Day 64 - ArdeÅŸen - 46 miles
I had about 20 miles left until the Georgian border and the beginning of my 8th country. After getting back to sleep from being woken up by gunshots outside my room at midnight, I actually felt pretty well rested going into my final day in Turkey. I was beyond excited to be closing the book on Turkey as it had without a doubt been the hardest section of the trip so far. A big part of my feeling towards Turkey were definitely based on my own unlucky track record of close calls with traffic, aggressive dogs and the odd few opportunistic locals. If you've been reading these posts in preparation for your own ride east then please don't let me scare you off - there's so much to love about Turkey and most of my pitfalls could have been avoided by committing to staying in paid accommodation more often and perhaps taking the more scenic but longer route through the centre, stopping at Capadoccia along the way - a bit of a regret of mine having rushed through.
The 20 miles to the border featured a string of port towns that all really just felt like purgatory on the way to the crossing, not the kind of places you'd want to stop for longer than necessary in all honestly. The final 5 km stretch until the border was one unbroken queue of trucks lining the road waiting to cross into Georgia. I'm not quite sure why it takes them so long, but judging by the paths lined with drivers playing cards and drinking on camping chairs, they're used to it.
Riding along one of these paths I heard a pop under me and feared I'd blown a tyre just minutes from country 8, the noise was actually caused by a spoiled milk carton that I managed to ride over and explode up my leg and bike. I don't recommend approaching a heavily armed border crossing covered in cottage cheese. My only real highlight of this chunk of coast riding was a particularly funny road sign.
The border crossing itself was mayhem with no clear direction where to head as I filtered past the endless HGVs. Eventually a Border patrol officer saw me waiting in a car queue and directed me to skip the probably 2 hours+ queue to the front of the line which sparked a chorus of angry Turkish and Georgian drivers shouting at me as i rolled past them, nice to see them getting along at least. Within 2 minutes of showing my passport I'd collected the all important stamp and sailed on through, I now know having spoken with Andre who crossed into Georgia hours before me that I was also supposed to complete 2 compulsory declaration forms and paid a fee so I wasn't actually sure how legal my status was.
I needed to ride another 25 miles from the border crossing to the first major city of Batumi where I'd stay the night. The difference in countries was very immediately obvious, mostly in the way that locals acted and dressed, this was a much more liberal country compared to the version of Turkey I'd been living in. Flat roads took me along the coast and through small patches of forrest before arriving at the outskirts of Batumi. Riding in the city was great fun, really hectic big roads with often 6+ lanes of traffic but with everyone moving as a kind of hive mind, it's quite easy to weave your way through without ever feeling particularly at risk.
The first hotel I went to no longer existed, so stumbled into another where I had to wake up the receptionist from a deep sleep to check me in for a little under £10, not bad. I wandered out to find a new local SIM card to add to my ever growing arsenal and then met Andre in the bustling centre for dinner. Georgia is known for its wine as pretty much everyone and their mum brews their own at home so we thought we'd better acclimatise.
Day 65 - Batumi - 67 miles
You have two options when planning your route through Georgia heading to the capital of Tblisi, there's a more direct but slower route through the mountains or a flatter and longer highway route connecting the major cities along the way. I opted for the flatter road route as I'd decided I'd try and maintain my fast pace from Turkey right through to the capital so that I could catch an earlier flight to Uzbekistan. The plan had always been roughly 100 days from UK to Tashkent in Uzbekistan but now that I was ahead of schedule, the prospect of getting home to my partner and family a few weeks earlier was taking over. The mountains in the distance definitely were pulling me in a little but I was much happier making consistent fast progress. I set off on my own from Batumi leaving Andre to enjoy the beach for another day on his own but we planned to catch up once he made it to Tbilisi.
Leaving Batumi is a little bit hectic at first as you head north along the coast but after 10 miles it really chills out. Riding on highways in Georgia is very similar to Turkey, something that I'd actually come to really enjoy now. The major differences were in the scenery and road side obstacles. The mosques of Turkey had been switched out for Orthadox churches, everything was a lot greener and, most importantly, animals rule this country. Countless times in this first day riding in the country I came across cows or hogs that would freely wander across motorways or even take a nap in the slow lane forcing cars to drive around.
I stayed the first night in Samtredia at a guest house I found on booking.com for £5. Odd would be the most diplomatic way of describing this experience. I pulled up to find another Polish cycle tourist (never got his name) arguing with the owner about where to leave bikes, the owner then turned to me as if nothing had happened and showed me to my room whilst telling me how hungover he was. I think this was also his family home though I didn't see his wife or 3 kids other than the photos all over the house, they were watching TV in a private side room from the moment I arrived to the moment I left the next day.
They put on a classic Georgian spread for me and the other cycle tourist for dinner, my first experience of traditional Khinkali which are a large dumpling filled with broth and ground meat and also home-brewed wine that was definitely a lot higher than 14% ABV. Over dinner we chatted about our routes so far and I shared my experiences with dogs in Turkey only to see the eyes of the man opposite me light up as he jumped in to telling me how he'd 'killed 2 dogs in Georgia already'. I don't want to make it seem like I'm making light of this, as much as I see dogs differently after my last month of travelling, this was still really shocking. He got up to pull a steel bar from his bike which he placed on the seat at the table with us as he recounted being attacked by aggressive dogs on the mountain roads. I hoped that my dog troubles had ended after leaving Turkey but apparently not. I was also a bit taken aback by this man's retelling which bordered on boastful, fair to say I didn't ask if he'd like to ride out together tomorrow and never asked his name.
Day 66 - Samtredia - 55 miles
Leaving from Samtredia I plotted the most direct route east I could, chomping through as many miles as possible in the vague direction of Tbilisi. The first 35 miles went by in a bit of a blur, I was following the same large motorway with little to see around me except for the mountains in the far distance. Maybe I made the wrong decision skipping out on the slow scenic route but by this point I had my heart set on pushing through to Tbilisi by day 68 so that I could fly out to Uzbekistan as soon as possible.
The only stand out from this fast ride was the most out of place feeling petrol station in Gerogia. At the road side in the middle of nowhere there was an airport hanger looking building that was home to all American brands, Wendy's, Dunkin' donuts and a supermarket stocked full of US branded food. Clearly I wasn't the only one who found this curious as Georgians gathered out front to take group selfies in front of the brand logos, I actually think this may have been the destination for a lot of their travels. I didn't have the time or energy to ponder how strange and uncomfortable this US embassy of saturated fat but was more than happy to eat a double cheese burger, American sized fizzy drink and donuts before getting back on the road.
After my tarmac daydream, I turned off to start winding through a valley of steep mountains towards my guest house for the night in Ubisa. The riding definitely got more interesting from here on as I found myself shoulder barging cars to stay on the road as we fought to avoid the cattle and avoid falling off a cliff. As Hectic as it was, I'd still say that the Georgians have nothing on the Turkish when it comes to disregard to road safety.. I actually felt surprisingly safe throughout.
Ubisa was an interesting little village, I'm glad I picked this spot by complete fluke. It's a small medieval town that seems largely lost to time with maybe 30 or 40 small houses circling the 9th century monastery. The guest house was at the end of an unrideable 50 metres stretch of sheer uphill that I could barely hike. Once there I was greeted by the host, an elderly Georgian man who spoke no English and didn't seem to understand any of the translations that my phone was speaking back to him. Even with the language barrier, I was treated to a tour of his gardens, huge dinner and of course more home-brew wine. This country is growing on me fast.
Day 67 - Ubisa - 55 miles
Unlike the last few days of easy rolling on motorways, today was going to be tough going. I planned to ride to Gori, one of the largest cities in Georgia outside of the capital and famously the birthplace of Stalin... why not? In order to rejoin the motorway that would take me to Gori, I had to first ride 15 miles of winding steep roads through the mountains. Due to a colossal multi-year infrastructure project to cut a new road through all of these mountains, a lot of alternative routes had been closed to road traffic and so I was sharing these tight cliff edge roads with a 3 lane motorway's worth of cars.
I can't overstate just how immense this in progress infrastructure project is, Georgia is a pretty rugged and mountainous terrain where the motorways naturally avoid the mountains or weave through the valleys to avoid them. This new unbending highway cuts straight through every mountain in huge tunnels and then is suspended on stilts high above the valleys, taking absolutely no notice of the landscape. Stranger still than the many multi-million pound project itself was the fact that this work was being largely funded by the EU and then contracted out to Chinese firms, odd to see the EU and China flag side by side all over it. I'd heard from other cycle tourists that the local population hate it, they prefer a slightly slower pace of living and don't like the idea of a concrete laser beam being shot through their green country.
After a gruelling few hours I reemerged into the open planes riding on the West-East motorway that would take me all the way to the finish line. I had a few steep downhill sections to push it one last time as I approached Gori in the distance, just in front of the mountain in the photo below.
I checked in to my third guesthouse in 3 days, this time ran by an elderly secondary school teacher who played the archetypal role of a no-nonsense grandmother who shows affection by demanding you do chores and telling you to move faster. I made the mistake of putting my bags on the bed when she showed me into my room, 'Bed is for body not bag!'... I love you too granny.
My initial plan was to visit the Stalin museum in the centre of town but after speaking to a few other guests at the guesthouse, I found out they were using the term museum very loosely and that 'shrine to dictator with no descriptions next to any of the items' would be a better description. Instead I ate more khinkali at a karaoke bar and then took a 4 pack of Georgian beer to watch the 3rd division Gori football team get pummelled, just the way Joseph would have wanted.
68 - Gori - 53 miles
Leaving Gori I had just 50 miles left to get to Tbilisi, which at this point in my journey really feels like a short sprint. I hadn't had a proper break since Istanbul a month prior and the thought of having 4 days clean off the bike to relax and decompress after what had been the most challenging month, crammed full of crazy moments, was real sweet. I only stopped twice to buy more cans of iced coffee along the first 40 miles of motorway riding. It was the usual deal riding on a spacious hard shoulder with my headphones in day dreaming the miles away.
The approach to Tbilisi was a stark change to the morning so far as the hard shoulder suddenly dissapeared and I was now riding on a 6 lane road brimming with a country's worth of traffic descending on the capital. A police car pulled in front of me and pulled me over with 5 miles to go and I figured I was about to be fined or told It was illegal to ride on this road but they were just confused as to what the hell I was doing. After the usual spiel about my trip and pointing to my hotel on google maps they let me ride on but not without telling me at least 10 times to be careful.
I checked in to my hotel and spent the afternoon cleaning the bike and ruining the nice white towels that had been left for me in the process (sorry). Somehow Andre had managed to ride at such a pace that he was due in to Tbilisi this evening, half a day faster than I'd just done it myself. We met at the Boris Paichadze Dinamo Arena to watch Georgia get beaten 7-1 by Spain in the pouring rain to dash their hopes of playing in the UEFA Euro Championship next year. At least Georgians are trusted to drink alcohol in the stands of football games so we enjoyed a celebratory pint having ticked off another country from our lists.
Days 69-71 - Tbilisi
I didn't have time to nurse my poorly planned hangover as I only had 3 days to find a bike box then service, collapse and pack the bike as well as purchase everything I'd need to handle the desert in Uzbekistan. I needed more water storage and goggles to protect against the sand as well as a restock on pretty much all of my regular supplies which I found was easier said than done in Tbilisi. Flight in less than 72 hours. Thankfully I'd fired off messages to every bike shop I could find on Google a few days ago, asking any and everyone if they had a spare box for me. Huge thanks to David who took a box home for me to pick up from him on the other side of the city, I had to squeeze it on to a bus to get it back to my hotel but this was my main point of worry going into this. I spent the rest of the day packing the bike into the flimsy cardboard box that was supposed to protect it over 2 flights, feeling pretty paranoid. As much as I wanted to get the bike packed as early as possible, I hadn't thought through the fact that I was also losing my only mode of transport so spent the next day hiking back and forth from my hotel on the hill into the centre.
On my final evening I met Andre for our last supper and farewell. We'd ridden together for over a month now through 4 countries having met briefly by chance in a Serbian campsite. It's really quite shocking how much you can get to know someone in such a short space of time with someone, especially when you're both thrust completely out of your comfort zone together and having to rely on this person that you literally just met. I can't imagine how I would have made it this far if we hadn't met, I'm incredibly grateful we did. Andre is continuing to ride around the world and after I left cycled south through Armenia and Iran before flying to South East Asia. You can follow his adventure on Polar Steps (he includes English translation) here.
Days 72-73 Airports
After wrestling my bike and bags into an unimpressed taxi, I arrived at the airport just before midnight ready for my 4am flight to Istanbul where I'd then have 1:05 hour layover before flying the last stretch to Bukhara, Uzbekistan. My 4am flight was delayed by 40 minutes leaving me with just over half an hour to connect flights in one of the biggest international airports in the world, not ideal. I'll spare you the details but after a lot of arguing with unsympathetic Turkish airlines employees I was left with 2 options: get on the flight to Istanbul knowing that the chances of me making the connection were low, or walk away without any option of refund or reschedule.
We landed at 6am, I pushed past everyone to get off first and then ran 3km through Istanbul airport to my connecting gate only to miss it by 3 minutes. I'd been awake for 24 hours now. The next flight to Uzbekistan wasn't for another 4 days and I knew I didn't have the strength to wait around that long, not when I was already this close to the end. I slumped against the window and let myself get swallowed up by the realisation that this trip wasn't going to end how I thought it would. When you push yourself to do something that feels so impossibly long in the moment you have to focus on anything you can to keep your mind in a good place. For me this was the final scene of rolling into the capital of Uzbekistan knowing that I'd reached my finish line, but that wasn't going to be how it ended this time around. After an hour of sitting in the terminal surrounded by other people rushing to their own next stops I realised that I had to make a plan and move before I fell asleep on the floor. I'd been so busy the last few weeks building myself up for what was about to be the final chapter of adventure that I wasn't ready to head home just yet. I booked a new flight to the first viable destination that would allow me a final stint of riding before returning home. Rotterdam, what were the chances. I rushed in a taxi to the other Istanbul airport where I just barely caught my flight back to the same city I started riding from 71 days ago, before riding through 41° heat and lightning storms, before climbing my first Alp and wild camping on the Danube, before fixing the 100 things that went wrong along the way and before meeting the countless people that made this trip so special. I checked into my Rotterdam hotel and crashed out after being awake for nearly 40 hours straight.
Days 74-77 - Holland, Belgium, France, England - 315 miles
The plan when I booked the Rotterdam flight was to spend the next 2 weeks cycling around the Netherlands, Belgium and France before catching a ferry to England and riding home. Normally cycling in the Netherlands is such a treat and a great holiday but when you've prepared yourself for camels and deserts, it's a bit too far of a change of tracks. After 30 minutes on the bike I knew that I wasn't going to be taking the scenic route home and instead decided to give myself a new challenge to focus on. I made it a challenge to see how fast I could cycle home from Rotterdam, which coincidentally I'd ridden once before back in 2016 over the course of 9 days, this time I did it in 3 and a half.
I'm glad I had this final chapter to clear my head and arrive home in a way I could be proud of on my own pedal power, something that I wouldn't have been able to do had I made it to Uzbekistan. London also made for a pretty sweet finish line.
And there you have it, 2 and a half months of adventure that I promised myself at 18 and will enjoy looking back on for the rest of my life. I'm incredibly proud of what I achieved, 3700 miles and 12 countries crossed all under the power of my own legs. It's okay that it didn't end the way I'd planned, that's life. One day I'll make that flight to where I left off to complete the ride and until then I'll enjoy exploring countries closer to home for a little while. Thank you to everyone I met along the way that showed me so much kindness, It meant the world.