We decided to get up early today and climb up the mountain to the fortress before the heat and the tourists could make the trip unbearable. It turned out to be a good idea.
We started by following the backstreets alongside the mountain ridge. Thankfully for the past couple of days we had covered a lot of this territory before, and it was easy to navigate, even without a map. Along the way we passed some stray dogs walking around, evidently raiding the trash cans and taking advantage of this time when few humans walked the streets. A couple of the dogs seemed to be following us, and that made Kuniko pretty nervous. Dogs aren’t really her thing, especially big ones. Wild ones running around, definitely not her thing.
We continued on toward the mountain, and the dogs casually followed us. There were three with us, and they looked at us in a friendly way, wagging their tails and assuming that we knew what we were doing and where we were going. We found some steps leading up the mountain and started climbing them. It was a steep pathway up, and I figured the dogs would lose interest once they had to do some serious climbing, but I was wrong. They seemed to be really enjoying it. A couple of times they would run ahead down the wrong street and I thought we’d seen the last of them, but they would quickly backtrack and catch up with us. I noticed that each dog had a digital tag in their ear, so somebody was keeping track of them.
That was how we proceeded all the way up to the giant statue of the Mother of Georgia. Gradually Kuniko got used to the big dogs with us, and I kind of enjoyed it. I knew that sooner or later we’d have to lose them somewhere, but for the hike it was nice to have the company. We passed several churches on the way up the hill, and the views from the fortress of the sun rising of Tbilisi were excellent. Near the top of the hill we turned a corner and three younger guys were walking the opposite direction as us on the hiking path, and they looked nervous when they saw our escort of three street dogs. I thought maybe the dogs would transfer to them, but no luck.
Once we finished at the top of the mountain we did a long descent down to the center of town. We were both feeling like it might be nice to have a cup of real coffee, so we decided to go into a little cafe with a big sign that said “I [heart] Tbilisi” out front. We timed it just right so the dogs were looking the other way when we walked in, and we got a table and hoped the dogs would move on while we were inside. As it turned out, they apparently got bored and disappeared.
After some coffee and a restroom break we headed back to the hotel for a short nap. The next stage was a big one – we walked from the hotel all the way to a restaurant I wanted to try for lunch. It turned out to be a much longer trip than I had planned because the streets were not exactly direct. We got caught in the heat as well, and almost didn’t find the restaurant. Luckily thanks to a distinctive paint job we opened the right door and found Shavi Lomi.
I had heard about this restaurant after reading an article in the New York Times about how the culinary scene in Tbilisi has started to mature. The Times offered up a few restaurants to illustrate their point, but the one that started the whole trend was Shavi Lomi. They reluctantly accepted us as customers, we sat inside in the shade, and ordered some cold beers. I was feeling pretty overheated and it was nice to rest for a while.
We ate a variety of dishes from their menu – all a little unusual, light and natural. All the foods were organic and interesting – it was probably the healthiest food we had eaten so far on the trip. As we slowly cooled off over time I felt a little stomachache, probably due to just walking in the heat. This was a harbinger of bad things to come.
But the rest of our time at Shavi Lomi was a pleasure, and the staff were very friendly after initially being a bit standoffish. We finished our meal, and took a long time over a light dessert before heading to our next destination. Not far away there was a restaurant that I wanted to try for dinner that night, and we figured to walk over there and make a reservation.
The walk wasn’t too far, maybe twenty minutes or so, but it was in the peak of the heat. When we walked in the sun you could feel the sun cooking your skin, and we kept drinking lots of water to stay hydrated. Still, it was oppressive. We learned later that we were in the middle of a heatwave in Europe so serious that they named it “Lucifer”.
We arrived at the restaurant, Barbarestan, and made a reservation for six pm. Since we had some time to kill we walked nearby to check out the metro station that we would use later to get back to the hotel, and then we went to a small cafe to escape the heat outdoors. We ordered lemonades and I was so hot that I went through the lemonade and started eating the ice remaining in the glass. This might have been a big mistake.
After staying in the cafe for a while we were looking for a change of scene. We decided to walk over to a nearby park and we sat outside under the shade of some big trees and watched customers come and go into a ping pong parlor across the way. I was pretty tired out by then and sweating profusely, so we kept drinking water and I laid down on the bench with my sweaty head in Kuniko’s lap to rest. I was getting a little worried about how I felt.
Finally it was time to head over to the restaurant for dinner. We were given a nice table downstairs in the humid basement, and despite the shade and the strong air conditioning I was sweating pretty hard – but I really wanted to enjoy this meal.
The restaurant itself was decorated in a unique style – frilly, mismatched and slightly abstract. The service staff were a little on the stuffy side, not so friendly, but I had heard that if Michelin ever decided to award some stars in this city, they would probably start with this place. Since I wasn’t feeling great we ordered just an appetizer and one main dish, but the waiter assured us that we should order two mains to have enough food. I wasn’t so sure but we followed his directions.
When the food arrived, it was really good. We started with an appetizer of satsivini of zucchini, and then we had pieces of roast rabbit wrapped in bacon, and grilled breast of duck. My appetite kind of left me because of how I was feeling, and I was still sweating like crazy and drinking lots of water. Unfortunately we had to leave some food behind on our plates, and I could feel the palpable sense of contempt from our server when he took away our plates. I felt pretty bad about it, too – nobody was more disappointed than me that I couldn’t eat more here. As the restaurant filled it other tables ordered piles and piles of food and I couldn’t imagine being hungry ever again. What a bummer!
We felt that retreat was the best option, so we settled up and moved out. I hope that someday in the future I can return to Barbarestan to get my revenge and eat a full meal’s worth.
From there we went back to the metro station, caught an extremely high speed escalator down into the depth of the station into what looked like the train stations we encountered in Moscow. The trains were very Russian as well, but it arrived promptly and took us a few stops to our hotel. We gathered our suitcase and then went out and caught a taxi to the train station for our overnight train to Armenia.
The taxi ride was worth mentioning – they all were. If there was any time that I was scared or worried about my safety it was while riding in a taxi in Georgia and Armenia. The drivers were extremely aggressive and didn’t hesitate to cut off others and plow into intersections without looking. Who needs a roller coaster thrill ride when taxis are everywhere.
He dropped us off at the very modern and unusual train station in central Tbilisi, and we dragged our suitcase inside and started to look around. The whole building apparently was built by Samsung, and it was filled with electronics and appliance stores that sold only Korean equipment. It seemed like a bold investment strategy on the part of the Korean companies, and I wondered where else they have tried this. Despite the modern station, the train system and the train platforms themselves were pretty archaic and out of date. We bought some waters at a nearby stand and then settled in to wait. We were at the station a couple hours early, but our train ended up being nine minutes late. I was happy to have the downtime to rest up and try to give my body a break.
When the arrival time was approaching we took our suitcase down some dark cement stairs onto a dark platform, and waited patiently. There were no indicators of car position so we just kind of stood in the middle of the platform and got ready to run whichever way our car would be. As it turned out, when the train came in our car was the last one, and we took off down the platform bumping our suitcase over broken cement and gravel laying around. This was not Tokyo station.
We found the last car, in the dark without any lights. Passengers were milling around outside, smoking and stretching their legs before the train left Tbilisi. One kind of big guy wearing a baggy white T-shirt was carrying a flashlight, and so we recognized him as the closest thing to an authority in this situation. He examined our tickets, asked each of us our nationality, checked Kuniko’s visa, and then let us on. We found our cabin, with four beds inside. We were assigned the bottom two according to our ticket, and it was unclear whether another two passengers would get on later and take the top two beds.
Maybe because of the uncertainty we were pretty excited. We put away our stuff, kicked off our shoes, and enjoyed the feeling as the train shuffled away from the station and started the nine hour journey to Yerevan, Armenia.
