March 19, 2014
A special place called Batumi: And how to apply for an Azerbaijan visa in a cafe
Crossing the Turkey-Georgia border was a simple, albeit slightly strange experience. Firstly we went through the car crossing out of Turkey but were then told to go through the pedestrian crossing to get into Georgia, which involved a quiet unnecessarily long walk through a modern building which took us around in a big arch. It did feel a little like this long walk was the result of the extravagant design of the building rather than for any actual good reason. The interior also made it feel like we were walking through an airport. When we finally made it through customs I looked around for the baggage reclaim, quite unnecessarily as I was still pushing my bike complete with all my worldly possessions. Instead I saw a tourist information centre where we were provided with a warm welcome, very good maps, and a security guard telling us he would very much like to visit England but he can't get a visa. "That's because you would stay there wouldn't you?" I asked and he replied very honestly "Yes I would." I felt a little sorry for him, so I reassured him that he didn't want to go to England anyway; "The girls are ugly and it always rains."
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As we made our way into Georgia I was quite struck by how very different the country was from Turkey. Or to be more specific I was quite struck by the sight of a girl walking by in a short skirt. "Look Kieran," I cried, "a girl's legs! I haven't seen a girl's legs in months!" There was also a church instead of a mosque, but that wasn't as much of a shock.
What was a shock was almost disappearing into a massive hole. We were cycling along on a bit of tarmac that was just next to the road and I was looking around at the sea, which we were actually able to cycle next to now without four lanes of traffic in the way. Not paying enough attention I almost vanished forever into what I can only describe as a huge sinkhole. I looked around just in time, otherwise this blog would have been coming to a very premature end and I would probably still now be continuing my endless fall into the abyss. I've really never seen anything like it before. We were already beginning to see that the money spent on the modern border facilities and the modern art that lined the road probably came out of the transport budget and there clearly wasn't much left in the coffers for road repairs.
What had been a very well-maintained modern four-lane highway on the Turkish side had now deteriorated to a bad, narrow, two-lane road. Fortunately traffic was relatively light but what there was certainly had an interesting idea of what constitutes driving. Overtaking seemed to be perfectly okay regardless of if there was anything coming the other way or not. This chaos was further added to when an old woman tried to herd her cows across the road. Seeing a big truck coming she changed her mind and tried to call them back to her, ultimately causing traffic to come to a screeching halt in both directions with blaring horns, clouds of dust, and panic-stricken cattle all over the shop. It already seemed like this was going to be a really crazy country. There were plenty of cows along the road actually and it rather sadly seemed to me like a cow was sure to get hit sooner or later.
Once we got to the edge of Batumi we were able to get away from all this and found our way to the bicycle path that ran alongside the sea. I left Kieran and Natasha here, agreeing that we would meet up later, because I wanted to get to the Azerbaijan embassy to apply for my visa as soon as I could. As I made my way into the centre I came across a lot more modern art and sculptures and crazy buildings. I could already see that Batumi was an unusual town, but my priority was getting to the embassy. It was eleven by the time I arrived and I found a couple of bored looking security guards, who told me it was closed. "Come back at two" they told me.
I had heard a lot of good things about Georgian hospitality, but that evidently didn't extend to the couchsurfing website, because I had received no positive responses from the ten or twelve requests that I had sent. It seemed to me like the men treated it as a dating website and only hosted girls and the girls couldn't host men. An American girl, Jacey, had told me that she couldn't host me because she was a girl and I was a boy, and it was an orthodox country so she just couldn't. But she then agreed to host Kieran, because he has a girlfriend. Good for him.
So instead I found myself a cheap guesthouse, left my stuff there, and then went back to the Azerbaijan embassy at two. It was still closed. There was a man outside talking with the security guards and when I told him that I wanted to apply for a visa he opened up the door and disappeared inside, telling me to stay outside. He was very friendly and came back with two application forms for me, and said to come back when they were done. "Will you be here?" I asked. "Of course" he said.
So I sat in the sun in European Square under the Medina Statue and filled in the two identical forms. There were a couple of questions about my 'Inviting Organisation' which I left blank. The whole point of applying for this visa in Batumi was that I had heard that it was the only place to get an Azerbaijan visa without a Letter of Invitation.
I walked back over to the embassy, which was still closed and there was no sign of the man who had given me the forms. The security guards pointed at the cafe next door. This was one weird visa application process. I went into the small, dim, cafe and saw the man sat at a table with a couple of other guys. It was one of these others who, stubbing out a cigarette, stood up and came over to me. "You want visa?" he asked shadily, as if visa was a code word for cocaine.
"Yes" I said.
"What nationality?"
"British."
"Okay, come on."
And he led me to the embassy, unlocking the door and showing me inside. He sat behind a big desk and lit another cigarette as I handed him my completed forms along with the standard copies of my passport and photos. He had a flick through my application. I asked him about the 'Inviting Organisation' questions which he batted away with his hand and told me not to worry about such things. He told me that my visa would be ready on Monday and I asked him if he could do it by Friday. His response was to tell me that technically he was on holiday at the moment and so he couldn't do it before Monday (unless I paid double of course.) This at least partly explained the strange goings on. From what I could tell he was the consul and he was spending his holidays in the dingy cafe next door to the embassy, just in case anyone like me came along. Nice place for a vacation.
He told me the visa would cost 210 lari (90 euros) and that I could just pay him in cash, which certainly wasn't the orthodox way to pay for a visa, but nothing else about this application had been orthodox, why start now? I had to go to the bank to get the money, but on my way out he said "Actually, it is two-hundred-and-fifty lari."
"What, you just said 210?"
"Yes, that is old price. Price change. Two-hundred-fifty."
I guessed maybe he was trying to swindle me on this one now. Perhaps he felt like he deserved a little something for coming in on his holidays. But if I wanted the visa, what choice did I have? And he'd seemed like such a nice guy.
I found a cash machine and got the money. When I returned he was back in the dark cafe, a logical place for paying for an Azerbaijan visa. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be discreet about handing him the bundle of notes or not, it all felt very shifty, maybe I should. But he was very open about it, counting the money on the table. I was about to walk off when he said "Wait, wait. Come here." I wasn't sure what he wanted, it was definitely all there. Five fifty lari notes. What could he be complaining about? "Wait, wait, your change."
"My change?"
"Yes. Two-hundred-fifty lari. You need thirty-five change, you give me too much!"
"Oh! Two-hundred-and-fifteeN? 215 lari."
If he was swindling me, it certainly wasn't by very much.
Next on the agenda I had a meeting with a guy from couchsurfing. Out of all the requests that I had sent he was the only one who had wanted to meet up with me. As I said, all of the other men on the website only had references from girls and seemed to treat it as something of a dating website, so I was looking forward to meeting with someone who understood the concept of the website a little better. I was sitting on the promenade looking out at the sea when he arrived. He greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and seemed, how can I put this, a little camp. Suddenly I understood why all his references were from men. Well, he might not want me to use his real name on here, so let's call him George as he will no doubt be played by George Michael in the movie. "I'm going to be a sailor" he said. I didn't doubt it.
George was a very nice young man and as we walked around Batumi he told me a few things about the place and about Georgia in general. As friendly as he was I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I was on a blind date with a man. It had been a while since I had been on a date with anyone though, so I decided to go with it. And he did manage to help me finally find some sunscreen lotion after walking me to five different pharmacies. A surprisingly difficult thing to find in a town which is Georgia's number one summer holiday destination, but at least now we can hopefully put an end to all these photos of me with a bright red face.
A short while later we found ourselves sitting in a park and George asked me about my previous jobs. I told him that I used to work in a warehouse. His eyes lit up and he leaned in, suddenly very interested in me.
"Do you know what that is?" I asked nervously.
"Yes!" he said brightly, "like a slut-house right?"
I put my head in my hands. We went our separate ways shortly after.
Later on I met up with Kieran and Natasha again down by the seaside. We had a romantic sunset for three and then cycled along the promenade as the town began to light up. And there were more extravagances to come, as we dicovered a dancing fountain which was mildly entertaining and at the same time completely absurd. The silly thing was that it was a little way from the centre of the town and we were the only ones watching it, and after we left no one was watching it. In a way it summed up the whole of Batumi, an odd town that left one unsure where the hell one was, teetering as it did somewhere between Vegas and Disneyland. The one thing we did all agree on though was that if the whole world was like Batumi then it would be one awesome world.
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Finally we met up with Kieran and Natasha's host, Jacey Spies. She turned out to be an extremely lovely Californian who came to Georgia to teach English and liked it so much she stayed. She took us to a bar, which further added to our confusion about where we were, it being completely decked out as a German beer house. That morning we had woken up in an empty Turkish house, cycled into a new country through an airport, along roads that felt like Latin America, then on European style bicycle paths, into a town that looked like Las Vegas, I myself had spent the afternoon conducting unusual visa transactions with an Azerbaijan official in a cafe, and now finally we sat in a German beer house with an American, a Belarussian couple and, thankfully, a couple of Georgians. It had been quite a day. The man who sat next to me was a Georgian genuinely named George and was a good friend of Jacey. When she had written to tell me that she couldn't host me she had suggested I send him a request, which I had done, but he had not responded, something I wasn't too surprised about because of course all of his references were from girls. I felt a little like scolding him about this now I had the opportunity, letting him know that I could see he was using couchsurfing as a way to meet girls and he should stop. It might have been a little awkward though, particularly as his girlfriend was sitting next to him.
Jacey was very jealous about the fact that the three of us all had our Iranian visas and would be going there soon. She said that she really wanted to visit Iran, but it would be very, very difficult for her, and not only because of her nationality, but also her rather unfortunate name. A visa application for Iran from an American named Spies? Yeah, good luck with that!
19/03/14 - 41km (36km in Georgia + 27km unloaded)
Today's ride: 36 km (22 miles)
Total: 15,066 km (9,356 miles)
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