Kutaisi to Tbilisi - 5 July 2024

The day dawned of our last full day in Georgia. No sightseeing was planned in the day. There was just the drive back to Tbilisi and return of the car to the rental. The deadline for return of the car was 1730 hours. The other deadline was that of the data plan I had taken for the simcard.

The seven-day unlimited data plan had served me fantastically well. Every time I tried to top it up with a one-day plan I got a message that a better plan was in operation and that I could not top it up then. Anyway, all that I needed the data for was to reach Tbilisi and hand had over the car to the rental office. The data plan was valid till 12.30 pm. As long as I met that, my need would be done.

We ordered the same breakfast as we had done a couple of days back in the hotel, scrambled egg and veg breakfast. As we were leisurely having breakfast, a lady came in through the open door of the restaurant asking for food. She was told away by the guy who was minding the restaurant. We were instructed not to give her food. The old lady walked away, in tears and howling; surely the poor woman was in immediate need of food.

After breakfast we went in search of the lady to give her some food we had with us. She was nowhere in sight. The picture of that poor woman crying will forever remain etched in my mind. It will stop me from ever wasting food. The woman was crying from the hunger that was tearing up her insides. How fortunate we are who take for granted a full plate on the table every time we sit down to dine and do not have to depend on the largesse of another!

The drive from Kutaisi to Tbilisi was smooth, over well concreted and sometimes bituminous roads at 110 kph. We lost nearly 30 minutes on the approach into Tbilisi city, understandable as it was lunch break on a Friday. We finally made it to the hotel parking and dropped off the luggage.

With that done, I called up Tamara of the localrent.com and asked for instructions to return the car. She asked me to drive to her office address, where she said she would be waiting. In ten minutes, I was there and, after a cursory look around the car, she said that I could take car as having been returned. I had been anxious about fines I may have accumulated in the past week. I was sure of one red light I had breached, being fooled by the bright sun that made the signal seem as if the green light was on. The timely honk by the car behind made me halt the tentative drive forward and reverse.

There were times when the speed limit board on the road and that indicated by Waze were at variance. In the confusion I may have disregarded a few speed limits. However, Tamara didn't mention any fines and she drove off in the car after we had taken a photo together. There are no tolled roads as yet in Georgia. I had done 1476 km in the 2005 Toyota Yaris, that had logged nearly 250,000 km. The fuel cost me 280 Gel and I got over 15.5 km per liter. Not bad at all for a beaten-up jalopy. 

On the walk back to the hotel we dropped into Sioni church. During the visit to a couple of monasteries in Georgia I had come to know that the original grapevine cross of St Nino was preserved in the Sioni Church. Even though I had been to the church with Ajay on 28th June, I did not know of the preserved cross in the church.

When we walked into the church quite a few priests were interacting with lay people. I approached a priest and asked him where the original St. Nino cross was displayed. He pointed to a glass fronted case and asked me where I was from. We went to the cross and saw parts of the original cross exposed in the case. The rest of the cross was covered in cloth, possibly to preserve it. There was no restriction in taking photos of the cross. In fact, a priest shone a mobile torch on the cross to explain the importance of that relic to a few visitors.

While we were praying at the foot of the cross the priest came to me and asked for our names to be written in Georgian. I spelt them out in English, and he wrote the names down on a piece of paper and said that he would pray for us for the next 40 days. Miracles never cease to happen; I experience it almost on a daily basis and mysterious are the ways of the Lord

We had soup for lunch and sought refuge in the cooler confines of the hotel room, completing the rest of the packing. When the heat had tapered off, we walked over the Peace Bridge to the Rike Park to explore the Europe Square there.

Dinner was at the traditional Georgian restaurant, Veliaminov, near the Freedom Square. Our order was Pork and vegetable shashlik and Mexican potatoes. The pork shashlik and Mexican potatoes were awesome. The vegetable shashlik turned out to be a bland serving of grilled vegetables. To make up for that, on the way back to the hotel we had milk cake and lemon gelato, both outstanding, particularly the former. 

When we got to the room the AC remote was not in working condition. The hotel staff at the reception found me a replacement and it was time to hit the sack. At the reception, I confirmed that the taxi we had booked for the airport transfer would be available at 7 am on the morrow.