Happy New Year!

Footbridge in Tbilisi

Museum Blues

Stalin keeping an eye on who's entering his museum

What to do in Georgia when it's too bloody cold for long treks in the Caucasus mountains or a mellow exploration of the Kakheti wine region—the kind of outdoorsy activity my guidebook likes to ramble on about? Staying in and getting wasted tends to lose its charm after a hangover or two, and there's only so much khachapuri (highly addictive cheese pie) a man can handle in a day. The best way to spend a few rest days seemed to settle on a bit of church and museum hopping. Fortunately, Georgia boasts a fair sprinkling of outstanding medieval churches, and not all of them are located in spots that can only be reached by helicopter. When it comes to museums, options are equally diverse, if a tad outlandish. The Animated Puppet Museum? Nah. The Avlabar Illegal Typography Museum? Maybe next time. The Mirza Fatali Akhundov Museum of Georgian-Azerbaijani Cultural Relations? Eh...

To be fair, I did stumble upon something that aroused my curiosity. The Stalin Museum in Gori. Gori, a rather bleak town a day's ride from Tbilisi, is the place where little Joseph spent his childhood. Apart from the museum only the small citadel in the town centre holds any touristic appeal—and a very mild one at that. Even the museum is a bit of a letdown. Spacious rooms glorifying Georgia's most famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) son, loads of newspaper clippings and documents drawn up in Russian with translations in Georgian, and everywhere a chill air rushing in through unseen crevices. No mention of the atrocities committed under Stalin, even though some of the worst Soviet-era purges took place in his own country. Things got almost homely in the room where Stalin's desk is displayed along with a great number of gifts from friends and allies around the world. Tasteful stuff, if you're into things like jewel-encrusted swords and letters of congratulation written on a grain of rice. My favourite item: a pair of red clogs presented by a local chapter of the Dutch communist party (tightfisted buggers!).

Stalin's home, dwarfed by its own protective superstructure

On my way out a lady with a yellow beehive took me by the hand to show me a wooden hut standing in front of the museum. Solemnly she opened the little front door and pushed me in. 'Home of Stalin,' she said, as if that explained the why and how of the structure's survival and near-perfect condition. Next was a green bulletproof train carriage, in which Stalin travelled to the Yalta Conference. Bog, tub, wooden air conditioning, and three minutes later I was out on the street again. None the wiser, but two hours closer to dinner time.

Disneyland by Night

The miserable heap of habits man is… Having spent a long time in Turkey, much of it in the not overly progressive hinterland, I genuinely thought I had grown accustomed to the sights and sounds of a different culture. Little things like the muezzin's call to prayer. But also more significant details, such as the surreal absence of women in public life, or the even more surreal absence of pork on my plate. But when I hit Batumi, a breezy beach town just a few kilometres into Georgia, I realised I had been fooling myself. The differences were too blatant. No deafening Allahu Akbar sounding from dozens of minarets five times a day but gently tolling church bells. No çay or muddy Turkish coffee but real espresso and French pastries. No headscarves and long overcoats but slender girls in skirts and tight jeans. The sun beamed down on Batumi’s parklike boulevard, and I felt as chirpy as a prisoner on a weekend break.

Annoyed at my own relief, I started listing everything that was wrong with Batumi. Those fin-de-siècle facades. Can't deny they're pretty, I thought. But that’s exactly what makes this place so perverse. Behind the renovated splendour of the beach front lie the impoverished backstreets no holidaying Russian ever sees. And how god-awful those coloured spotlights that turn the entire city centre into a Disneyland by Night.

It didn’t help, of course. I enjoyed every bit of it. Even the larger-than-life musical fountain dancing to the tune of such Western evergreens as An der schönen blauen Donau and Theme from Mission: Impossible. I guess that’s the problem with traveling. Somehow you never succeed in leaving yourself at home.

Southeastern Turkey in 6 Shots

I'm a firm believer in the theory that all motorised modes of transport are the devil's invention. That's why I'm pretty radical about the way I want to do this trip. No cars, no trains, no buses, no planes. I could pat myself on the back for treading lightly, but the main thing is that traveling just seems more real when you set yourself in motion.

When it comes to side trips these hard and fast rules somehow don't apply. They're not part of the actual journey anyway—that's what makes them side trips. No pangs of guilt then, when I decided to take a bus south and make a little tour of the Euphrates and Tigris basin. In Diyarbakır, a city that wears its Kurdish identity on its sleeve, I joined the shopping frenzy one day before Kurban Bayramı, the Festival of the Sacrifice. In the bluff-top town of Mardin I watched the sun go down behind the endless Mesopotamian plain. In the backstreets of Midyat little punks pelted me with stones (no Major League material there). And in Hasankeyf I was told I was one of the last tourists to visit the village, as the entire place will be washed away as soon as the construction of a nearby dam is completed. Excellent little excursion, but after nine days I was dying to get back to my yoke and plough again.

Stocking up on sweets for Kurban Bayramı

Mardin: citrus-press domes, great views of Syria

Kurdish man in traditional dress

Hasankeyf boy skipping stones on the Tigris

Mardin post office: ornate facades abound in this region

Baklava and kadayıf: don't eat more than a pound or you'll live to regret it

Backdoors and Detours

Who needs a conference room when you have a hotel lobby?

Life used to be pretty straightforward for overlanders traveling from Turkey to eastern Asia: head to the dreary border town of Doğubeyazıt, situated at the foot of Mount Ararat, draw a more or less diagonal line between Iran's northwest and southeast, cross into Pakistan, and then go wherever your fancy takes you, be it the northern road to China or the eastern one to India. A classic route that is all but history due to Pakistan's recent crackdown on—no, not the local chapter of Al-Qaeda loonies—but happy-go-lucky travelers eager to explore the marvels of the country. Visa applications can now only be filed in the country of origin. And rightly so, of course. Those blasted hippies collecting visas as they go simply can't be trusted.

With the arrival of no less than four cyclists, the atmosphere at the hotel in Erzurum took on a distinct quality of nervous apprehension. All of them—the French couple on their recumbents, the French boy they had picked up along the way, the ginger software developer from Südtirol—had given up any hope they had of traversing Pakistan. Too much of a hassle. That put them in a tight spot, and they knew it. Once you've entered Iran your exit options are limited. Central Asia, though beautiful, is far too cold in winter and makes Pakistan look like Luxembourg when it comes to granting tourist visas. The only alternative, Afghanistan, is out of the question for obvious reasons.

Best time to visit the Georgian valleys: autumn

There is a backdoor, however, a plan so cunning you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel. (Now, who said that again...) The only drawback is that this workaround is still in beta. The idea is to catch a ferry from Iran to Dubai and then hitch a ride on a cargo ship bound for India. Gavin, the English cyclist I wrote about in the Black Hole entry, bravely decided to give it a shot. As far as I know he got stuck in Dubai and is now desperately roaming the docks looking for a captain willing to take him aboard.

For me, the Dubai route is merely a backup, something to consider if all else fails. I've got my mind set on cycling the Karakoram Highway, a 1300-kilometre high-altitude roller-coaster ride linking Pakistan and China. Apart from the visa drivel there is just one complicating factor. The road is officially closed from the first of January till the first of May. If snowfall persists, that date could be pushed back. Unwilling to bet on too many visa extensions—thirty days are standard for both Iran and Pakistan—I've got some serious time to kill before entering Iran. That's why I'm crossing Turkey like a snail on the back of a turtle, using up the full ninety days I've been allowed. To top it off, I will even make a little detour through the Caucasus. It felt a bit strange to head north while my cycle buddies were in a hurry to get to the Persian Gulf, where the average midday temperature in December sits around a pleasant twenty degrees.

Farmers on a livestock market in Akşar

So far, I can't say I regret the decision. The area north of Erzurum used to be part of medieval Georgia. No wind-swept steppes here, but lush valleys, sometimes narrowing to a gorge, studded with the eerie remains of castles, churches and monasteries. Winter hasn't yet reached this remote corner of Turkey. Autumn reigns, painting the leaves of the trees lining the roaring streams in outrageous yellows, oranges and reds.

Thanks to my host Veysel I get to see every nook and cranny of the Georgian valleys. He is a vet, and I often join him when he is needed at one of the farms in the neighbouring villages. Circumstances in these communities are primitive at best, but that doesn't deter Veysel. It's a treat to watch someone do his job with such ease and confidence. Without batting an eyelid he stuffs a two-metre hose in the backside of a constipated cow, or stitches up a giant Kangal dog with a flesh wound the size of a baseball mitt—the result of a quarrel with a wild boar. Never a dull moment, in other words. If contemporary Georgia is only half as mesmerising as its medieval counterpart, I'm in for a good one.