07.28 It is quiet and calm here in the room at Envoy Hostel but soon it will be full speed ahead. One and another bird can he heard from outside. Today is the beginning of going back.

09.05 Our bags are packed and our beds are undressed. Soon we will get going.

09.33 A taxi, a Lada, took us to the bus station. Here we jammed in our stuff in the rear end of a white mini bus. I hope it will remain there until we need it again. I got a better place on this trip. A stuffed board was just brought in to serve as seating for one more passenger.

10.24 We keep climbing higher. We have brown grass and snow covered mountains around us. We are rolling into Aparan, Ապարան with Armenian letters.

Beautiful Armenian views outside our bus window.

Still snow on this altitude.

11.44 We are back in Dzoraget. I wonder for how long? Here we will unfold our legs. A shepherd with a flock of sheep passed on the mountainside high above the river. Another man just passed us dragging a little trailer with wooden sticks, might be used to keep him warm.

Soon arriving in Alaverdi.

13.05 We are back at the border. The time has come to stamp us out.

13.22 It went smoothly to get out of Armenia. The passport police practised some English on Christer with phrases such as "How are you?" "Have a nice trip!” Now we´re standing in front of a red and white bar. Soon we will be let into Georgia.

GEORGIA

13.47 The bar eventually went up. The guy in the booth took his time to let us in. We got to the passport policemen’s house and went inside to get a new stamp. At the security it beeped from Roberth’s bag as he lifted it. It was the beeping squeaking bears which he had bought who made that sound.

15.07 We reached Tbilisi and fled from the taxi drivers. Now we´ve stopped for a short picnic by the dam, the one with Stalin and Lenin. Soon we will carry on.

Peter making a stop on his way from Ortachala bus station in Tbilisi.

15.30 We are riding the metro again. We got a red light as we were about to cross the street by the metro station. We´ve suddenly got cars in front of us and behind us.

16.21 We have reached our next home’s (Nika Guesthouse) courtyard. We switched metro line by the train station and fought our way through heavy trafficked roads before we got here. An old and often tried method is to cross the street together with a little old lady from the local people. The cars stop nicely and if they shouldn’t the little old lady will be hit instead of us. There are always new ways to survive here in life. A lady one floor above from us was surprised to see us to say the least. She is calling the manager; I wonder what will happen next.

16.25 The manager wasn't home and we have sat down on some green plastic chairs.

16.53 A lady in black entered the courtyard. She showed us to our room and wondered if anyone of us knew any Russian. Sure I said da, njet, vodka and traktor. This made her laugh.

"Our street", Mitskevich Street.

17.10 The lady told us that her daughter is in Germany. It seems like it is the daughter who is running this place. She wanted one of us that happened to become Christer, to follow her to get some towels. Get meant to catch them as she tossed the towels from the upper floor. Now we will get ready to go out again. We are staying at Mitskevich Street 38 in the pretty new area Saburtalo.

18.15 We have visited a small bank kiosk down in the metro. First Roberth wasn't allowed to exchange his Armenian money. It seemed that they were damaged. After that his jetton failed to work as he was passing the turnstile. He had to change it and now we are going towards the train station. We have a huge power line just close to our home.

19.01 We just sat down at Café Kala http://www.info-tbilisi.com/kala down in the older areas of Tbilisi or as it´s also known, Maidan. Here we will have dinner. It is a nice place with rustic wooden tables, a brick wall, wooden floor and jazz music in the loud speakers.

Peter is having a beer at Café Kala.

19.48 Roberth had chicken and Christer and myself tried an Uzbek dish. Maybe a sign of future travels.

20.37 We are back at the internet café close to our old home here in Tbilisi. Christer and I have been looking for the office that will take care of tomorrow´s transfer to the airport. We couldn’t find it and will keep looking tomorrow. Soon we will begin our walk home.

21.32 We have walked so wrong. All we can do is to break down and come back. It is never wrong to look at a map before you wander away, something that we didn’t do good enough this time. Now we´ve got a zoo and a university between us and the right way.

22.43 We kept walking and felt ever so lost. We saw a beautiful, colourful fountain, a circus and modern cafés and stores in the most modern parts of Tbilisi. Just as it seemed really hopeless something familiar appeared, our power line. Now we are making up plans for tomorrow. How shall we get to Gori?

Thursday 27th of March

08.46 The shower water is cold as the water from a mountain creek. Roberth’s breakfast is gone. Roberth’s bed is like concrete. Christer and I have three cushions as mattresses, cushions that sag in the middle. Besides this everything is fine. We´ve got ceiling and walls.

10.05 The breakfast turned up, it hanged on a chair. As we booked this place we were promised hot water around the clock and breakfast in the morning. We haven’t seen head or tails of any of it. Now we have left the room and reached the metro.

10.17 We went with the metro to the bus station Didube and now we´re sitting in a marshrutka, a mini bus, which will take us to Gori, (გორი). I wonder when we will leave and if we will know when we have reached our goal. I guess that Gori is the final stop since it said გორი on the sign in the front window of the bus.

10.56 We started, rolled a bit, heard a cracking sound and stopped. The driver got out and checked things up before we carried on to pick up more people and head for Gori.

Josef Stalin watching over his birth town, Gori.

Stalin Square, Gori.

Sign showing that we are on Stalin Avenue.

12.32 We are in Gori and here we have seen the statue of the town’s great man Iosif Dzhugashvili, aka Stalin, the man of steel. He can be seen on the Stalin Square here in Gori. We are currently having a bench break and we´re looking for a place offering food. There might be one along the Stalin Avenue.

12.47 We have sat down on the small restaurant Imereti. Here we have ordered khachapuri. They didn’t have any menu and we had huge problems in communicating with the staff. Things changed as Roberth said "We should have had a pizza" in Swedish and we managed to order this pizza-like Georgian dish.

After some problems we could finally have our lunch at Imereti.

Stalin Museum in Gori.

Stalin´s childhood home.

Josef Stalin´s personal train wagon.

13.47 We have seen Stalin’s preserved birth home and his green railway carriage. We didn’t enter the museum due to lack of time and high prices to get a photo permit. Now we are standing near a church. I wonder it is has a Stalin organ?

14.11 We went back to the bus station and began to look for the right bus back to Tbilisi თბილისი. It wasn't easy since we don’t master the Georgian alphabet either. What we knew is that the letter T looks like a sperm and that the letter B looks like a light bulb. We found the bus and bought a ticket in a small booth. A little old lady took the money and wrote the seat number on a piece of paper.

Goris-Tsikhe, the citadel in Gori.

16.04 We are back on the platform at Didube station. On our way here from the bus station we passed a market place where people sold fish, fruit, cigarettes and trees to mention some stuff. Now we entered yet another metro wagon and started our journey back to the centre.

17.03 We got off at Rustaveli Station and Roberth went and surfed the internet. Christer and I went to the transfer office to confirm the nightly trip. George who was in the office had full control over the situation and will be picking us up tonight. We changed the pick-up time half an hour to be on the safe side. Now we are back at the restaurant Santa Fe for coffee and sandwiches. Next to us a tree majestically is rising up through the ceiling. Now I have to stop. The coffee just arrived.

17.55 We are standing overlooking Tbilisi. We can see the Rustaveli Square, the mountains around us, the house with among other things the post office, I wonder if our postcards are still there or?, people, cars and so on. Soon we will head for the dinner we are invited to.

Orthodox church buildings near Vere Park.

Roberth and Peter in Vere Park, Tbilisi.

18.38 We have found a house and went by the lift to some floor. Roberth had to put a coin in a slot to make the lift move. Is it the right house and the right floor? We are on our way to visit Burcin, a lady from Turkey who works here in Tbilisi since a couple of months. Christer know her through the internet.

18.58 Christer made an attempt to call the lady who had invited us for dinner. Suddenly a door opened and we were let inside the flat. We had come to the right place. We met Christer´s lady friend, her sister Buket and their female friend. The view from the apartmen is like a punch in the belly, breathtaking. We are about to have some Turkish coffee.

23.06 It was great homecooked food and great company. A Georgian guy named David also joined us for dinner. We drank Georgian wine, Russian vodka and discussed a lot of things, among others that custom among Georgians to let go of the steering wheel and make the sign of the cross as they pass a church. But everything must come to an end. Now we are back in our room and good night sleep is tempting. But that will not happen. The cell phone is set for 02.20.

David, Peter and Roberth are talking about Georgia and other interesting topics.

Friday 28th of March

02.30 We have to get out of these beds although Roberth refuse to. We must begin our journey home. The water is still ever so cold.

02.59 George knocked on our door and picked us up. We are going through the night and Tbilisi. We are one of few out tonight. A lonely police car patrolled the high way.

03.25 We have checked in and sat down on the last Georgian bench. We are inside the departure hall on our way to passport- and security checking.

03.50 No problems at all. We are sitting by another gate.

04.36 This is the last note with Georgian time. It is time to set us and our watches for Latvian time, two hours backwards. We are onboard the aeroplane.

05.56 We slept during the flight and have begun to descend towards Riga airport. We have seen snowcovered fields from the window for a while.

LATVIA

07.07 We had to wait a little to get our bags. I had to leave mine for screening at the customs office. Now we have sat down on a bench close to the Air Baltic check-in line. Here we are thinking about the day ahead.

07.28 We have thought about how long we shall store our luggage, where and what it will be for breakfast and also what kind of rodents in small cages there are on the luggage trailer next to us. Can it be chinchillas?

08.22 We chose breakfast at the airport´s LIDO restaurant. We went inside just as they opened at 08.00. Next we will place our bags in “day care centre”. During the last three mornings we have had breakfast in three different ex Soviet states.

08.56 We have left our bags at the left luggage office. They got screened before we were allowed to leave them. Now I am sitting outside the terminal on a low concrete pillar. The three of us are waiting for the bus.

09.08 We are on yet another vehicle on our way to yet another city. This one is familiar though. We bought a bus ticket to the centre for 0.4 lats (around $1).

Tired travellers resting in the winter sun.

09.54 We are outside our old, classic hotel Aurora (24/6 2001, 21/6 2005, 3/3 2007) or to be precise, our ex hotel. They are closed!! This visit to Riga hasn’t started well.

10.17 We are in another city, another park, another bench break. We are sitting in the late winter sun’s glow. What shall we see, do and hear before we head back to the airport?

Milda and her guards, Riga.

11.10 We have seen the freedom monument Milda with her guards. After that we visited the Powder tower Pulvertornis again and now we are enjoying a cup of coffee and a pastry at Saldumu Tirdzniecîba in Mârupes 1.

13.23 We have walked more on familiar roads and alleys. Now we´ve stopped in the mall Centrs in Audejo 16. I am getting hungry.

13.37 We are parked in a park again. We are in the Bastejkalns Park. We entered it via a small bridge where several padlocks hanged in its railings. I think it is a symbol of eternal love. Couples in love attach the padlock to the railing and throw the key into the water.

Riga

Laima clock, It´s been here since 1924.

14.32 One good old friend is still around. Good old faithful restaurant Alus Seta in the LIDO-concern is offering us lunch. This will be great.

15.25 The prices have risen since our last visit here. A shish kebab cost 2.90 and so does a pork chop. That equals $6 a piece. A beer these days cost 1.80 lats or $4. Now we will have some coffee for our remaining coins. Well, not the ones we will use on the bus.

Romantic traditions showing on this bridge.

16.24 We are on our way to the airport. Almost everyone except some Swedish teens are quiet. Before we entered the bus we saw some policemen making a bust against a nearby car with driver.

16.40 We are back at Riga airport (lidosta). We will fetch our bags in 20 minutes. The office is closed until then. All we can do is to sit on a bench.

17.49 We are sitting near the last gate for this time. We are thinking about how often planes take off in time.

18.55 Our plane will not leave in time. We are scheduled to leave in about ten minutes. On the other hand we have been on the move for seventeen hours. What is another ten minutes?

SWEDEN

19.50 The watches are set for Swedish time and we are sitting in Sweden. We are back in Sky City at Arlanda to prepare for the final two trips.

22.10 We had our dinner at the classic Alfredo’s. It wasn't the great service we are used to. Now we are surfing internet while we await the Arlanda Express train to Stockholm and later the night train to the north. We are pleased with the trip and have done so much. Still we had plenty of time to relax and gather strength. The travel thirst is quenched for now but I have a feeling that it will come back.