Today is my last day in Georgia. I officially finished my Peace Corps service one week ago. My two years here went by pretty quick. Leaving's weird, not knowing if I'll ever be back. Although there were some not so hot days, I definitely enjoyed my time here and wouldn't trade it for anything.

I uploaded my last batch of pictures from Georgia to my Flickr page. They're from a trip I took up to the mountains of Tusheti, my farewell to Georgia. I couldn't have spent my last days in Georgia in a better place. Ra lamazia tusheti!

Tomorrow I get on a bus for a 26 hour ride to Istanbul where I'll spend one night, then it's off to incredible India. I'm excited.

I know no one is going to believe this, but I've been meaning to update this blog for months now. It's just that whenever I go to the internet cafe there are so many other things higher up my list of priorities that I never have time.

A lot has happened since my last post. After a really cold winter spring came and went and summer is now here. School ended a few weeks ago. I completed a project which allowed for the renovation of two classrooms at my school. None of it's really interesting.

I will officially be done with PC on July 17. I'll be leaving Georgia on July 25. Before that I plan on hiking through the Borjomi National Park with some friends and taking a trip up into the mountains of Tusheti. I'll take a lot of pictures.

After I leave Georgia I'm going to travel through Asia for three months or so. India, Bangladesh and Thailand are definitely on the itinerary, and Nepal is a possibility. I'm extremely excited. I

I uploaded some pictures yesterday to my Flickr account.

I didn't realize I haven't posted since November. I knew it had been a long time, but I had no idea it had been that long.

A lot has happened since my last post. The holidays came and went. In Georgia one gets a double dose, as the Orthodox Christmas and New Year's are later than their Western versions - January 7 and 14, respectively. I, however, was in Turkey from about December 25 until January 7, so I missed the holidays entirely. Missing the holidays isn't as bad as it sounds, since when your family and friends aren't around you don't have much to celebrate.

In Turkey I first visited Cappadocia, birthplace of Georgia's own St. Nino. Cappadocia is in central Turkey and is a semi-desert area with some pretty amazing natural rock formations. It was also home to a sizable Christian population until the 1920s and has a bunch of old cave churches and monasteries.

After Cappadocia I spent a few days in Ankara, birthplace of Joe Strummer (who knew?). Ankara is really nothing special. There are a few good museums, but the city itself is rather uninspiring. One thing definitely not to be missed, though, is the Ataturk Mausoleum. Anyone who's been to Turkey knows that the cult of Ataturk is all pervasive. His image is everywhere. His mausloeum is a grand (that's really the best word to describe it) complex of buildings and grounds with collections of his personal belongings (pyjamas, automobiles, swords, etc.), a War of Liberation (i.e. WWI) museum, a gift shop, and, of course, his tomb. The place is guarded by mean looking Turkish army soldiers standing at attention in dress uniforms, but with locked and loaded magazines. The best (and tackiest) part was the War of Liberation Museum. You're filed into this room with a brass rail on your left. About ten feet beyond the rail is a wall with murals depicting famous battles, all of which Ataturk was the key figure in, of course. Between the wall and the rail are three dimensional mockups of trenches, machine gun emplacements, artillery shell craters, etc. And the entire time a soundtrack is playing on a loop with sounds of explosions, bayonettes clashing, machine gun fire, and men screaming. There are also BIG canvas paintings in gilt frames showing things like Ataturk visiting the wounded and smiling Turkish women in colorful dresses carrying artillery shells to the front. If you only see one thing in Ankara, it should definitely be the Ataturk Mausoleum. For those of you who've been to Georgia, it's like the Stalin Museum in Gori times twenty. And it's free.

After Ankara I spent about a week in Istanbul. Istanbul is nice with a lot to see, but very touristy, even in early January. I can only imagine what it's like during tourist season. The Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia were both nice, of course. The Hagia Sophia is HUGE inside. I arrived on New Year's Eve, but unfortunately all public festivities were canceled due to fears of a PKK attack. I took a lot of pictures in Turkey. You can see them on my Flickr account.

While I was gone, Georgians voted for president on January 5th, with incumbent Mikhail Saakashvili winning over 50% of the vote.

And it's been cold! In early January a storm dumped about a foot of snow on eastern Georgia, and was followed by about two weeks of subzero temperatures. We also got about eight inches the last week of January. This is much different than last winter, when we only received one significant snowfall in Telavi (about four inches) and did not have really any subfreezing weather. In the fall I bought a lot of firewood, much more than I thought I would need, but I've been using a lot more of it than I expected.

A front came through last weekend bringing cold weather with it. It's not frigid, but I set up my petchi (small wood-burning stove) yesterday. My room is small, so it heats easily and gets nice and warm.

In America we think that heating with wood is quaint and romantic, but people do it here out of necessity, because natural gas is too expensive. Using wood is a pain. Getting a fire lit can be difficult, damp wood doesn't want to burn, and you have to clean the ash out regularly. You constantly have to poke at the fire to make sure it's burning well and to make sure the logs are positioned correctly so they don't block the airflow. Sometimes the wind blows into your exhaust pipe and blows the smoke back into your room. And you can't fine tune it. Sometimes you throw another log on too early and next thing you know your room is 85 degrees. Sure, the glow is nice and hearing the wood crackle and pop as it burns is neat, butI'll take radiators and a thermostat over a wood-burning stove any day.

In other news, the BBC is doing a really neat project. They've chartered a boat and are sailing all over Bangladesh for an entire month to see the effect climate change is having on the lives of everyday people in a country seriously at risk from rising sea levels. You can check it out online. They've also opened up a Flickr account and have posted some good pictures. I may still be in Peace Corps, but Georgia is downright luxurious compared to Bangladesh.

Speaking of pictures, I've posted a few. Most are from rtveli, which is the annual grape harvest. The area I live in, Kakheti, is the heart of Georgian wine country, and rtveli is serious business. I went to a town called Kvareli at the foot of the Caucasus with my friend Mauricio to visit his family and got to watch his dad make his wine. It was pretty interesting. You can see my pictures here.

I'm in Tbilisi for my mid-service physical and dental checkup, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to let people know about a podcast started by a few Volunteers here in Georgia. You can check out the homepage at www.sakartvelopodcast.org.

School is set to start (I hope) next week. Most schools started last week, but my school is under renovation and the work isn't done yet. Everyone knew the work was getting done this summer since last year, but for some reason the work didn't begin until late August.

The grape harvest has begun. I was travelling back to Telavi last weekend and in Kakheti (the region in which I live and wine country) the roads were full of dump trucks overflowing with grapes. I didn't get to participate in the harvest last year unfortunately because I had an unusual host-family who didn't do the whole wine thing, but this year I hope to travel to a little town called Kvareli with my friend Mauricio to visit his old host family and help pick and stomp grapes.

The weather is very nice. The heat and humidity of the summer has finally broken. It's about 70 degrees or so during the day and it gets a little chilly at night. I really need to buy some firewood this week, as the price goes up as winter approaches. There's going to be snow on the mountains soon.

That's a bummer. The start of school is just around the corner and I have to buy some wood to heat my apartment this winter. (It was rather depressing seeing people buying wood in JUNE!)

I was quite busy this summer. First my family visited for two weeks, then I had four weeks of Eco Camp, and I just wrapped up a two week vacation in Turkey. It's nice to be busy, but I feel like a need a about a week's rest in my own apartment where I can just read all day. I was away from home the majority of the summer, which is difficult. In the entire month of July I think I spent just four nights in my apartment, and August wasn't that much better.

Turkey was nice, but being Peace Corps Volunteers, my friends and I did it on the cheap. We did 10 days for approximately $500. We did the entire trip by bus, and Turkey's a big country. Our first 36 hours in Turkey were spent in either buses or bus stations, and our trip home was from Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast, to Tbilisi. We left our hostel at 9:30 Tuesday morning and didn't arrive in Tbilisi until 10:00 Wednesday night. It's amazing how you can get used to long trips so quickly. Before the trip I felt like a six hour bus ride was on the verge of being unbearable, but now a ten hour ride is no big deal. (Our ride from Antalya to the Georgian border was 22.) Anyway, we saw the ancient cities of Pergamom and Ephesus, as well as some nice Aegean and Mediterranean beaches. I posted all of my photos on my Flickr page, so check them out.

I think I've posted to this blog twice in the past two weeks, which means I'm good for another four months or so. Check back then.

So I've been very busy sınce my last post. I had four weeks of ECO Camp, whıch kept me quıte busy. It sounds lıke fun, but ıt was four weeks of beıng a babysıtter, sleepıng on the ground, no hot water, and not-so-great food. Clıck here to see my pıctures.

I've now been ın Turkey for about four days. I'm now ın Bodrum, on the southern Aegean. Me and two frıends have already been ın Bergama (Pergamom) and Selchuk (Ephesus). Turkey ıs very nıce, very modern, and VERY tourısty. Ephesus was almost unenjoyable due to the huge amounts of tourısts. It also doesn't help that we're on a Peace Corps budget, ı.e. we're hopıng to do the ENTIRE trıp for under 500 dollars. As a result we're travellıng exclusıvely by bus (Turkey ıs a BIG country), and we spent our fırst 36 hours travellıng. Tomorrow nıght we're goıng to a town called Olympos on the Medıterranean, south of Antalya, and, ıf we have tıme, Cappadocıa. I'm takıng a lot of pıctures and I hope to post them as soon as I get a chance.

Thıs ıs the fırst tıme I've heard azan sınce I left Bangladesh, and ıt's wonderful.

My parents and my brother were here in Georgia with me for two weeks. They just flew out this morning at 4 A.M. I hadn't seen them in a little over a year, so it was really nice to spend some time with them. In addition to a few days in Tbilisi we also visited Kazbegi, Telavi, Batumi, and Gori.

I took a lot of pictures and actually got all of them uploaded today, about 200 in total. Have a look at them on my Flickr page. I got some good pictures from the Truso Gorge, a really remote, mountainous area near Kazbegi, as well as some good pictures from Davit Gareja. I had visited Davit Gareja in November, but the weather was bad and we got there late. As a result, I couldn't climb to the old, uninhabited caves with the ancient frescoes. This time I was able to do so and I took a lot of pictures. I'm going to be pretty busy for the rest of the summer. Hope to post again soon.

Alham dulillah! ('Praise be to Allah!') And summer is definitely here. We've been having beautiful weather lately.

My parents and my brother will be arriving in Georgia tonight at the ungodly hour of 3 A.M. I'm excited. We're going to be visiting some nice places, so I hope to get some good pictures, inshallah. Speaking of pictures, I uploaded a bunch to my Flickr account last week. I think they're all from Kakheti in some villages near Telavi.

I've now been here in Georgia for just over one year. It really hit home last week, as the new group of volunteers arrived. The ambassador had a get-together for all the current and new volunteers at his house in Tbilisi. The new ones were all really well-dressed and well-groomed compared to those of us who've been here for a while. It's funny to think about how much less seriously you take your appearance after you've been here a few months.

And I'd like to call everyone's attention to my friend Van's Flickr page. She's got some good photos of Georgia (I think she may have stol some of mine, too).

Well that's it for now. I'd like to think that I'll write a new post realtively soon, but it'll probably be another two months or so. Until then, Allah hafez.

About a month ago I visited a town called Sighnaghi with my friend Mauricio. Lonely Planet guide book says that Sighnaghi is the one place that should definitely not be missed when travelling through eastern Georgia and says that it has a "distinctly Italienette feel." I've never been to Italy, so I'll just have to take their word for it.

Sighnaghi is perched on a rocky hill overlooking the Alazani Valley. It became a town in the 18th Century when King Erekle II had a defensive wall built around the citadel. Since Sighnaghi never had any real political or strategic value invading armies just left it alone. As a result the wall still exists today. There are 23 towers built into the wall. During time of invasion, each tower was manned by residents from one of the 23 nearby villages.

Unfortunately at the time of our visit the entire town of Sighnaghi was undergoing heavy renovations. It seems that the government sees Sighnaghi being the lynchpin of their plan to increase tourism in eastern Georgia. Everything is under repair. There isn't one bit of paved road anywhere in the town. I saw more men working in Sighnaghi in the two days that I was there than I did in my preceding eight months in Georgia. It was actually pretty amazing.

Sighnaghi is also a draw for PCVs since it has a Mexican restaurant called Pancho Villa. It's obviously not real Mexican, but considering this is Georgia it was really pretty good. The guy who runs it lived in California for a few years and evidently developed a taste for Mexican food. He's even able to get avocados (they're really expensive in Georgia), although at the time of our visit he didn't have any.

The first day we were there the weather was pretty bad, and the unpaved roads made for a lot of mud. The visibility was also quite bad. Luckily, on our second day there the weather was beautiful. We visited the nearby Bodbe Monastery. This is one of the holiest sites in Georgian Orthodoxy, as it is the burial place of St. Nino. St. Nino was from Cappadocia and brought Christianity to Georgia in the 4th Century, when she converted the pagan King Mirian III. She is traditionally shown holding a cross made out of, what else, grape vines. Bodbe was really pretty, and the interior of the chapel has excellent frescoes. Unfortunately pictures are prohibited inside.

I took a lot of pictures in Sighnaghi and just got them all posted to my Flickr account. I also posted a bunch of pictures from a hike that a Telavi Eco Club went on a few weeks ago.

'Victory for Bengal!'

It's been a time since I've updated. There's not much of interest going on here, but in the West Indies the cricket World Cup is taking place. I know no one in the States cares, but in much of the world, and in South Asia in particular, it generates a lot of interest. Bangladesh won their first game, upsetting India by five wickets. This set off big celebarations all over Bangladesh and sparked riots in India. Bangladesh didn't record a single victory in the last World Cup, but it's fairly likely that they'll advance to the tournament's second round, needing only a victory against either Sri Lanka or Bermuda. Wish I was still there.

I got the rest of them up. This batch is better than the last one.

So a friend and I went up tp Kazbegi a few days ago. Kazbegi is a small village about 20 kilometers south of the Russian border. It's about 1750 meters above sealevel. It was quite cold and there wasn't really much to do. No cafes were open. We got in around three o'clock and we couldn't even find a place to buy bread. So the first night our dinner consisted of pretzels, chocolate and beer. We went to bed rather hungry. The next morning the bakery was open, and we were also able to find sausage and eggs, thank god.

The things most people go to Kazbegi for are to see Tsminda Sameba (Holy Trinity) Church and Mt. Kazbek. Mt. Kazbek is an extinct volcano and is just over 5000 meters. It's either the second or third highest mountain in Georgia. The church is from the 14th century and is the highest church in Georgia at 2200 meters. Kazbegi and the church are both so difficult to get to that a few times throughout history important relics and icons from other parts of Georgia were taken there for safekeeping during one of the many invasions Georgia has suffered.

We hiked up to the church on our second day there. It was pretty difficult. There is a road that winds up to the church, but it isn't plowed in winter, so we couldn't take it without skis or snowshoes, neither of which we had. So our only choice was to go basically straight up the side of the hill. Evidently people from the town go up regularly during the winter, and this is the route they use. The downside of this was that the snow on the path was really packed down and slippery. We definitely should have had poles and cleats. The altitude made it tough too. We'd go about twenty yards and then stop and rest for a minute, then continue for another twenty yards, then stop again. It took about three hours to go up. There are monks living at the church and they were kind enough to let us in and look around. One of them had lived in Atlanta and spoke really good English. The church itself was nothing special (I think all Georgian churches basically look the same), but the view from the church was excellent. Luckily we had good weather both days we were there, so it was really clear and we could see a long way. The trip back down was a piece of cake. We were able to slide back down about a third of the way, and as a result it only took us about 45 minutes to get back down. I took a lot of pictures and got a lot of them posted, but I probably won't get them all posted today. I'll get them up as soon as I can.

So I didn't make it up into the mountains like I had hoped to. The day we wanted to leave the road was closed. It opened the next day, but heavy snow was still forecasted and there was the possibility of avalanches. So I've been in Tbilisi for the last week. The pictures are from downtown Tbilisi. I hope to get some more tonight.

That's certainly unusual. The reason is because I got a bunch more pictures uploaded to my Flickr account. Most are from Tbilisi's Old Town, but some are from Christmas Eve in Telavi, when we got some snow. Check 'em out. I'll be up in the mountains for a few days (provided that the pass isn't blocked with snow), so hopefully I'll have some more pictures up soon. Have a happy New Year's. Allah hafez.

The Orthodox Christmas isn't until January 7, so no one is really celebrating here today. It's cold, and it snowed yesterday. I got some good pictures of Telavi in the snow. I'll post them as soon as I can. I'm off to Kazbegi soon, which is a town way up in the mountains. Snow is forecasted, so I hope we can get there okay. After that I'll be in Tbilisi for a few days, including New Years.

There was actually an article in the NY Times travel section about Bangladesh, which I find amazing. Reading it made me a little homesick, in spite of (or perhaps because of) lines like these, "Like gnats on a hot afternoon, clouds of children and grown men swarm around foreigners as they walk down the street, eat at a restaurant or sit down for a haircut," and "Since arriving in Bangladesh, I’d survived a 10-hour game of chicken in a hand-me-down bus, ridden shotgun in rickety rickshaws that tipped over regularly, and pushed through narrow alleys packed three-deep with nervous cows." The article is below.

And it's not only Christmas, but Eid-ul-Azha is the 30th, so Eid Mubarak!

IT was a crisp and gorgeous day, and there were fewer than 100 people on Inani Beach, a wide swath of powdery white sand stretching from horizon to horizon along Bangladesh’s southeastern tip. It is part of a sandy stretch that measures 75 miles tip to tip, and is often called the world’s longest beach, but it felt more like the loneliest.

I was lounging on a rented deck chair for several hours last April on sand as soft and flat as the Bay of Bengal itself, spread out like a freshly paved road. Rows of spindly firs swayed in the salty breeze. And the only interruptions were the young Bangladeshis who would fetch me a lukewarm cola for a small baksheesh, or tip.

There are no Jet Skis, no motorboats and no cars — just the splashing of the bath-warm water. Pedal-powered rickshaws idled on the dirt road. Wooden fishing boats bobbed gently on the dark green water, like pirate ships of yore. It was so quiet, in fact, that wearing headphones would seem somehow rude, even if you were listening to George’s Harrison’s “Bangladesh.”

For a certain generation, that’s how this country is best remembered: for the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh that Harrison and his friends, including the Bengali musician Ravi Shankar, held to raise money for famine relief in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh still rarely makes the news unless there’s a devastating flood,a disease outbreak or political turmoil, as was the case last month when strikes related to next month’s elections paralyzed the country and left at least two dead. (At travel.state.gov/travel, the State Department has cautioned Americans that it “expects the situation throughout Bangladesh to remain uncertain through January.”)

But this impoverished, overpopulated and beleaguered country is quietly drawing tourists. While many if not most of Bangladesh’s visitors come from India, more Westerners are discovering this undeveloped stretch along the eastern edge of the Bay of Bengal as a less traveled and cheaper alternative to Bali and Thailand.

Wedged into northeastern India and along a short border with Myanmar (formerly Burma), this fertile sea-level land straddles the Tropic of Cancer and is intercut by the Ganges, Jamuna and Meghna Rivers on their way to the Bay of Bengal. It has marshy jungles crisscrossed by innumerable streams, wide tracts of unspoiled beaches and the Sundarbans in the southwest, the largest mangrove forest in the world and home of the royal Bengal tiger.

And much of it, refreshingly, is free of tourists. Indeed, the country’s tourist board has adopted the slogan “Visit Bangladesh Before Tourists Come.”

With 147 million people occupying roughly the same area as Iowa, Bangladesh is among the most densely populated nations on earth. It’s also a Muslim nation.. As such, every experience is informed by Islam, from the morning prayers broadcast from tall citadels to the near absence of liquor stores and anything resembling Western night life.

I started my monthlong visit in Dhaka, the swirling and chaotic capital on the Buriganga River. One doesn’t enjoy a casual stroll through Dhaka. A trip to the city’s center means bushwhacking through throngs of garishly decorated rickshaws, buses held together by Bondo putty and taxis that belch and wheeze around the clock.

Dhaka is also not the most pleasant-smelling city; a hint of sewage and humanity always hangs in the hot and sticky air.

I didn’t stay long. Like most travelers, I made my way to Cox’s Bazar, a bustling town on that same long stretch of beach as Inani. The trip from Dhaka was a harrowing 10 hours in a ramshackle former school bus. This was not a peaceful journey: Bangladeshi drivers are not known for staying in their lanes.

But just miles away from frenzied, industrialized Dhaka, the landscape changed dramatically and revealed a verdant, flat land covered by hand-tended rice fields and palm trees hanging lazily in the heat. Tiny ponds, green from algae, dotted the countryside like puddles after a rainstorm. Children bathed and played and waved excitedly at passing buses.

Cox’s Bazar may be a beach town, but in some ways it feels like a big city. With narrow dirty roads that are jam-packed from sunrise to well-past sunset, it is a smaller version of Dhaka — unnerving, unkempt and madcap. But it is also the epicenter of Bangladesh’s tourism, and the favored staging ground for visitors heading out to the pristine white sand beaches and balmy, shark-free waters.

Though the beach stretches for miles to the north and south, most visitors are content to sit on the sands at Cox’s Bazar itself. They’re free, open to the public and so expansive that it’s nearly impossible to feel crowded.

For Westerners trying to blend in, hitting the beach Bangladeshi-style means leaving the bikini at home. Beachgoers dress is if they were going to work. Men are clad in slacks and dress shirts — some even wear ties. Their wives, without exception, wear traditional saris. Even the children are dressed modestly in long pants and button-downs. And no one swims as much as they wade in the warm water, their pant legs and saris hiked up to their knees.

You won’t come across many Westerners, but that may change. Beachfront plots are being snapped up by hoteliers hoping to develop the tropical sandbar into a tourist strip. Several high-end hotels catering to well-heeled foreigners have already opened.

Among the newest is the self-described “four star” Seagull Hotel, a short walk from the aptly named Hotel Road, a couple of miles south of the town’s center. Soaring above the evergreens that line the beach, its mirrored glass and white-concrete facade stands in stark contrast to the town’s modest and dusty red-brick shacks. It looks more like a suburban American office building than a beachfront resort.

The hotel has 182 Holiday Inn-style rooms, a restaurant that serves pizza, a beauty salon, a private walkway to the beach and a big swimming pool, where, on a Monday afternoon, a handful of European men were discussing business. But otherwise, the hotel felt empty.

Still, at $60 a night for a double room with ocean views, there’s no denying its appeal. Moreover, the service is prompt, professional and friendly.

In fact, everywhere you go in Cox’s Bazar (or Bangladesh, for that matter) the people are friendly to a fault. Like gnats on a hot afternoon, clouds of children and grown men swarm around foreigners as they walk down the street, eat at a restaurant or sit down for a haircut. At first, this may come across as aggressive, but you soon realize it is their way of showing hospitality.

I learned this firsthand on a day trip to Moheshkali, an island a few miles offshore from Cox’s Bazar where Burmese refugees live in peaceful accord with Bangladeshis and a Hindu minority, giving this tiny fishing island an unusual air of multiculturalism.

Since this was at the tail end of the dry season, the weather was prone to sudden downpours. So while the sky was clear and the waters smooth when I boarded the ferry that morning, menacing thunderclouds and violent lighting awaited my return a few hours later.

As the ferry — actually, a 10-person powerboat — rocked and rolled across the bay, tossed like an injured duckling in the chop, a young man leaned in and yelled in English: “Hey, American! Are you scared?”

Truth be told, I wasn’t. Since arriving in Bangladesh, I’d survived a 10-hour game of chicken in a hand-me-down bus, ridden shotgun in rickety rickshaws that tipped over regularly, and pushed through narrow alleys packed three-deep with nervous cows. What’s a little seasickness?

But this man wasn’t antagonizing me; he was striking up a conversation. Back on terra firma, the young man, Muhammad, a high school teacher, invited me to a nearby cafe, where we dried off and enjoyed sweet tea and even sweeter pastries.

To repay his kindness, I visited his class the next morning, where I gave an impromptu English lesson. Once again, I was invited to tea, this time by a doe-eyed student eager to learn more about America. I graciously declined; this back-and-forth generosity could have gone on for days — and I wanted to get back to the beach.

VISITOR INFORMATION

GETTING THERE

Several airlines fly to Dhaka from New York City with one stop, among them Emirates, British Airways and Cathay Pacific. A recent Web search for late January found round-trip fares starting around $1,335, on Emirates.

From Los Angeles, Malaysia Airlines was as low as $1,201 for a round trip, but with stops in Taiwan and Kuala Lumpur. Thai, Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines made one-stop flights for several hundred dollars more.

Traveling within Bangladesh is inexpensive. A driver can be hired for 1,500 taka (about $21 at 73 taka to the dollar) a day. The 10-hour bus trip from Dhaka to Cox’s Bazar was 700 taka each way.

United States citizens must present a valid visa upon arrival, which costs $100 and is valid for 90 days from date of entry. But visa requirements can change, so consult the Bangladesh Embassy in Washington (202-244-0183, www.bangladoot.org).

Those who enter Bangladesh by air but plan to leave by land will need a Change of Route permit, issued free by the Immigration and Passport Office (Agargaon Road, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka; 840-2-913-4011). It typically takes two business days.

The Bangladeshi weekend is Friday and Saturday, and banks and many stores are closed. A.T.M.s outside Dhaka are not connected to the international network, and traveler’s checks are very difficult to cash. Bring new, crisp American dollars — due to counterfeiting, many stores accept only “beautiful” bills.

January and February are the best times to visit, when temperatures average 78 degrees and the humidity is low.

WHERE TO STAY

The Seagull Hotel in Cox’s Bazaar (Motel Road; 880-341-62480 or 880-2-832-2973 for Dhaka office; www.seagullhotelbd.com) is among the new upscale resorts catering to Westerners. Deluxe double rooms start at 3,600 taka, including tax, but packages can be even cheaper.

Though somewhat fallen from its glory days, Hotel Shaibal (Motel Road; 880-341-63274; e-mail, bpcho@bangla.net) has a private beach and one of the town’s few legal bars. Air-conditioned rooms start at 2,000 taka in the high season.

When passing through Dhaka, seek out the greener streets and clean sheets at the Jame Prestige Abode (House 97, Road 4, Block B; 880-2-882-9474; e-mail, jame@bijoy.net). This guesthouse has attentive service, air-conditioning, satellite TV and a small refrigerator for $26.

WHERE TO EAT

Bangladesh cuisine is not unlike Indian food — curries, spicy stews, nan-like breads — though with less variation. Bangladeshis eat with their hands, and utensils are not available at most restaurants.

For authentic, inexpensive meals in Cox’s Bazar, try the misnamed Pizza Palace often in English and Bengali) at the corner of Motel and Sea Beach Roads: there’s no pizza on the menu, but the curries are delicious.

For sunset dining, take a 140-taka rickshaw ride out of town to Angel Drop Restaurant (Marine Drive Road, Kalatali New Sea Beach; 880-171-441-416). The snacks are fine, but the scenery is spectacular.

Speedboat ferries to Moheshkali leave all day for about 100 taka; they depart when the boat is full. Ask a rickshaw driver to take you to “the dock,” or just say “Moheshkali.”

Updating this thing is getting to be a pain. In Bangladesh I had my laptop, so I could type up a post at home and then just put it on a flash drive and cut-and-paste it at the internet cafe. But I didn't bring my laptop to Georgia, so I have to type up posts on the fly in the internet cafe. I actually tried to post last week, but there was a problem with the server and it didn't work.

It's gotten cold. The last few days I've woken up and it's been below freezing. I bought an electric heater for my room, but it doesn't work so well (my room is big), and I've just learned that electricity is pretty expensive, so I basically can't afford to use it. But my room gets a lot of sunlight (which helps) and I've been pretty busy, so it hasn't been too bad. But it's pretty tough to get out of my warm bed in the morning.

In my classroom we have a petchi, which is a little wood-burning stove. It works quite well, and after it's been lit for a half hour or so the classroom is pretty comfortable. A petchi is what I wanted for my room at home, but my host ma said that I should get an electric heater instead since petchis are dirty. I thought she knew what she was talking about, so I listened to her. Bad move on my part. My heater was WAY more expensive than a petchi, it doesn't heat nearly as well, and now I'm not sure I can afford to use it because of the cost of electricity. Whatever. I was hot in Bangladesh, I'll be cold here.

Last weekend I visited Davit Gareja, which is a complex of very old monasteries on the border of Azerbaijan. It was beautiful. There are over a dozen monasteries scattered about the site, but we were only able to see the first one, which is dedicated to St. John the Baptist, I believe, and is from the sixth century. The rooms were carved into the side of a cliff. We got there a little late and couldn't see everything, but we did happen to arrive just as a big icon of the Virgin Mary was leaving. This icon is apparently pretty important to Orthodox Christians and is currently touring Georgia on loan from Greece. We got there just as they were about to remove it from this really old cave where it had been on display. Anyway, I got a bunch of pictures of the place which I hope to upload soon. I'll be in Tbilisi this weekend, so maybe I'll get a chance.

I was hoping to go to Azerbaijan for Christmas, but I heard that Baku is pretty expensive and not that neat, so I'm just going to hang around Georgia. But I do hope to make it up to Kazbegi, which is WAY up in the mountains, for a few days. I hope the road is open.

Enjoy this post, because it could be another two months before I update again.

So a Bangladeshi, Mohammad Yunus, recently won the Nobel Peace Prize. I was extremely happy when I heard the news, since seemingly all news coming out of Bangladesh is bad. I think it's great whenever Bangladesh is in the international news for something positive.

But, inevitably, for every one positive story there's always at least two negative ones. Here are the most recent two. It's sad.

Got some more photos uploaded. There are some from my city of Telavi and some from Kutaisi, the second-largest city in Georgia and the city of the Golden Fleece. Click my Flickr link on the right to check them out.

This is Bagrat Temple in Kutaisi. It was built in the 10th century and, despite being in ruins, services are still held here.

This is my street and the gray stucco house on the left is my family's.

This is the square in Telavi. It's the center of town where everyone hangs out. That fountain is brand new. Actually, basically everything in the square is brand new. The asphalt is new, the grass and landscaping is new, the traffic lights are new, and a lot of buildings got new coats of paint.

So school's finally started. My first week is complete. I'm teaching fifth, sixth, eighth, and tenth grades. I co-teach with a Georgian English teacher, which is nice because she keeps them in line.

This first week was a little rocky. First of all, most of the students don't have textbooks yet (and neither do I). That's actually a good thing, since the textbooks generally suck. But I had no idea going in as to what they knew and what they didn't know. Now after a week I've learned that they generally know nothing. Students at my school begin learning English in the second grade, so my tenth graders have been 'learning' English for eight years, and they all struggled with answering the question "What is your name?" Unfortunately I'm not joking. It's going to be a long two years.

In other news, the weather has finally cooled down. After about six consecutive weeks of 90+ degree weather and no rain, autumn weather and a lot of rain rolled in virtually over night. The mountains have snow on them and I imagine will continue to until late spring. They're really pretty.

I'm not really looking forward to winter. It's going to be cold. I'm already down to about one bath a week. Even with hot water, when the air's cold, you don't want to get wet.

Gotta go. I updated my Bangladesh blog.

I got a bunch of pictures uploaded to my Flickr account. Click the link on the right to see them.

Here are a few random ones.

This is the inside of Sameba, the brand new national cathedral in Tbilisi.

This old church was somewhere along the side of the road between Gudauri and Tbilisi.

This is from Gudauri.

This is Borjomi.

It's been a few weeks since I've gotten to a computer. I am now done with training and am all moved in with my new family in Telavi. It consists of a woman in her early 60's named Nelli, her 45 year old son Gogi and his wife Maya, and their two sons, ten year old Vaniko and eight year old Dima. They're all very nice, albeit a little quiet. The PC policy here in Georgia says that I must live with them for at least six months. In Bangladesh the mandatory period was only three months, and that seemed like a long time. But I probably wouldn't want to move out before that, since three months in will bring me to the beginning of winter, which I hear can be kind of rough here. It'll probably be nice to do the first winter with a family who will be responsible for the cooking on and lighting of the petchi (little wood stove).

It's been a little warm for the past month or so. (After experiencing a Bangladeshi summer I just can't bring myself to say that it's hot here). But it hasn't been that humid, so it's been bearable. I don't have a fan in my room, and I've never really had any trouble falling asleep due to the heat. But I think it's started to cool down a little.

Schools starts for me on September 18th. Before that I'll be doing a two-week summer camp at my school. It's not really a camp, more like a mini summer school, but with games and ativities. Hopefully it'll give me a chance to see what my students know and what they don't know. And it'll keep me busy. During training your schedule is set weeks in advance by someone else, and it's full everyday, and then you swear-in and go out to site and there is no schedule. That's nice in that there's no more BS to do, but now you have to find things to keep you busy. That can be a little tough when you're in a new place you don't know much about, surrounded by people you don't really know and who don't speak your language.

I had a few random pictures that I wanted to upload, but I forgot my flash drive. Next time.

I just got an email from Salahuddin, my host-brother from Bangladesh. He's getting married on September 8th and invited me. I'm happy to be here in Georgia, but I have to admit, there are times I wish I was still in Bangladesh.

This is his future wife (fiance doesn't feel like the right word), Sufia Akhter. Her daknam (literally 'call-name') is Kintu, which means 'but.' I guess they didn't have one with her eyes open.

Alham dulillah!

I had the opportunity to visit Telavi, my permanent site, last week. It's built on the side of a hill facing the Caucasus across a very pretty valley. The eastern region of Gerogia (called Kakheti) is much greener than central Georgia, where I'm currently living. Telavi is an old city, but as it is the capital of Georgia's wine country, it's definitely got a decent amount of money flowing into it, especially when compared to Gori. The rumor I heard is that the Germans are pumping money in because they want to start importing Georgian wine. There is a lot of repair work going on, especially on the roads. It's only about one third the size of Gori, but downtown was definitely much more happening. There seemed to be more people out and about and there were more stores and cafes open. Unfortunately I didn't really take any pictures. Here's one I did take from the balcony of my family's house. You really can't see the mountains, but they're there. And they're big. In the right foreground you can see a little bit of my faimily's Bangladesh-esque palm tree.

I will be moving to Telavi permanently on August 18th.

In case anyone cares, I put up two new links on my Bangladesh blog.

So I found out where I'll be spending my next two years. I'll be going to a town called Telavi about 180 kilometers east of Tbilisi. It has a population of about 25,000, is at the foot of the Caucasus, and supposedly has the best wine in all of Georgia. A few of my friends visited Telavi last week and I've heard nothing but good things, so I'm excited.

Last weekend I visited a town in central Georgia called Bakuriani. It was evidently one of the premiere ski resorts in the Soviet Union, but since the fall it's facilities have supposedly deteriorated a little. It's a little town high up in the mountains. Unfortunately it rained, but it was still a nice place to visit. We tried to hike, but the weather stopped us. But that just gave us more of an opportunity to sample Georgian wine. So it worked out fine.

I'm just past the halfway point of training, and it's definitely gotten a little tedious. But there's less than a month left, so it's all downhill from here. The language is still difficult. The verbs are tough because you can look at an infinitive but have no idea how it conjugates. There's no pattern from infinitive to conjugation. You have to have someone tell you.

Not much going on here. Training is monotonous, but it was in Bangladesh too. I'm finally starting to feel a little comfortable with the language. The first couple of weeks when you know nothing it's pretty difficult to learn, but once you learn a little you can start picking things up on your own. I feel like that's where I'm at now.

It rained most of last week, but today the weather is beautiful. My family has started preserving fruit in preparation for winter. Supposedly the diet in winter is pretty spartan. My brother is sitting next to me right now and he's reading as I write, and he tells me that the food is better in winter, contrary to what I've heard up to this point. (But then he's a REALLY picky eater.) In either case, I'll learn in a few months.

Speaking of my brother, I mentioned last week how he likes to bet on sports, and he told me the other day that he has begun betting on baseball. He evidently did some research and learned that Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are in my home state of Pennsylvania, ane he put money on both of them the other day. I felt really bad when he told me that, since they both suck (and they both lost that day). So I told him if he's going to bet baseball, Detroit, the ChiSox, and Boston are who he needs to bet on, and maybe the Mets and Yanks. (And he just told me to write that tonight France will beat Italy in the World Cup final.)

This is the chapel me and some other volunteers hiked to last weekend. Except we went up the steep side.

This is a view of Gori from the top.