More Musings

I have just returned from spending the afternoon at the sulphur baths here in Tbilisi.  I went with three of the other girls and we had a private room with a seating area and loo, where we changed and then through a glass door a hot eggy smelling plunge pool and shower.  There was also a marble bed for massages.  We rented this for about 40 Lari for an hour (about 20 Euro) and had to pay for the massage on top but it was well worth it. I'm feeling squeaky clean but all my silver jewellry had gone black from the sulphur.  They told me that Coke would clean it but it hasn't worked so far so I might be on a hunt for silver cleaner later....  Will post a photo of the bath when Lyndsey emails it to me as she was the only one with a camera.  We finished off with a huge pot of very nice tea in the kitchen of the baths with all the ladies working there coming to have their pictures taken with us!  A great afternoon.

Apart from that the thing I have been  most thinking about has to do with the massive contrasts that we have been seeing and how when we get home the 'story' that we tell about different places could be so different.

For example, I could say that in contrast to Turkey, Georgia and Armenia are really backward and from a building point of view that would be true.  The contrast in both these countries between the city and the rural areas is massive.

 People in the cities are fashionable and as groovy as in any other city, but the rural areas have piles of dung bricks for heating and fires.  But then when you look more closely there are huge 4x4s in  the garages of what looks like a 'hovel'.  Everyone in the whole world has a mobile phone and does what all those people at home do on the train - 'I'm on the train...' only the equivalent would be 'I'm at the border,'  or 'I'm on the cable car'. People are basically all the same.

You could come away from Armenia with an amazing view of all of the monasteries (as I have).  Beautiful, ancient places.  Fantastic.  Gregory the Illuminator organised monks to illuminate over 500 books in the Haghpat complex of churches and book stores. The decoration and carving was brilliant. Graffitti from the 1200s. Wow!  Or you could think, 'Not another monastery, they all look the same.

So in the end I think you just see the quirky things that stand out for you and you put those in your story.

So I'll leave you with the two quirky things from Georgia and Armenia that I thought were great - buses here have been converted to LPG - very green, but the tanks are just on the roof and look like they might blow up at any moment.

And the gas mains have not been buried underground and are just pipes going along the edges of the roads through the villages.

Finally, just to say that I have started a bush camp and hostel set on Flickr which will be added to as we go along so keep checking back at that one.  I may well start a set on loos and showers so look out for that too.

TTFN
Jx