Goa to Mumbai then home

 I think this will be my final entry unless something amazing or terrible happens. I was up at 4am yesterday to get my taxi to the airport. The airport was 100km away from Palolem and took around 2 hours to get to, despite it being early morning and not much traffic. I had my bag searched at the airport again. I don't really know what they are looking for. I think they might be doing it as payback for all the "randomly selected" brown people that get searched at Australian airports.

The flight was only about 40 minutes in the air. By car it is 14 hours. The lady next to me was very disappointed that she couldn't use my seat for her bag. She played a song on her phone the entire trip. It wasn't very loud, but it was the same song the entire way. It seems very common that people just play stuff out loud on their phones, or talk to people on speaker. Not just in India, everywhere. 

Flying into Mumbai I could see the slums on the ground. I thought they'd be a couple of big areas in the outskirts, but they are basically rammed in wherever their is space. They look a little bit aesthetically pleasing from the air. The way all these individual huts are slotted together without a single gap. 

The other thing I noticed was the smog. Worse than China I think. Mum made a good point, that it is a bit ridiculous putting all the effort into green initiatives in Australia when India and China are pumping out pollution on a scale that is repulsive. But seeing the pollution here, I'd argue that it should be something to be avoided at all costs, not just because of climate change, but because it is a shit environment to live in. 

I left the airport and started walking to the hotel, which was 950 metres away. Traffic was wild. The footpath was closed in one section, and the taxis had crammed right up against the kerb, leaving nowhere to walk, so I walked right down the middle of the 2 lanes. 

A man in a tuk tuk asked where I was going. I could see the hotel about 500m away so I pointed. He gave me directions, then offered to take me for 100 rupees. I jumped in and so began the wildest tuk tuk ride I've ever been on! Traffic was horrendous, but he was cutting through it like a knife through butter. There was honestly millimetres in some of the manoeuvres he was pulling up. A truck was absolutely, definitely going to crush us and he found a gap and got out of there. We skidded to a stop mm from the cars in front, ripped a u turn in front of the cars coming the other way and jumped over the speed bump in the hotel car park. The whole time he was chatting about that big swim in the river festival that is on at the moment (400 million people!). When we arrived I paid him double.

The hotel was nice enough. I realise now that 5 stars mean that everything is really expensive. They charged me the equivalent of $9 for a coffee, so none of them got a tip for the rest of my stay, despite their incessant lingering. I went out to the pool for a bit, which was actually cold, then ordered room service, which was also very expensive. I fell into a peaceful slumber for about 20 minutes then the room service bloke woke me to get his tray back. I tried to go back to sleep but my sleep apnea went into overdrive. As soon as I'd fall asleep I'd stop breathing and jerk awake. It took me ages to get to sleep, then I woke up a bit after midnight so I watched the soccer. After that, I was going to get some sleep but someone from work started messaging me so I ended up having a shower and getting ready.

I walked to the airport. I went past some slums and some cute little puppies got up and tried to attack me. The some bigger dogs came out but weren't too aggressive. I saw an enormous rat go into the concrete. When I was nearly at the airport three tuk tuks tried to pick me up. The first left when I said I was right, the second wanted 20 rupees and the third guy followed me for ages, saying he'd take me for free. He said he wanted to help me, and that he trusts me. Who knows where he was going to take me. I was at the airport by this stage. 

I'm now waiting for my flight. It took a while to check in, the get through security as they searched my bag again, then immigration, plus the endless boarding pass checks when you go anywhere in the airport. They ask where I'm going and if I say Sydney they tell me Singapore and if I say Singapore they tell me Sydney.

Overall I quite like India. The people have generally been very nice and helpful. To have taxi drivers repeatedly give me direction to get somewhere on foot and not really pester me is unusual. In the time I've been writing this, I went to find a toilet I didn't have to squat over. Not because I'm adverse to a squat (I am, but it isn't a deal breaker) but because I never did figure out how to use that hose without spraying shit everywhere. The toilet attendent saw me waiting for the western toilet and took me around and showed me the "family" toilet, which is actually the baby change room, that was free. He went in and cleaned it all for me. I didn't ask him to, he just did it to be helpful. The things that irritate me here are the things that irritate me everywhere, and seem to be multiplied in airports and on planes. They also have the efficiency and organisational skills of small children. 

I'm surprised that nothing has gone wrong, touch wood. I have an hour and a half until my flight leaves. I change in Singapore and arrive in Sydney at 8:25am. I then have to wait all day for a flight to Port Macquarie. Then I'm D. U. N done! I could use a holiday actually. 

Goa

 Goa has actually been pretty good. It has gotten better and better the entire time I've been here. Admittedly my first impression wasn't great. I've been swimming, sleeping and eating. The food has been excellent. I've come back to the same restaurant each time and worked my way through the menu. I thought about trying other places but didn't want to risk getting sick. I've hardly been pestered by people here. A guy desperately tried to sell me a laser pointer on the beach and that's about it. I've also not had any beggers come up to me. I was a bit begger fatigued in Georgia, I was approached quite a lot and thought India would be worse. They have probably been killing them and feeding them to me at this restaurant. 

I will say, the clientele around here are definitely of the older variety. There are quite a lot of Indian holiday makers here with their families, but the white people are generally retirees. I'm not sure why that is. As it was recommended to me by someone who is about 5 weeks from retirement, it makes sense. 

Today I missed breakfast because I slept in. That is annoying as the breakfast here is good. I went for a swim, then food, then beer, then swim again. The final swim was at sunset. I've been swimming every sunset. I'm shocked that I am the only person with a beer down there. There are people on the sunbeds at the resorts with drinks, but I'm the only one in the water. A fishing boat came right into the beach, netting. It wasn't a trawler, it was smaller and with less stuff to it. It did have a lot of blokes on their pulling the net in. Maybe 8 of them, all dressed in bright clothes. They were blasting some traditional Indian techno and pulling the net in to the music. It was interesting to watch. It would surprise me if they were fishing for mermen. 

I've just packed my bag, probably for the final time. It is stuffed full, and it weighs just over 15kg. I'm sure they will let it pass at the airport. If not I will have to carry my coat like an idiot. I get picked up at 4:30am for the trip to the airport. My flight is at 9:15 and arrives in Mumbai sometime after 10. I'm staying at a 5 star hotel near the airport. I also have another place booked that I have not been successful at cancelling.  

It stank of a scam. Their rating has gone from 9.2 to 6 in the past month. They hit everyone up for money to be transferred to a private account. I'm going to cause booking.com as many problems as I possibly can over this. I was even thinking about reporting my card stolen so they can't take the money out.

 I will have to pay the money otherwise, it isn't much. I refuse to cancel as I don't want them to be paid twice if they fill my room, and I also want to be able to review them. I may even go over there and check in and be the absolute worst person I can be. 

After my stay in Mumbai I am back at the airport early in the morning to fly back to Sydney, via Singapore, then Sydney to Port and I'll be back Saturday afternoon.

Tbilisi to Goa

 So, I think my last post was from the airport in Tbilisi. I flew through the night to New Delhi. I paid for the exit row, only to get on the plane and realise many, many other rows only had 1 or no people, except the exit row. I was sat next to a 7 year old child in the body of a 60 year old Indian man. He was actually probably more like 50 years old, but as I'm 42 now that seems too close to my age, so he was 60. He would constantly shake his legs back and forth, which would in turn shake the seats. That's why I referred to him as a 7 year old. When he was in rest mode his natural leg position was a definitive man spread. I always thought the "man spreading" thing was a bit unfair as it is a bit more challenging for blokes to sit with their legs closed, but unless this bloke was rocking a pair of bowling balls, he was flat out selfish. His wife was sat on the other side of him and I tried to make eye contact with her to embarrass her for marrying a giant child, but I failed. Thankfully the fat adhd bastard slept and only did his chooky dance a few times after take off.

I tried to sleep but basically didn't. I gave up towards the end of the flight and instead looked out the window, which was amazing. I've not had a flight with such a good view. All the lights on the ground seemed unusual. I've never seen so many towns, and it just kept going for 100s of kilometres. They are towns probably the size of Kempsey, physically, but I'd say with more people, and they are located only a few km apart. Right across the landscape. There was one point where a line of brighter lights went right across the landscape, with a little section of darkness on the north side as a buffer. I'm not sure but think it may have been the border with Pakistan. There was also a weird, large square of lights, with a smaller square inside and another smaller square. I puzzled over that for a while and think it may have been a mine. 

We we arrived in Dehli, I was full of beans. The India part of my trip has been hanging over my head the entire time. It felt certain that something would go wrong. Strangely, getting off the plane was smooth. People don't jump up like morons when the plane lands in India. That really surprised me. I got off the plane and made it to passport control quite quickly. When I got there I was told I needed an arrival card. I knew I needed one, but as there wasn't any, I figured maybe she fills it our. She sent me to get one from a table. There were no arrival cards on the table. I asked her what table and she pointed out the same table. We were both standing there looking at the table, both seeing that there were no arrival cards at the table, yet she tomd me to get an arrival card from the table. I had to walk way way back in the terminal to another table, where a lady had just started putting out arrival cards. I filled it out with the most basic information possible and went back to line up in a line that was now 3 times longer. In the line I noticed everyone had these printed out visas. My visa was an evisa, and when they sent me the email confirming I had it, it had a section that said "this visa is not a paper visa", yet all these peoe had paper visas. I asked a fellow traveller and she jumped on my phone and found the website where the visas are kept, I entered my application number and passport and sure enough there was a visa there waiting for me. I showed the useless idiot at passport control the visa on my phone and it turned out I didn't need it printed. But I did need it.

I went through and found my bag. One good thing is I didn't have to wait, the carousel had stopped by that point. A helpful taxi driver pointed me in the direction of terminal 2 and I headed off in that direction. I was told the walk was 20 minutes, but it was more like 5. I had to scan my boarding pass to enter the terminal. I have no idea what I would've done if I didn't have a boarding pass, but they seem so inefficient that I imagine they would've let me in anyway. The bag drop was packed, but I managed to drop it off with no problems then headed through security. At security, they had to go through my bags. It turns out vapes are illegal in India, and I had 6 of them. 2 were working vapes that were in my pockets and I threw out before I went through. The other 4 were old ones that were finished that I'd left in my bag. I had to pull everything out to find them. They were also concerned that I had a torch, for some reason. I found the vapes, had my stuff scanned again and was allowed to leave. My boarding pass said gate 23,so I started heading there, but then the screen said 30,so I headed there. Each section of gates had their own little screening section, so changing gates wasn't easy. I got to gate 30 and it said my flight had had a gate change. I didn't know if that meant it was changed to 30,or from 30,so I asked the guy working there. He scribbled out 23 on my boarding pass and write 20,so I went there. When they screen you to go to a gate, there is a little side lane. As I hadn't yet successfully got through their automated scanning machine, I decided to not even try and just walked through the side lane. Nobody cared. Gate 20 was obviously not the right gate, so I went back to 30. When I was in my way back, I tried to get money out at the atm, but it didn't have any. A security man found me and asked if I was Mr David. I felt like Larry David so I said yes. I had left half of my stuff at security. When I had emptied my bag, they had split it into 2 seperate tubs to go through the scanner again. When it came through I put the first tub worth of stuff in, but not the second as I didn't know there was a second, so I'd left it. They realised I'd left it straight away, but had been searching for me at gate 30.

So I collected my stuff and headed down the side lane to gate 30. The little bastard that sent me to gate 20 was long gone. I had booked the emergency row in this flight too, and it was actually a spot with an entire row free in front of me. I could stretch my legs as far as they could go. Unfortunately there was a little Indian bastard behind me banging on the seat. He actually pulled my hair once and I gave him a death stare so it didn't happen again. I thought about threatening his dad, who sat there like a dumb idiot. Another little arsehole had a complete meltdown I the aisle while his moronic mother and father did moronic mother and father things. The a third one repeatedly jumped up in his seat down the front to press the call button, giving everyone on the plane a good view of what a shit haircut looks like. A few times this trip, when people have annoyed me, I have had the bizarre wish that JR from work was with me. JR is a little girl with absolutely no inhibitions, manners or fear. To be able to unleash her upon these Clayton's naughty boys would've been amazing. I mean, she is worse than them by orders of magnitude, but I feel like she would be my superpower. She quite possibly would be too outrageous to unleash on these poor people. Without JR there, I decided that Indian kids are awful. I fantasised about dropping them from the emergency exit, which remember, I was in charge of. I thought about how there are so many street kids, maybe they could drop these shit ones off and pick up a good kid instead. Just do a straight swap. I eventually decided that if I see a street kid begging for money off me, I'd spit in their face and laugh at them. 

Anyway, I got off the flight, got my bag, got the hell out of there. The taxi driver was a nice guy. The drive here took an hour and a half. Cost $40, which is far better than the alternative. They drive like lunatics but somehow don't crash. We stopped at some lights and a beautiful little girl came down from the bushes and up to the window, motioning that she needed food. I remembered the kids on the flight, but couldn't bring myself to spit in her face. Instead I left her to starve. 

I slept when I got here, then slept a good part of the following day, and have slept a fair bit of today. Breakfast here is pretty good, the bed is comfortable and the beer is very, very cheap. The beach is actually pretty nice although they have filled it with the usual crap. Stand up paddle board hire, boat hire, kayak hire, restaurants, massages, yoga etc etc.

I've been swimming, eating, reading on the hammock and sleeping. I went down for the sunset yesterday and it was spectacular. Will definitely try to get some photos of it. I actually took my camera out this afternoon, but didn't get down to the beach. I was talking to a lady from Yorkshire at the restaurant. The restaurant was recommended by the lady selling crap in the beach. I happened to be in the market for some crap, and she was showing it to me. She actually said I could take it then and there without paying, just drop the payment in to her shop later. Strangely trusting. I think it was a calculated risk, as she later told me she had seen me buying stuff from the store next to hers. I think she knew I don't know how to haggle and thought she'd take me to the cleaners. I didn't take the stuff on the beach, but promised to come by her shop. I did, and I bought the required crap, but figured I'd use her as a bit of an advisor seeing as she definitely ripped me off. Her husband took me to a money place as there are no ATM's here, showed me where to buy beer and which are the good restaurants. I pretended to know things about cricket. They seem to be largely nice people here and not as hell bent on ripping people off as other touristy places. They are really casual about ripping people off.

 I should point out, yesterday I was at a restaurant and the bill came and it was for someone else and was cheaper than mine, so I paid it and left. I'm not adverse to ripping people off either. Also this lady said "how much did I say on the beach" and I told her 650 rupees (she'd said 850)and she said "hahaha no I didn't, I said 750! Nice try (head wobble)", so that is sort of me haggling for something that was probably worth 200 rupees.

Alright I've been writing this for a bit. I can't be bothered with photos so I'll just put them at the end. 

Tbilisi again

 After I posted my last update, I went for a walk up the road to see the protests. They were quite tame really, just a bunch of people standing around with the occasional chant. It was a bit like being at a festival waiting for the next band, but there was no next band. I got some photos with a couple of protesters, wandered around a bit then left.

Yesterday I had a pretty quiet day and didn't stray far from the hotel. 

Today I checked out at 12 then made my way to the "Chronicles of Georgia" it is a big stonehenge like construction on top of a hill near the sea of Tbilisi (which is actually a reservoir, although a big one). Unlike Stonehenge, this was created fairly recently, in 1985. The blocks are 35 metres high and depict text and images from the history of Tbilisi. I couldn't read the text, and the pictures were of people standing around in different poses, so I learnt nothing.

Getting there was a mission in itself. I took the Tbilisi metro, which I didn't even know existed. The escalator was at least 100 metres long, steep and fast. The railing also moved slower than the stairs. I had to fight the urge to sit down as it was making me a bit woozy. The train goes fast and is bumpy. At the other end I decided I'd walk to the monument as google assured me it wasn't too far. Google, of course, was wrong. I walked through some fairly sketchy areas, or at least they seemed that way. On the last street there was a group of men standing across the road, seemingly blocking it. I walked on past them and they didn't do anything, although they were probably confused as to why I was going that way. At the top of the street the road turned to dirt and became a diy tip. There was supposed to be a path up the hill, but I couldn't find it. I went back and got a bus, like I should've done in the first place. 

I'm now at the airport, drastically early. I was going to go to Stalin's underground printing press, which I think would've been interesting, but I was sick of public transport. I fly to New Delhi at 12:35am, arriving at 7am. I then have to change terminals for my flight to Goa at 9:50am. It should be enough time assuming everything goes smoothly, which it has every time so far, but I'm quite nervous about it. I guess if I miss my connection, so be it. This will be my 10th and final country of this trip before I return to Australia. 

Tblisis

 I haven't got much to report. I was up last night fixing India stuff. There was a hotel I had booked that felt like a scam. When I booked them they said my booking was marked as tentative until I sent 40% of the price to a private bank account, but at the same time I couldn't cancel this "tentative" booking. I contacted booking.com but didn't hear back. I didn't really follow up because this trip was already full on and India was at the end. Last night I booked a 5 star hotel right near the airport and sent booking.com and email saying I didn't feel safe staying with these scammers, which is true. I then organised a taxi from the airport in Goa to the hotel, which is an hour and a half drive. Hopefully I get a refund. The 5 star hotel was actually reasonably cheap and having that as my last night way has made me feel better.

I'm currently in the hotel bar, and one of the workers has gone down with a sciatic problem. There has been much screaming. They are now on the phone to the ambulance but I think that's something that might not work so good here. This bloke is stuck here forever. The entire staff is checking on him, but they are too close that I can pour my own drinks on the sly.

Today I slept in after my late night of organising India. I went out to a coffee shop for breakfast, because the breakfast here is shit. I then went for a walk, which basically followed the walk I went on yesterday, but on the other side of the road. 

I went down an alley and came across the leaning tower of Tbilisi. It is a clock tower that is falling down, but held up by a steel beam. I loved it, because I thought it was legitimate. When I saw it I thought "you couldn't build that if you tried". It was so haphazard and broken, like a giant child had stacked it up. Unfortunately, I googled it, and it was built that way back in 2011,which ruined it a bit for me. But at the same time, someone tried to build it that way and managed to, so I'm impressed by that. It was almost 2pm when I visited and on the hour an angel comes out of the tower and hits the bell. I waited for the angel and when she didn't arrive I checked the clock tower and it was 5 minutes fast, so I'd just missed it.

On the walk back I came across the old city walls. They are not a tourist attraction, they just exist here. The main road goes over the top, and I too a photo of a building built on top of (or maybe as part of) a tower. It was quite interesting to see. 

I came back to the hotel and had my first ever professional massage. My back has been killing me and I thought this old battle axe might fix it. She said "strong massage ok?" and I said "yes strong massage ok" but she didnt fix it and her massage didn't seem strong. I can feel in my back where the problem is, and I want someone to dig their claws into it.

I've been at the bar here for a while, talking to the barman. He says most of the staff here are Iranians. I was asking about places to go to learn more about history and he suggested Iran. He's planning on coming to Australia when he graduates as a doctor.

I shall probably go for a wander soon. Last night I came down stairs for a sneaky kebab and the police had shut down the road off the square where the protests were, while some young freedom fighters/dreggs of society shoplifted from the local supermarket. They must be broke because the supermarket is so cheap.

I've got a plan for my day tomorrow, but don't want to share it in case it goes to shit.

The guy with sciatica has stopped screaming. He may have passed out.

Also, I did find out that Georgia was in a war in the north at some point, maybe back in the early 2000s,and some of the refugees from that war settled in a luxury hotel. This is a photo of that settlement. It has now been switched from a refugee camp back to a luxury hotel, and it is covered in reflective glass panels. But I thought it was cool and downloaded this picture of when it was a refugee camp. 

Uherske Hradiste to Tbilisi

 I left Uherske Hradiste by train to Prague. It was quite a pleasant train ride. The snowy scenery was nice but I struggled to get any decent photos. I arrived in Prague 4 hours later and it was miserable. Very cold, mainly due to the wind, and foggy. My plan was to go see some sights around Prague but instead I got straight on the bus to the airport.

My first flight was to Warsaw. I didn't realise I had 2 flights. If I did, I probably could've just got the train from UH to Warsaw. It was only an hour flight. The second flight was almost 4 hours and it was horrendous. There were a lot of teenagers on the flight. I don't really know why, and they had a habit of constantly moving up and down the aisles. There was also a shapely (spherical) lady standing in the aisle chatting to her friend the entire flight. Whenever the service cart would come past she'd waddle her way back to her seat, then waddle back on over. The entire plane seemed to be chatting, the entire way. Keeping in mind this flight went through the night, departing at 11 and arriving at 6. The worst thing though, was that the temperature was set to uncomfortable heat. I was on the verge of sitting there in my undies, it was that hot. I don't actually know if that isn't allowed.

It will still dark in Tbilisi when I arrived. I got a bus to my hotel. I paid on my phone for the bus, but no ticket was forthcoming. On the journey some ladies came around to check tickets. They scan people's travel cards which makes a bird noise if they have paid. They came to me and I couldn't figure out how scanning my phone was going to produce a bird noise, so I said "I don't know what I'm supposed to do" and they left me alone.

The hotel is a 4 star one that I was looking forward to staying at. In fact, it is actually shit. The mattress is very firm (which I don't mind that much). The housekeeping is constantly in the hall having conversations with each other and tapping on doors. The minibar fridge isn't actually there. There is a space for it, and a power cord, but no fridge. The shower takes ages to heat up. There is an impressive list of movies available on the TV, but when you go to watch them they are all "coming soon". The wifi is slow. The window in the room is fake. The breakfast is terrible. I don't know why anyone would ever think 5 different types of cheese, some chopped up tomato and capsicum, quinoa, devon and stale bread would make for a good breakfast. The coffee machine had a big sign on it that says "NOT FREE". When the lady went to make my coffee I asked for the machine coffee, rather than the pot coffee. I'm fairly sure she poured me the pot coffee when I wasn't looking, because it definitely wasn't a cappuccino.

Anyway, I got to the hotel and checked in early, then went to sleep. I woke up around 2 or 3pm and headed out for a little look around. As average as the hotel is, it is in as good an area as it could be. Right on Pushkin Square. I walked down hill past endless souvenir shops to the river and the apparently iconic Bridge of Peace. There were a few tourists and some kids break dancing, which wasn't very peaceful at all. A lot of people asked me for money. What can I say, I just look too affluent. I offered to pay them with card but they sadly don't have eftpos facilities. 

The city is quite nice, but fairly run down and grimy. Today I went to the history museum, and it had outstanding scale models from the late 1800s of some buildings. The models were of the buildings looking run-down and grimy too. So I think they might be run-down and grimy either by design, or have been maintained I that state for a long time.

I went to a burger place for dinner, which was actually fantastic. It wasn't that cheap though. I paid 33 lari for a burger, chips and drink. A Lari is worth 58 Australian cents, so it was $20 for a meal that probably would've been 30 in Australia (it was an exceptionally good burger). On the way back to the hotel I stopped in at the supermarket, and that's when I saw how cheap stuff is. A 600 ml bottle of coke cost me around 80 cents.

Today, after my terrible breakfast, I spent some time trying to find some self guided audio tours on the internet. I gave up though when they cost too much or didn't exist. Instead, I typed "attractions" into google. One attraction, that was listed as not too far away, was "Brown Dog Bacho." He was described as "the newest wonder of the world" and has many, many, many reviews. I thought it might be a statue of a dog that did something amazing, but it is literally a brown dog that is noted for its laziness. So I headed in that direction and not long later there was Brown Dog Bacho, right where he was supposed to be! 

After my number one goal for the day was achieved, I made my way to the history museum. I was looking forward to learning about the history of Georgia and Tbilisi. Unfortunately, I left knowing nothing more about Georgia than when I entered. It was a collection of old stuff, and rightly so, but with no real reason for it. For example, there was a collection of headscarves that very well could've come from the op shop that day. There was also some old furniture and the aforementioned scale models, which were actually impressive for their accurate grime. 

Probably the most interesting thing about the museum was the woman sitting at the front reading when I walked in. She followed me, pacing back and forwards, through the first few rooms. The floors were really squeaky, so I could constantly here her pacing. At one point I thought she'd left because I couldn't hear the pacing, only to turn around and have her right behind me. I started to think she was a ghost, and like a ghost she disappeared. When I got to the end, I saw her back at her station where she started. I snapped a photo of her, then decided to go take a closer one through the window as she was my second favourite exhibit, but she caught me. 

After being quite disappointed, I moved on to the upstairs area where my favourite exhibit was. It was of blokes gutting an upstairs area of a museum and it was very accurate. They were so lifelike and interactive in the way they gestured I go away. 

After the museum I crossed some bridge and went to a cable car up a big hill. I didn't really know what was up there, except some big statue of a lady, but it was like a dollar to get up there. There was a bloke with a huge eagle up there. I asked how much for a photo and it was 20 lari so I declined. There is also the remains of a castle up there, which I later learned was from 400ad-ish when the city was first founded. It was closed for restoration though, and jusging by how little was left restoration means completely rebuilding to operate as a tourist trap. The big lady statue had a QR code on it. When I scanned it it took me to a website, but appeared like I was receiving a phone call. When I answered, it was the big lady calling to tell me some stuff about herself. I thought that was quite cool. I can't quite remember what she said though. I do know she has a sword to hit her enemies and a bowl of wine for her friends and she finds them both quite heavy. I dunno, I guess I thought it was a real phone call, because I usually tune out when I'm on them too. 

I went back down and walked to the park pictured in the photo with those 2 cannon looking buildings. There I met Ronald Reagan! 

He didn't know what those cannon building were, nor did Google, and I couldn't be arsed finding out. 

The building up behind them is the State Palace of Ceremonies. 

I kept walking along the river and kinda got trapped by a road. I had to get across so I could get up to a bridge in order to cross the river. I had heard the traffic here is bad, but it really isn't. It flows really well, but it is relentless. There are just no breaks in traffic. I ended up walking past 2 bridges, probably around 1.5 to 2km, before I found some lights where I could cross. It did take me past this mushroom building though:

It is the house of justice/public service building. 

When I eventually got across the river, I made my way to the Georgian National Museum. All around Tbilisi there are these ramps cut into the stairs for people in wheelchairs (and I think more realistically, prams). It is actually fairly progressive to have gone to so much effort in the name of accessibility. I would argue that unless you are going to do in properly, you might actually be better off not doing it at all. This is my favourite wheelchair ramp so far. 

Narrow, steep and with sewerage grate in the middle! 

The national museum was OK. It had a section on archaeology that I found interesting, including a series of skulls of humans and our prehistoric relatives. Looking at each skull I came to the conclusion that I bear more similarity to the Neanderthal than the humans. That isn't a joke either. 

There was a series of skulls of bears that I also found interesting. They had been found in a cave, placed on a natural shelf, like trophies. The interesting thing is that they were not placed there by humans, but by Neanderthals, who were quite possibly my direct ancestors. 

The rest of that floor was made up of taxidermied animals. I think they managed to get every animal in Georgia, plus there was one of a tiger that had accidentally wandered into Georgia in 1922 (apparently this accidental migration of a tiger has happened twice in Georgia's history, and they killed both of them). They were really well done, but I'm really not that interested in dead animals that are made to look alive. 

I then had a look at the national treasury, which was a bunch of jewellery and coins that had been found over the years. It wasn't that interesting. Then I saw the soviet occupation section. I was mildly interesting. Apparently the soviets occupied Georgia from 1922 until 1991, committing various acts of oppression. They systematically killed off the aristocracy and smart people as well as the wealthy peasants. I remember now that the giant statue on the hill told me that one of the churches was turned into a prison by the soviets, and it has now been returned to a church. I think it was this one:

One interesting thing was that it was two 14 year old boys that started and led one of the resistance movements. There was a section upstairs that had a whole heap of letters. I google translated one and it was some blokes griping about the soviets taking their church, so I didn't bother translating any others. 

The final part of the museum was some art. I am sure it was wonderful, but on my way over the bridge earlier, I had accidentally wandered into an outdoor art market and they were, in my opinion, much better than the museum art.

I'm now back at the hotel resting. I might venture out tonight now I'm more familiar with the city. My fake window just went dark so it might be night time now. There are police everywhere here, especially around the square outside and the government buildings. Last night as I was walking back, groups of men with masks on were starting to appear around the square. It didn't feel much different to any big city where people congregate in groups around the squares on a Friday or Saturday night, except that it was Monday and masks were banned a few days ago. 

I'm just going to dump any other photos here.