hello bear dear
hiking in the wild mountains of Georgia, impromptu travel partners, local Church weddings and jam biscuits, hitchhiking solo, discovering Gorky, and a book on Turkey
Dear Reader,
Thank you for being here.
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I sent you the last letter from the city of Kutaisi in Georgia, a beautiful mountainous country, which I am still exploring.
I was in Kutaisi, a small quaint historical city, for six nights. Kutaisi was the capital of many kingdoms, later occupied by the Turks and Russians, and now it is a simple place with a simple life.
Not much happens in Kutaisi. I had worked, washed, cooked, shopped for groceries, sat down in the sun in the central park, visited the historical Bagrati Cathedral a few times, crashed a few weddings in the church (invited myself to the ceremony, no food), chatted with locals and travelers, walked around the streets, went to a local bar and danced with a drunk old man, changed guesthouses two times, read, planned my further travel in Georgia, and ate hot potato bread.
These sound like many things to do. But, I think, I could have either seen more in Kutaisi or left earlier.
Still, they say that the main idea is not to regret. Everything we do, or don’t, brings us to where we are now.
After Kutaisi, we—a Russian woman, Olga, who now lives in Georgia, and I—were hiking in the mountains of the Racha region in Northwest Georgia. We had met through the Couchsurfing (CS) website. Olga had created an event on the website. She said she was hitchhiking to the mountains and would love for anyone to join her. I wanted to go to the mountains too, any mountains, for that matter.
In May, Georgia is still shaking off the winter, and rainfall could be heavy. I wasn’t sure how to travel to the mountains in such unpredictable weather and with the unreliable transport of Georgia. Trains won’t go to the mountains. Small vans called mashrutkas have their own timings, prices, and moods. I have just started hitchhiking, so the idea of going with someone who said they knew a lot about the country relaxed me.
Olga had been excited for me to join. I took a deep breath: now I had a destination, a travel companion, and open days. We had headed to the town of Ambralouri, the capital of the Racha region.
These names might be difficult for someone who isn’t familiar with the geography of Georgia. I can’t remember the names of places I had wanted to visit or the hikes I wanted to do before I arrived in the country, or the ones I found while looking for things to do. The only names I can remember now are of the destinations I have been to.
In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t traveled with Olga. Every hour or so, she suggested that she would go ahead, and I could join her and was on the verge of splitting up always. I guess in the spirit of being independent and doing what one feels like doing. But whenever I sighed, she asked me, “What did this sigh mean?” I was expected to explain and justify my breaths to her. She got up and left in the middle of dinner at a local restaurant she had taken me to. I couldn’t have asked what had happened because, like earlier, she would have blamed me for not letting her go on her own. Even if I ignored her complaints about everyone around us, the constant nitpicking was bringing me down.
I am laughing now. We only know better when we know better. I appreciate the experience because I have become more careful while choosing my travel companions. This awareness or cautiousness is both good and bad: now I am thinking more before joining anyone, and good because I might save myself from a bad experience, or two.
The mountains were delicious, of course, even if we got only one sunny day, and the next day was cloudy and rainy. The first day, we had hitchhiked to the Ambralouri village, put our bags in a guesthouse, and went on a long hike to a waterfall.
On the second morning, we learned that there had been a landslide on the road that was to take us to the higher mountains. So, either we could stay where we were, or go back to where we had come from.
We chose the middle ground. We hitchhiked halfway to another town, Nikortsminda, where we saw an ancient church and an off-road car competition. From Nikortsminda, we hitchhiked to the village of Tkibuli, where I ended up staying for three nights.
I can’t pronounce Tkibuli. I have practiced the word with ten Georgians, but I have still not got it right. Now you say it, please!
Tkibuli was a small village with a river running through it, many abandoned homes, and a theatre which I couldn’t see. The theatre is said to be a beautiful structure, but it was always closed. I tried going in three times.
I was slow in Tkibuli, too. I walked around, stared at the river, found the world’s friendliest and best-priced supermarket, rattled my brains over why there were so many forgotten homes with their doors and windows stolen (an old mining town from the Soviet era whose population has now moved on), cooked, and read a book about Turkey, which I share below.
The locals were staring at me, as they do in most of Georgia. There aren’t many Indian travelers here, though, medical students from India are aplenty in the big cities. The old Georgians standing by the side of the brook, women chatting and sunbathing under the trees, people lingering outside supermarkets, cars driving by, kids running along the streets, and grandmothers looking after the grandchildren playing outside their homes were all curious about me, their eyes affixed on me, and sometimes their lips turned into big smiles. I enjoyed it all.
After resting for a day, I hitchhiked into the craziness of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. The four-hour four-car hitchhike was my first long one alone, and I am now more comfortably standing by the side of the road, my bags on the ground, and my hand extended for a ride.
I had barely spent a day and a half in Tbilisi when I decided to travel with a woman from Slovakia who was going to Telavi, a city in the foothills of a mountain range, in the wine region, with a great view of the higher icy Caucasus. She wanted to take public transport, and I told her we would hitchhike.
So that is what we did. We were dropped at our guesthouse by a kind young man who had carried us for the last miles. We told him to drop us wherever it was convenient for him, and he decided to bring us to our doorstep.
Now I am here in Telavi, sitting in bed, typing this letter.
It won’t be fair on my part to skip the capital. For now, I want to share only one picture from the city. It was the most special moment of my time there.
Finding the collection of books, mostly in Russian, was special, but all the more special was finding Lev Tolstoy (that’s how they call Leo Tolstoy in Russian) and Gorky’s old books here. Yes, English translations.
When I showed the old bookstore owner my book, Journeys Beyond and Within…, he smiled ear to ear, his face shone gold in the sun, and his eyes were kind. He flipped through my book, thumbed me up multiple times excitedly, and said, “Good, Good.”
I bargained for Gorky’s novel and said I wouldn’t be taking Tolstoy’s book. I thought I would have too many books in my bag, and the price seemed more than I should have paid (though you can never pay more for a book). But he gestured for me to take Tolstoy’s book along with Gorky’s novel. I couldn’t believe it and was very thankful.
A bookstore owner, of course, understands what books would mean to a writer. He was extremely kind, and I turned around to wave him goodbye, all my being vibrating with happiness, and he had been looking at me, knowing that I would turn, and waved too.
Frankly, I didn’t know Gorky until I stopped at the shop. Physical book stores are where you discover new writers, and digital libraries won’t ever replace them.
Amidst so much movement, what remain constant is my need to see and smile. I can hitchhike alone now, my belief in humans is not shaken as my present travel companion is lovely, and I am excited for the days to come.
This is it for now.
Do you go to bookstores too?
Hello Bear Dear
I Am Here
Don’t Come Near…
My 1st book, a travel memoir, Journeys Beyond and Within… is available in all bookstores in India and on Amazon globally. Journeys is a pure, honest travel memoir in which I peel down the emotional, physical, and social challenges to their unbreakable elements. It’s a true account of me making my own path despite all the odds.
I’d love for you to read the book :)
Sikkim Express: “Simple, free-flowing, but immensely evocative.”
The Telegraph Online: “An introspective as well as an adventurous read.”
***
All Amazon links are here, or just search for the title.
A few links for easy access,
Amazon India — Amazon USA — Amazon UK
Amazon Germany — Amazon Australia — Amazon Canada
An independent bookshop that do doorstep delivery globally: Midland Book Shop, Delhi
***
Here’s a latest review on Amazon India:
“Oh! How I relished every page of Journeys Beyond and Within. It has definitely become a book I look fondly to for inspiration, recommendations, or just not to feel alone.”
***
The 59-second book trailer that is a good introduction to Journeys Beyond and Within...
For this week’s letter,
Quotes I love,
and
What I have been reading!
Quotes I Love
“One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, compassion.”
Simone de Beauvoir
People ask: “Would you or would you not like to be young again?” Of course, it is really one of those foolish questions that never should be asked, because they are impossible. You cannot be — you that are — young again. You cannot unroll that snowball which is you: there is no “you” except your life — lived. But apart from that, when you rise from what somebody calls “the banquet of life,” flushed with the wine of life, can you want to sit down again? When you have climbed the hill, and the view is just breaking, do you want to reclimb it? A thousand times no! Anyone who honestly wants to be young again has never lived, only imagined, only masqueraded.
Jane Ellen Harrison
“If you can’t do anything else, just be positive.”
Yours Truly
What I’ve Been Reading
that’s worth mentioning
Portrait of a Turkish Family by Irfan Orga: I picked up Portrait of a Turkish Family after traveling for one month in Turkey. I wanted to learn more about the country I had come to love. What I had feared happened. I got lost in the book, craving to return to my room or a quiet place to read. As I had the digital copy of the book on my laptop, not even on my phone, I found myself curled up on my bed, reading the book, setting aside hours for it.
This is not a story for the faint-hearted. A happy, rich family is broken into pieces when the Turkish Sultan decides to join the Nazis in the First World War. The men of the family were sent to war, homes were burnt, and everything was lost. The first chapters of the book saddened me, but I kept reading. I wanted to know more about that Turkey where women stayed behind veils and windows, when Istanbul’s hot baths were places of gossip and bride selection, and when Muslim grandmothers couldn’t eat dinner without their glass of wine. It is a lovely painful beautifully narrated memoir of a tragic cruel time, and I couldn’t put it down.
The book breathed in the second half because, as the struggle went on, the young boys became experienced soldiers in the army, and hot, fresh bread was available again. Through the years, the mother and grandmother carried the family on their frail shoulders, showing us that in the blink of an eye, the ground beneath our feet could slip off and the roof above our heads could crash, but we could still hold on.
The Knights in the Panther’s Skin by Shota Rustaveli: Every Georgian city and village has at least one street and square named Rustaveli. When I Googled Rustaveli, I discovered Shota Rustaveli, a celebrated poet and writer, and his epic poem, The Knight in the Panther’s Skin, which is Georgia’s national pride. I have just started reading this long poem, and so far, I have been drinking in the poet’s descriptions of love and his praise for a queen when all the praise was reserved for men. If you want to read The Knight in the Panther’s Skin, the link in the title will take you to a recognized English translation on AllPoetry. Do give it a try!
Before You Go
I have been writing this newsletter for eight years now. Initially, I used to send a letter a week; while writing my book I didn’t send it for years; and now, I send two letters a month. I don’t intend to stop anytime soon as so many of you wait for this letter.
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Yours,
Priyanka
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