Ending a day of almost intolerable bureaucracy involving at least three different Georgian ministries and an implacably pedantic manager at the Tbilisi Fedex depot I finally met an honest answer about the 20% tax levied on my package of my stuff that I already own and shall not pass on, hire, leave behind or sell. Its not right but you have to pay. Perfect doublethink I thought, and was so cheered by the Revenue Ministry Officer's admission that all the stupid paperwork, fees, IDs and arguments - the getting lost between agents, brokers and ministries only to fail to collect my parcel that sat throughout in the first room I'd entered in this citywide bureacratic maze - didn't upset me anymore. Now I have the correct identification, illegible certification and rubber stamps and tomorrow, provided I have enough cash dollars to pay the fees and the tricksy FedEx lady and her customs cohorts have run out of tricks, I'll be able to collect my warm winter coat and kindly replaced Thermarest (mine proved a shoddy model, since improved). My wooly hat and Pair Number Two of cycling shorts; Seb's SteriPen and the illicit, undeclared packet of spare rubber washers for my stove's piston pump.
Meanwhile all my other kit is neurotically pegged out from the seventh floor window of a Tbilisi apartment block. It was a rainy road out of Turkey and after a few days cracks appear in the keeping-stuff-dry regimen. How best to stow a sodden flysheet? What to do with damp down? Easy questions in a domestic setting but much more taxing in a woodland dawn deluge. Last December, in a bit of a stink with work having just been told definitively that I'd have to quit to make this trip because I couldn't get a career break in any predicatable timeframe (I promise to let it go, soon), I set off to cycle around the Welsh coast from Newport to Aberystwyth. If it was a test I passed with drab colours. I remember it being a hangover decision, encouraged over tardy breakfast by my friend Rachel. I got Iain to cover a shift and took a 4am train the next morning and it sleeted and blew and hailstone pelted but never quite froze. Normal Welsh December I guess. Mostly it was as a shit as it sounds but I remember the sun came out for half an hour in Tenby and it was so special for the solitary lighthouse view and the moment's scarcity that frozen fingers and bitter knowledge of another night sleeping out faded to irrelevance. At some point then, in the rain or the sunny interval, I knew I'd be off fairly soon. Now that I'm long gone and Winter begins to insinuate itself in the windchill or brief hail on my silly but effective technical layers, those four wet days have a certain resonance to recollect.
Cycling into Georgia I was struck by the dereliction near the border. I know little about the complicated history but there is a definite Balkan air of a place long bothered by enormous empires nextdoor. Its a young country in terms of independence but the rural villages look decrepit, full of grand old crumbly buildings spalling into overgrown gardens while streets and shopfronts teem with agelessly alcoholic looking footlers. A young country gone to seed around the edge. I've been largely ignored in the villages which is both refreshing and frustrating after Turkey. Two nights ago hungry, wet and exhausted looking for a dinner and a place to sleep amongst blank stares and empty shops I was starting to resent Georgian indifference. Leaving town resigned to eating biscuits and sleeping wherever I took it all back when a man waved me down and insisted I stay with his family. Over fragrant spiced lamb and his own-brewed Raki it emerged of course that he was Turkish. In Tbilisi I'm staying with Steffi from Germany who teaches a photography class at the local art academy and is letting me rejig the wording of her second-language proposal for an installation in Venice. I have an armchair now, amenities like Tenby sunshine; 70s studio flat, dry white wine and an iMac to blog on. Tbilisi feels dead European after its provinces and Eastern Turkey. Trendy kids stalk between jammed modern traffic. Women show shoulders and smiles and the beer is Balkan prices again. It is nice just to wander about, perhaps I'll stay a week; keep dry and join the photography lessons.
Englistan
In a gale at the top of my final Turkish mountain pass I was laden with pomegranates and encouragement by the driver of an Iranian asphalt tanker. The truckers have to stop at the tops of passes to fill their boiling radiators up at the spring fonts. He ran over extremely keen to tell me, warmingly, how his people had nothing against my people and sorry for his government. I apologised for mine and happily showed him my visa. He delighted: Yes you are welcome my brother! If I only I had Englistan visa, I love to go! It made me feel very good about visting Iran.
Meanwhile all my other kit is neurotically pegged out from the seventh floor window of a Tbilisi apartment block. It was a rainy road out of Turkey and after a few days cracks appear in the keeping-stuff-dry regimen. How best to stow a sodden flysheet? What to do with damp down? Easy questions in a domestic setting but much more taxing in a woodland dawn deluge. Last December, in a bit of a stink with work having just been told definitively that I'd have to quit to make this trip because I couldn't get a career break in any predicatable timeframe (I promise to let it go, soon), I set off to cycle around the Welsh coast from Newport to Aberystwyth. If it was a test I passed with drab colours. I remember it being a hangover decision, encouraged over tardy breakfast by my friend Rachel. I got Iain to cover a shift and took a 4am train the next morning and it sleeted and blew and hailstone pelted but never quite froze. Normal Welsh December I guess. Mostly it was as a shit as it sounds but I remember the sun came out for half an hour in Tenby and it was so special for the solitary lighthouse view and the moment's scarcity that frozen fingers and bitter knowledge of another night sleeping out faded to irrelevance. At some point then, in the rain or the sunny interval, I knew I'd be off fairly soon. Now that I'm long gone and Winter begins to insinuate itself in the windchill or brief hail on my silly but effective technical layers, those four wet days have a certain resonance to recollect.
Cycling into Georgia I was struck by the dereliction near the border. I know little about the complicated history but there is a definite Balkan air of a place long bothered by enormous empires nextdoor. Its a young country in terms of independence but the rural villages look decrepit, full of grand old crumbly buildings spalling into overgrown gardens while streets and shopfronts teem with agelessly alcoholic looking footlers. A young country gone to seed around the edge. I've been largely ignored in the villages which is both refreshing and frustrating after Turkey. Two nights ago hungry, wet and exhausted looking for a dinner and a place to sleep amongst blank stares and empty shops I was starting to resent Georgian indifference. Leaving town resigned to eating biscuits and sleeping wherever I took it all back when a man waved me down and insisted I stay with his family. Over fragrant spiced lamb and his own-brewed Raki it emerged of course that he was Turkish. In Tbilisi I'm staying with Steffi from Germany who teaches a photography class at the local art academy and is letting me rejig the wording of her second-language proposal for an installation in Venice. I have an armchair now, amenities like Tenby sunshine; 70s studio flat, dry white wine and an iMac to blog on. Tbilisi feels dead European after its provinces and Eastern Turkey. Trendy kids stalk between jammed modern traffic. Women show shoulders and smiles and the beer is Balkan prices again. It is nice just to wander about, perhaps I'll stay a week; keep dry and join the photography lessons.
Englistan
In a gale at the top of my final Turkish mountain pass I was laden with pomegranates and encouragement by the driver of an Iranian asphalt tanker. The truckers have to stop at the tops of passes to fill their boiling radiators up at the spring fonts. He ran over extremely keen to tell me, warmingly, how his people had nothing against my people and sorry for his government. I apologised for mine and happily showed him my visa. He delighted: Yes you are welcome my brother! If I only I had Englistan visa, I love to go! It made me feel very good about visting Iran.
 |
| dog?! |
 |
| leaving Turkey |
No comments:
Post a Comment