Saturday, June 10, 2017
The next morning, there was a group of high school kids on the early train to Borjomi. As it happens, they were the same kids I went to high school with: the flirty girl, the brooding boy, the overweight kid who is the class clown, etc. At one pont they sang "Happy Birthday" to someone in English.
The train connected at Borjomi to the narrow guage train to the mountain spa town of Bakuriani. The cars are tiny and the ride was delightful.
We stopped at one small station and a old man got on with 3 suitcases, 2 large bags of dogfood, a few plastic bags filled with something and a large coil of wire. Accompanying him was another man transporting a large steel-framed wooden door, which he left on the rear platform. At the next official station stop, the station master brought out a piece of mirror glass (about 12" X 12") and handed the glass to the man through the window. The train stopped somewhere between stations to let the old man and all his baggage out near his house; he appreciated my help off-loading his stuff. We proceeded about 100 yards to a spot close to a stone chapel, and the other man and his door alighted. The door appeared to be destined for use at the chapel, as the chapel did not have one.
Shortly thereafter, the train stopped where a man had chopped down a tree adjacent to the tracks which he had cut into logs. The logs were duly loaded on the rear platform (thankfully, the chapel door had recently been offloaded, so there was room), and we were off again. After 2 hours and 25 minutes, we arrived at Bakuriani, 37.5 kms from Borjomi.
At Bakuriani, I walked into the village to get some water and a snack for the return ride. On the walk back to the station, the rumbling in the sky became a down-pouring electrical storm. Another guy and I ran for the train just before the hail started. The other guy looked at me, smiled and said the English word "Hurricane." The hail began as pea size, then expanded to US Quarter coin-sized. The hail made interesting pinging sounds as it hit the roof of the train car and bounced off (1).
On the way back, there was a Russian-speaking couple who appeared to be travellers. The conductor told us all in Russian that there was a bridge constructed by Eiffel (of Paris tower fame) coming up soon (2), so we all proceeded to the rear platform for a better look. On the rear platform, there were two large and oily metal objects the purpose of which I could not even guess at.
A little later, I was hanging out on the front platform just behind the engine and was joined by 3 boys about 9 to 11 years old. The oldest boy asked me a question, but I told them I did not speak Georgian. He then queried the youngest boy (apparently how to ask in English), and the oldest boy then asked in English: "Flame for smoke?" I could not comply with their request. Another hail storm began suddenly thereafter. As I was getting back inside (and encouraging the boys to do the same), the train driver tooted the horn and signalled us to get inside. These same young boys reflexively made the sign on the cross later when we passed a church.
Back at Borjomi, I said thanks and goodbye in Russian to the train conductor. He reached out his hand a gave me a warm handshake. As the sky was threatening again, I decided not to walk the half hour to grab a Mashrutka (3). After the usual haggling with a local taxi driver (4), I got into an ancient Volvo with a cracked windshield and broken seat belts for the 30+ mile ride up the valley to Akhaltsikhe, passing a number of trucks (in no passing zones, of course) headed for the Turkish border, which is nearby. The driver asked if I was English: "Anglia, da?," to which I agreed (5).
Halfway to Akhaltsikhe, the driver asked "Bakuriani?" to ask where I had come from. I said "da" and made a train whistle noise to indicate my mode of transport. He conveyed to me (by imitating the train sound himself) that the train was known locally as the "Kukushka" which is onomatopoeic for the sound of the train's whistle. As we arrived at Akhaltsikhe, I showed him a map of my hotel location. The driver apparently does know how to read maps, so I gave him directions to the hotel by pointing.
I arrived at my hotel and was greeted like an old friend ("Mr. Charles") with a small bottle of home-made Georgian wine (yum). The hotel had a great view of Rabati Castle, which is the reason people come to Akhaltsikhe. This was one of the more expensive places I stayed in the Caucuses at the equivalent of US $25 a night.
(1) Hail is apparently no more common here than elsewhere. A few days later, I was chatting with someone who told me that the hailstorm got bad enough near Tbilisi that some cars "looked like they'd been hit with a baseball bat."
(2) I heard a word that sounded like a cognate for the Serbo-Croation word for bridge ("most") which I happen to know. I made out the rest by context (I had read there was an Eiffel-built bridge on the line). The Russian-speaking woman was kind enough to ask (in broken English) if I understood. This is actually the second railway built by Eiffel I had crossed, the first being on the Romanian border at Ungheni, Moldova.
(3) Sort of like a small bus that runs between towns. They are ubiquitous throughout the former Soviet Union and the Balkans, although they sometimes are called different names, like "furgon" in Albania. In Georgia, there is usually an approximate schedule for the Mashrutky. In Albania, the furgons leave "when full."
(4) Haggling proceeds as follows when you don't know the local language: you name a destination and rub your thumb against your other fingers; the driver responds by holding up fingers naming a price; after a bit of back and forth, you grab a scrap of paper and pen (which I always have handy) to confirm your understanding of the price. There was a variation in this case: instead of paper, we wrote the price with our fingers on the dirty back window of the taxi. BTW: Taxi meters? No, anyone in this part of the world with a car can buy a taxi sign to stick it on the roof when they need some cash.
(5) There are a few places in the world I have not encountered Americans, but no matter how obscure the destination, there are always Britons around. English did not become the default second language in the world because the British people were home-bodies.
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