After leaving Azerbaijan, crossing the Georgian border, I caught a bus to the quiet border town of Logodeghi, where I saw a Marshrutka heading for Tbilisi but it was full. There were six locals who had not got on. They attempted to find another minibus or negotiate with taxi drivers. The four women gave up and went home. A couple’s taxi offer seems outrageous. I decided that it would be better to try and hitch and at worst, there was a crappy hotel in town and I could get a minibus tomorrow.

I walked to the bridge at the end of two and stuck out my thumb. The second car roared past and then reversed and I jumped in. The story was confusing but I gather the car contained two sisters, who were originally from Kazakhstan. One had moved to Georgia and was working in Tbilisi in a Department shop. She had a Georgian boyfriend who was driving them around. Her sister had come to visit them and they were doing a sightseeing trip to show her sister the countryside and visit relatives in her old school town of Gurjaani. Despite her excellent English, I never discovered how she had ended up here if they were born in Kazahkstan.

I was just pleased to get a ride and the boyfriend floored his car on the empty rural roads. The mountains were covered in trees like a green carpet bunched up. We roared through small villages where all the locals sat at the roadside with buckets of peaches. Hundreds of buckets with no chance of selling them. Another village sold watermelons – barrowful loads. Another sold what looked like stuffed condoms hanging from frames. Initially, I thought they were sausages, but I think they were nuts. In the setting sun, I felt this area south east of Tbilisi was the most picturesque I saw during the whole trip – summertime in the countryside.

We would sporadically pull up on country lanes and the boyfriend would yell questions to locals about finding Gurjaani – there were no road signs. Then we would roar off again. At one town, he refilled his radiator with water from a spring. An old lady manning it, passed a bottle of cold water to us while we waited.

When we reached Gurjaani, they spotted a Marshrutka and flagged it down. It was headed for Tbilisi and there was one seat empty. Ninety minutes later I was dropped near the most southern metro station. I was back at the home-stay by 9.30pm with cold beer. There were more Dutch people staying. I couldn’t believe I had managed to get from Baku to Tbilisi in 14 hours. It had taken two minibuses, two buses, a taxi, a hitch and a metro. The following day, I decided to check out Joseph Stalin’s hometown of Gori. I made my way to the Doobie Do bus station as usual, but it took while to find the bus, which was in a hidden section. A local led me to it, where every bus driver looked like a younger Gene Hackman with his hair missing. We headed past Mtskheta again and then down the main western highway overtaken by everything apart from horses and carts. Ninety minutes later, we pulled into Gori and drove past the Stalin Museum and Stalin Square on the way to the bus station.

I wanted, if possible to try and visit an enormous cave city called Uplisksikhe first. I asked for ‘Kvakhureli’ and someone led me to an even more decrepit bus. The bus driver who looked like Gene Hackman’s father, took me to the ticket office and then allotted me a seat on the bus. I didn’t realise that we would then sit there for nearly an hour while the bus was filled with boxes, bags of produce, chickens and about 60 people mostly standing. Crushing room only. When we eventually left I didn’t think that we could get any more people on, but he stopped for three women with babies in their arms. I had crying babies all around me. Great!

We headed into the mountains, a pleasant rural ride for about forty minutes at the speed of an ice flow until we reached the village of Kvakhureli. A construction team was laying a new tar road surface. The tar was heated up in a burner fuelled by branches. A man was pulled on his cart by a couple of cows, another with oxen. Locals sat around outside their gates with nothing to do but pass the time of day.

I walked a mile to the entrance of the cave city of Uplistsikhe and they even accepted my Student card. This is one of the oldest places of settlement in the Caucuses. It was founded in the late Bronze Age, around 1000BC, but developed mainly from the 6th to the 1st centuries BC when it was a major centre of paganism. The main caravan road from Asia to Europe used to run close by and it became an important centre. At its peak in the early Middle Ages, it had a population of 20,000 spread over nearly 10 hectares. There were 700 caves. Now only the inner city remains with 150 caves. The Mongols destroyed it and all the forests around.

I spent an hour exploring the cave city which hung off a sheer cliff. The wind roars around. It was strategically located with a deep valley to the east and cliffs to the west taking advantage of a series of natural terraces. There were spectacular views along the valley and over the decent sized river which runs through the valley. Many caves had a deep round hole – I would assume to allow them to have a water supply – but they would make decent baths. Some had holes for smoke from fires. As I climbed around, I came across the old water channels, and the big hall known as Tamaris Darbazi with two columns built into the cliff and the stones of the ceiling carved to look like wooden beams. I also found the Temple of the Sun.

It appeared to be a popular tourist attraction (well, I counted twenty tourists), though they all came by taxi or chartered vehicles. It was a lovely scenic area with the cliffs all around and well worth the visit. I was pleased just to get there on public transport. Sometimes, the getting there is as good as what you go to see. In this case, both were worth it.

Getting back was another matter. I had no idea when the next bus would pass through. I was adopted by a teenage girl who looked and dressed like a boy. She blabbered in Georgian, seemingly immune to the fact that I understood nothing but I got the message that a bus would arrive soon. She even took my water bottle to a neighbour to get it filled up. It was another baking hot day. The bus arrived with the same driver who recognised me. We crawled back to Gori with a half empty bus.

Gori means only one thing to Georgians. It is the town where Josef Dzhugashvili – later Josef Stakin – was born and went to school. Stalin, despite shitting over his own people is still a popular figure in his homeland, even if it because he is the best known Georgian in the World. The locals are obviously still proud of their heritage and it does pull in the tourists.

Gori is dominated by a massive ancient fortress that occupies the big hill in the city centre. It had a vast Georgian flag flying from the walls. I took a stroll up to it to look down on what was a nice looking town and from where I could see the long wide Stalinis Gamziri (Stalin Avenue), Stalin Moedani (Stalin Square) and the Stalin Museum. I liked Gori. It was a normal Georgian town with no pretensions, just getting on with life and enjoying a hot summer day. There was a lemonade stall. You chose your flavour (Strawberry, mint etc) and a dollop would be put in a glass from large hanging jars. Then cold lemonade would be pumped into the glass and stirred. Delicious for about 10p.

Stalin Square had a large statue of guess who in front of the major administrative buildings. The Museum was an impressive Gothic looking building. In the grounds were Stalin’s original home, a cottage where he apparently lived in Gori until he was fifteen years old. The small two roomed affair was housed under a temple like structure. There was also the railway carriage which took him to the Yalta conference during World War Two.

Inside the museum, it was dark and forbidding. I climbed a large staircase to the first floor to pass through three large rooms documenting his life story. The narratives were only in Georgian and Russian, so I looked at the photos while a sole female guard followed me around, in case I felt the need to wreck havoc on behalf of the millions of people who died during his paranoia. He looked like a tough kid even in his youth. There were various presents from nations on show. I thought the carved clogs from Holland in 1949 (to celebrate his 70th birthday) were particularly cute – Stalin’s face on one clog and Lenin on the other. At the end, in a side room, I walked around his death mask. The museum was a strange place like it had been trapped in time and also a little macabre.

I was able to wave down a Tbilisi bus outside. Back in the home stay, my loud Dutch friend returned and we walked to a Turkish café for Moussaka and rice. It was the first decent meal I’d had in a week. The patio at the home stay that evening was filled up with Dutch, Polish and Norwegians and we drank beer until the old lady needed to retire at midnight and lock the doors. Dutch backpackers seemed to dominate Georgia this year.

I was up at 6.30am in a silent household. After a cold shower and packing I had to wake the old lady to unlock the door at 7.15 to let me out. I caught a minibus to the Ortachala International Bus Station on the eastern side of town, where a minibus to Yerevan, Armenia was waiting to fill. We left at 8.30am and I had a comfortable seat by the door. We headed south for two hours through farmland and forests to the border. There was no problem leaving Georgia.

The border crossing for departure was slower than my arrival with trucks lined up over the bridge. It was a fast drive back to Tbilisi and we arrived n the dark, but I caught a minibus back to my usual home stay, where I bumped into Stefan from Germany who I had met at the Envoy Hostel in Yerevan.

The next day was my last chance to do some exploring. I had forgotten to put my watch back an hour so after the cold shower, I was off to the Doobie Do bus station by 6.30am. I found a marshrutka to Kutaisi. This was about as far west and back as I thought I could get in a day. We headed along the familiar western highway past Gori. There was lovely undulating rural scenery and a good road with everyone passing in the middle of a two lane highway from either direction. One village was selling hammocks everywhere, another had stall after stall of wicker baskets. Fruit stalls were everywhere. We stopped after a mountain tunnel for a break.

Kutaisi is officially Georgia’s second city with 240,000 people. As we entered it, I saw the 11th Century Bagrati Cathedral on a hill which is the most famous landmark. We passed by a massive market selling everything you could think of. I thought the marshrutka would stop at the main bus station but it went nowhere near.

Before we left, there had been a big argument between marshrutka drivers and we had switched minibuses after we had paid the original driver. Noone had asked where I was going so I stayed on. Once we left Kutaisi, I had no idea where we were going but it was a free ride. I had originally felt that Batumi on the Black Sea was too far, but we made good time. I was following a map, ready to jump off if we turned off the Batumi road.

Once we reached the Black Sea, we entered the (semi autonomous state, but still part of Georgia) of Adjara. Ten years ago, I’d been on the other side of the Black Sea in Bulgaria and last year at the northern edge in the Ukraine.

The vegetation turned lush with a vivid green colour, very different from the rest of Georgia. There were small seaside towns next to the sea which looked like nice places to stay. Georgian tourists were swimming. There were lots of derelict high rises by the coast. I couldn’t work out if they were being destroyed or just gutted and rebuilt. These old Communist high rises spoilt the otherwise pleasant scenery with palm trees. There were loads of cows, pigs and goats walking across the road. We’d brake had and nearly hit a cow’s arse. It didn’t care. I had counted six dogs today as roadkill.

Batumi likes to claim that it, rather than Kutaisi, is Georgia’s second city. Its 19th century architecture, busy port, chaotic market and mountainous backdrop make it very popular. Batumi’s main promontory stuck out into the Black Sea. I was very conscious of getting back and I would have no time to explore the city. The marshrutka did not drop at the main bus station again. I asked a local and he drove me there in two minutes. There was a marshrutka ready to head back to Tbilisi but it was full. I got a ticket and there was an empty one waiting to fill. I went to find the toilet and had a quick nose around. The station was full stalls selling fruit and veg and mounds of tobacco. By the time I got back, another marshrutka was full ready to go with one seat spare at the back. They had waited for me.

Off we went with a driver from hell, retracing the same route. Near Tbilisi, the roads were packed with returning Sunday traffic. Two accidents were causing delays. Many police cars were around. We got back in 6 hours. It had been a long day, but I had now crossed the entire landmass between the Black and Caspian Seas. That day I had travelled 740 kilometres in one day by two minibuses.

My last day was lazy, exploring parts of Tbilisi I hadn’t seen, shopping for souvenirs including a washing powder called ‘Barf!’ I watched a Georgian Church service with two apprentice priests leading the congregation in song during the ceremony run by an ornately clothed main priest. The city’s left bank is built on a sheer cliff that overlooks the Old Town. Looking over the town from the hills was the 8th Century Narika Fortress (restored after a 19th century explosion) and the statue of Kartlis Dega, known to the locals as Mother Georgia. This is a 1960s 20m aluminum woman who holds a sword in one hand and a cup of wine in the other “a perfect metaphor for the Georgian character, warmly welcoming guests and passionately fighting off enemies” (LP). I walked up to these today but really just to get a view over the whole city.

Later in the day, I visited the thermal sulphur baths called the Abanotubani. Bath St is full of subterranean bathhouses with beehive domes that rise in various places. It was only 60p to spend an hour in the communal ones. You stripped off in a dry area and then stepped into the next room where you showers before immersing yourself in one of those old football team bath sized affairs with naturally heated running water. It was a comfortable 30 something degrees – hot enough to soak without boiling you. Upstairs was a small sauna which was very hot. I could only manage ten minutes in it before falling into a cold bath outside and then repeating the whole process again. In one corner, a pot bellied masseur soaped and massaged various men, not as rough as the Turkish one I had experienced first hand but he did have his ‘Brillo’ glove to scrape the dirt off you. The hour passed quickly, but I felt very relaxed. After showering, drying and changing into my clothes, there was a cool room where men sat and chatted and drank beer before leaving the baths.

I enjoyed another Turkish meal and napped during the evening before a neighbour who was a taxi driver drove me to the airport around midnight. My plane was leaving at 4.45am so I just sat and read. Sometime around 3am, a man sat down. His English was very good. He asked me what I reading and we got chatting. He and his friend were policemen who had come to see a friend arrive. They bought me a coke. It must be one of the only airports where the locals can still smoke inside the terminal. The plane left on time and I made the Vienna connection. I was back in Heathrow by 9am.

I was pleasantly surprised by Georgia. If they can get around to putting up some English signs and improve the tourist infrastructure, then I think it will become a new popular country to visit within the next decade. The Georgians are very friendly and hospitable. For adventurous backpackers, it is safe (though an Irishman at our home stay who got drunk in a bar one night, was attacked and had his money and passport stolen and was hit on the head) and the local transport systems are very efficient. The Georgian language is a bit of a killer. The advantage of visiting now is that the beer and vodka is absurdly cheap along with everything else except the Western hotels (and Georgian wine is ok too) and you will have the country to yourself. Recommended.

Useful marshrutkas from Marjanashvili square:
59 to Azerbaijan embassy
20 or 6 to Didube bus station
108 to Ortachala International Bus Station

Useful info: The Marriot Courtyard Hotel in Tbilisi will exchange Armenian and Azerbaijan money. All other banks are only interested in US Dollars, Euros and Russian Roubles

Georgian Roadkill: 8 dogs, 1 cat.

Travel - £41.80 + $10 taxi to airport
Accommodation - £41.64
Food - £20.40
Other - £7.70 (+ £24.25 on souvenirs)
Total - £141.03