5 mushroom) at Pasanauri. And lobio of course. Then a walking tour and an evening in the banya.
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A weekend drive to the mountains; hammocks, more amazing food, hiking, rainstorm, landslide.. and back to Tbilisi.
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A walking tour of Tbilisi, featuring cable car and castle (and food).
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A trek through the city to the big ol' Cathedral (seriously big). Then a final meal in Kiwi before taking the train back to Batumi.
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Some waiting around in Istanbul bus station, and a day and a night on a bus to the Turkish-Georgian border.
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Sunset from Zadar.
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Ferry from Iz back to Zadar, lunch at Art of Raw.
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Who wants a top-of-my-head rough aspirational some-fantasy-involved draft of travel plans for the next year? rest of July: transit to Georgia and back. August: Estonia. September: Latvia. October: Lithuania. November: Poland for Vipassana, Warsaw, transit; maybe drop by Sarajevo then take the fast train from Belgrade to Thessaloniki. December: Greece. January: Greece. February: Bulgaria. March: Romania. (Yes I know these last two will be cold, but I will go to the coast and staunchly enjoy it. It's the only way I can tick off all EU countries by March :s) April: Moldova?? Parts of Serbia I haven't been to? Kosovo? May: Macedonia. June: Montenegro. July: Albania. August: Ridiculous transit (ferry from Italy) to Morocco.. September: Morocco because we fantasised this week about Aida's next yoga retreat being in Morocco.. Then ridiculous transit (buses through Spain, France and Italy) back east.. ... ..pick back up on attempt to get to China. Probably spend winter in south of Turkey. At some point I should write up a diff between what I thought I'd be doing with the last 6 months and what I actually did because these super far in advance draft plans are funny to look back on.
Gooood morning from... still the port of Batumi. After a reasonable but short sleep, an announcement at 7am sent us down for passport control, where we got stamped out of Georgia (and they kept our passports). Two hours later.. at 8am Ukrainian time (this boat runs on Ukrainian time obviously) we were summoned for breakfast.. which was a small plate of some of the worst looking non-foods I have ever seen (plastic omelet, a distressing pink sausage..). I ate my single slice of tomato and cucumber, drank tea with lemon (there isn't even coffee) and couldn't even make myself eat the terrible white bread. Fortunately I massively overstocked on supplies so I actually won't starve. (There's no wifi but I still have 3G because.. we're still in Georgia. Still.)
Practicing my Russian reading skills by sounding out every sign I see as I wander around. It's especially delightfully rewarding when it comes out as a western word I know with a slightly wonky accent xD Also sometimes I get out something I recognise from Bosnian or Polish or Czech which is also cool (mostly these are foods).
I've had a fairly satisfactory 24 hours. Some things that needed wrapping up are wrapped up. This morning I went questing for supplies and got two giant shoti breads, burning hot straight from the tone (underground clay oven thing). Compared to Tbilisi, the ones in Batumi (when you eventually find them) are wide, the size of my chest - in Tbilisi they're narrow, more baguette-y. In both cases they have delicious crispy ends that never make it home. For 1 gel each, you could survive on one of these for a day if you needed to. I also got some market fruit and veg, and a little pot of what I hope is tkemali (sour plum sauce) but might be a hot chilli paste. We'll find out. I was a little worried about ending up at a port in Ukraine late at night next week with no language skills and no local money. This morning in the hostel kitchen I met a Ukrainian woman who taught me some useful words and exchanged some of her UAH with GEL for me. So now at least I have bus fare. I think I know what I'm working on next week, and am prepped to do it offline if necessary. That's also nice. And the issue of my brother being homeless in Edinburgh next month was resolved yesterday as well. Whew. So I think I'm all set to without guilt or worry get on a wifi-less ferry of potentially unknown duration across the Black Sea this evening. So if you don't hear from me for a few days, that's why.
So when I want a 'private' / 'solo' place to stay, I'm actually fine with sharing a dorm with other people for sleeping. And fine with sharing a bathroom. So long as these are people I'm not obligated to socialise with (hosts, friends..). What I really want, is a private kitchen. But shared accommodation with individual kitchens just isn't a thing. So when I need space, I have to book a whole apartment and that gets expeeensive. In off seasons, or in places with lots of restaurants/food culture, I get lucky with hostels where there either are hardly any people around, or people just don't use the kitchen, and that's pretty close. But the uncertainty sucks. Anyway, I could totally live in this little hostel I'm in right now (Sunset Hostel, Zadar). Well, maybe.. when full there would be 10 people (2x 5 bed dorms). Which would work if they weren't all determined too cook.. but it's also not super close to the town center.
On a related note, I may have this dorm to myself but it contains the only TV in the hostel apparently and there are people in here watching the world cup. how long do football matches last why is this taking so long argh
Savasana, in a hot place: the mosquito buffet pose.
You know how some cities just make sense? Shortly after you arrive, you just kind of get what's going on? I'm 24 hours into Sofia and it doesn't make sense yet. It's chaotic and big. In many ways it reminds me of London. There's a lot going on. On every single street is one of everything you could possibly need. There's stuff everywhere. It's broken and dilapidated; pavements are obstructed, full of holes, uneven. It's super inaccessible to anyone who uses wheels to get around. I've tripped over twice just walking normally and paying attention my surroundings. The mess in this sense reminds me of Penang. When you do occasionally stumble across a nice bit, it's a pleasant surprise, a few minutes reprieve from being hyper-alert at where your feet go. It's residential, industrial, and real, with sudden jarring interruptions for colourful, gilded, domed cathedrals or monument-filled green spaces. It's bustling and alive, and nestled amongst the normality is art, creativity, hippie shit, and little pockets of tranquility. It's confusing. But I like it.
Walking to the port from Batumi is not super easy. It's not far - about 20 minutes from the cable car - but not a pedestrian friendly route. Also the layout of the roads is different from what I could see on maps.me. If you think you can follow the road around, you can for a while until the pavement literally crumbles into nothing. I traipsed through smashed up concrete on the side of the road for a while, as I thought that was the only way, but eventually it was just fenced off, just as the road starts sloping up and curving around to the left. It's a big and busy highway, so I didn't fancy walking along the side of the road. I contemplated squeezing past the fence, but then wondered if I'd fare better on the other side of the road, presuming of course I'd be able to cross back again when I reached the actual port. By this point there was a large bollard in the middle of the road, so I backed up to where the pavement was whole again, and there was no bollard, and crossed. It became apparently on this side that the road forked; one sort of side road, which initially I thought was more of a layby for trucks, ran alongside the main highway. There was clearly no pavement on the other side of the highway either, so I walked along the layby road a little way.. and a little further. I'm not sure why some instinct told me to keep going, even though it was really not clear where it led, because this turned out to be right way. The layby turned into a real road which went under the curving highway and.. led to the port! There wasn't any real footpath here either, but it was much much less busy than the other road, and vehicles that did pass were going a lot slower. Under the bridge/highway there was a carpark of sorts; pass straight across that and over the next road, and the ferry waiting area appears. It was visible due to the huddle of other soggy passengers under a small shelter. I saw two friendly looking people with bikes, and confirmed they are waiting for the ferry. It was about 8pm by the time I got there, having been told to go for boarding at 2130. The couple, W and A, are from Ukraine and had been cycling around the Georgian coast. We chatted about travel and Georgian politics before eventually boarding well after 2130. After fleeting passport and ticket checks, before finding the way to the ferry itself, I met another young couple with backpacks, in good humour despite the weather and the wait; P from Germany and R from Mexico. Day 1, after boarding In the line to pick up our room keys at the ferry reception, I met yet another couple; O1 who carries a UK passport but doesn't sound British and handwaves "long story" when asked, and O2 from Belarus. O1 found many things to complain about. Upon collection of our keys, our passports gained a green sticker with a number on it, and further information was scribbled onto our tickets - "first shift" (for meals) and an assigned table number (I was on table 18, it turned out, with O1, O2, P, R, and a family of three). Amongst the other passengers, all of whom seem to be Russian-speaking (except for three grey-haired queue-jumping German biker-types) are a few families with young kids. The rest are either lads on a booze cruise, or the drivers of the various transport vehicles on board. I'm in room 8020, which has two beds in bunk formation, a table with a chair, a wardrobe, three power outlets, a servicable bathroom and a view of the ocean. I waited with baited breath to see if my other bunk would be filled, and to my relief I remain alone. It was always unclear from the website whether I was booking a bed or a room. Even now, I don't know; it does say it's 'shared'. By the time I got to make a reservation, the 4 and 6 berth shared cabins were long gone. I walked on the deck and took some pictures of Batumi after sunset, with all it's silly lights. We didn't leave and didn't leave, and I stayed up late writing blog posts and waiting to sleep after we left. I gave up, and slept anyway. Day 2, after breakfast I woke at 6 and looked out of the window to see we were still in the Port of Batumi. I woke again at 7, just before an announcement came through a little speaker right next to my head announcing it's time for passport control on the deck below. Mercifully an English announcement followed the Russian. I met O1 and O2 in the line, and we waited for some time. Queuing was not particularly orderly, constrained only perhaps by the narrowness of the corridors. Eventually my passport was stamped, and kept. I returned to my room until two hours later, on Ukrainian time, breakfast was announced through the speaker - "don't be late." Breakfast was the most distressing pink sausage, a plasticky looking omelet, and a single slice of tomato and cucumber. The salad was gone before my butt hit the chair, and I tried to chew on some white bread, but it was quite quite terrible. No coffee, only tea and lemon. O1 was particularly upset about the coffee dearth, and I promised to bring the remains of my Turkish grinds the next morning, and gave him my omelet. Nobody wanted my terrible sausage. Back in my room, I ate Georgian bread and adjika. We finally started moving after 1030. I have no idea if this was the expected schedule, and passengers are normally tricked into boarding the night before departure, or if we are running late. Guess I'll find out. I kind of hope we're late. I went out on deck to take pictures as we passed Batumi seaside. I heard the kids in the room next door violently throwing up. I slept, and read, and thought about writing. Day 2, after lunch I was even a little hungry by lunchtime, but as soon as I saw three glistening parts of a bird with bones protruding on top of my heap of rice and smattering of presumably sweet and sour vegetable goop, my appetite deserted me. P the German offered me his salad, which were thankfully in separate bowls, so I ate two paltry offerings of lettuce, pepper and cucumber. I picked at the edge of my rice but the disembodied legs really weren't doing it for me. I thought I'd be able to eat around it; after all, meat on other peoples' plates at the same table doesn't usually put me off food unless it's particularly grotesque. But to get at the rice I had to get closer to the body parts than I could stomach. The kitchen is staffed by tall, sultry Russian speaking skinheads, but there is one lady who was helping to clear dishes more on my eye level. On the way out of the dining room I managed to catch her, and pleaded on behalf of myself and O1 - who is vegetarian - for a plate without meat at the next meal. She asked if eggs are okay, so I elaborated.. yes for O, not for me. She relayed this message to one of the tall dudes, and everything seems to be okay. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, I'm going to eat my Uncle Feng's Chinese noodle leftovers. Day 2, after dinner Rumour has it that we'll arrive late on Monday, around midnight. The 'guy in the bar' said so, via O2. Dinner was successfully meat free for O1 and I; potatoes and pickled vegetables. It was plenty. The side salad had a liberal sprinkling of grated cheese this time so I ignored it. There were chocolate marshmallow things too. P seemed to really enjoy his, so I gracefully donated mine to the cause of the hungry German. I watched the last 20 minutes of Sully, all of After the Ball - both movies I'd caught snippets of on buses this month. I photographed every page of my full notebook so I can trash it, and backed up my laptop onto my harddrive. I spent some time reading Blindsight on the 9th deck in the sun. I might return there before sunset. Day 3, after breakfast I took coffee to breakfast, but O1 didn't come down. I told O2 that if he wants to knock on my door for extra food, I have way too much. Which I do. My meat-free egg-free breakfast this morning was of course a bowl of cottage cheese. But there was optional oatmeal with didn't seem to be milky, so I ate that instead, and it was more than enough. I really need to eat more of my own supplies though.. I have a slight encroaching headache, so I'm going to go back to sleep a bit.. I watched Wonder Woman, which turns out to be all about Chris Pine, and A Wrinkle in Time which is also all about Chris Pine (I did not know Chris Pine was in either of these), read Blindsight, and napped. Day 3, after lunch Apparently the ferry stopped for two to three hours earlier, to do tests because the weather is good. Now we're due to arrive at 8 or 9am tomorrow. Updates courtesy of P, who asked at reception. Not sure what I'll do. Maybe go to Orpheus Hostel anyway, where I am booked to stay tonight, and drop my bag and take a wander around Odesa. I could take a night train straight to Lviv and arrive on Wednesday. Maybe that's better, work-wise. And general timing. Then I can leave Lviv at the weekend and have some time in Tartu before Tallinn. Or I could spend one night in Odesa and go to Lviv on Wednesday. I guess it just depends on the bus or train options. It'll be nice if I can get a train straight to Lviv.. and I suppose a two hour change in Kyiv isn't so bad. But if I'm going to Kyiv, I should spend a day there too perhaps? I'll think about this more when I have internet. Lunch was a giant pile of cold spaghetti, with orange mush of unknown origins. Everyone else had chicken on a stick. There was soup, as usual, and two bowls of a meat-free edition on the table for O1 and I. It had mushrooms in, and was pretty good. All I needed was soup, but I ate spaghetti anyway.. Feeling bloated now. Also melon. We were summoned to reception to fill out customs declarations. The forms were in Turkish.. obviously.. so every single passenger needed help filling them out, which wasn't the most organised affair. One of the questions I was told which box to tick, but the guy couldn't tell me in English what the question was. OH WELL. JUST SIGNING THINGS I CAN'T READ. NO BIG DEAL. Think I'm gonna take Blindsight up on deck while everyone is fucking around in reception. Day 3, after dinner I finished Blindsight, and tinkered with sloph and read through the parts of Quest for Brothers I've already written and maybe one day soon I'll write some more. Oh, and I learned most of the Russian alphabelt, so I can sort of read signs now. Dinner: potatoes! And pickles! The salad had solid chunks of something feta-like in; I picked mine out and traded for O1's olives. There was chocolate cake (and fish), for those who wanted it. Day 4, arrival Announcements only in Russian this morning! Great fun. Especially the important ones, like the 7am "pack your stuff immediately and go to reception to change your room key for your passport." Fantastic. Good job I bumped into O2 at just the right time so she could tell me what the instructions were. No breakfast today. Instead, waiting in non-lines for many hours. First to retrieve passport and hand over room key. I just dumped my backpack in a corner in reception, it didn't seem to be going anywhere. A line was forming for passport control / customs, but we were definitely still in the process of mooring, so I figured border agents aren't coming on board any time soon and went to wander around the deck. I was right. I joined the line when people in uniform eventually appeared. Swathes of people skipped the line, for whatever reason, and we waited at least an hour to get our passport stamped. I was asked "why are you going to Odesa?" Good question mate.. cos that's where the ferry stops? I mumbled something he probably didn't understand, and that was enough. He also wanted an address.. so I showed him the address of the hostel I had booked for the night I'd just missed, where I wouldn't end up going.. which was also fine. After passport control, it took a while for them to actually let us off the ferry. When they did, we were met by more dudes who wanted to see our passports, and ask us what we had in our bags. They were happy for P to speak for both R and I as clearly he must own the womenz who were trailing behind him, and then pointed us at a minibus. We got on that and.. waited some more. 20 minutes maybe. Eventually all foot passengers made it, and it drove us.. 30 seconds around the corner, to the customs office. We definitely could have walked. There we - you guessed it - waited some more. The next level of the process was to pass our bags through a scanner of some kind, and then we were free. Only.. we were in a carpark. By a port. Freedom sucks. We (O1, O2, P, R and I) bumped back into A and W, and between the Russian speakers they extracted the location of a bus stop from someone, and A and W guided us. A bunch of other random people followed us too. It was quite a trek along some bumpy roads, until we reached a main road that busses were clearly passing by on. W took off on his bike to find the actual bus stop, and returned a while later having found a spot where "people are waiting but the bus didn't stop." Well, that was the best we had. A and W cycled away, and the rest of us trekked to maybe-the-bus-stop. Eventually the number 25 approached and we waved it down. It was full, but somehow there was still space for five people. Our backpacks went in the boot, and we crammed in standing sardine style. It was a marshrutka, so it was already a tiny cramped minibus type thing. It cost 22UAH each for person + baggage to Odesa train station. I think it took at 30 minutes, but it felt like eternity of balancing, swaying, and smooshing into other sweaty people. I paid the bus fare for P and R, cos they didn't have any local currency yet. No biggie, that's like 0.60EUR each. All photos from the voyage. Day 4, Odesa at last! We milled around in the street for a while, and eventually got ourselves together. O1 and O2 went to find a cab to their lodgings, which turned out to be very far away, and I followed P and R to their hostel, which was a 20 minute walk away, and was closer than the one I'd booked for the night before. Hostel Komuna was absolutely invisible from the street. With the help of an old woman on a balcony and another guest attempting to get in (who was on the phone to someone in the hostel, I think) we made it. For reference, it's at number 41 where there's a small alleyway. There are absolutely no signs, in any language. There's a door on the right of the alley, with a keycode. The other guest got the code (417 all at the same time) on the phone, and we followed him up several flights of stairs, to another unlabelled door, perhaps on the top floor. We buzzed and were let in. It felt like an apartment, and a bit of a dingy one at that. P and R had a double room, and I had a bed in the dorm. It felt very much like there are many long term residents. It's not super clean, and certainly not new, and there's no air conditioning. But it'll do for a night. The people who welcomed us are friendly. Every time I checked in the last couple of weeks, there were absolutely no available trains from Odesa to Lviv. But the Ukrainian woman I met in the Batumi hostel had said there are sometimes last minute tickets available, so I looked again.. and sure enough, an almost empty train was available tomorrow morning. It's 11 hours :O but there are no night trains, so it'll have to do. I spent an hour in the dorm calculating my onward travel plans - a few days in Lviv, then Tartu, before I reach Tallinn - and I think I'm all set. I ate some delicious healthy stuff at Vegano Hooligano, a lovely place conveniently around the corner from the hostel, and now I'm going to wander around the city.. (Photos from Odesa.)
Tales from the Black Sea (aka the ferry from Batumi to Odesa)
I made it to Tbilisi a little late (it should be a 6.5 hour bus from Batumi), because the bus stopped for a few silly reasons. Little things like cows in the road.. roof is leaking rain.. side of the bus opened and suitcases flew out and had to be rescued from mountainside.. Then I accidentally didn't get out in the city center - because I didn't think the bus was stopping in the city center. And ended up at a bus station in the south I was entirely unprepared for. I found myself surrounded by taxi drivers, one of whom told me there is no metro connection here. He may have been biased, but it sure looked like a wasteland. My general desire not to get into a taxi had the effect of reducing taxi prices by 5 GEL every minute until I gave in and took a taxi to the old town. This was still not the right place, and I walked through the rain to the vegan cafe, to plan the rest of my night. (Current status: pizza coma.)
oookay, time to attempt to make it the entire width of a quite wide country without buying any tickets in advance and having only a haphazard knowledge of schedules and probably no wifi. It'll be fine. See you on the other side*. * The other side is Georgia. I'm going through Turkey.
Georgia's fresh tomato game is very strong, but pickling them whole is next level. (And they make a great midnight snack.)
Okay so I've had a suuuper nice week on the Croatian island of Iz, with super cool people, swimming in the sea and doing yoga and eating and sleeping. The week has left me really well rested, but also socially exhausted, on top of a very heavily social June. I'm now in a hostel in Zadar, appear to have the dorm to myself, and it's really small, extremely clean and modern and new-feeling. I leave Zadar tomorrow evening, so I can veg around here, the nearby beach, and the rawfood restaurant in town for the day. Then I have a couple more days to myself in Sofia (fingers crossed for an equally good hostel), then a few days of busses. Hopefully then I'll be recharged in time for OGP Summit in Tbilisi in a week..
My twitter timeline this evening is a balanced mix of apocalyptic the world is definitely ending we won't survive the next ten years stuff, and silly jokes that make me lol.
"Shemomechama" is a Georgian phrase, translating roughly to the passive "it happened that I ate everything." I like to think of it as "I accidentally all the food." Which is very much what happened during my two weeks in Georgia. Traditional (or, some would argue, modern-tourist-adapted-traditional) Georgian food is actually vegan heaven. When you peer around the meat and cheese, you discover a whole world of beans, bread, potatoes and mushrooms. They do great things with veggies, particularly aubergine, and I've never had such spectacular and simple salads. My usual 'vegan in' posts are a list of places to eat, but in this case I'm going to do a list of dishes, most of which you can get in any random Georgian restaurant you find on the street. At the end I'll also list a few places across Tbilisi and Batumi that I thought were particularly good. Other things to note about Georgian cuisine is that it's generally served family-style.. that is, huge plates, ideal for sharing. If you're eating on your own, you really must resist ordering many dishes even if they look like sides because this is too much food. If you're with a group though - even a meat-eating group - it's ace. Because so many totally normal common side dishes and well-loved mains are vegan! On more than one occasion I sat back and let other people order a bunch of stuff, and there was always stuff I could eat. Fasting One of the reasons Georgian food is so vegan-friendly is because of the Orthodox fasting periods. Wednesdays, Fridays, and many many special occasions, many adopt essentially a pesca-vegan diet - they can't have any food from land animals. As a result, many restaurants have a 'fasting menu', or at least understand the concept of vegan if you ask if something is okay for fasting. And since Georiga is not the kind of country to add secret fish to things, ordering anything from a fasting menu that isn't explicitly fish is pretty safe. Lobio Lobio is bean stew. It comes in a clay pot, and is delicious. That is all. Mchadi Mchadi is Georgian cornbread. It's vegan, and soaks up the juice from lobio like a treat. Comes in fried and non-fried varieties, and may be thick and chunky or flat and round. Fried ones can be seen in the foreground of this meal. Lobiani Lobiani is bean paste in bread. There are so many different kinds! And of varying qualities. Sometimes, the bean paste is just dry and maybe not even seasoned. If you're around for a while, it's worth scouting out different places to find the best lobiani. If you get it from a bakery or streetside 'fast food' type place, you'll likely end up with a flaky pastry type deal. This is fine, but not my favourite. An improvement on this theme was from Literature Cafe in Batumi, where the lobiani was more of an upright giant-dumpling shaped pastry; the bean filling was particularly good. In restaurants, it tends to come as a pizza-sized round flatbread. Bread-wise, this is my favourite (again, the bean filling varies from place to place), partly because I'm a sucker for flatbread, but also because the bean-bread ratio is more balanced. Ajarian lobiani, which is fairly widely available in Batumi (since it's in Ajara), is a regional take on their famous khachapuri. I have to digress here, since khachapuri isn't getting its own entry in this list. Khachapuri is a very famous Georgian food, and in general is cheesebread. The Ajarian take on khachapuri involves a boat-shaped loaf of bread, carved out and filled to the brim with cheese, butter, and egg, heart-attack-on-a-plate style. So Ajarian lobiani then, obviously, is the bread-boat full of beans! Usually served with some pickled chillis. Whoever thought of that is a genius. This is giant meal. I got mine from Porto Franco, but many large Georgian restaurants will have it. I'm going to digress again to tell you about bakeries. Georgian bakeries have a giant round clay oven called a tone, which is like a partially submerged well of FIRE. They make bread dough, and slap it onto the burning hot side of the oven for just a few minutes, before peeling it off all baked and delicious. Tonis puri is bread that is baked in this way. THUS tonis lobiani is, you guessed it, bread dough stuffed with bean paste and baked in a tone. I got it in at a very wee bakery next to Irmale's Cafe in Tbilisi. The bread is obviously fantastic all by itself, straight from the oven. The beans inside were a bit dry; I don't know if this is a side-effect of the cooking method, or just this one place. Khinkali Khinkali are dumplings. The dough is vegan. So, the fillings? See a fasting menu for potato and mushroom options. Traditially they're meat or cheese, and you may have to hunt a bit for the the veg alternatives. I was under the impression for most of my time in Georgia that the fasting khinkali are a perfectly ordinary traditional Georgian food, but on my last night a hostel employee plus an old lady she found to back her up absolutely insisted to me this is not Georgian food and was only invented for tourists. It was way more common in Tbilisi than in Batumi, in any case. I don't care when or why they were invented though, because they are fucking delicious. The first time I went to a khinkali house in Batumi, the potato and mushroom ones were on the menu but they were out. I then spent a week craving a food I'd never eaten, until I was finally satisifed in Pasanauri in Tbilisi. The correct way to eat khinkali is to pick them up by the knob at the top (lifehack: stick a fork in if it's too hot or slippery to grab and you're too impatient to wait 5 minutes), make a small bite to suck the juice out (potato ones don't have juice, but mushroom ones do) and then eat the rest, leaving the knob that you're holding on your plate, so that you can count how many you demolish. There are various positive superstitions about people who manage to eat khinkali without getting any juice on the plate. You're not supposed to put sauce on them or dip them in anything, but really if there's tkemali on the table whatcha gonna do? Most places seem to list khinkali on the menu with a per-dumpling price, and have a minimum order of five. Five is a reasonably sensible number to eat all by oneself as long as you're hungry and don't order anything else. Heh. They don't let you mix and match fillings though.. so the first time I finally went for khinkali obviously the only thing I could do was to order five mushroom and five potato ones. I wasn't alone.. but neither of my lunchmates wanted to eat my khinkali. So I ate ten. And some lobio. And some bread. It was great. It was a slight struggle, but I have no regrets. Mushrooms on a ketsi I don't know if there's a Georgian name for this. A ketsi is a clay dish, and if you order mushrooms on a ketsi, you get a clay dish with sizzling, delicious, juicy mushrooms. Why wouldn't you? Be careful not to get a cheesed-up version (eg. with sulguni). Bonus points: if you're in the mountains and it's mushroom season, you can get really expensive fancy mushrooms that will blow your mind and are worth every penny (we did so at a roadside restaurant called Zgapari). Ojakhuri with mushrooms Ojakhuri is typically a dish where potatoes are slow cooked with pork.. but you can get it with mushrooms instead. And it's delicious. When I ordered it, it had some onions, tomatoes, and chilli peppers thrown into the mix. Ajapsandali Ajapsandali is like ratatouille - a tomatoey vegetable stew, usually with aubergine, capsicum, and other seasonal veggies. Simple, but, like all things Georgian, delicious. Phkali Phkali are a cold starter or side dish, consisting of different coloured balls of mush. They're vegetables minced with walnuts and seasonings. You'll find spinach, aubergine of course, and beet commonly. Aubergine and red peppers may also be grilled, sliced, and spread with walnut mush then rolled up. They can be exceptionally tasty, but they can also be kind of meh. They were a common conference buffet food option, often the only vegan thing around, so I ended up eating more than I would have given my walnut allergy. I don't know if it's a faux-pas to smoosh them onto bread but.. that's also nice. Salad Cucumber and tomato salad is a staple at every table and somehow manages to be thoroughly delicious. The fresh seasonable vegetables help of course, and liberal dressings of locally sourced rich sunflower oil also contribute. You can usually order it with or without walnuts. There are various other kinds of salads too. Just watch out for ones with cheese, and you'll be safe. A plate of 'greens' is actually mostly fresh herbs like tarragon, maybe with other strong things like spring onion and radish. Which can be pretty intense to just chew on, obviously meant to accompany the other food you're ordering. Pickles PICKLES. They pickle everything. You can order mixed pickles, or plates of specific pickles. Pickled tomatoes may be whole juicy red ones (so good) or green tomatoes. Cucumber, obviously. Pickled chillis are also common. A weirder one is jonjoli flowers, which are bascially weeds. I loved them, several people I met don't. Pickle all the things! I love them so much. Sauces Tkemali is a sour plum sauce. It's really good with everything. Get some with every meal. Adjika is a spicy deep red sauce, which reminds me subtly of Korean gochujang. Also fantastic, would eat with every meal. See a picture of adjika with greens. Bazhe (sometimes spelled baje) is a really delicious walnut sauce. How do I know it was delicious? I am allergic to walnuts and I ate a bunch of this sauce on stuff and it was WORTH EVERY MINUTE OF PAIN. Churchkhela You see them dangling from souvenir shops, street carts and market stalls, churchkhela are a traditional sweet made from stringing up a line of nuts and then dipping them repeatedly in fruit syrup. The syrup sets, and the amount of dips determines the thickness and shape of the final strand, and the colour depends on the fruit juice that was was used. You'll see red pomegranate, purple grape and brownish white grape. I haven't figured out what the green ones are yet. Mostly they use walnuts, but I managed to get hazelnut ones. I hear the may also be made with peanuts and almonds, but I didn't find them. They look like sausages, but don't worry, they're all-natural vegan candy. Restaurants Kiwi Cafe (Tbilisi) Kiwi is a vegan cafe in Tbilisi that has been around for a while. They were once attacked by sausage-weilding neo-nazis, and had to move location. The new location is really spacious and pleasant. There's power and wifi, friendly staff, and great food. It's a good place for a vegan (or anyone) to take a break from traditional Georgian cuisine, and eat things like pizza, burger, curry, salads, sandwiches, pasta, apple pie, milkshakes.. and more. It's reasonably priced - not above average. I went here a bunch of times. Irmale's Cafe (Tbilisi) A brand new, very small "healthy vegan friendly" cafe outside of the old town. I happened to be staying around the corner, so I dropped in here a number of times. The smoothies packed with 'superfoods' are not the cheapest, but really good. There are cold soups and salads which I didn't try. Buckwheat pancakes with two fillings - scrambled tofu with sprouts, or cashew cream with fruit - are both really tasty but very small. A light breakfast at most. There's an array of tiny healthy cakes, energy balls, cheese cakes, all made with love. The coffee is good. There's wifi and power, and outdoor seating, but not a lot of seating in general (a table for two, and four bar stools). I anticipate the menu growing as they find their feet. Mama Terra (Tbilisi) I didn't actually eat here, but it's a vegetarian (mostly vegan) place almost next door to Kiwi. I did go to the secret bar behind the bookcase at the back, which you only know about if you know about it... Pasanauri (Tbilisi and Batumi) This is a traditional Georgian restaurant, of which there are two (at least) in Tbilisi and one on the beach in Batumi. They have a whole fasting menu, which is a filtered down vegan-friendly version of the regular menu, on the back page. Handy dandy. This is where I ate ten khinkali, and a bunch of other things, and went to both branches in Tbilisi and the one in Batumi. The khinkali are particularly good because they dough is thin and the fillings are well seasoned. Luca Polare (Tbilisi and Batumi) A chain of ice cream shops. They're ten a penny on the Batumi seafront, and I ran into at least three in Tbilisi. They have soya milk for coffees, and a bunch of vegan sorbets. They make 'fruit frappes' which are sorbet with fruit juice too, and seem to always have one vegan cake (labelled!). They tend to have wifi and power, air conditioning, and a nice atmosphere to hang about. They're also open aaall the time (8am to 2am). Porto Franco (Batumi) A Georgian restaurant that's part of a hotel, I was surprised to be recommended such a place by a local. I had ajarian lobiani here, and it was really delicious and all good prices. It opens early (because of the hotel I guess) and it's rare to find places for breakfast in Georgia, so that was nice. Uncle Feng's (Batumi) A Chinese restaurant, with several vegan things labelled on the menu. They were out of tofu when I went, but I ate delicious spicy ("Chinese spicy not European spicy") handmade noodles with vegetables, and a pot of Chinese tea. Pretty busy, but a nice atmosphere, and power and wifi. A good option for a break from Georgian food.
I'm walking along the edge of the land in a residential part of Zadar. The sky is stained pink and orange by the sunset, clouds paint wild shapes, dramatic and peaceful at the same time. It's so beautiful I can hardly breathe. The street I'm following is called 'Karma'. The ocean laps at the rocks, providing the only sound for miles, and I scramble down some stairs to dip my legs. The water is almost warm. Suddenly the air is alive, a roar that becomes discernable as cheers, whistles, applause. Some fire crackers, some car horns. Croatia scored in the World Cup, I suppose, and I am reminded that I'm not the only person in the world.
Went on the Sarajevo cable car. Got my old laptop back; installed Ubuntu 18.04 (Mate); had a fight with xmonad as usual. Thrice to yoga. Worked three days. Drove to Croatia, settled in on Iz to commence a week of actual downtime.
Spent a week in a vegetarian hotel on the Croatian island of Iz with folks affiliated with Prana, doing yoga, sleeping, eating, and swimming in the sea. Actually fixed my /tags/ pages!! eg. /tags/travel is now up to date. Spent one night in Zadar at a beautifully located empty hostel, and fell in love with the sunset. Took a bus to Zagreb, and a night bus to Sofia. Slept particularly well on the latter.
Spent two days in Sofia, eating and cafe working. Met cool people around the hostel. Took a night bus to Istanbul. Drama around a guy being seated next to a woman and the driver had to come rearrange the whole bus. Took a day-and-night bus from Istanbul to Batumi. Drama was that it abandoned us at the border and I had to take a matrushka the rest of the way. Spent two days in super weird Batumi. Discovered Georgian food \o/ Also a nice hostel. Bussed from Batumi to Tbilisi. Drama was the luggage flying out on a mountain road lolol
Spent most of the week at the Open Government Partnership Summit in Tbilisi. Helped out with a day-and-a-half workshop about Beneficial Ownership data standard, and a one hour session about org-ids and investigative data discovery. Ate a lot. Touristed around Tbilisi. Took off to the mountains of Rachuli for a weekend of walking, chilling and.. surprise.. eating.
Returned to Tbilisi from the Rachuli mountains. Ate much more food. Did a walking tour, went on the cable car, walked to the giant cathedral. Took a train from Tbilisi to Batumi. Holed up in a nice AirBnB apartment for a few days to work and chill. Went on the Batumi cable car too. Ferry delayed; one night in a hostel. Boarded the ferry to Ukraine, and lived on it in the port for 12 hours and counting..