The Tale of Three Silk Traders and an Onyx Egg

So here’s the slightly embarrassing thing about our recent jaunt across the Silk Road from Turkey to China: We made for terrible traders.

Following the ancient trade route from the west to the Far East, we felt obliged to get involved with a little trading of our own.

So when we were in Turkey, the first post of the Silk Road on the west, we thought long and hard about what we could trade for some silk in the Far East.

What had traders never before carried across 7,000 miles of treacherous desert, remote mountain ranges and right across the Caspian Sea? What would be gazed at in awe as soon as we reached China and have our fellow merchants fawning over us to give their finest silk in exchange?

And then suddenly we saw it. The shiny, almost marble like onyx egg.

We were in Cappadocia at the time, admiring fairy chimneys and what-not, when we spied a man spinning onyx stone into egg shapes.

Yes, we thought, that will secure our fortune and reputation as great traders. So we purchased one at the bargain price of £5.

We lovingly wrapped it in the plastic bag that it came in and tucked it safely away in a corner of Matty’s day bag. The egg would make us rich, we vowed.

We carried it through Turkey and pulled funny faces with it.
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In Georgia we took it all the way to the Gergeti Glacier.

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In Amenia we showed it a large lake by a beautiful church.
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In Azerbaijan Matty got a bit inappropriate with it.

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In Turkmenistan we took it to the ancient ruins of Merv.

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In Uzbekistan the egg saw the beautiful blue tiled mosques of Samarkand.

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In Tajikistan the egg got all giddy at high altitude.

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In Krygyzstan the egg got all arty among the rolling hills.

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And then it got all the way to China… and enjoyed posing by the Bell Tower in Xi’an, our final stop on the Silk Road.

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And it had its last moments with the Face of Ignorance…

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And then finally the big day arrived. Four and a half months after making that fateful purchase Cappadocia, it was time to trade the egg at the far eastern post of the Silk Road; Xi’an, China.

Our first mistake was that we had grown unnaturally attached to the egg. It sort of felt like the fourth member of the clan, so to speak. It had seen everything we had… If eggs could talk. I fear this may have affected our professionalism.

Our second mistake was the egg was no longer in top notch condition. Truth be told the plastic bag didn’t quite provide the protection we had initially hoped for and as Matty threw his bag down after a few local special brews, we would hear it smash against the hard floor and cringe, hoping for the best.

Our third mistake, and I think this was where we really went wrong, was that someone had already taken onyx eggs to China. To our dismay we found rows and rows of egg shaped onyx creations, even onyx egg holders and other strange, elaborate statues that we fear somewhat undermined the status of our own little onyx treasure.

And finally, we couldn’t find the silk market in Xi’an so we headed to the Muslim quarter and hoped for the best.

After spending a couple of hours being distracted by the great street food and souvenirs that line the lantern adorned lanes of the Muslim Quarter we remembered our mission and hunted for a silk trader.

Eventually, by a stroke of luck as we made our way to the train station almost completely defeated, we chanced upon a lady selling silk scarves.

We played by all the old ancient trading rules – causally running the scarves trough our fingers, pretending we were only half interested. Well, until I cried: “This one, this one,” pointing enthusiastically at a piece of white silk with Chinese writing on it. That might have been another mistake.

So, the haggling started. She started the bidding at 100 Yuan (about £10), to which I came back with an offer we thought she couldn’t turn down: The Egg.

“This egg has travelled 7,000 miles from Turkey – it’s original onyx from Cappadocia,” I explained.

“We saw it being made by hand,” added the Mongoose.

We all looked towards her expectantly. And then something happened that I never, ever foresaw.

She laughed. She looked at our little old egg and broke into a great, mighty cackle.

“Ok, 10 Yuan and the egg,” I offered quietly.

More laughter. The bidding continued but she seemed to be more preoccupied with the money than the egg. It was not going to plan.

After a little while she softened and took the egg into her hand. She smiled.

“50 Yuan and the egg,” she offered.

Ok we agreed. We had a train to catch after all.

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We took the silk scarf into our hands, which we plan to cut into three pieces because what better souvenir could three traders ‘cut from the same cloth’ possibly hope for?

As the exchange was made we watched in surprise as she placed the egg into her handbag instead of on the market stall.

“I think it will bring me luck,” she said smiling, still giggling a bit.

And we nodded in agreement. Financially it may not have been our best move – travelling the egg across the Silk Road cost us about £5,000 each, plus the £10 spent on the two transactions. We were left somewhat in negative equity.

But luck? Yes, the egg had definitely brought us lots of that.

A Video of a Silk Road journey: The tale of the Three-Must-Have-A-Beers

Matty has made a video of our trip so far… It’s been on his website for a little while now but I wanted to share it with those of you who don’t follow him too. So, without further ado, in the words of Matty himself…

Here it is. The ups and downs of the last three months have finally been cobbled together into 3.5 minutes of celluloid gold.

It’s been gritty.
It’s been emotional.
But it has, quite simply, been the time of our lives.

The Weird and Wonderful things about Georgia

With its fabulous food, stunning scenery and charming ways, Georgia is without a doubt a great place to visit. It’s cheap, very cheap, and – just to top it all off – it has some weird and wonderful oddities, that I thought only right to share.

1) Wine: The Georgians make plenty of their own vino… A lot of it tends to be sweet (even the red wine) but perhaps more surprising than that, is the ingenious lengths they go to when bottling the stuff. It is commonly found in huge vats resembling vegetable oil and in strange little goblin bodies. The Mongoose was determined to drink all the goblins under the table.

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2) Cheese: Any country where the ‘weird and wonderful’ list begins with cheese and wine is a wonderful one in my book. But nevertheless, the Georgians deserve a special mention here for the sheer amount of cheese they eat. This dish was served, bubbling and sizzling in its deep pan and as it was placed on the table our waitress declared it loudly and proudly: ‘Cheeeeeeeese!’

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Huge quantities of cheese are seved with almost everything… Their national staple is Khachapuri, which is basically a cheese pie in a deep crust, served with half a block of butter and two fried eggs on top. I kid you not.

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3) COWS!!! Yes, this list gets better, I hear you cry. Georgia literally has hundreds of cows – and sheep – roaming its streets, causing traffic to stop. They are beautiful and should be worshipped.

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4) Hygiene: Georgia gets a special mention for its cleaning products sounding downright dirty. Especially its barf cleaner.

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5) Loo roll: Confession – on my first day in Georgia I went without using any toilet paper at all as I just couldn’t find any in our hostel bathroom. It later transpired that this bandage-like object is actually the bog roll. Yes, it’s a tad scratchy.

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6) Statues: Georgia has weird and wonderful statues all over the place. They are not shy of a bit of gold and elaborate statues of the golden fleece and whatnot often look fairly incongruous to their surroundings, just like the one at the top of this post which was taken in the coastal town of Batumi. Here’s a few more:

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7) Ferris wheels: From the highest point in the crumbling, old town of Tbilisi to the sea level of Batumi, it costs less than a £1 to ride the Georgian ferris wheels which, we concluded, is a delightful way of seeing the surroundings.

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8) Toasting: Georgian toasts are incredibly long and will leave you holding your glass in the air for long enough to wonder if you should put it down again. But at the same time they are often wonderfully thoughtful and poignant. The traditional feast is called a Supra, and each Supra will have a Tamada, a toastmaker, who will lead the toasts throughout the meal. It starts with a toast to God and peace and then moves onto everything from plans and dreams to absent friends. Oh, and did I mention that you have to down your drink at every toast? One person is always given the role of ‘merrykeeper’ whose job it is to keep everybody’s glasses full at all times. I think it was appropriate to scream: ‘Keep me merry!’ at him throughout the evening.

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Georgian Wine: The Best, the Worst and the Rest

There aren’t many places in the world where you walk into an off-license to buy wine and walk out with a belly full of moonshine. But that’s Georgia for you.

We learnt of the country’s booze loving ways before we even set foot on Georgian soil. A lovely French jewellery artist, who we met in Turkey, gave us ample warning. Cooing about monasteries and the rolling countryside, she raved about Georgia – but in a more cautious tone, added: “They are big drinkers, they often put pressure on you to drink when you don’t want to.”

Matty’s eyes lit up. The Mongoose rubbed his hands in anticipation, and I was delighted to learn that the Georgians are also big wine makers. On a trip where I thought we may have said goodbye to decent vino after leaving Paris, I was keen to sample as many large glasses of rich, red stuff as possible before begrudgingly moving onto the gurn-inducing vodka that no doubt awaits us in the ‘stans.

So it was perhaps fitting that the first thing purchased after crossing the border from Turkey by foot, was a bottle of wine. We had to break into a 100 Lari note to get a few pennies for the marshrutka into Batumi and this seemed like the most appropriate way to do it:

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But, I won’t lie, it did not taste half as good as it looks. In fact, it tasted little better than an elaborately bottled glass of Ribena. Sweet and sickly, I couldn’t help but wonder if someone had picked it up in the fruit juice section before swapping it for a bottle of the stronger stuff in the wine aisle, leaving it for a hapless tourist to pick up minutes later.

The Mongoose made dark mutterings about finding the wine maker and dragging him out of bed in the middle of the night, to ensure others never again experience what we went through. And Matty wrote a rather twisted blog about its sinister ways.

Georgian wine, it transpires, is often sweet. Or dry. And a bit like girl with the curl, when it’s sweet, it’s very, very sweet and when it’s dry, it’s very, very dry.

It marked the beginning of what was to become a long journey to find the perfect Georgian wine. Our vino odyssey took us into supermarkets where we were watched like hawks as we cluelessly stared at bottles of funny-lettered wine, into basement bars where it was served out of large plastic bottles resembling sunflower oil, and into cosy little restaurants where the unidentifiable juices flowed from battered terracotta jugs.

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But somehow, somewhere along the way, we concluded that we quite liked Saperavi. This robust, red grape has bags of potential and was by far, the tastiest red wine we sampled in Georgia.

Produced by dozens of wine makers all over the country (but mainly in the Kakheti region), it was occasionally a tad too dry, tasting as if it had been stripped of all flavour, and other times still a little too sweet, but by and large we found it was, in the words of Goldilocks, just right.

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Many Saperavis remind me of the Merlot grape, a ruby red with subtle fruit flavours but plenty of tannin. And I guess like any grape, you get the good, the bad and the downright ugly depending on how much cash you’re willing to flash. As wine-loving budget-backpackers we found one of the best buys was the Marani brand of Saparevi, which ranged in price from 9 Lari (£4.50) to 14 Lari (£6.50) depending on the retailer.

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But it is the purchasing of the wine that really makes Georgia stand out from its continental cousins. A far cry from the safe, reliable Thresher wine stores that once stood proud on every British high street (before the recession even managed to have a stab at wine), the Georgian off-licenses are as much as a place to drink as they are to purchase drink.

The centrepiece of every store is a table laden with half-empty bottles of wine and often a couple of skimpily clad ladies offering tasters to the boys. As we walked into our ‘local’ for 48 hours in Tbilisi, the Mongoose gave the man behind the counter a familiar smile and sauntered over to the tasting table.

“We’re back again,” said the Mongoose. “Last night’s recommendation went down a treat.”

The man looked at him blankly.

“You know,” the Mongoose continued, “I was in last night, you gave me some cha cha.”

Still no recognition came from the man, who was by now pouring us small glasses from a red-labelled bottle of Saparevi to try.

Eventually, he looked up and said: “I’m sorry, last night I was very drunk, I remember nothing.”

We nodded understandingly, glancing over to the two round-bellied men currently propping up the counter, which on reflection was more like a bar, drinking cha-cha with the other shop assistant.

So it was in that fashion that we sampled a few more Saperavi’s, before moving over to the bar to ‘taste’ no less than three varieties of cha-cha, a homemade fermented grape number which comes in a varieties of potencies. Most of which are potent.

And with a belly full of moonshine we eventually walked out with what we declared to be the finest bottle of Superavi yet.

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But if truth be told, by that point we probably had just as much of a clue as we’d had the day before when we accidentally ordered non-alcoholic beers and got half way through them before realising. Or just as much as the tramp who gladly took them off us, swigging the booze-free beer from the bottle as she swayed down the street. But that’s Georgia for you.

Climbing to Gergeti Glacier, Kazbegi, Georgia

Almost a month into our big journey across central asia, I have learnt three things about travelling with boys:

1) Boys like climbing things.

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Matty on a rocky crag in Ani, Turkey

2) Boys like shooting things.

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The Mongoose even found something to shoot at the top of the Citadel in Budapest

3) Boys are not as good as girls at asking for things.

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I was brave enough to ask this girl selling carrots in a club in Budapest for a picture. And now we have a picture of a girl carrying carrots... see, never hurts to ask.

In sum, this means I have asked more favours from strangers, and climbed more walls, steps and mountains in the last three weeks than I did in the one year I travelled with my dear friend Carly after university.* I’m not sure how the shooting thing comes into it yet, I’ll keep you posted on that one.

Crumbling city walls, that I would have once regarded as no more than a ‘lovely backdrop’ for a picture, have become giant playgrounds for climbing and walking, while steep, ghastly looking stairs that would normally pass me by have become one of the first things I notice when visiting beautiful old ruins. For those that remember my previous scaredy cat confessions of, well, most things, including stairs, I hope you are impressed.

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And this was precisely how I found myself climbing up to the Gergeti Glacier, in Kazbegi, Georgia.

A beautiful, mountainous region of Georgia, we had always intended to do some long walks in Kazbegi, including a climb to a 14th century church, perched above the town on an isolated crag at 2, 200 metres above sea level.

However, it did not take the boys long to realise that this was really just the first stop on a much more arduous (‘but rewarding’, they promised) climb to a glacier at 3, 000 metres above sea level. I enthusiastically (but slightly anxiously) agreed, and we pledged if one of us felt unable to continue we would all return back to the village together.

And so we set off. The Three ‘Must-have-a-beers’ (as christened by my dad when he said our farewells to us at St Pancras) and Dog. We accidentally picked up Dog, a big giant beast of a dog, in the village when buying bread for the trek. We clambered through some forest land, with Dog faithfully trotting by our side, and paused at an information board about local fauna and wildlife.

There it was in black and white, among a long list of indingeous creatures… the Brown Bear.

‘Bears?!’ I shrieked, loud enough for even Dog to cast a cagey look to his right, into the woodland. I had been worrying a bit about the altitude, about whether Dog would suddenly turn on us to get our bread half way up a mountain, and even twisting an ankle or two. But bears?

So the remainder of the trek up to the Tsminda Sameba Church was largely spent coming up with a bear plan. We decided the boys would throw rocks at the beast, while I would throw the bread in the hope that Dog would fight him for it… or I would play dead and let the boys deal with it all. Travelling with boys has its uses after all, I concluded.

But such fears were soon forgotten as we made our approach to the stunning church, sitting amid low-lying clouds, because Dog started terrorising the cows. There are cows everywhere in Georgia and as a huge bovine fan, I am in my element on a daily basis. They are not even skanky cows like in India. The Georgian cows are beautiful beasts with deep, rich coloured coats and happy faces. But Dog started chasing a couple of the idly grazing cows beside the church, causing them to charge in fear at startled tourists, who tried to run out of their way. So we pretended not to know Dog and focused on the beauty of the church instead.

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Looking down at the village of Kazbegi, where we started the climb.

From the church we began the ascent to the glacier, minus Dog. Although by this point we had picked up New Dog, a smaller little creature that treated cows with more respect.

We started the long and cumbersome climb up hills scattered in wild flowers, over mountain ridges and more hills… and hills, and hills. As the altitude increased we found just a few energetic steps could leave us out of breath, causing us to pause… and reach for the chocolate.

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Even New Dog (who got crazier the higher he climbed) got tired and stopped for a snooze.

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But as soon as I got my breath back and looked around me, I felt overwhelmed by the views around us. The church soon went from being a tiny speck below us to disappearing completely, and was replaced by towering mountains and deep cut valleys that suddenly emerged over the ridges as we climbed higher.

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As we approached our final destination, we discovered we were unable to reach the glacier due to wet, melting snow which came up to our waists. Instead we sat looking out to Mount Kazbek and the glacier and ripped open our bread, cheese and chocolate for a picnic that might just win the best location award yet.
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And as we silently chomped away, at a spot that I would never dreamed of perservering to find, I concluded that travelling with boys – well these boys at least – is not so bad after all.

*This might be a slight exaggeration. Carly and I after all tackled many things including the great muddy hills of Laos’s jungles in nothing more than a pair of flip flops, which no other boys were daft enough dared to do.

Travel Tips

It is easy to travel to Kazbegi from Tbilisi – regualr marshrutkys (mini buses) run, taking about three hours and costing 10 lari (£4). You can also get taxis, costing about 90 lari – although we got a cab for the same price as the marshrutky as it needed to return to Tbilisi anyway, so worth asking around.

The journey is worth the visit in itself. Known as the Georgian Military Highway, it’s incredibly scenic if not a little terrifying as you take corners on the mountain edge – seeing an overturned lorry on one stretch was a tad unnerving – but the drive really is beautiul.

Where to stay in Kazbegi?

We stayed at a guesthouse called Nunu’s where she lovingly cooked for us every evening after we came down from the mountains. The beds were a little hard and there was no heating but we couldnt ask for better hospitality – plus the showers were hot! She’s very central – you can email her at gvanci9191@gmail.com or call +995558358535.

Best Georgian Restaurant in Batumi, Georgia

In Georgia it would seem that very few people speak English. This is more than acceptable and is the very reason why Matty has taken one for the team and learned Russian over the last few months.

But sometimes he gets a little stage fright and the phrase book is at the bottom of a bag, underneath more useful things like tissues, kirby grips and Blistex.

So in the meantime we have a new strategy for ordering food, which basically involves the Mongoose making animal noises at bemused waiting staff.

When struggling with the word for lamb recently, the Mongoose just suddenly started bleating. Not missing a beat, the waiter ‘Mooed’ back in his face. But nevertheless, we were soon eating a bleating-no-longer lamb.

Often, the most authentic local food is found in the places that have no English menus. As was the case with the best Georgian restaurant we have found so far, in the seaside town of Batumi, which was recommended to us by the lovely owners of the small family-run hostel we are staying in.

The first challenge was finding it. We knew it was on an alleyway, off a main boulevard, but the alleyway did not have a name and the restaurant name was nothing more than a sprawl of Georgian letters (which to my untrained eye looks like a combination of Arabic and Russian). Nevertheless, after the Mongoose furiously acted out eating a big plate of food fit for the gods, and we enthusiastically showed off our piece of paper with the indistinguishable Georgian letters, somebody finally took pity on us and led us there.

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This is the frontage of the inconspicuous little eatery.

Stepping in, we walked down some stairs and entered what almost felt like a hideaway den. A couple of women greeted us, chatting away in Georgian. We know one word – thank you – which we over use enthusiastically. Tomorrow I’m going to learn hello.

But for now we kind of greet people by thanking them and we try to tell people important messages by thanking them and when we actually need to thank someone for something, we feel rather pleased with ourselves for using the word in the right context.

So after ‘thanking’ our hellos, we took in our new surroundings. The walls and ceiling were decked out in a dark wooden panelling, giving the room a cosy feeling. And if you want it even more intimate than that there are two little private rooms that are curtained off from the main restaurant (this seems to be a common theme in Georgia.)

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They wisely led us into one of the little hideaway dens to keep the likes of Matty out of harms way.

Then came the food-ordering challenge. No menu was presented but a cheery woman started reading out what we decided must have been food options. Our trusty hostel owner had said if we said his name they would call him so he could translate on the phone.

So we started saying his name. This caused quite the flurry of excitement and they dashed in and out of our little room, but then returned and continued reading us the menu in Georgian… With no phone.

So I just started nodding at things. There was no real rhyme or reason to what I’d nod at but I did notice sometimes she looked more excited when she read out various dishes, which in turn led to more excitable nods from me.

It was around this time that Donagh started behaving like a fish. He put the palms of his hands together and made swimming motions towards the poor woman. Just as he was about to start puckering in his cheeks and swimming in circles around the imaginary fish bowl he now believed he was in, the woman shouted what I can only presume was ‘fish’ in Georgian. I nodded enthusiastically.

And the hard work was done. We sat back on our little stools around the low table in our den and eagerly waited for the food to arrive.

Charming and well loved terracotta clay plates and bowls were placed down in front of us. A litre of red wine, served in a reassuringly robust clay jug was presented and the woman pointed at the small terracotta bowls and said ‘vino’, to avoid that awkward situation of tourists pouring food into their wine vessels.

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Georgian red wine is either dry or sweet and tends to be of the two extremes, at least at the cheaper end of the market anyway. But this wine was light and fruity without being too sweet or too dry. It turned out to go very well with the food that was about to cover the table.

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First up was the bread. Bread is both big and beautiful in Georgia, it is always deliciously soft and fresh and we end up eating far too much of it before the meal arrives. This time it was accompanied by a lip-smacking tangy tomato salsa that was laden with fresh coriander and chilli. The bread basket and dip were replaced so quickly we were almost embarrassed. Almost.

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Allow me to introduce you to the 10 giant dumplings, (later learned to be called khinkali). Looking just like giant ravioli parcels, they were filled with a herb infused lamb mince and as we pierced the thick pasta-like skin, light but flavoursome meat juices spilled out onto the plate. A heavy sprinkling of pepper is encouraged. Delicious.

As we gobbled them down, a sizzling pan of pork was brought out to us, each little piece of juicy meat finished with its own crunchy layer of crackling.

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Apologies for the terrible pictures (and lack of pictorial food porn in this post) – I had only my iPhone with me and our cosy little den was lit by a single lantern.

Rest assured though, the food was so good that Matty attempted to quieten our dramatic gasps and cooing as we chomped away.

‘The people next door are going to think there’s some kind of orgy going on in here with the amount of sex noises going on,’ he warned.

But no sooner had he said it, the waitress brought the fish out and the Mongoose made a sound that even he looked a little uncomfortable with.

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Deep fried like a giant whitebait, the fish was deliciously tender and meaty.

It was, we concluded, a wonderful find and the ‘thank yous’ flowed out of us with no sign of relenting until we had finally left the building. Matty was delighted and the Mongoose ecstatic.

‘Mmmm, I wonder if we could get some squid next time,’ he suggested.

Let me assure you now, the phrase book will definitely be left behind for that occasion.

Travel Tips

We have been told that the translation for this wonderful Georgian restaurant in Batumi is ‘White Bear’.

It is on an alleyway just off Z.Gorgiladze Street, between the Art Museum and Maisi Street.

Our meal, with two litres of wine cost just 30 GEL for three people (about £10 between us).

If it’s any help at all, the alleyway entrance looks like this:

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Where to stay in Batumi?

We stayed at the lovely Batumi Hostel, which is on Mazniashvilis Qucha, and run by a friendly, young couple.

A converted house, the light and airy place really feels like a second home. Being there out of season we basically had it to ourself… Perfect. They also had a living room and kitchen, which was free to use as we pleased.