Just seems an age ago: a trip on the main road east past Gori, Kutaisi and Poti to the Black Sea town of Batumi. Since the incorporation of Adjaria back into Georgia (still with some autonomy, but paying its taxes) Batumi has seen a lot of development and is now a thriving port and holiday resort. Development has come from both Russian and American funds.
A trip to Batumi is now hardly possible because of the Russian "peace keepers" in the illegal "buffer zone" which naturally includes the main road, and the destruction of Poti.
This is the second time I have been to Batumi. You can find my first trip here and here. I don't blog about my work normally but suffice it to say we had a very successful training course and the trainees asked lots of questions. Our leader was impressed and found the need for a weekend stay in Batumi fully justified, even if he couldn't connect his Blackberry and get his email. We voted that if we ever needed a second office it would be in Batumi.
This time we stayed in Hotel Alik, which was quite comfortable, at least as far as the rooms were concerned. It had wi-fi in the lounge and some of the rooms. The breakfast was OK if you were only staying there for a few days, but would get monotonous for longer.
The lounge with its big white sofas features on the website, but some essential features of the ambience are missing on the website. First there are the green cactus lights in several variations, and also the mini golf. Then there is the golf ball bar and seats, (the strange white eggcup cum parasol structure behind the mini golf). One of our party made the mistake of sitting at the golf ball bar early in the visit. Later we realised that this was the preferred perch of the owner, Mr Alik himself, who dressed always in white, though his size meant this was not very flattering. Always parked outside were the several large black SUVs with number plates in the range Alik1, Alik2 etc though the Hummer below has ALIKA. These were always being washed to make sure Mr Alik always had a clean car at his disposal. We also had a clean car quite quickly as well.
But most spectacular of all was the singing. Each morning, like it or not, began with loud polyphonic singing in the lounge. This was not just loud, (they had the full electronic kit for a rock band) but also repetitive. They were clearly rehearsing for some important performance. Eventually, when even we could all sing the full polyphony, we had heard it so often, it seemed this was turning into a recording studio, and the singers were apparently Georgian stars in their own genre. Mr Alik seemed very proud that the best Georgian singers were in his lounge singing their hearts out. But as a wake up call it has its limitations.
We had lots of good food in picturesque outdoor restaurants:
We managed trips to two beaches. One in Batumi itself had excellent power connections so we adopted this beach hut as our temporary office. We even noted its energy saving lamps.
The other trip to the beach near the Turkish border (about 20km away) was even more successful. The signal from the nearest Turkish mobile station on the Turkish side was sufficient for the Blackberry to connect and our leader then had no reason not to work. However as it was Saturday we lay on the beach.
On the way back we returned via Gori and the Stalin museum. You can find a report of our visit here.
