Travel seemed to start very smoothly. I barely registered time spent at the airport. Flight was very short, just 3 hours, what felt like nothing in comparison with flying to India. I slept a little, read a little further into “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin”. I had luck to be at the window again and I liked especially one moment when we entered cover of clouds at the start of our landing.
The airport in Kutaisi was calm experience. Flush of memories from my first trip to Georgia dawn upon me. As if there were not enough reminders, we saw big stray dogs as soon as we left the airport. We waited for our rental car to arrive for a little bit.
I texted few women from my last trip to Georgia and so far only Leluka responded. It was nice to catch up, she also suggested me what vegan food I could find in Georgian cuisine.
After getting the car we headed to the Kutaisi proper. Just soon after leaving airport area we saw cows grazing along the road and often coming on the road as if it’s nothing. Naturally it was shocking for the rest. Similarly, they commented about state of the buildings, cars and general vibe as being from different era. Reminiscing them of our own “communist” times of PRL (Polish People’s Republic).
When we arrived close to the market, which was our goal, we couldn’t find any spot to park the car so we were circling a lot. It allowed to observe more behavior on the street and they thought that the way cars drive and people cross the street is very chaotic. For me it didn’t seem so after India. Georgia seems to be closer to our order than chaos on the streets of India. It’s enough to mention that pedestrian traffic light is actually used.
Eventually we managed to park somewhere and we went to the direction of the market. Area around was very beautiful. Fountain in the middle of roundabout with animal statues was close to nice looking park. Just close from there was our goal, the market.
There was interesting wall at one side of the market. It was full of carvings of various scenes, characters, vines. It’s meaning was escaping me, but it truly looked amazing. Before entering inside we bought some of Georgian breads as we were already quite hungry. I choose for myself lobiani, as Leluka reminded me about its existence. It’s kind of bread stuffed with beans and it’s quite filling.
We entered inside to the market. It attacked us with plethora of sensory experiences. Both pleasant and not so pleasant. Smell and color of spices (significantly different than the ones in India), but also inescapable meat or smoked cheese, which is not the best experience for vegans. As a market it wasn’t all about food, but there were surprisingly little trinkets, mostly food and clothes. The most notable, besides general vibe, was one stall where Damian and mom negotiated in Polish with old guy who knew some Russian. They bought some alcohols and I chosen some sweets for myself. Interesting for me were thin sweets which look like pancakes, but are made fully out of juice. I also liked row of stalls with pickles. Mom bought something, but because we looked interested, old lady at the stall gave me and Damian something for free too to try.
After experiences in the city we returned to car and went to our apartment. It was in town outside of Kutaisi. Apartment was really beautiful. We had one wide common room for ourselves and three bedrooms. As we were getting ourselves ready for the rest of the day, we had guests. They were three little kittens with their mother. At first they were quite careful, but soon were playing inside apartment and sleeping at our chairs.
We decided to go outside. Just on the opposite to gates of our place was staircase leading down so we wanted to see where it leads to. We went down and we found old train station. It was abandoned, but in its prime state it had to be very beautiful. Then we went for a walk around. We saw a lot of stray dogs, often quite big ones. Eventually, one big dog followed us closely, often just at our feet. We didn’t give him any attention, but he was still following us. First some cow was giving him chase. Then it was other dogs. As far as we went he was following us and local dogs were attacking him, probably as the one who doesn’t belong to their area. My mom was scared when dogs were running towards us (but to “our” dog actually), but Gosia even more. It become quite scary for them, because it seemed to never end. There were a lot of dogs everywhere and he was always following us. We saw also pigs roaming close to the streets. It was sight quite unbelievable to see in a town, so close to Kutaisi.
The dog rested just at our gates. We freshened ourselves before going back to Kutaisi to restaurant to eat something at the evening. When we left, the dog still was waiting for us. We went to Magnolia restaurant which looked truly amazing. It looked like carved in a cave, there were a lot of small details and carvings. I chose plate of various types of pkhali, which is type of dish made out of minced and ground vegetables. Alongside that I picked variety of pickles. After leaving the restaurant we done few photos with the waterfall and the city at night in the background.
When we returned to the apartment, it came out that the dog is still waiting for us at the gate. Why is he clinging to us so desperately, while other dogs not. We were tired after whole day and not sleeping much at previous night either so we went to sleep soon afterwards.