“Guests are God’s Gift”

The white line marking the edge of the highway weaved in front of me. Rain lashed down, soaking through my pink and blue jacket, which, whilst water-resistant, was fast becoming overwhelmed. I was cold, drunk and deliriously happy – why? Because I was in Georgia, a country I was never supposed to be in, on a cycle ride I should never have started.

Two hours before, I had waited nervously under drizzling skies at the Turkish border whilst the guards solemnly looked from me, to my passport, and back to me. Several times. They then told me I didn’t have the correct paperwork. Where was my e-visa? A quick google as to the requirements for UK citizens – a service not available to Marco Polo – told me no e-visa was necessary. Still, whilst your passport is in the hands of a capricious border guard, anything can happen. Perhaps I did look worried, for some fifteen minutes into their deliberation one of the guards took pity and told me there was “no problem”. A few minutes later, the “problem” had been resolved and I had my passport back in hand, only to be stopped at the final checkpoint, where the whole process was repeated. “Where is your exit stamp?”

“Let me just show you…”

“No hands on the passport!”

I was not allowed to hold my own passport. You would have thought finding a stamp would be a highly honed skill and matter of pride for a border guard, but not in this case.

Some minutes later I was in Georgia having passed through their border control, a process that went remarkably smoothly. This was particularly surprising because this was a country that in theory I could not enter. Nearly all cyclists – tandem or no – would be turned away. I had been fortunate to be linked with the Georgian ambassador to Turkey and the cogs of bureaucracy had turned in my favour. I was ushered through to passport control and before long I was wheeling Chris the tandem through the terminal and out the doors on the other side, shouting a farewell “Nakhvamdis!”

Outside the rain had become torrential and I ploughed towards Batumi, feeling slightly light-headed. I hadn’t eaten much in the last twenty four hours – or rather not everything I had eaten had stayed put. The previous night, my final in Turkey, I’d stayed in a one-roomed hut sandwiched between the highway and sea. It had a shingle floor, fierce stove and all manner of trinkets hanging from the ceiling – straw hats, books, binoculars and a fishing rod. Murat came out onto the highway to greet me and help me lift Chris over the barrier. He was a large man, carrying enough weight for two, and had a kind look in his eyes. He was tea leaf inspector in the summer months, had cooked us a bean stew on the hot metal slab of the stove (amazingly whilst wearing his fleece). There were lumps of beef in it, and, ever the pragmatic vegetarian, I resolved to eat all that had been put in front of me. After a hard day’s riding the contents of the bowl were soon gone. The temperature gradually climbed from warm to hot to stiflingly stuffy. Murat lit up one cigarette and then another, until there was a continuous ember glowing between his fingers.

My stomach began to feel bloated. Soon my gut writhed like a maggot trying to wriggle away from the suffocating heat and noxious cigarette smoke. I grabbed my toothbrush, gesturing that 8pm was my normal time to brush my teeth, and headed outside. A few minutes later, prop discarded, I was bent over by the side of the highway, retching those wretched beans and beef from me. A few rain drops ran down my neck.

And thus it was that dinner had come and gone and breakfast was a meal approached with caution. Low on calories, my first pedal strokes in Georgia beyond the border were of the weak, lightheaded kind. Crunching an apple, I stumbled on for a few kilometres until I saw a place to change my remaining Turkish lira. A low white strip of faceless shops and currency exchanges lined a stretch of the road. I propped up Chris against a metal column and headed for the nearest currency exchange. Before I reached it, a waving caught my eye.

Lesha cleaning his bike.

An oldish man with a grandfatherly face was beckoning to me. I almost stayed focussed on the money but found myself intrigued by the sight of a fluorescent yellow mountain bike being hosed down by a young Georgian next to the grandfather-in-waiting. I walked over. My Russian immediately came in handy as I explained what I was doing and found out that Lesha, the hoser-in-chief, was also a cyclist, but bombed down steep hills at ridiculous speeds. A warm, round, uncle of a man emerged from inside to join the discussion. What was I doing here? I answered. I asked if there was anywhere I could get coffee? (My most frequently used question.)

“Wait a couple of minutes”, the uncle said, and went inside, a room that was filled with the chairs and scissors and razors of a barbershop.

In the time it took me to exchange my lira and buy a new SIM card coffee had been made, Turkish-style, in small cups with a little brown coffee sand in the bottom. “For the road!” the grandfather-in-waiting toasted. “Za zadorovye!” (For health) I said, not knowing what else to say – they are the words traditionally used for a toast in Russia. That was all the encouragement the gregarious uncle  needed. Within seconds, he had returned with a green mineral water bottle, filled with chacha, Georgia’s potent home-brew. It seemed the coffee had been a mere warm up act. Shots were poured and chased by rather flaccid slices of pickled cucumber. I was quickly reminded of the lack of food I’d had over the last 24 hours as the spirit hit my empty stomach. I dived for the fresh, warm bread and lobes of cheese laid on the small table as my glass was filled again. Murat, my Turkish host, had told me chacha was pure and organic. The way he described it made it sound like grape juice. “No, I don’t drink whiskey or vodka, but chacha is different. It’s purely from the vine.” At the end of his description I was convinced it was an organic soft drink. I now knew better.

“Strength for the road!” The grandfather-in-waiting said, his eyes twinkling. “And warmth in the rain!” chimed in the uncle. In the background hovered Lesha, his bike now clean, and he watched the adults get drunk. At least, I was fast getting drunk, as a third and fourth shots departed from the light down my throat.

“How do you pay for the ride?” asked the grandfather-in-waiting.

“I have sponsors, though the money is running out”, I replied.

“Look at Lesha – he came third in the country in a downhill mountain biking race and – nothing! There’s no jobs here, little money. Things used to be better in the Soviet times” the grandfather-in-waiting told me with feeling.

This wasn’t the first time I had heard this refrain in other former Soviet countries but I was struck by how consistent it was amongst the older generations. Younger Georgians I have since met take a very different view and put their elders’ fondness down to nostalgia for the days when they were young and think the country is a better place now. That said, many young Georgians want to leave Georgia, and over 400,000 have already, leaving only 3.7 million.

After several shots of chacha

After the fourth shot of chacha it was almost dark outside and I still had another 25 kilometres to cycle to Batumi. The uncle looked genuinely disappointed when I said I had to go. “No, no, sit. It’s still raining. There’s still more chacha”. I insisted, but the price was clear – a fifth shot was coming my way. This final hurdle negotiated, I mounted Chris and took a deep breath before setting off. The uncle ran out into the rain and pressed into my hands the mineral water bottle, still a quarter full of chacha, along with a bag of the remaining bread and cheese. “Thank you for stopping. You know, we say here in Georgia, guests are God’s gift”. With a surprisingly heavy heart I set off, pondering their kindness, which had come from nowhere, with nothing asked for in return.  

I pedalled into the thick rain, trying not to wobble into the centre of the road as lorries grumbled by. “This is nuts!” I shook my head again and again. Within half an hour of being in Georgia I had experienced the sort of kindness I’d only read about, and now I was cycling in a country that had all but closed its borders. I felt incredibly lucky. Two and a half years ago the prospect of cycling round the world was a fantasy, reserved for a Luke in a parallel universe. When I was diagnosed with cancer in 2018 I didn’t think I would see the end of the year but I still wanted to do everything I could to maximise my chances of getting to Christmas 2018, and maybe the one beyond that. It came with no guarantees, but I knew that if I exercised and ate carefully I would be giving myself the best possible chance of living a bit longer. And against the odds, I am cycling round the world during a pandemic.

And so often in life, there are things we can’t control – such as a pandemic. But we can always choose how to approach it – either in a way that helps ourselves or in a way that allows unideal circumstances to pull us down. So as we look to an unalterably changed future – how will we choose see the opportunities and make the best of it?