Dan & More

Dan Went down to Georgia: Day II

Day two and we are checking out of the hotel and in the car to Telavi. A quick word about getting around in Georgia: Bolt. There’s taxis and busses and trains and so on, even a subway, but Bolt is cheap and good. We took one from Tbilisi to Telavi, a two-hour drive, for 133 Lari (or “Larrys” as I called them) or about 50 bucks. I guess there’s a bus that’s cheaper but we’re only around for a week so no time to lose and the ride was spectacular.

I’m afraid you can’t see the sign very well but it was raining and the car was going fast but that’s the sign for George Bush Boulevard. He was a popular chap in Georgia at one time, helping them get a bit closer to NATO membership or something. Didn’t do them much good when Russia invaded though.

The countryside reminded me of my native country Victoria, rolling green pastureland. The difference is that they don’t have paddocks or fences, I guess the sheep just go wherever. Our driver took the ‘windy’ route. That is, it’s a twisty road (and was windy too) and ascended over a pass, quite a high one. We did stop at the top, which was high enough for my ears to pop but I don’t have any photos as we were in the clouds.

Telavi is a nice regional centre in the wine country. We stayed at the Holiday Inn, here’s the view from our room:

The hotel came with a dog, which was nice. Note the ear tag to show this chap hasn’t got rabies.

Telavi comes with its own castle ruin. There’s a statue of the local lord on a horse and bunch of walls.

Georgia is in a part of the world where you need stout fortifications. According to Wikipedia, Telavi boasts fortifications from four distinct periods, we only saw this one.

Looks like the local youth have political stirrings, but I don’t think that’s the Banksy we know. Is it important that the graffiti is in English? Perhaps, but it doesn’t look like much fun doing graffiti in Georgian script.

The trouble is that, Telavi is a bit shit. We checked out the market and it puts me in the mind of Cambodia. Luckily there was a couple of fancy restaurants next door to the hotel. Cue Sachie’s introduction to Cha Cha.

Yep, Georgia may be the home of wine but they make ‘cha cha’ with the leftovers. It can be most closely related to grappa and is the firewater that’s made from the leavings from winemaking. Needless to say, we slept well.

Telavi may have a great nightlife but I wouldn’t know because we had an early start the next day — winery tour. We hired a driver by the name of Mamuka a couple of years ago but the trip got postponed due to covid. Now we had him behind the wheel for the whole day, ferrying us from winery to winery. But first, culture.

Alexander Chavchavadze used to live here. He was an imperial official and an admired poet, so they gave him this nice house. Not sure why it’s out here in the middle of nowhere, many hours from the city but it is set in lovely grounds. Inside is well preserved but I can’t show you as you’re not allowed to take photographs.

Nothing to stop you peeking in the windows though.

The house is a fine example of Caucasian/Russian imperial architecture and they have a scriptorium that has stunning, very old manuscripts on display. But this isn’t a history tour and the only culture we were interested in is yeast in a wine vat.

Do you about traditional Georgian wine? No? Well listen carefully, pleb. The Georgians claim that they’ve been fermenting grapes for 8,000 years. They sold wine to the Romans and everyone else before and since. Their method is unique: they bury massive clay pots up to the neck in soil, crush up the grapes and toss it all in, seal it up and wait a few months. Then it’s tapping time and they use a big dipper to get the wine out. Wine may be moved to other pots above or below ground for maturation but the basic method is: hole + grapes + time = wine.

After you get the wine out you send your cousin into the pot to clean it out, and to make the afore-mentioned cha-cha. The chap in the pot is asked to sing while he works so you can tell when he passes out from the fumes. Maybe the tie a rope around his waist as well?

Snacks, no drinking on an empty stomach.

So the first winery sat us in the garden and started pulling corks. This winery, like most in Georgia, produce wine using traditional methods as well as what they call the ‘European method’. The traditional method retains skins, stems, dirt, old bottle tops and someone’s glasses that they’re probably looking for throughout the fermentation process, proper tough-guy wine. Whereas under the poofy ‘European method’ they take that stuff out at some point. The result is that traditional wines are heavy with tannins and rich, complex flavours (turpentine? paint stripper?) and the stainless-steel vat club are lighter and closer to what’s expected by the international palate. The good news is that Georgia takes an innovative approach to both, helped along by their massive menu of grape varieties. Have a look at the awards plastering the walls of this second winery.

They use the minor ones as toilet paper in the bathrooms, now that’s class!

We did buy bottles at each winery, in this one we picked up one of ‘orange’ wine. Yep, there’s white, red and orange in Georgia and it really does have an orange hue. I really wanted the orange one we tasted as it is an excellent example of stony or flinty flavours in a wine that we so rarely see in our new-world wines.

They also have a fine cha-cha, 99% guaranteed not to make you blind or spontaneously combust. I believe these are bohemian glasses but I don’t really care.

I assume that by this time we were due lunch but for the life of me I can’t remember eating anything or where it was. Miss Sachie informs me that we did in fact dine at a winery at which we were the only guests and was mostly under construction. Oh well.

Our next stop was the party house, also known as the Numisi Cellar Museum. Here’s the cellar:

The museum part refers to the sizable collection of soviet-era appliances, like radios, TVs and so on. Some fantastic typewriters.

People born after 1970 won’t know what this is. But back in the day you would be the most popular family in the neighbourhood.

It was at this place that we first got a good look at the Qvevris, the earthenware pots in which the wine is made:

I’m not sure of these were in use at the time but I don’t think so. After a look around we were invited to a vaulted and semi-sunken hall with a fine fireplace at one end. On the table we found a jug of wine, plenty of cha-cha and some salty bread and cheese.

Miss Sachie and I are big drinkers and lovers of cheese. Perfect! The Georgian cheese is salty and full of bubbles so with salty bread they demand a whistle-wetter. Oh dear, the red is a bit sweet, better try the cha-cha.

Well, that was enough for me. The ~~kerosine~~ cha-cha sat in my stomach like an old truck-tyre and put me off the idea of putting anything else in there. The museum would be magnificent with a tour bus full of people, all necking sweet wine and cheap moonshine next to a roaring fire, they even have a duck pond outside to vomit into. Sadly, it was just the two of us, but we did our best to get into the spirit.

This rather finished us for the day and we were unable to enjoy drinks at the next stop, which was a shame because this was the place where you can drink right out of the Qvevri, with a dipper of course.

You can drink out of this too, if you are insane.

It was a shame as this was a very nice, small winery that looked great in the late-afternoon sunlight. They were even making some of Georgia’s favourite treat:

No, it’s not poo on a string, that’s churchkela, nuts covered in grape juice thickened with flour. The string is dipped in the mix, left to dry and dipped again like you’re making a candle. The result is delicious and cheap. We didn’t get any at this stop but stocked up back in Tbilisi.

By now Mamuka was warming to us a bit. He normally drives around tourists and his English is pretty good but Covid had done its work on the Georgian tourism market and he was topping up his business by taking on some side work by collecting coins from charitable donation boxes around the countryside. He is concerned that he’s carrying around a lot of money and the company won’t give him a gun to protect himself from bandits. I worked out that he’d be carrying at most around $500 so if he needs a gun to stop people hijacking him on the road things must be a bit grim in country Georgia. Not sure how that compares to US-Georgia but I expect someone may shoot you for $500 in change there too.

Now the sun was getting low and we couldn’t drink any more. But no! There was the mountain village of Sighaghi, a charming hamlet of hills and steep driveways. It has a wall.

There’s a wonderful view of the snow-capped Caucus mountains there and it really is a beautiful part of the world. Really lets you know that you’re in Europe. Being a lad from country Victoria we don’t have old castles or interesting ruins, although to be fair I’ve seen cave paintings tens of thousands of years old there, but it’s not the same.

Being Covid-times the place was very quiet but there are signs that this was once a bustling backpacker-colony.

See that shop through the gate? They sell tourist nick-nacks and socks. Wonderful socks displayed up and down the wall. I bought some off the old lady knitting in the doorway next to the shop and she sold me the scratchiest, itchiest, hardest woollen socks have have ever worn in my life. Turns out she lives next to the shop and has nothing to do with it. Down the road is carpet-mart.

It’s a beautiful and ancient town and I’m so glad that we could visit, I’d like to go and stay there one day.

Time to go home. It was proper dark now and the roads were windy and long. It was about now that Mamuka regaled us with tales of countryside living, of drinking Cha-Cha in winter but mostly about his recent divorce and how much he misses his daughter. The newly divorced man is prone to explaining, in excruciating detail, the circumstances of his breakup. I know this because I have been that man. Can’t blame the chap, we’re all prone to it but as I have my current main squeeze in the back passenger seat with me so I can’t top his story or tell him to take a teaspoon of cement and harden the fuck up.

We’d brought some gifts from Thailand for him, being decent folk (well Sachie is). Somehow we gave them to him before getting dropped off and he stopped where his daughter lives so he could give them to her. He’s a very decent bloke and a generous one as well. I wish him all the best and hope to see him next time we visit.

Mamuka dropped us off at the Holiday Inn and we were completely rooted and went to bed. Thus ends part II.

Dan Went down to Georgia: Day I

Back in May, the lady and I went to Georgia. No, not the Peach State, in the US of A. The one in the Caucasus, next to Russia. Of course, May being close to February, the war in Ukraine was fresh in most minds and my mother was very concerned that we would be in danger. So it was easy to assure her that we’d be quite safe from the Russian army as they had already invaded Georgia, back in 2008, and they were now busy further north.

Georgia is a small country, there are only about four million Georgians, but they have a long history. They have their own wacky language and even wackier alphabet, a strong literary tradition, a fierce sense of independence and an 8,000-year long wine tradition. We, of course, went for the wine.

They have a zillion varieties of grape that nobody has ever heard of as well.

The flight is done and we have been picked up by the hotel. Let’s check in.

Class hey? This flophouse started as the Hotel Majestic, back in 1915, and has played host to the famous and infamous over its life, also serving as WWI hospital, union hall and a cinema. There is a parade of notables who have stayed here but the only one I remember is Margret Thatcher who must have come for a dirty weekend or something. Speaking of which…

The room was very nice, a classic. I love old apartments, hotels and so on, but what’s with the big, hemispherical mirror on the bedhead? I puzzled over this for many minutes before concluding that it’s so the people operating the camera behind it can get a better angle. Nice. Let’s go get breakfast.

Ahhh, nothing like a champagne breakfast. Sorry it’s a bit blurry but we’re never our best first thing in the morning. Luckily there’s a healthy alternative.

Yes, that’s one’s blurry too. They do actually serve food and it was good. Not good enough to photograph but good. One welcome surprise was a big bowl of fresh strawberries. In Bangkok they’re big and tasteless but these were small, sweet and plentiful everywhere we went.

Most of day #1 was taken up with the walking tour. It’s free, leaves from Freedom Square at 10am and is conducted by a young Georgian lady. She gave us a quick rundown on Georgian history, which is basically that it keeps getting invaded by the Russians, who are a pack of shitbags.

The tour takes in the old part of town, which is narrow streets and old houses. Much of it is in poor repair as the place is prone to earthquakes although some neighbourhoods have been renovated and done up nicely.

This one isn’t renovated. It’s an old Armenian merchant’s place (the house is old, 140 years or so, not the merchant, although I guess he would be pretty old if he was still about) that was seized and chopped up into apartments by the Bolsheviks.

For a tourist the city is very walkable with a park/museum street, shopping area, the old town and then the hot springs all topped off by the fortress on the hill. These all join up so one need not negotiate the subway system or taxis. There’s this funky footbridge that joins up some of the tourist zones.

The city seems to be pretty safe, there’s a few pushy touts about but you get them everywhere. However, there are these enormous hunting dogs all over.

These are strays but that doesn’t mean they’re not looked after. The city vaccinates them and puts a plastic tag through their ear. They’re friendly and like to follow you about. We had a lovely one for our walking tour.

Another other tourist notable is the clocktower.

In an afternoon of the tourguide quizzing us on the age of various buildings and artifacts around the old town (why do they do that? Isn’t it their job to know?) I was relived to find that the clocktower is a recent addition, going up in 2011 and has a puppet theatre in its base. It also has figures that come out and ring the bell upon the hour.

The old town is great for wandering about and trying out little bars and restaurants. All tight streets and old buildings.

Another big tourist draw is the chance to see the city from the air. You could take the gas balloon:

It’s on a tether and apparently gives a fine view of the town. We didn’t try it out as there’s a superior, cheaper option.

Yeah, you can take a cablecar to the top of the mountain. It’s amazing. Not just from the gondola but walking around town there would be the occasional shadow of the car moving overhead. Oh, the view from the car is great too. Best thing is, it’s part of the public transport system so you just need a local PT card. Very cheap and worth many rides.

That’s the view from the top and it is not bad. At the top of the hill is the fortress, which is my first in-person encounter with medieval fortifications that have seen actual assaults. Looking at the walls and slope, I’d prefer to be on defence.

Tbilisi citadel — Try climbing up there under arrow-fire.

Here it is in photosphere.

You’ll find this lady up there too:

That’s the sword-wielding Mother of Georgia, a big silver statue on a hill that’s hard to photograph from up close. There’s a sharp drop in front of her, as you can see here:

One can get a photo of her from the front but not close up.

Tbilisi cable car — There’s one of those cable cars again.

Here’s another view from the top, some chap’s critique on religion I expect, but to be honest, there’s so much graffiti in Georgia that I want to invest in spraypaint imports.

Tbilisi does seem to be caked in grafitti, but some of it is pretty cool.

These chaps are all over the city at construction sites and other handy surfaces. It gives the city a vibrancy to see these ultimately public artworks on an ultimately banal hoarding. Here’s some more:

You can see this fucker’s stickers all over Asia as well.

It seems that we’re looking at colour digital photos now so let’s look at some of the more interesting ones, like this one:

So, nice old building? Bit boring, but it is in this former seminary one Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, Georgia’s most famous son who once studied for the priesthood within these very walls. Did I say famous? Perhaps infamous is a better word, he’d later go by Joseph Stalin. It was in this building that the young ‘Kuba’ was radicalised by a forbidden book club. The rest, as they say, is history. Horrible, blood-soaked, paranoid history. Let’s look a the Bridge of Peace instead.

Cable car gondola — There’s that cable car again.

View from cable car — And here’s the view from the same.

Georgia is all about wine, they’re very proud of it. Here in the old town there are grape vines on the houses.

One of the other main tourist bits is the hot springs. These are very old, like, from Ottoman times and before. Indeed, the city gets its name, ‘warm place’, from the springs.

See that one that looks like a mosque?

That’s the one Miss Sachie went to. It certainly looks fancy but it’s cheaper than the other ones we looked at. They’re the more traditional domed structures.

I confess that I didn’t partake of steam baths or massage as I need to be very drunk indeed to take off my clothes in public.

Speaking of which, it was a nice sunny day in a charming old city — far too nice to spend walking about doing tourist stuff, let’s get a nice cold beer.

Even the view from the little café is of old houses stuffed with charm.

So Day One was a lot of walking and seeing new stuff. In the evening we went out with our friend Will, who lives in Tbilisi, to a fancy wine bar but it was a bit naff as it was the sommelier’s night off. We’ll catch up with Will later in the trip though, so look out for Day II!

News Flash! Hosting Update

This blog started I don’t know when on some cheap GoDaddy hosting back in the ADSL days. They sent me a bill for $50 for another years’ hosting and I thought that was just too much, backed up the site and let it fall offline.

Much later, for a lark, I took a surplus Eee from my employer, put it on Ubuntu and stuck it in the server room. It worked! It worked surprisingly well, Nginx running on Linux is no joke. But all good things come to an end and the poor bastard died.

At work we had a legacy account at HostGator (a ‘baby’ package) where the main site used to live. It’s very cheap, $50 a year, ha ha, so it’s been less bother to keep it than move the few sites that were still there. It’s ‘unlimited’ storage so there would be no trouble keeping this site, sachidan.com and bartripping.com there.

The only trouble is that HostGator is complete bullshit. The site is so horrifically underpowered that any image uploaded to WordPress larger than 1MB, or even smaller, would cause the instance to crumble under its heavy load. The little Eee that the site used to be on was Concorde by comparison.

Well, enough of this nonsense, but I don’t like paying $3/month for hosting. It turns out that one of our new company websites is going to be on WordPress so I’ve been marshalling a couple of our DigitalOcean droplets into serving WordPress and since the dev server isn’t too busy anyway… The site has a new home. Regular readers (hi Dad) will notice a swift increase in performance and I won’t have to turn my photos into postage stamps to get them served.

DigitalOcean does have an out-of-the-box WordPress instance that’s actually pretty good but it runs on Apache and I’m completely over Apache. Hey, it’s a good webserver and WordPress is the killer app for Apache on PHP but, even though I find nginx server blocks occasionally infuriating, if I never have to edit an .htaccess file again I will die a happy man.

So sorry it’s been quiet lately, for years, but it’s been no fun on crap hosting, even though this site is all about crap hosting. Sooner or later I’ll buy a Raspberry Pi to host on, but until then you’ll all have to get by with cloud.

A stay at the Westin

Go have a look and my post on the other blog.

FARANG May 2005

Dear reader, please find below the PDF of the May 2005 issue, it’s the holiday issue so it’s a clip show.

2005_05 Download