Tblisi

We have been in Tblisi for two days and have been treated like Kings. We called David when we arrived and arranged to meet with him the following day. He, like his brothers, took us on a tour of the monasteries of the city.

We first headed out to Mtskheta Monastery which we had cycled past on the way in to town. It was another beautiful building with magnificent fresco all around. Then on to Jvari a little monastery perched on the top of the hill opposite Mtskheta, David doesn't know his way around these parts and I think we missed a turning to the Monastery. Instead of taking a more circuitous route to get there, he decided to reverse for a kilometre and a half up the slip road to get there. You could cut the silence in the car with a knife, Humphrey nor I wanted to speak for fear of distracting David and I think Humphrey had his eyes closed for the whole manoeuvre! The monastery was more basic than the others, no paintings but still with icons everywhere.

I forgot to mention that I had put all my washing in the night before and it wasn't ready in time for our little excursion. So I only had shorts and a shirt to wear. Entering a church here women have to cover their hair loosely with a scarf and they should be wearing a skirt not trousers and certainly not shorts. As all my respectable church going clothes were in the wash, I brought my towel along and was wrapping that around myself whenever there was a need, and also to cover my hair as my scarf was also in the wash I had to put on my rain coat and put the hood up. I cut a rather fine figure!

Then it was onto the fortress above Tblisi that awarded us extraodinary views across the city, even if the health and safety of the place left alot to be desired, I was teetering up some very steep and narrow stairs, wrapped in my towel!

Chinese for lunch a welcome relief from 'local' food, it felt like home! Here we met some friends of David who are from Belorus. They were telling us about Baku and Azerbaijan, and how horrible it is compared to Georgia so we are looking forward to it! They were also giving me tips on what to wear in Azerbiajan. The main thing I took away with me that in Muslim countries women should under no circumstances wear red. Now this poses a little problem for me, I like the colour red, so much so that I have a pair of pillar box red trousers which I use for 'smart' occasions, I have a bright red mac for when it rains. More difficult to overcome is that I have red bags on my bike all four of them are bright red! I am a cycling sex taunt according to them...we shall see how I am recieved over there, but I will be wearing my mac inside out....

The evening was spent outside Tblisi by a little swimming lake drinking fruit cocktails and tea!

The following day Humphrey was feeling a little ill so I went with Sofa and David on a shopping trip to find me some cycling trousers and a smart pair of trus to replace my red ones! We then went for coffee with alot more Belorussians and then walked to a lovely cafe called Cafe PurPur. Very bohemian and arty with the most amazing loos, it was like going into a French renaissance dressing room.

In the evening I went out with them all to Buffalo Bills, as you can imagine from the name this was an American themed pub. There was a huge group of Belorussians most on holiday from Baku and they were all very drunk. The live band started and within minutes they were all dancing on the tables and singing along, the only thing to do was to join in. The band were great but they had one member who stood out as being unique. The drummer, bass player and guitarist were cool, 'down with the kids' guys, bearded, long hair, good looking. Then there was the lead guitarist. A balding, dark haired, middle aged guy, wearing a stripy short sleeved shirt with the buttons open to the top of his rather generous belly which hung over his light blue tight jeans. To adorn the hairy chest he was wearing quite a few pendants that hung down amongst the sweaty hair. His solos were gratuitous, egocentric, love fests. His leg propped up on the nearest chair, in an almost crutch splitting lunge, eyes closed, head rocking back and forth to the music, sweat dripping from his brow...you could almost see the thought bubble above his head imagining he was Jimi Hendrix. Then his piece de resistance, he lifted his guitar to his face and proceeded to play the guitar with his tongue, or that's what he wanted us to think. I felt violated looking at him...it was horrendous, and I don't think any of the others shared my opinion! It was definitely an experience...

Tblisi has been great, we have been truly entertained by everyone here it's been amazing...I have made some good friends and hope to see them in London. We are constantly watching the news and wondering what our next move will be, at the moment it looks like we may have to skip Iran and head across the water to Kazakhstan, but it is all subject to change.

I ahve uploaded some pictures. It takes so long to upload them on to here so the link below should take you to the album I have put on facebook, even if you are not a member. I will be adding some more when I get hold of Humphrey's pics.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2321032&id=61201566&l=5bd6dc3c08