Trabzon to Kutaishi

So Trabzon wasn't that interesting. After over a month in Turkey, it had nothing new. A statue of Ataturk in the main square. A mosque with a red carpet and large chandelier. A market/bazaar section with tiny streets packed with people.

When leaving, I had by far the easiest day of riding in Turkey, an easy 70ish km to Rize along the black sea. It was almost entirely flat with a slight tailwind so I arrived early enough in the day to see the town, which also wasn't that interesting. A mosque, a State of Ataturk, but at least Rize had a ruined castle on a hill.

which provided a decent view of the city:

When leaving Rize I somehow managed to put several holes my tires all at the same time, so I was sitting there patching them in the square with several people watching. Turkey is so far the only country where I've gotten a puncture, and also the only country where I haven't been able to find spare tubes that fit my rims and tires, so I'm now dealing with the slow leak that comes with patched tubes.
It was 130km to Batumi and I was planning on doing it in 2 days, but since the road was again super flat with a bit of a tailwind, and none of the towns along the way seemed interesting I decided to cross to Georgia, which was fairly painless. A bit of a line for passport control since there were lots of buses full of people coming through, but no customs check as far as I could tell.

On the way out I met a Japanese cyclist and handed him the maps of Rize I got from their tourist office. Once past the border I met three french cyclists who were returning to France after three years on the road and I handed them my map of Turkey, as well as about 1 lira in coins. Stopping at an ATM in Batumi before heading to a hostel I was stopped by two more cyclists on foot. An american and a Finn. Once I arrived at a hostel I spotted two German cyclists, as well as a British motorcyclist. A few days later I was stopped by a swiss and australian cyclist (on foot, they recognized my ortlieb bag). Apparently every cyclist stops in Batumi at some point on the way into or out of Turkey.
I arrived in Batumi late on a Friday, so I had some time to kill until Monday when the Azerbaijan consulate would be open. It has so far been a bit of an odd experience being in Georgia because I can't read the script at all. Being illiterate is somewhat akward. However, most things are either transliterated or just outright translated into English. Batumi itself is a fairly modern tourist town. I guess it's been described as much like Vegas. I was in a cafe where every item on the menu was in georgian, russian, and english. They have some cool statues and a nice long stretch of stone beach. Also now that I'm in Georgia I will stop seeing mosques and start seeing churches again.

I was able to get my visa to Azerbaijan quite painlessly on Monday so I headed towards Tbilisi. On the way was Petra, an old ruined fortress with what I assume was once a form of hanging gardens.

It turns out Georgian drivers are just as obnoxious with honking as Turkish drivers. Also, the roads no longer have a wide paved shoulder. Also, in Turkey they tend to have 20km of wheat fields between towns, whereas in Georgia people pretty much live continuously along the road, with no break between villages. I was thinking I wouldn't be able to find a place to camp, so when I made it to Lanchkhuti, I was planning to find a hotel, except I was first stopped by a group of drunk Georgians sitting at a cafe and I was handed Chacha in a plastic cup. And then beer. Russian seems to still be spoken quite a lot here, as one of the older guys was the third Georgian I met who spoke it. I was invited back to his home where we continued by drinking wine and eating some type of goulash with bread. In the morning it was more of the same (I was offered wine for breakfast but declined) plus some type of cheese filled bread which they had me dip in honey. I made it to a hostel in Kutaisi today where I Saw a few monasteries, including the world heritage site the Gelati Monastery

And the Bagrati cathedral which was almost completely destroyed in the 1700s and rebuilt just recently.