In what ways was the Georgian driving bad? What particular manoeuvres did they like to pull? In Bosnia, for instance, I remember the main habit was to overtake and then not pull back into your own lane, despite an oncoming Bunbury.
I see there were some big dogs in one of your photos. What were they like? Were they worse in the mountains? How did they vary between the countries?
Also, were you with Mrs Ham and how did she find it as a female traveller?
Cheers!
In what ways. Ahhh. Let me count the ways.
On the straight, driving on the wrong side overtaking is common (a la Bunbury targeting). You might think, that would result in accidents. It does. Most roads are two lane, on busy inter-town roads bikes generally womble on the sides. In towns, with the tarmac roads cars drive much too fast. Some roads in Tblisi are virtually impossible to cross on foot.
The road condition is very relevant, while we were there it was quite evident that there had been close to zero investment in infrastructure since the Soviets pulled out. Habitually drivers avoid the holes irrespective of what else might be about. You may find it difficult to comprehend just how bad the roads are, the main road from Kutaisi (the 2nd largest city) to Ushguli (their mountain "holiday" centre) even local drivers can only do about 5mph. They were repairing that "two lane" road while we were there, without closing, without signals. The improved road will almost certainly be more dangerous. Given how little we were on Georgian roads (driven not driving), the number of crashes we saw was phenomenal, it is that more than anything else that makes me say how dangerous it is, much more so than China, India, Thailand. And I'm not counting the minibus load of people that fell off the side of a mountain and were killed, as alcohol was likely involved.
Dogs. There's another story. The Georgian sheepdog has a reputation as the fiercest out, they protect their flocks against wolves. Let me fill in the background to the photo of the dog you saw.
A couple of days earlier we had headed out with our guide towards Tusheti. He dropped us off on the way and pointed us up a
ridge (think the mountain scene in Perfume - absolute heaven) saying he'd see us at the end, only piece of advice to us:if you see a flock of sheep, walk the other way. Well. we did see a flock. Only, it was on the ridge coming towards us. We are at around 2,800m at this stage, I generally respect mountains. We ended up going down off piste, and it was rather hairy. There are no photos of the descent, bu there is one once we got to the bottom. That load of snow? It's a snow bridge over a ravine, and it was around 25
o. Anyhow, coming back a couple of days later we passed a flock of sheep, nearby. That was probably the same flock. Those dogs in the picture? They had just attacked the fucking car, one tried to kill the spare tyre. So yeah, another reason not to ride that part on a bike but one that took a while to explain
Generally OK for Mrs Ham, it is a christian country, women generally well respected, which likely helps.
ETA - the dogs are only in the mountains in the North, where there are few/zero people and quite a few sheep and wolves.
