Tbilisi To Ahmedabad - 6 July 2024

The final repacking of the check-in baggage done, we waited for the taxi to arrive for the ride to the airport. It arrived as appointed at 7 am. The driver said that he lived just next door to the hotel. I asked him why he had put up his residence for sale. He said that it was not suitable as a residential address any more due to the noise and commercial activities in the vicinity. It is ideal for a rental or hotel, instead.

The traffic, at that hour, was light and we reached the airport in about 20 minutes. The quick check-in, speedy immigration and non-invasive security saw us with plenty of time in hand before the boarding time of 9.15 am. There was enough time for breakfast of toast, egg and avocado and ham and cheese.

The flight to Abu Dhabi was on time. As the ticket was sans a meal, I utilised the three-hour flying time to work off the fatigue of the previous days. We landed on the dot for the 12-hour layover at 1320 hrs. With not much interest in duty free or souvenir shopping I launched into completing the leftover blogs with undivided attention. Before I could do that I had to attend to the needs of a growling stomach.

Lunch consisted of shrimp pasta. When coffee time came it was coffee and croissant; the blog work continued. The number of passengers did not seem to strain the resources of the airport at any time. We had to find suitable seating depending on how cold the area was. At times we found it unbearably cold. The blower was working with a vengeance, one felt. Without a jacket it meant that we had to keep moving around looking for comfortable seating. Dinner was a falafel platter. In between the meals we polished off almost a quarter kg of Toblerone minis.

Once the blogs were out of the way it was time for a comparison of the two countries covered in the trip, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The architecture and the preservation of monuments were much better in Azerbaijan. Overall, the road infrastructure in Georgia trumped over that in Azerbaijan. Massive inputs are going into the Tbilisi to Batumi sector with numerous tunnels through the Caucuses Mountain range. That said, there was much better speed limit indicators, at frequent intervals on the highways and rural roads in Azerbaijan; one was never in doubt about the permissible speed. While the limit plus 9 was the cut off for fines in Azerbaijan, it was plus 14 kph in Georgia. Speed cameras were, without fail, prewarned in Azerbaijan, while that wasn't always the case in Georgia.

While 97 percent of people in Azerbaijan professed Islam, 89 percent in Georgia were Christians; both countries are examples of a secular state. People do not wear religion on their sleeves; the number of mosques and churches that dot the country indicates the majority religion. The war in Ukraine has affected Georgia more with graffiti expressly stating which side the protesting youngsters were on. Fortunately, the unexpected, good performance of Georgia in the ongoing UEFA Cup championships led to temporary suspension of protests, against the country's support for Russia, in the Freedom Square in Tbilisi that had been going on for four months.

The cost of living in both countries is more or less the same going by what I paid for hotels, food and services. Overall, the people in Azerbaijan are more friendly; Georgians are rude and boorish, albeit with certain welcome exceptions. I felt that they were intolerant of English and the brown skin; it was the first time I felt so in my travels to 58 countries. The experience left such a distaste that I have marked that Georgia is one country I would not like to come back to.

Car rental in both the countries was easy and hassle free; the condition of the car I got in Azerbaijan was better, though. While I paid the equivalent of INR 6000 in fines in Azerbaijan, I did not pay a rupee in Georgia. Camera surveillance in Azerbaijan is stricter covering parking, lanes, speed, etc.

The biggest surprise of the trip came at the Ahmedabad International Airport where the modest Duty Free outlet was doing brisk business. I had been under the impression all along that one could not buy liquor from there because Gujarat is a dry state. When I saw passengers buying liquor, I asked the staff of it was permitted to take it out of the airport. I was told that the Duty Free invoice is valid for 24 hours (I am not sure whether the liquor has to be consumed within 24 hours or the bottles transported out of the State within that free time). Moreover, he said that if one subscribes to the Adani One App one can get an additional 10 percent discount. This was music to my ears and a superb end to a most enjoyable mid-year vacation.