TRAVERSE 113
TRAVEL - GEORGIA
JODIE ROGERS
SO LITTLE , SO MUCH
After riding in Vietnam , Fiji , and the Indian Himalayas in 2023 , it was fair to say I had been bitten by the overseas adventure bike bug . It took me less than a week when I returned from India to book my next trip which I had to wait for 10 months , the longest 10 months ever !
Tick tock , tick tock , finally the time came to board a plane and I was on my way solo to a country which was having some civilian protests in its capital city . Concerned ? Yes ! Frightened ? No bloody way ! I was going to ride in Georgia !
Flying to Istanbul and across the Black Sea was pretty cool , Türkiye is on my radar , so looking over the mountains had me daydreaming about what could be .
Stepping off the plane a few days early after 31 hours of travel , I was expecting to be greeted by a representative of the tour , however it was instead a hot drive by collection in a pick-up truck with an American and a Brit , little did I know that we would form a wonderful friendship that will include spending time together in the future .
Tbilisi is stunning ! The streets are clean , the street dogs are fat and healthy , and the people are friendly . My first Georgian words - Gamarjoba meaning Hello and Madloba ; Thankyou , and that ’ s about as far as I got with trying to learn the language , it ’ s fast with a lot of throaty , growly sounds that I simply can ’ t do without spitting everywhere !
I hit the ground running in Tbilisi , no time to waste , plenty to explore and wow what a city ! I ’ ve already said Tbilisi is stunning , it is also quite classy ! Even the graffiti is artwork . The sun was out all day and my tour around the city was exactly what I wanted . I really couldn ’ t have fit much more into the day . About 25,000 steps , around thirteen kilometres walking the streets ,
TRAVERSE 113