Getting from the airport to central Tbilisi was kind of a microcosm of our experience in the city.
After changing some money into local currency (Georgian lari) we walked outside to find hundreds of shady-looking men standing around hoping to give us a ride into town. We had already decided to find the bus and use it, because we figured it would be easier to prevent being ripped off by the taxi drivers. And the taxi drivers looked pretty suspicious. They spoke to us under their breath while looking around (for competitors? Police?). We found the bus parked nearby and the person who we thought was the driver confirmed it was the right bus. We got on board, and the payment system was a little electronic box that accepted coins in exchange for a ticket. I realized we were in trouble because we had only received paper money from the exchange place. The bus driver (who really turned out to be the bus “manager”) gestured to go change our money inside the airport, but suddenly a nice man stepped up and paid for our ticket, and walked away before we could properly thank him.
We held the ticket but nobody checked or took it, and I think it was just for one person, not for both of us, but who knows? We went along with it, and soon enough the bus was underway.
This happened a lot in Georgia – we were initially confused or worried about something, but some nice person would come along and help us out, and then later we’d wonder why the situation had to be confusing in the first place. This is what we were bracing ourselves for before the trip, so we were ready and open-minded about how things worked out. And luckily, they always worked out.
The bus left the airport and strangely drove on the shoulder of the main road, picking up people along the way. Our big suitcase got in the way now and then but nobody seemed to mind much. We enjoyed the view as we went. The countryside between the airport and the city was rural but occasionally there would be bigger buildings – we even saw a Carrefour shopping mall. As we got closer to the city center the buildings and architecture became more European than Soviet and I was happy to see the streets lined with trees and plenty of sidewalks and parks. It looked like a nice city to enjoy on foot.
The bus dropped us off at Freedom Square, a dramatic automobile roundabout around a tall pillar with a gold angelic statue perched on top. It was getting hot, so we were looking forward to checking into our hotel and cleaning up – I was going on 24 hours without a shower and experiencing the combined summers of East Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe all in one day wasn’t helping my personal aroma. We had the address to the hotel, but it was remarkably hard to find. I asked at several other hotels, but they seemed reluctant to tell me the information we needed. We walked back and forth along the street for about 30 minutes before we finally gave up and called our hotel. The lady said she’d be right out to meet us, and then she was there. She was a slightly older blonde woman with a nice smile and she led us down a parking garage ramp and past a poster of a sexy woman advertising something and then past a building guard and into what seemed like a regular apartment building. After an elevator ride to the fourth floor, we were led into a little foyer that served as a hotel lobby. We had arrived.
We have had this situation happen before (since we live in the age of AirBnB) and what seems like an actual hotel on Booking.com turns out to be a converted home or apartment. I don’t mind staying in these kinds of places, and they are usually pretty nice, but I at least like to know beforehand what we are getting into.
The lady checked us in, led us behind her desk into a quite large hotel room that was very clean and well-designed, and I was happy to see that they had the air conditioner running already. Later on when we settled into the room over the next few days we discovered that the bed was one of the most comfortable we’ve ever slept in, and the location was perfect for exploring the town. But our first impression was not positive because of the confusion about the kind of place it was.
After cleaning up it was time to go out and look for something to eat. The thing we wanted to eat most was khinkali, a giant dumpling made fist-sized and filled with a combination of herbs, beef and pork. This was “the dish” to try in Tbilisi, and since we are crazy about dim sum and gyoza back home we were eager to get started. Our first destination was a restaurant called Pasanauri that was famed for their khinkali. It wasn’t a long walk from our hotel, and it gave us a chance to stretch our legs a little and look around the city.
We enjoyed the walk, avoiding the sunny parts by strolling under trees, and taking in the scenery. I had expected more of an old Soviet kind of feeling from the city, but instead we were getting an old European feeling, combined with a sort of brusque manner from the locals. People walked without smiling, they seemed serious about their business and they didn’t seem to be too happy on the whole. There were a few beggars on the street but they weren’t very aggressive about it. Still, these were just our first impressions and our feelings about the city evolved over our time there.
Once we arrived at the location that my map indicated we could not find the restaurant. We walked around and around, but the place was either renamed, moved, or we had bad information. We gave up after a while and chose a place at random nearby that advertised khinkali and khachapuri (a cheesy flatbread) prominently outside. We went inside, took a seat, and the owner come out and gave us big menus to look at. We ordered khinkali, and he shook his head and said he was out. We ordered khachapuri and he said the same thing. “I only have felafel,” he said, and tried to get us to order that. What’s the point of the big menu if you only have one thing? It felt wrong to come all this way and then have felafel for our first meal in Georgia, so we decided to leave and try somewhere else.
So we walked to a different neighborhood, ordered some very cold beer and some khinkali, sat outside in the shade, and finally ate some local food. The khinkali were good, not as big as I remembered, but the cold beer made everything all right.
For a more formal dinner we walked just down the block to a place called Vino Underground. It was literally underground, in the humid basement of the building serving as a wine cellar and restaurant at the same time. We liked the somewhat dark atmosphere, and we ordered two wine tastings (four wines each) and also some food to go along with it. There were two young women running the place, and the food they served was very natural and surprisingly salty – I didn’t expect everything to be as salty as it was. The served us some bruschetta, some local cheeses, and eggplant wrapped vegetables that were quite nice.
The wines were the main event, and they were as delicious as they were unique. The whites they served were called “amber” wines, with the amber color coming from the clay pots they are fermented and stored in. The flavors of the grapes themselves were completely different from anything I had ever tried, and the flinty taste of the clay pots added a nice undertone to the flavor. The reds that we tried were all quite different in style, and one that I had really knocked my socks off. It was bold, well-rounded and fruit forward, like a Zinfandel but without a big oaky structure to support the fruit. Most of the wines were unpronounceable to us, and the bottles that they showed us were not exported, so these were truly tastes for that moment only. It was an educational tasting.
After our dinner and wine we were feeling pretty happy and since the sun was setting it was cool enough to walk around a bit more. We headed across town to check out a smaller Carrefour supermarket to get some souvenir ideas for later and to stock our hotel fridge. We had a little ice cream on the walk back to our hotel, and then finally we ran out of gas and decided to retire. I was certainly looking forward to sleeping in a horizontal position for the first time in a long time. It was a great start to our time in Tbilisi.
