🇬🇪 Georgia (Caucasus part 2)

Stepantsminda Town

The town itself had the highest concentration of tourists seen thus far, mostly Chinese and Korean. We found ourselves in a nice little homestay, a short walk from the town center.

The view from the homestay was incredible, and it was probably the best accommodation we had this trip.

Most of all the restaurants were full, and required a day's booking in advance, so we did that. On our first night, we simply cooked some shitty homemade food which would fuel our hike the next day.

Gergeti Trinity Church

I know by now we'd seen enough Christian landmarks, but it was still nice to visit the church that sat near the trailhead of the Gergeti Glacier hike. This will be the starting point of the trail, which is after a winding drive up from Stepantsminda town. It's hard to miss the car park by the trailhead.

Gergeti Glacier

We began the trail early on the second morning. There were barely any cars at the carpark, let alone hikers. It's a relatively simple trail with no need for guides.

Do note: The trail begins at the sign, immediately up the hill, not down the road. My compatriots refused to go up the hill, thinking that I was picking the more difficult hike (well, I thought that too).

In the end, they ended up at a dead end further at the base of the hill, and had to scale the hill to get to me.

At some point, Kenneth and I split up with Zane and Derek, who went at a slower pace. The glacier is located somewhere in the mid-2000's to 3000m+ elevation above sea level, so understandably one should take caution as to not fall to altitude sickness.

Cafe 360°

For the longest time, there weren't any landmarks until we reached Cafe 360°.

As one might expect, it carries pricey food for starving trekkers. We weren't in the market for food, so we carried on after a short break. The cafe overlooks a valley between the mountains, with a river (Chkheri) at the bottom.

It was at this point that a friendly mountain dog came and greeted us. So huge and fluffy!!

Altihut 3014

The "3014" in the name is in reference to its elevation, 3014m above sea level. We didn't really visit this hut as we had no business there. It's a rest appropriate for those doing the full hike.

The trail up continued without much trouble. At some point rivers become more prominent as you get closer to the source of glacial runoff.

Glacier Tongue

We reached the tongue of the glacier at around noon, which would be about 5 hours from the start of the trail.

If you wish to summit Mt. Kazbek, the real trail begins from the tongue. Since it's a glacier, it's full-on ice, so you'll need crampons and other proper gear if you want to continue.

The hike to the glacier is quite doable, but you must be wary of the altitude. For summitting, it most likely won't be a one-day hike. Mt. Kazbek sits above 5000m of elevation, so acclimatisation is necessary. You may find it necessary to stay at a hut along the trail and spread the hike over two days.

This was the first time I'd seen a glacier, so I was surprised to see that it really is just a huge block of ice! I'll come back for you, Kazbek!

After our hike, we spent the rest of our time in Stepantsminda driving around northern Georgia.

Russian border

We drove up to the land checkpoint between Russia and Georgia, Larsi Checkpoint. It's a straight drive up, and there's nothing much to see there. Just trucks queueing to cross.

Dariali Monastery

We stopped to visit another monastery and were greeted by the friendly monks, who offered to let us try some of the wines and liqueurs they brewed there.

This, of course, resulted in us playing a game of hot potato and passing the shot glasses and car keys around, never both in the same hands, for obvious reasons. Eventually, the keys landed in the hands of one guy who doesn't imbibe, but took a minute sip just to sample the local products.

Tsdo

Along the way back from the north, Kenneth instructed us to take a detour up a winding road, narrow enough to only fit one car. We ended up at a small village atop a cliff.

Going down was tough; several cars were heading up, so we had to do a little squeezing to let the cars pass.

We also witnessed a real shepherd herding his sheep. I kind of forgot where this was, but it was somewhere near Stepantsminda (I tried looking up the image metadata. Not very accurate).

Tbilisi

We spent some days in Tbilisi on the first night, and the last few days of our Georgia trip. After Stepantsminda, two of our buddies headed home, so it was just me and Kenneth.

I'd recommend staying near to the old part of town (Old Tbilisi) if you can. You'll know by the cobblestone roads that you're there. Most of the sights to see are concentrated there, and it's relatively walkable.

While in Tbilisi, we also took tour buses to other parts of Georgia which I will detail in a section of its own.

Old Tbilisi

Our last day, it finally rained for the first time on our trip. We walked around the wet cobblestone streets of Old Tbilisi, and visited the underground market. It's not very big, but you could get some souvenirs here.

Chronicles of Georgia

We went out of our way to visit the Chronicles of Georgia, which are a massive group of sculptures atop a small mountain. It's really impressive and has a great view of the reservoir.

You can and probably should take a taxi up. In a bid to save some money, and to get some steps in, I opted to hike up, but we were met with muddy paths which we pushed through on, for some reason... because we didn't realise there were roads on the other side of the mountain.

You get a magnificent view of the city and the lake from up there.

Metro

The Tbilisi metro was affordable and and decently reliable. It's best to buy a metro pass; it's inexpensive and prices are capped per day anyway.

Hotel ZP Palace

I'd like to shout out our hotel, ZP Palace (The ZP stands for Zaza Pachulia, a Georgian basketballer). It had one of the best gyms I'd ever been to in a hotel, let alone amongst gyms in general.

The breakfast was decent and the location, being somewhere in Tbilisi, and a short walk from the metro, made this a value-for-money booking.

At the tail end of the trip, two of us had more days in Georgia. We opted for day trips, one day to the eastern sites of Georgia, another for the west.

For the most part, these day trips run by tour operators are typically watered down and funnel you to the same few spots that have their prices jacked up for tourists. While I still appreciate that some of these spots were nice to visit, they're still better experienced at your own pace if you can rent a car instead.

East Georgia

The first tour bus took us to the east of Georgia. Our first activity was hands-on making Churchkhela, or "Georgian Snickers" as they call it.

Sighnaghi and Telavi

Sighnaghi is known as the "city of love", I suppose many marriages happen here. It's a nice little town with cobblestone streets, with historical ties to winemaking, but I thought it was just alright. Too touristy.

The rest of the tour for this day was also lowkey boring. We did go to Telavi but there wasn't much to see apart from the "Giant Plane Tree" there.

West Georgia

The next day, we booked another tour operator, hoping this one would be better. In any case, they were both inexpensive on Klook.

The western side of Georgia was the more interesting of the two, although we didn't fully explore the west (such as the regions by the Black Sea).

Borjomi Central Park

Our first stop was at a park with mineral water springs. They say the water conveys healing properties, and since I had stomach cramps, I gave it a go.

The water tastes... interesting. You can certainly taste the minerals and it's an acquired taste. I don't think it did much for my stomach but I'm still alive.

Vardzia Cave Monastery

Our next stop was an ancient city carved into a mountain. This was really interesting! The network was quite expansive, but unfortunately, it looks nothing like it once did. Due to destruction by earthquakes and land wars, much of the caves have been exposed to open air.

The monastery there is still active, and you can get a glimpse of how people might have once lived in the cave network together.

Rabati Fortress

Our last stop was an old castle grounds where we explored the grounds. It had gotten a little dark at this point, since our tour covered so much ground.

It was very interesting to explore every nook and cranny in the castle grounds!

Other Places

We also stopped by Gori, where Joseph Stalin was born, and visited the Stalin museum.

Food

I was really looking forward to trying the food here. They're known for their Khinkali, huge soup dumplings, reminiscent of Chinese 小籠包 (xiǎo lóng bāo).

There's also Khachapuri, which is a cheese bread that comes in many variants. You might recognise the Adjarian one.

I was a big fan of all the beers in Armenia and Georgia. They were mostly lagers, crisp and light. We also drank a lot of Kompot.

The next photo features a dish we disliked, and a dish we loved... Lobiani (bean-filled pastry) and Veal ojakhuri (fried veal, with potato). It's not so much that lobiani was bad, but rather we had so much leftover, and kept joking about ordering more lobiani everywhere we went.

Itinerary

At the end of this trip, I can conclude that the Caucasus region is absolutely worth visiting if you like nature, and they are very welcoming people. I'd certainly come back again, perhaps visit the other regions, maybe to summit Mt. Kazbek.

Costs

I've aggregated the costs in the Armenia post (do give it a read too!), but anyway expect Georgia to be slightly more expensive. Nothing too outrageous, though. Taxis are still reasonable, even around Tbilisi (under 10 GEL).

The exchange rate was 2 Georgian Lari (GEL) to 1 SGD. For funzies we called it the Georgian Ringgit and one of our mates actually believed it was called that.

Notes

In Georgia, the main convenience store is Spar. The country uses GEL, but I believe they're trying to phase in the Euro in a bid for membership with the EU.

The main taxi service is Bolt. Within the city, trips are about 10 GEL.

The Tbilisi metro is reliable and cheap, I highly recommend using it to get around. While we did get caught in a train crowd once, it wasn't too unpleasant. Of course, taking a taxi is also not expensive (compared to Singapore).