Georgia part 3: Kakheti

Saturday March 7th, finally after two weeks of resting (our bodies need and claim some laziness) and a temptation of hitch-hiking :-), we left Taylor and Tbilissi, heading to the George W Bush highway, with a huge smiling picture of him, to get out of the city.

Tim and Karina were already at the Armenian border, ready to cross. But we wanted to discover a bit more Georgia , especially Kakheti, the wine region.

The weather was perfect, sunny with a breeze. I cycled most of the day with short sleeve T-shirt and short. We felt so in shape, light-hearted even the road was uphill, up to 10% sometimes....

The next day was cold, and rainy. and the road continued to go up and up again. We reached Telavi around 2PM, decided to stop for the night: if we had continued then we would have to wild camp, which was not nice under the hard rain. So we just showed up, covered in our nylon, by way of rain coats, at the police station, asking for help. No one spoke English so my little Russian revealed itself very useful to say: we have no money, we need a dry place for our tent!!!! After some minutes of discussion, they put our bikes on a pick-up and drove su to a big hotel.... in construction. We had a big room for us. The guardian invited us to share some warmth in his room. Unfortunately, he didn't speak Russian so the conversation was very much limited.

It snowed the next day so we stayed there a day more, visiting a bit the town, playing a it with the two dogs, going to the market where we bought the best smoked bacon (lard) ever for so cheap!!!! We also had some wonderful beef filet and gave ourselves a pleasure with a big bottle of beer. A 3 Michelin stars dinner we had, I tell ya :-) :-). The two dogs went crazy when we gave them the bones, we had to separate them: they were so jealous and didn't want each other to get closer to us....

Tuesday March 10th, the weather was cold but at least dry. We visited Badagoni, probably the best wine producer in Georgie. We tasted a red from 2014, a bit young and surprisingly good. Following their advices, we went to Alaverdi, famous for the Monastery wine, still made in the traditional way in jar of terra cotta, unique in the world!!!!!

Here, we bleeded ourselves to death to buy the best Badagoni bottle, also made in the traditional way, but with the Italian quality control in addition...
We drank it in a place one could not dream for better.

And it was indeed damn good, worth the money to every single drop!!!!

The next evening, we had dinner with Chenchikhan (????) the Sherpa we already crossed.

The table was made of a truck tire and two planks of wood, we seated almost on the ground, at 50 cm from the sheeps , eating raw sardines with unwashed hands and drinking home made wine and chacha. We spent the night, surrounded by "meeeehing" sheeps and barking dogs. Chenchikhan had the two most useless dogs we've ever seen, they avoided almost sheeps.....

Thursday March 12th was quite a special day: we visited a bakery, learnt how puri was made. It was impressive to see Valeri almost disappeared in the burning jar to place the bread!!!!!

Then on the road, people kept stopping us to give us food, chacha, beer... that we were already slightly drunk when we stopped in the middle of a uphill road, in a field near the woods.

Our tent was set when some men appeared with their cows. Somehow they made us understand that there were wolves nearby at night. We must look so miserable then that one man just pronounced the only magical Russian word of the whole "hands and facial expression conversation": Мой Дом (my house). Zaza lived in a very nice two stories house with Ana, his beautiful wife and two lovely kids, Lali and Georgi. The treated us like kings while normally, they were doing us a great favor to let us stay in their house.

(young Robert de Niro, in my favorite character: Zaza, our Georgian host!!!!)

Such generosity touched us deeply every time. We promised ourselves to be as generous as we could, to help others as much as we could, to pay back all the good things we are receiving on the roads.

Saturday March 15th, a week later, we finally reached Davit Gareji, one of the must see in Georgia before heading to the Armenian border. The road was difficult, stiff and sometimes in bad condition. The heat hit us hard but we kept rolling. The monastery is 50km away from almost everything :-) :-)  But the visit was worth the effort!!!!

We spent the last night on Georgian land in an abandoned gaz station. Here we met a couple of friends: an Armenian and an Azeri who have to go to Georgia to see each other!!!

It rained a lot the last days: we arrived in Georgia under the rain and under the rain, we left, hearts and minds full of wonderful memories.

To be continued...

Georgia part 2: to hitch or not to hike?

March 4th, 10:15AM, we were at the door of Iranian Embassy, full of hope about this precious paper that is called Iranian visa.

It was so quick. The guy who wanted to extort us went to the Consul's bureau, got out 1mn later with our visas ready. Yahoo!!!! We can go to Iran now (and to ask for more visas there.....)
As planned, with Taylor, we decided to go for a hitchhiking trip. The first time we hitchhiked was in Trabzon, for a forty something kms trip to Sumela Monastery. It was quite fun, and as we met some hitchhikers on the way, we were quite exciting about experiencing this mode of traveling.

1:30 PM, we were at the Tbilissi mall, the exit point of town, trying to find our way to Stepantsminda. The first car stopped after 10 mn of thumb up. They were a middle age couple whose sun is kinda traveler too. We might remind them of their faraway child, on the unknowed route of Tibet :-).

The second one was the President of Martial Arts Association in Tbilissi, on his way to his boxing training session. We didn't quite understand wether he trained others or it was for himself...

The third man wondered why we wanted to go to such a cold place and gave us a lift until his small village.

The fourth one had a Russian car but we were not sure wether he was Russian or Azeri. Maybe Azeri-born Russian? We had very interesting discussion with him. When we introduced ourselves, he seemed shocked that an American guy (Taylor, our Warm Shower host) and a Vietnamese girl could travel friendly together. I tried to say that the war was such a long time ago, that it's normal to be friends but he seemed not convinced.
Then it was our turn to have a shock when he asked Taylor "Is it true that there are a lot of niggers in America?" We had to ask him 3 times to be sure about the question, the N word seemed to entertain him a lot....
Very disappointed that we had not been and wouldn't go to Azerbaijan (because of visa and timing issues) he asked wether we had been in Turkey and how it was. And he seemed so doubtful when I enthusiastically told him that Turkey was

We stopped at a small village, at 20km from  Stepantsminda

The place was soo beautiful, a bit cold though....

We went up the hill to set the camp: it was much easier without the bicycles....

It was the full moon. There was something enchanting in the air :-)

It was such a quiet night that the sound of the falling snow at some point woke us up. Perfectly warm in our sleeping bags, it didn't bother us but then the next morning:

At least, we had plenty of water to make our hot chocolat for breakfast :-) 

It was useless to go further with this weather, we decided to hitch-hike back to Tbilissi.
After 30 second, a car stopped: it was the same man who took us yesterday. He was this time with his son who is the male singer in this Ensemble. Very nice!!! We recommend!!!

But then he put some Russian Rap that we really do not recommend!!!!!

After one hour and a half, he we were again in Tbilissi, ending this way our first temptation of hitch-hiking!

It was a fun experience but still, we prefer our bikes :-) :-)


Stay tuned for more cycling updates :-) :-)

Travel and eat well: Turkish flavors

Turkey is known to be the country of loukoum and kebab. Fortunately, there is much more to discover. We loved everything we tasted in Turkey, and we tasted a lot!

First of all, special mention to Baklava, the Turkish pride but also the Turkish anger when people think that it's from Greece :-)

There are some varieties of baklava, with walnut, almond, pistachio, or hazelnuts (especially along the Black Sea coast, the best place for hazelnuts) but all deliciously wrapped by filo pasta and honey.

Yogurt corbasi (soup of yogurt): a wonderfully delicious soup.

Normally, every kind of Turkish soup is worth trying: lentile soup, meat soup, soup with tongue, with intestine....

üzümlü pirinç pilavı: rice pilaf

Manti: turkish typical ravioli. Those tiny ravioli are considered perfect when a spoon could hold 14 of them !!!! Really a must

(Only women are patient enough to do this :-)

(just out of the pan)

(with yogourt and butter "noisette" and chili, soooo delicious)

We forgot the name of those little things, made of bulgur, tomato and herbe: perfect finger food :-)

Yaprak Sarma: wine leaves stuffed with rice. They are also very popular in Greece. The criteria of a good yaprak sarma is that it shouldn't be bigger than a woman's finger !!!

(photo: internet)

Eggplant dolma: dried eggplant stuffed with rice or meat.

(photo: internet)

hurma tatlisi: wonderful dessert with nuts

Kunefi: dessert of pasta kataif with cheese, pistachio and sour cream. A bomb!!!

Ayran (drinking yogourt): you can find it everywhere. It's very hydrating and energetic.

How to eat well while travel: the cooking stuff

Because we love eating and because cycling is so energy consuming, we care a lot about meals :-)    In our opinion, to better endure and enjoy a long cycling trip, it is super important to provide ourselves sufficiently with vitamins, proteins.... Think about it, lots of people's routine is 8-hours-working day in an office, in front of a computer, and ours is to exercise all day long , ours muscles need to be fed accordingly:-) :-)
Food is also an interesting aspect of every culture, a must to discover wherever we go :-) It's also for those new tastes and flavors that we went for this trip.

During our trip, it happened that we spent some times with other cyclists and we realized that a lot of travelers think that it's complicate and difficult to make ourselves good food with our camping gears. That's why we decided to invest into this special chapter: HOW TO EAT PROPERLY AND WELL ON CAMPING.

We will give you ideas about very simple but good and nutritional meals, with some local spices you can easily find on your way. Those are meals we had during our trip so they also depend on the seasons and ingredients we find along our way, you can freely inspire and modify to adapt them to your own journey :-)

Here is our cooking material, what we've been bringing with us since September 2014

From left to right, top to bottom

First row

 Backpacking stove: our works with fuel, so far we use exclusively petrol. It depends on the quality of the petrol but half a liter can live long, up to 8 hours of cooking.

We recommend stove with fuel rather than with gaz because firstly, unlike fuel, you could not find gaz everywhere (we think about Central Asia for exemple) and by cold weather, it heats much less.

The refrigerated bag: very useful to store food and to keep them fresh (meat, fish...). They are also very easy to carry: light and can be kept behind the bike, between backward bags.

Second row

Flat chesse grater: very useful for making salad or to grate cheese  or aven onion and garlic. Very light and flat so doesn't take much space.

Alunium wrap: to protect the stove from the wind while cooking. It also protects the tent's ground in case of cooking inside the tent (when it rains for exemple)

2 plates: made of silicon, can be flattened. Can be also used to prepare salad. 

pan's handle: normally is sold along with the pan. If you could, chose one made of aluminium, more resistant to the heat.

frying pan and its detachable handle: made of steel, very resistant and easy to clean, especially after campfire!!! Its thickness makes it very suitable for roasting (eggs, fish, meat...)

accessories: 

an Opinel folding pocket knife, number 9. The lock system is very secure. Very useful to prepare fish, meat. Tiny, sharp and can easily be sharpened everywhere. You could take a bigger one but not smaller than number 9.

a swiss knife, of which usefulness is not to discuss anymore (can opener, saw, bottle opener, tweezers...). We do not recommend a big one because of the weight: it's better to have it always with you in the pocket. 

two forks, two spoons, which can be used to mix ingredients, to smash potatoes, carrots... for a puree... They should be light, strong but not too big. 

Third row

Chopping board: very useful to prepare veggies. You can find it for a very cheap price in local markets. Be careful: it should fit your bag, but not too small.

Towel: to clean your oily hands, to take a pan from the fire/heat, to put your burning pan on.... You can easily clean it in gaz station, with the pressurized water. They do it for free, with a smile. 

Pan and its lid: we can also use the lid as a second (frying) pan. It's better to have it in steel, a bit heavier but more resistant, easier to clean even when you let some food burnt (which happens!!!). Do not take aluminum, even they are really nice looking and light !!!

Accessories: 

two plastic cups (for tea, water, soup, beer and whatever :-) :-) . You can also have them in aluminium, bigger and you can heat them directly on the fire.

a small sieve, very useful for pasta or tea, to filter the cooking waste, to take the veggies out of the boiling water...

Those seem to be a lot but in fact can be stored in very little place. For exemple, here is how we store all the forks, spoons, cups, Opinel knife, plates and all the pans and their handles:

in the tiny pan

Note: we would have loved to have a bigger pan. With ours, sometimes it is difficult to cook 500gr of pasta, which is our portion for 2.

And here is how we store our food in the refrigerated bag

About food's stuff: we prefer buying from local markets and small shops (where you can have real local products and spices, fresh and organic, at least, with a small scale of production) than from supermarket (where everything is standardized with big scale of production). It's our way to support (slightly) local economy and agriculture but also in our opinion, it's a good way to feel the local culture and cuisine.

Along with the daily purchase, we carry with us some usual things: olive oil ( enjoy it in Greece and Turkey, they have very good and cheap olive oil, after it becomes more rare and more expensive), salt, pepper, vinegar (and butter) and a lighter (always very useful, a lighter :-)

And a small grill, perfect for campfire !!!!! You can cook meat, fish, veggies and use it as a pan support on the fire, by putting it between two rocks. Light, flat so easy to store.

Those things may be too much for very light-weighted travelers. In our opinion, it's worthy to take one or two kilos more, especially that we can split this weight for two, to guarantee a healthy diet on a long trip. It also helps us to save money: it's cheaper to cook ourselves than to eat even fast food or to buy prepared food.

Travel and eat well: Greece and the Olympian Gods food

Greece is a wonderful country for food. Local fresh veggies, fruits are sold along the roads. Everything is relatively cheap (compared to other countries of Europe). We found juicy oranges at 50 cents a kilo, and delicious spinach at 1 euro.

We highly recommend Greek pastries, especially karithata, the Greek nuts cookies

kourabiedes, the Christamas butter cookies

(photo: internet)

and our favorite: melomakarona, the Christmas honey cookies that taste like heaven!!!!!!

(photo: internet)

We also advise you to visit at least one "Cafe Neo",  the heart of the Greek popular life and where you can taste delicious "tapas" of grilled meat, fish, octopus, veggies..... miam miam.

We found everywhere in Greece, all along the road, wild fennel.

(photo: internet)

(photo: internet)

Their seed with a flavor of anis , is an wonderful accessory for food, such as cabbage salad or fish. You can also find it in supermarket for very cheap but we like the idea of collecting those little seeds ourselves.

There is also rosemary

(photo: internet)

and wild salva 

(photo: internet)

 which give meat an extra taste.

You can also find lemon, (bitter) orange, very good for making sauce. Along the coast, you can buy very cheap frozen fish: 2 euros for 4 filets, it's quite enough for two!

What we recommend to try absolutely:

Feta: sour, low fat. Normally it's a mix between goat and sheep milk but one also can have feta from cow milk which is less expensive. You can find it everywhere, the "heart" of the famous Greek salad. A bit expensive but worth to try.

(photo: internet)

Pita (Greek bread stuffed with meat and veggies). Cheap and so tasty.

(photo: internet)

Taztiki sauce (with yogurt, cucumber and garlic).

Skordalia: garlic and bread cream, perfect for appetizer.

(photo: internet)

Thesaloniki trigona: filo pasta with pastry cream.

(photo: internet)

Spanakopita: filo pasta with spinach and cheese, our daily breakfast. A good combination of protein, fat, carbohydrate and some vitamin, to start a cycling day.

(photo: internet)

Olives: oil or to eat. The kalamata is the most famous for eating.

Chipuro or Tsipouro: the local grapes distilled. Can have a taste of anis or not. The best one can be found in Evia :-)

Greek is also a perfect place to have dried fruits, especially dried figs from Evia, the best place in Greek for this delicious fruit.

(photo: internet)