We were all rather impressed with the “Drujba Line” ferry. Expecting the worst we packed much food, water and coffee to last but we couldn’t have been more wrong. We had a 4 bed ensuite cabin to ourselves and whilst not exactly roomy it was clean and the beds and towels provided were excellent! Having our cabin, the dining room and a small outdoor deck area to explore for the next few days we headed straight to the deck to watch ourselves sail away from Burgas. Only we didn’t. Turns out we were not the only non-truck drivers and we met 2 Slovakian couples on motorbikes, a pair of Swiss girls who were foot passengers, Enrico the Italian on his motorbike and Lars the German/South African in his massive German ex-army truck. It was great meeting other travellers doing similar things to us and we all ended up chatting and eating together over the next few days. Turns out though that despite boarding the ship at around 4pm (the poor Swiss girls had boarded at 8am!) the ship was not going to leave until midnight. Or maybe the next morning. Who knows. Turns out we set sail around 5am the following day as we awoke in our cabins to the gentle swish of the waves.
We hadn’t met anybody previous to us who had done this crossing and online info was sketchy. Even the Go Help charity seemed to think it was a strange idea to board a cargo ship for 3 days however we would highly recommend it! First the food which was included was a great standard and so much of it!! From salad, fruit, steak, eggs, sausages – the ship had it all! We came off the ship a few days later notably heavier.
So what did we do on board to occupy ourselves? It went fairly quickly between reading, chatting with the other travellers and interacting with our Armenian, Bulgarian, Georgian and Azeri drivers. The Georgians in particular were an amazingly friendly bunch who found it hilarious when we tried to learn some key Georgian phrases. After some hours of chatting with hand signals and mining we ended up with a page long list Georgian food we must try, 3 truck drivers phone numbers in case we had any issues in Georgia and a map of their amazing country! Such a nice bunch. Even if they did drink a litre of vodka and start singing at 5am and then polish off another litre over breakfast.
Apart from that it was plane sailing (get it?) with the exception of a time misunderstanding and a late arrival at dinner. Receptionist lady was none too pleased!
The day of arrival into Georgia was soon upon us and we were told in the Sunday night to clear our things and be ready and waiting in the dining hall by 9am the following morning (“don’t be late again!”)
The process of passing through Georgian immigration cannot be described at a tough one. It did take approximately 5 hours from us being passport checked by police on the ship to us hitting the highway towards Tbilisi but this was not due to immigration. Rather it was because our van was on the very bottom deck of the ship and we had to wait 4 hours for all the trucks to come off first!! We were in good company as Lars the German was parked next to us and was in the same position. After finally getting access to Stan again we headed for customs which essentially was an officer looking half heartedly in the back of the van and telling us to leave. We then had to purchase vehicle insurance from the nearest bank and then we were on our way! Next stop Tbilisi!
Team Yes We Khan 