Kutaisi shower shouts

by Kirah Harry (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Georgia

We landed into Kutaisi, Georgia at 1 am. It started off swell, the transfer brought us from the airport through dimly lit roads, that were at the minimum level of maintained. We passed several gas stations, empty car garages and some bad overtaking, in what felt like a country that was 50 years back in time. When we neared, Olek, our driver, zoomed over the bridge and I clasped my hands in prayer while he chuckled. We weren’t sure why at that time of the morning, the speed with a few decades old cars was necessary as this was not the set of 2 Fast 2 Furious, albeit the 10th installation could come there and bring the franchise back to basics. The hotel was just past Colchis fountain adorned with statues of horses by the big Opera house that I recognised because of its curved walls. We were kindly checked into a brown building with bright neon lights displaying the name upfront boldly and was protected by one thin chain gate. There were 4 large rooms downstairs and 4 rooms upstairs, a breakfast room and kitchen adjacent to the building with an outdoor shower and a toilet to the side. At the time, we didn’t understand why there was an outdoor shower but after what ensued we considered using it in 3 degrees centigrade. Our first room was long with five beds that resembled a juxtaposition of a hostel and prison as the plugs were about 2 metres from off the ground (nearer the ceiling), ants were crawling amongst the bed edges and we laughed to shake the hilarity of the situation, as four friends travelling together for the first time. I dived into the shower first, to adjust to the time zone. The bathroom was a smoothly tiled wet room, but the usual European plug was next to the showerhead; while the shower was connected to the basin faucet. I turned on the shower via the sink and it fell, as I reached for it, my leg slipped from under me. Had I drunk all 300ml of the free Georgian wine given to us at the airport, that would’ve been the end of my trip. My friends heard the shower drop and I walked out explaining why I saw my future children that I have not had the pleasure of even planning yet. I braced myself for our first of many conversations with Olek, he explained that these shower rooms are normal and the socket being near the shower was normal too. We opted for the more “expensive room upstairs” (it was £30 total more), and it was what we were used to- well-lit room, two bed stands, a single sofa bed that my cousin and I would share and laugh about daily and a bathroom with a typical shower cabin. After he left, I tried to shower again. The shower spouted water out and over the cubicle onto the toilet seat and corner of the bathroom. I picked it up and the head fell dramatically from the wire. Giggles all around and some Caribbean ingenuity meant that we could fix it until the morning where we would encounter An’bird. As a true Brit, I emailed the problems to our booking site. At 9 am, we reported the latest shower debacle and a real attempt was made to fix it alongside blaming us for breaking things. We thought that would be it as we explored the city. We returned at 7 pm and crossed the ‘gate’, An’bird came out shouting guns-a-blazing. He was disdained by my complaining to the booking agents and didn’t read on to see that I then told them he fixed it. A grown man in his mid-40’s raised his voice to four black women approaching 30. A grown man put his frustrations out onto women new to his country. A young woman (me) had to remind him to say hello and have discourse at the appropriate volume. A young woman had to remind him of respect and decency, said shouting man quickly found his senses and profusely apologised and bribed the women with better breakfasts for the remainder of their trip. *An’bird is a pseudonym