2 nights at the Opera - Istanbul, Turkey
5 Stars This place was Amazing visited Dec 13, 2005
After the sad performance of West Side Story (see my earlier post) we were slightly trepidatious at spending another whole 10AUD on two more tickets to the opera, but I have wanted to see a production of Carmen for a long time, so we decided to risk it! I'm very glad we did! Far from the mess of WSS, Carmen was a wonderful production both visually and musically - the costumes were beautiful and colourful, the sets incredibly elaborate, the dancing polished (I think they might have actually rehearsed more than once!) and the singing beautiful. There were a few moments when I thought a little more drama and actual acting would have helped those of us who were having trouble with the turkish subtitles (opera is hard to understand in any language and the non-native french was mostly impossible to decipher) but overall it was a great experience. I don't think I had ever realised just how much famous music there is in Carmen. Hearing it all at once was fantastic. On the strength of that, we bought tickets to Madame Butterfly this week - another famous opera I have often wanted to see. Again a very traditional performance, with elaborate sets (well, set, this time, in the singular) and traditional costumes. Actually very traditional costumes - possibly modelled on original costumes from the 1904 premieres - designed by someone who had had a kimono described to them, but probably had never seen one! Butterfly's dress was something like 1900's dress with japanese features, such as long rectangular sleeves and an obi on the back! Quite pretty, of course! Like 'Carmen' the music was wonderful, though a few moments could have done with a little more drama to help those of us who couldn't understand their turkish-italian diction or the subtitles. I had to stop myself trying to understand the words after a while - both in Carmen and Butterfly, I found myself getting a headache after the first act or so - from trying to decipher singing in one language, subtitles in another and translating what I could into English for Kate! And it wasn't just the multi-lingual aspect that got to me. I suddenly realised at one point that we were australians watching a opera set in japan about an american sung in Italian performed by turks. Argh!

I think I like Eastern European food! - Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria
2 Stars This place was Poor visited Dec 8, 2005
I had to leave Turkey to get a new visa, as my three month one was coming to an end (we've been here three months already, it seems!) and, after much discussion with Kate (Beirut? bad flight times. Lesbos? only one overpriced ferry a week. Cyprus? let's just not even go there) we ended up retracing the path we took to get here three months ago and headed for Bulgaria. We took an overnight sleeper train, and had our own two-bunk cabin with wash basin for the trip! It left from the station that was the terminus of the Orient Express, and I'm not sure they aren't still using the same train carriages. It felt quite luxurious, and not overly expensive (50AUD each way for a 12 hour trip) and, apart from being woken up for the border formalities (you have to get out in the cold for the Turkish part) we pretty much slept comfortably the whole way. Veliko is not the world's most exciting town, despite being billed as the number one highlight in Bulgaria. It was pretty, being situated on a gorge with a hairpin bend in the river at the bottom of it. It has a nice fort that is nearly 1000 years old or so, a few museums we didn't even bother with, and a wonderful restaurant (actually two - they are a chain!) where Kate and I ordered far more wholesome eastern food that we could possible eat all for 20AUD. It was so good that we went to the other branch of the same restaurant the next night to try a few more things. The enormous salads and feta cheese and stewy things were all amazing. We stayed one night there - in a hotel that was billed as the best deal in town, but where the lady who ran it was rude to us pretty much non-stop. We should have left right at the beginning - it certainly isn't the only hotel in town! We hadn't made a reservation, figuring it wasn't necessary in December, and so walked in off the street (it was easier just to walk there than to work out coins or whatever for the public phones). We asked to see the room, which seemed to annoy the woman, and she showed us a cell with two narrow beds, a dubiously beige bathroom and a view of the street. We asked about rooms on the other side of the hall (the ones with a view of the gorge). 'No. Full.' Then we asked about a room with a double bed. 'No double bed'. She grumbled to herself all the way back down to the desk. We should have left then, but it was definitely cheap, and for one night we decided we could handle it. While registering our passport details, she paused to complain about something at great length to a friend who had come in. Neither of us understand Bulgarian, but I am positive she was complaining about us. Her eyes never so much as flickered towards us, but her friend was not so well controlled, and by the way her eyes slid over us occasionally, we could tell we were the topic of the discussion. She spend longer whinging to her friend about us than we had spent in the hotel so far, so goodness knows what she was saying! I even started to think about reclaiming our passports and leaving, but didn't. She was short and unapologetically rude to us the whole time we were there, which thankfully wasn't much. At about 9pm, we were in our hotel room considering an early night, when we heard a commotion outside. There was a parade of what appeared to be morris dancers who had taken a few fashion tips from the KKK, all with what looked like cowbells of various sizes tied around their waists waving flaming torches. Half the town seemed to be following them, and not surprisingly we decided to join them. After putting on our many warm layers, we caught up with them easily (flaming torches and cowbells are not hard to follow) and followed them to a square and monumnet outside a shiny new hotel and casino. We joined the crown watching what looked like morris dancing. Then there were speeches. Then a bit of theatrics, complete with fancy lighting and atmospheric music - a guy in chain mail and a group of women in white robes and veils clutching tealight candles came through the crowd and posed and danced about a bit. Then things got confusing. Some strange little man in a bow tie and cape wearing a great big gold-coloured wreath around his head recited some sort of dramatic poem. It was all highly entertaining, even though we barely understood a word (Bulgaria was mentioned frequently). Then there were fireworks from the top of the hotel. Everyone craned their heads back to watch them explode directly overhead and then were forced to look down to avoid the rain of ash. Then we all spent some time dusting off our clothes. We finally worked out what was going on when a ribbon was stretched across the entrance to the hotel and a large pair of scissors appeared. The ribbon was cut, the people in fancy clothes all went in, and the rest of us rabble dispersed into the night. I wonder if that happens every night in Bulgaria...

Worst Side Story - Istanbul, Turkey
2 Stars This place was Poor visited Nov 23, 2005
We've discovered the opera here! The Ataturk Cultural Centre (the performing arts complex here) has an opera theatre and a program full of famous names, and the most expensive tickets are only AUD10! And it's a quarter of that for the top balcony! Not wanting to splurge that much, or sit up in the gods, we've decided the mid priced 1st balcony is our favourite spot! Tonight we saw West Side Story, figuring that whatever language it was in, we both knew it well enough to follow, if not recite the entire thing ourselves! It was with some excitement that we took our seats in the 'Big Hall' (such an original name for a theatre)and took a moment to appreciate the 70's decor (It's very similar to QPAC in Brisbane - both inside and out) and get freaked by the gold face of Ataturk leaning out of one wall at us (that guy is EVERYwhere). The appreciation started to wain when the orchestra started playing the overture. And then the 'dancers' came on and it wained further. And then they opened their mouths. Oh dear. We didn't leave. It was sort of compelling - in a 'how much worse can it get' sort of way. The dialoge was all in Turkish, but the songs were in English - with Turkish subtitles on an electronic signboard above the stage. For some odd reason they had significantly changed some of the words - even the ideas of the songs, and some of the new lyrics were definitely not written by a native speaker. The oddest part was where they changed the song 'America', which is originally a sort of musical duel between the Puerto Rican men and women, into an all-girl event, with one lone female playing the men's anti-US part. Very odd. Apart from that, the orchestra were sloppy and the dancing all over the place, which is odd cos the performers certainly weren't singers, so they must have been chosen for their dancing. The 3 main characters were definitely singers - Anita in particular was excellent - but the lovers themselves looked more 40 than 14. All in all it was an interesting experience, but we're really hoping that next week's performance of Carmen is a whole lot better!

Underground Cities - Kaymakli, Turkey
4 Stars This place was Great visited Nov 6, 2005
On Sunday morning we took a series of buses and domuses to get to Kaymakli, one of the most popular underground cities. We had been told that it was worth getting a guide as many of the rooms have no sort of explanation of what they were used for (stables, kitchens, living rooms, storage etc), but there weren't any official ones, and neither Kate nor I could stomach entertaining the hustlers that offer themselves as guides at the entrance. We decided to explore on our own, which would have been fine - if we had remembered our torch! We had carefully packed a torch when leaving Istanbul, then managed to leave it in the hotel room the entire time we were away! We did have Kate's little red key light, but that wasn't really enough. Although all the main passages of the city are well lit, there are many passages leading off the main route that invite exploration, but without a torch it's all a bit scary! Luckily we quickly met some other anglophones - an american couple who had bought a torch outside the entrance and were intent on exploring every nook and cranny of the place! The four of us crawled down every tunnel we could find (many passages were too low to allow just bending over) and poked the torch into every corner of every room. Surprisingly, it was quite warm underground, and between that and all the exercise and contortions required, we were soon stripped down to t-shirts and were carrying all the warm clothes that were necessary outside. I thought it odd, as I had heard that it could be quite cold in the underground cities, but I guess the caves are about the same temperature all year around, and it would seem pretty chilly in summer when it's 35 degrees or more outside! After more than an hour underground, we emerged mole-like into the grey sunlight, dusty, hungry, with thigh muscles killing from all the crouching and bending and crawling and hair full of bits of roof-rock from all those times we had failed to crouch and bend enough.

strange and unusual - Goreme, Turkey
4 Stars This place was Great visited Nov 5, 2005
The end of Ramadan meant both Kate and I had a few days off school and uni, so, again after much last minute discussion, we decided to fly to Kapadokya (in English it's spelt 'Capadoccia' for some reason) which is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Turkey (after Istanbul and the beaches that is). Kapadokya is a region right in the middle of Turkey that is famous for its bizarre landscape and cave cities - both above and below ground level. Both of these phenomena are caused by the thick layer of incredibly soft yellow rock that covers the whole region. The ease of carving rooms and passages through this rock has been exploited for millenia and there are whole villages that consist of cave-houses and whole 'cities' dug underground where hundreds, even thousands of people could live for months and months at a time in times of danger. Göreme is the main town in the most interesting area, but we stayed about 2km away in a tiny village called Cavusin. We were the only guests in the little hotel, and the only foreigners in town (apart from the busloads that arrived every morning to see the local cave village and church) and so the evenings were very quiet. It was grey the whole time we were there - and freezing - so staying out after dark (about 4.30pm) wasn'tt too appealing. We had dinner in the hotel (the guy who ran it cooked, just for us!) and spent the evenings drinking apple tea and playing backgammon! During the days we explored what we could of the area. It would have been marvelous to have been there a little earlier in the year when it was warmer and the days were longer, as there are dozens of walking tracks to follow. AS it was we didn't have time to walk more than a short way along any of them. The tracks lead through valleys of bizarre luna landscapes and the almost-ubiquitous Fairy Chimneys (see the photo when I get around to loading it), and often lead through caves and tunnels and other exciting things.

school and.. well.. school - Istanbul, Turkey
4 Stars This place was Great visited Oct 28, 2005
After a few weeks of working 35 or more contact hours a week, my hours have finally dropped to something reasonable, and I might even have time to write more often! I'm now working full weekends - at school from 9 til 7 saturday and sunday, but during the week I only have 3 evening classes - each three hours long, so I practically feel like I'm on holiday during the week. The classes are mostly allright though - each three or 4 hours long and all beginner, elementary or pre-intermediate. I prefer the beginner and elementary classes - it's nice to know exactly what your students know and don't know, pretty much, because you've taught them everything they do know! I've also started turkish lessons, just for fun. My colleague Suzanne and I thought it would be interesting to be on the other side of a beginners immersion language lesson for a change. And of course, turkish might be useful in the next few months. Unfortunately we started with a completely crap teacher, and pretty much failed to learn anything useful for the first week (8 hours) of classes. I don't know where they found this teacher, but she didn't seem to have any discernible teaching skills at all. She arrived over an hour late for our first lesson, and 40 minutes late for the second. On the third she brought a friend who sat next to her at the front of the classroom, and they conversed in turkish occasinally during the lesson. In front of us. The lesson content consisted of random lists of words - apparently whatever came into her head at the time. In the second lesson (that's after about 4 hours of class) she decided to teach us every verb tense that exists in turkish - all the suffixes that is. Of course, she didn't speak any english, so she was explaining entirely in turkish, which of course we didn't understand a word of, and we didn't actually know any verbs to add the suffixes to anyway. Mercifully, that teacher couldn't come at all for the 1st lesson in the second week of our course, so it was taken by the school director - the woman we had arranged to take the course with. And in those 4 hours, we actually learnt to say things! Whole sentences! And questions! We (the three of us in the class) had pretty much determined to ask her for a different teacher that day anyway, so it was a nice surprise. We begged her to continue teaching us, and, by changing the days of our classes, it was possible. It just means I have to go in to Taksim on my 2 days off as well every day that I work. But that's worth it if I'm actually learning something. The course will run about 8 weeks in total, so it won't be forever anyway. I'd better go get ready for today's lesson. I'm sure there was some homework I had to do... Kat

On the second day of Ramadan... - Istanbul, Turkey
3 Stars This place was Average visited Oct 6, 2005
There is some sort of big national festival. The largest Turkish flag I've ever seen has been hung from a building just accross from the school. And there was strange chanting in the streets, and the schools all have a holiday (but apparently no one else) and the usual impressively/oppressively strong police presence in the Istiklal Caddesi has been supplemented by other uniforms. Something to do with independence from something, I'm told. Turkish keyboards irritate me.

The Hammam - Istanbul, Turkey
5 Stars This place was Amazing visited Oct 5, 2005
We finally got there. After weeks of planning to go to the hammam and having to postpone the plan, we finally took ourselves to the Turkish bathhouse. We chose Cemberlitas, an expensive touristy one, as we were told it was probably best at first, just because they are used to silly foreigners who don't know what to do! Next time we'll go to a locals one. It was also strongly recommended to pay for the full treatment the first time around - again so that you know the drill next time! After paying your money, you go into the dressing room, to remove all your clothes and wrap a thin cotton bath sheet (like a sarong) around you before progressing into the bath room - or rather the steam room. It's all entirely segregated, of course, and men and women don't see each other at all after the entrance. The bath themselves consist of one great big room with no actual bath or pool in it at all. In fact, there is are no pools in a turkish bath - only taps and basins and lots and lots of steam. Cemberlitas is a historical hammam - about 500 and something years old, and the steam room is large and round with a domed roof with small stars and circles cut into it so you can lie back and watch the sky. The main feature of the room is an enormous raised marble platform which occupies most of the room. This is, as far as I can work out, the source of the heat. Everyone lies on the platform and soaks up the heat, and it's also where a nearly naked attendant washes and massages you, if you've paid for the full treatment. The wash and massage can get a bit personal, but it is relaxing - and you certainly get exfoliated! It's all done with mountains of sudsy foam that they produce by trapping air in a wet soapy pillow case and squeezing it through the fabric. I wonder if it's the traditional way... After getting washed, you go back to lying around with all the other naked women for an hour or so soaking up the steam and occasionally being dripped on from the ceiling. All in all it was a wonderful experience and I really wish I had more time to go more often. I wouldn't want to go back to the touristy one, but I've heard about one in Besiktas, which is near us, that is the hottest in town! And another not too far from my school that is the largest in town! Both sound worth checking out, and both are a whole lot cheaper than the most touristy one in town!

On the first day of Ramadan my true love sent to me... - Istanbul, Turkey
3 Stars This place was Average visited Oct 5, 2005
an sms asking if I had clothes to wash. But enough of my domesticities... Ramadan has started. For a secular country, this still seems to be having enough effect to disrupt things. Perhaps it won't be so noticeable after the first few days, but my evening classes will be starting a half hour later for the whole month, to allow the students to eat first. I have just been told this - 4 minutes before I was planning to be in class, and they tell me i have an extra half hour. mildly annoying. And we aren't supposed to eat in the streets. And this morning I had to change the planned lesson that was all on buying food in a cafe. I had planned it for just before lunch (that's my sadistic tendencies showing) but found I couldn't do it when most of them hadn't eaten since dawn and wouldn't til sundown. 3 mins at the photocopier, and it turned into a lesson on clothes shopping instead. We are also told we should expect a drummer in the streets at about 3 in the morning - to wake us up in time to eat before sunrise. Just what I need. Haven't these people heard of alarm clocks? More entries await uploading on my computer. If I ever had more than 5 min at home at a time, I would do it! soon, I promise. Although Nathaniel and Carolyn (of all people) arrive tonight, so computer time might not happen much this weekend...

Rejoice with us! - Istanbul, Turkey
5 Stars This place was Amazing visited Sep 30, 2005
We have a house! After two weeks in the hotel looking at flats and rooms in sharehouses that were never suitable, we have found a wonderful place in a suburb called Nisantasi (Nish-AHN-tasher). The area is known for being a fancy shopping place, and rather chic area of Istanbul. Turkish people are all very impressed when we say we've moved in here. One friend instantly asked "near the Armani shop?" which gives you some idea of the type of place it is! Of course, it doesn't look it in our street, but it is a bit nicer than some other areas we've seen. The flat itself is the largest flat we have seen in Turkey so far, with 2 bedrooms, a study, a garden and an enormous living room. It also just happens to have a washing machine, dishwasher, satellite tv, and, more importantly, internet and a wireless hub. We're sharing it with one Australian woman, who just happens to be going back to Australia in early February. She'll be away 3 months, during which time we have the flat to ourselves. Very glad to be out of the hotel and have access to a kitchen and laundry again. It's been a while, and eating in restaurants and handwashing clothes was really getting a bit boring! We had some trouble leaving the hotel though - there was a bit of a dispute over the payment. It's all way to complicated and boring to explain, but there was a little matter of 75YTL (which is just under AU$75) which the school thought we should pay, and we thought was the hotel overcharging us. The confusion was all due to a little discount the school was getting, which the hotel was trying to make us pay. It took more than an hour of stressful arguing before I worked out that if I asked my Director of studies (an English woman who speaks turkish) to explain it to all the turks I was dealing with in turkish, then maybe it would be sorted. And low and behold it was. I think I really need to learn turkish. And properly enough to argue with hotel morons.

First Impressions - Istanbul, Turkey
4 Stars This place was Great visited Sep 15, 2005
First real döner in turkey: disappointing. We were starving and went into the first doorway we saw with a kebab spit out the front. Turned out to be a kebab joint that aspired to restaurant status, complete with red plush seats and leather menu holders. We ordered one overpriced dürüm döner and a drink to share. It was entirely without sauce and dry and horrible. We'll have another asap, from an ordinary street kebab joint this time. Real Turkish Delight: We have found a wondrous shop. They have every sort of turkish delight and halva that you could possibly imagine. We are already regulars, and it's only 24 hours since we found it. I started with plain, vanilla turkish delight. Much chewier than any I've had before, and strongly and deliciously flavoured. Turkish Icecream: I never knew it was different! We bought an icecream each today when in need of a sugar fix. I can honestly say I have never uttered the phrase "I still have icecream stuck in my teeth" before. Turkish icecream is thick and slightly chewy, and very strong in flavour. And the chocolate is a rich dark brown and actually tastes like cold, soft, chewy chocolate! Incredible! The Bazaar Quarter: See, this isn't all about food! We wandered into the bazaar quarter today pretty much by accident, while looking for a post office and internet. At first it was wonderful, although the crush of people and noise and hawkers trying to sell you things by practically pushing them up your nose was slightly worse than in most of the rest of this city. We thought we'd just try to get through to the other side. Bad idea. Several tiny streets and alleys and uphills (there are some serious hills in this town) and millions of people later, my agoraphobia is getting the better of me, and we turn for what I think is the quickest way out along the quietest streets. The variety and quantity and fascinatingness of the things for sale is amazing and fantastic and looks incredible, but I think I will have to be more psychologically prepared before I wander in there again!

Room service... Room Service... - Istanbul, Turkey
4 Stars This place was Great visited Sep 13, 2005
Well, I think I'm in Istanbul. We've just spent two days and nights in a truck, so perhaps after a shower all will be clearer. We arrived last night, and were taken to Kadiköy (one of the major suburbs on the asian side of Istanbul) to our truck driver's company site, given a truck to sleep in for the night, and this morning were dropped off in a place that may or may not be called Saragoza. Our first necessity was money, so we looked for a bankomat, and found this net cafe just near it. As it's only 10am, we thought checking email for the first time since poland might be a good idea. I thought I had better see if my school had been trying to contact me before I contact them today and break the news that I have arrived without giving them any notice! This blog was planned as an up-to-date day by day account of our travels, but lack of internet access and time in the last 2 and a half weeks has made that hard. Over the next few days I'll go back and fill in all the blanks in this blog - we've definitely been having adventures, so there is lots to tell!

Arriving home? - Istanbul, Turkey
3 Stars This place was Average visited Sep 12, 2005
Driving towards Istanbul, I am reading the Salman Rushdie article in the book of travel stories i've been carrying for months. He writes about returning to India after more than 12 years away - after the Satanic Verses brouhaha. It's interesting to read something about going home while driving towards what will be my new home. At least for a while! The European Turkish countryside is noticeably different from Bulgaria and Romania. For a start, the roads improved the moment we crossed the border, and we are travelling on a 6 lane engineered marvel - better than we've seen since Hungary, I should think, and more of it too. The landscape consists of gently rolling hills, but the road doesn't go up and down much - instead there are long viaducts built over the valleys - each with a sign at the beginning to tell you the name of the bridge and exactly how many metres long it is. Without these signs I might not have noticed, as the bridges are no different to the roads, and unless you are looking at the side of the road, you don't notice that the tree tops are suddenly at road height! Another major difference is a lack of people. Instad of the road winding through constant villages, we have nothing but the occasional town huddled on a distant hillside. The fields are huge, obviously worked by machine (unlike Romania) and currently burnt to the colour of dust. The heat and dust haze means the sky is almost the same colour. 30 Km from Istanbul, according to the signs, and it feels like we are on the outskirts of a big city. 25 Km from Istanbul, I see a corpse. The traffic stops all of a sudden, an ambulance races past us on the hard shoulder, and everyone is changing into the far inside lane. When we get to the accident, there is a body lying in an unnatural heap with a few sheets of newspaper over the head and shoulders, and a growing bright red pool of blood seeping out from under it. The ambulance is already there, but the paramedics are just standing around. A few metres further on, an old beaten up truck with what looks like a scrape of red paint on one corner has stopped at the end of a long pair of skid marks. Maybe we won't stand on the side of major roads and wave our thumbs at passing traffic in Istanbul...

Friendly border guards!?! - Istanbul, Turkey
5 Stars This place was Amazing visited Sep 11, 2005
We crossed the Turkish border at about lunchtime today. Borders have been getting more and more complicated lately, and this one needed a map and directions. For some reason we couldn't just stay in the truck and have our passports checked there, but had to walk half a mile through no-man's land to the a gi-normous parking lot with a few little booths in it. There were no signs, so we lined up with everyone else, who seemed to be clutching bits of paper along with their passport, which worried us. When we finally got to the window we were utterly astonished to find a helpful border guard! After barking an initial impatient 'paper?' question at us, he realised we had no idea what we were doing, and came out of his little booth to point us toward the border police booths. Turns out we were lining up to declare our cars or something. Oops. Amazingly, the next border guard was also helpful and friendly. I presented my passport at a booth that had no line (turns out it was for turkish people only, or something). The guy took it, looked up my name, and then used it, nicely, while pointing us to the office where I had to buy my visa. And even that was easy. We returned, en-visa'd, to the next booth (which now had a shorter line than the first) and were shown yet more displays of amiability! My visa was stamped without comment, but Kate's student visa earned her a nod of respect! And then we had to explain that we were walking back the way we came to find our truck, which got more surprised and impressed noises from both the guards (the man from the first booth had come over to chat with his colleague while we were still there). Wonders will never cease.

Two days in the life of a Turkish Truck Driver. - Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria
This place was Amazing visited Sep 10, 2005
Rides: 2 cars and a truck Countries: +1! (even though all we saw of Bulgaria was its Turkish truck stops) Drive 2 hours, stop for tea in a turkish truck stop (even in Bulgaria). Drive two hours, bribe a border guard or 6 - either with chocolate or euros. Lunch in a turkish truck stop. More tea. Drive two hours, drink more tea - yes, again in a turkish truck stop, even in Bulgaria. There seems to be a whole network of truck stops run by turks and catering exclusively to turks spaced a neat 2 hours apart all along what passes for the highway through Bulgaria. Sleep 7 or so hours (outside a turkish truck stop, after drinking copious quantities of tea), repeat. Leaving Bucharest, we caught buses and a tram and a minibus to the edge of town (which took about 2 hours longer than it should due to trams marked on the map no longer existing...), then stood on the side of a road in what seemed to be a small satellite village. Although it wasn't marked, I think we were standing at the local bus stop, and a few other people came and stood about waiting too, including an elderly woman, who did her best to chat to us. My Romanian was better than it had been a week earlier, but still pretty minimal, so it was fun attempting to communicate. She, and another lady who was also waiting, explained that we should take a bus, or a train. And we explained that we prefer to hitch. And they explained there was a bus, and a train. And we explained we wanted to hitch! Random side of the road conversations can be fun! And the old lady explained how she wanted to be as big as me, and that both she and Kate were two skinny, and that her sister was a big woman, but she herself never managed it. Eventually we were picked up by a young stockbroker in a tiny trendy-yellow car. He was off to play paintball about 20km up the road with a friend in the purple convertible that was following. After an in depth discussion of Romanian economy and all the countries he had travelled to on business and holidays, he dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, where another car pulled up to pick us up almost before we had got out of the first one! The second lift was an ancient battered 4WD with sideways bench seats in the back and four grubby, smoking men in it. It was towing a trailer that had in it, among the junk, a couple of live geese. We were squeezed into the back with two of the guys, and were taken to what we were told was the border, which runs through the town of Giurgiu. It didn't look very open - there were fences across the road, and when we we wandered towards a guard he waved us to left. So we tried the left side of the building. Another guard waved us to keep going. There seemed to be nothing to the left but a street with houses along it, so I turned back to the guard in confusion, and he made a big waving gesture as if to say it wasn't close. After studing the passing traffic of buses and trucks, we determined that the buses with "Istanbul" on the front were indeed going left and disappearing around a far corner. So we followed. Around the corner we could at least see the border station they were going to - a kilometre or two away. We had cut a corner in our efforts to see further, so we made our way back to the road, waving our tumbs at the trucks as we got close, and although we weren't exactly expecting them to see us until we were actually on the road, one stopped before we even got there! The truck was driven by Hasan, a middle aged turkish truck driver, who lived in Istanbul, but he and his colleague in the next truck were delivering a load of timber from Germany to the Iraqi border for the US Army, and planned to spend a night in Istanbul on the way. He spoke about 20 words of German, which was useful. Over the next 2 days he looked after us very well: refusing to let us pay for our meals and letting us sleep in his truck alone (at a turkish truck stop somewhere in Bulgaria), while he took the spare bed in his colleague's truck. We hadn't planned to spend a night with them - we had planned to stop in Veliko Tarnovo, but just as I was thinking "it should be close now, we should tell him we want to get off" I saw a sign for the turn off go past. We'd missed it! It wasn't much of a problem, as we'd been debating whether or not to stop, anyway. Kate wanted to get to Istanbul a few days earlier than planned, and we knew that it would be easy to return to Bulgaria from Istanbul. At least, easier than, say, Estonia. There were a few eye-openers on this trip, such as the state of the average truck stop toilet (actually, that wasn't a surprise at all). The fact that there are cleverly placed truck stops run by turks every two hours along the highway, so that the drivers never have to miss their teabreaks. The fact that they ate lentil soup for breakfast. The number of bribes of german chocolate or 5 euro notes it took Hasan to get his truck easily and relatively quickly through the bulgarian border. The fact that a truck driver existed who wouldn't try something inapropriate on Kate! Hasan was the model of decency. Unfortunately, his mate wasn't so good. At one of the stops, Hasan had suggested that one of us travel with his colleague, but we had refused as we always prefer to stick together, of course. Also, the colleague seemed like a bit of a dunce. We felt really bad when the bulgarian police stopped us late on the first night and Hasan had to give him a 10 euro bribe to not fine us for having more people than seatbelts. After that, Kate travelled with the colleague most of the time. As he spoke a few words of russian (about as many as Kate, really) and no german, it seemed to make sense that she went with him, and I stayed with our friend Hasan. Unfortunately, by midday on the second day, he was getting creepy, and holding her hand and that sort of thing. The usual. Somehow I'm exempt from the usual truck driver attentions, but my presence never seemed to stop them trying for Kate. For these reasons, we were very grateful when Hasan offered his truck for our first night. Unfotunately, unlike most trucks, his only had one bunk, and a very narrow one at that. Kate and I did, however, manage to get some sleep while sharing it. We probably would have been more comfortable in our tent, but safer in the truck! Hasan even gave us his keys and told us to lock the doors. Spending two days with a decent and hospitable turk was a great introduction to Turkey. Although he gave us his phone number, we never did contact him afterwards, which I still feel slightly bad about. I think he might have been hoping that we'd sponsor him to come to Australia or something, though, and I didn't really want to get into that. Still, I'm very grateful to him, and hope he doesn't think badly of us for not getting in touch after he looked after us so well!

Erk - Bucharest, Romania
1 Stars This place was Awful visited Sep 10, 2005
Bucharest was a horrible city. WE had been warned that we might not like it, and that we shouldn't plan to spend more than a day or two there, but that hadn't prepared us for the reality of Bucharest. After loving the rest of Romania, and appreciating the countryside and rural scenes and fresh air, Bucharest was a horrible shock. Dirty, dusty, even their big impressive buildings look run down and unimpressive. The so called historical quarter wasn't, and the ginormous "Palace of the People" that Ceausescu (the second and last of their communist era megalomaniacs) bulldozed a 6th of the city to build was hard to get to, hard to find the right entrance to, and they wanted a ridiculously overpriced entry fee to see inside. To improve our impression of the place, our hostel was grotty and felt dodgy, and with reason. We left some things in the fridge while we went sightseeing all day, and they got nicked. Including about half our dinner ingredients, and things that were in a plastic box tied up in a plastic bag (about as secure and "owned" as you can get in a hostel fridge). Luckily some friendly germans helped us out with a couple of ingredients and we were able to make dinner. A few hours after we left the hostel, I discovered my camera was missing. I like my camera, and it's the only one I've got, but the 100 photos on it are all the photos we had of Romania, as we weren't really using kate's camera at all. I was going to download them in that hostel but felt the place wasn't secure enough to display that I was carrying a laptop, and so I didn't want to get it out). So annoyed. Don't bother with Bucharest, just spend all your time in the rest of Romania.

Even worse... - Bucharest, Romania
1 Stars This place was Awful visited Sep 10, 2005
Just to top off our wonderful experience of Bucharest: a few hours after leaving, I happened to be rumaging around in my day pack, and for some reason noticed there was something missing. Namely, my camera. Yes, after years of not having anything much stolen (nothing but a dictaphone and expensive sleeping bag in Italy in 2003 and a travel-sized bottle of sunscreen in Oradea a week before Bucharest) I have had my camera stolen from my day pack in a hostel room. It must have been while we were cooking dinner (with half the ingredients as the rest had been stolen as well), which is, I think the only time it was out of my sight and unlocked. Pretty silly to leave it unlocked, but I had met many of the people in the dorm by then, and they all seemed trustworthy. The camera itself is a loss - I had got quite used to it - but Kate has a digital camera with better resolution, so I'll just have to work out how to use hers properly, and borrow it often. More of a loss are the 100 or so photos that were on the camera. I had noticed the day before that the card was nearly full, but didn't download them to my laptop, because I didn't feel the hostel was secure enough to display the fact that I was travelling with a computer. Those 100 photos were almost all the photos we had of Romania. We hadn't been using Kate's camera at all. There are a few of Oradea, which I will upload when I get around to writing that blog post, but apart from that, I have no photographic record of our time in Romania - the country I think I have enjoyed most this trip. I bet it was the same git who stole our dinner too.

Sighisoara, Romania

3 Stars This place was Average visited Sep 5, 2005
We arrived in Vienna around lunchtime, and were dropped miles from the centre, which isn't a problem, and not in sight of any form of public transport, which was. After walking a mile or three, we found a tram stop, and hopped on the next tram heading to the centre. We had managed to contact Kate's friendBojana, whom she had met in Russia, and after depositing our packs in a locker in West Bahnhof, we managed to meet her, and spend a lovely afternoon wandering about, sitting in a park, and exploring the international food festival that happened to be on (without actually eating any of it, as it was all extremely overpriced). As Bratislava was not far away, and we wanted to have time to spend with Bojana in Vienna, we decided to take a train rather than hitch. It also meant we didn't have to spend a night paying for accomodation in expensive Euroland, but could retreat back to Eastern Europe as quickly as possible!

Well, a campsite outside Cluj, anyway... - Cluj-Napoca, Romania

3 Stars This place was Average visited Sep 4, 2005
We arrived in Vienna around lunchtime, and were dropped miles from the centre, which isn't a problem, and not in sight of any form of public transport, which was. After walking a mile or three, we found a tram stop, and hopped on the next tram heading to the centre. We had managed to contact Kate's friendBojana, whom she had met in Russia, and after depositing our packs in a locker in West Bahnhof, we managed to meet her, and spend a lovely afternoon wandering about, sitting in a park, and exploring the international food festival that happened to be on (without actually eating any of it, as it was all extremely overpriced). As Bratislava was not far away, and we wanted to have time to spend with Bojana in Vienna, we decided to take a train rather than hitch. It also meant we didn't have to spend a night paying for accomodation in expensive Euroland, but could retreat back to Eastern Europe as quickly as possible!

Oradea - Nagy-Varad, Romania
This place was Amazing visited Sep 3, 2005
I have finally worked out what this website calls Oradea! I'm gradually adding photos and more writing to the (recently renamed) "Helsinki to Istanbul" itinerary. I just have Hungary and Romania to write now, and I'm nearly finished uploading photos for it! Unfortunately, these are the only photos of Romania that I have, as my camera was stolen in Bucharest, and I hadn't downloaded the hundred or so photos I had taken. Of all the countries we went on this trip, Romania was probably the most interesting and most beautiful. The loss of the camera was annoying, but the loss of the photos was far worse. I will write more about this later when I fill in the rest of the writing that needs doing. Just as well I have a good memory!

- Budapest, Hungary
4 Stars This place was Great visited Sep 2, 2005
We arrived in Vienna around lunchtime, and were dropped miles from the centre, which isn't a problem, and not in sight of any form of public transport, which was. After walking a mile or three, we found a tram stop, and hopped on the next tram heading to the centre. We had managed to contact Kate's friendBojana, whom she had met in Russia, and after depositing our packs in a locker in West Bahnhof, we managed to meet her, and spend a lovely afternoon wandering about, sitting in a park, and exploring the international food festival that happened to be on (without actually eating any of it, as it was all extremely overpriced). As Bratislava was not far away, and we wanted to have time to spend with Bojana in Vienna, we decided to take a train rather than hitch. It also meant we didn't have to spend a night paying for accomodation in expensive Euroland, but could retreat back to Eastern Europe as quickly as possible!

Untitled - Bratislava, Slovakia
4 Stars This place was Great visited Aug 31, 2005
We arrived in Vienna around lunchtime, and were dropped miles from the centre, which isn't a problem, and not in sight of any form of public transport, which was. After walking a mile or three, we found a tram stop, and hopped on the next tram heading to the centre. We had managed to contact Kate's friendBojana, whom she had met in Russia, and after depositing our packs in a locker in West Bahnhof, we managed to meet her, and spend a lovely afternoon wandering about, sitting in a park, and exploring the international food festival that happened to be on (without actually eating any of it, as it was all extremely overpriced). As Bratislava was not far away, and we wanted to have time to spend with Bojana in Vienna, we decided to take a train rather than hitch. It also meant we didn't have to spend a night paying for accomodation in expensive Euroland, but could retreat back to Eastern Europe as quickly as possible!

An afternoon in Vienna - Vienna, Austria
4 Stars This place was Great visited Aug 29, 2005
We arrived in Vienna around lunchtime, and were dropped miles from the centre, which isn't a problem, and not in sight of any form of public transport, which was. After walking a mile or three, we found a tram stop, and hopped on the next tram heading to the centre. We had managed to contact Kate's friendBojana, whom she had met in Russia, and after depositing our packs in a locker in West Bahnhof, we managed to meet her, and spend a lovely afternoon wandering about, sitting in a park, and exploring the international food festival that happened to be on (without actually eating any of it, as it was all extremely overpriced). As Bratislava was not far away, and we wanted to have time to spend with Bojana in Vienna, we decided to take a train rather than hitch. It also meant we didn't have to spend a night paying for accomodation in expensive Euroland, but could retreat back to Eastern Europe as quickly as possible!

On a mission - Prague, Czech Republic
2 Stars This place was Poor visited Aug 28, 2005
The reason we suddenly decided to take a detour into Prague was a) because Nicola offered to drive us as far as Wroclaw, and, more importantly, b) because Kate's backback, stolen the previous year in Prague, was being kept for her by a friend there. We didn't have any contact details for this friend, but thought we'd have a better chance of tracking him down if we were in the same country. We didn't manage to find him, but we did find a phone number, and leave a message on an answering machine. In retrospect we probably could have done that without going there. We arrived late at night, and the truck dropped us at a tram stop, which was handy. Even at nearly midnight, we managed to get to a campsite by public transport, and didn't get too lost, even with only the sketchy lonely planet map to help. As both of us had been to Prague before, and didn't particularly feel the need to see much, we only spent one day ambling about town and trying to find contact details for Kate's acquaintance, then left late that afternoon. Kate had hitched out of prague the year before (travelling extremely lightly after having everything stolen) and so we went to the same place of the highway she had, only to find it was now all being reconstructed and was impossible to get to. We found a way down to it eventually, and stood at a place that seemed safe enough to stop, and failed to get a lift. We found a few others also trying unsucessfully to get lifts, and decided to walk a bit to find a better spot. After what felt like hours, we tried a petrol station we could see not too far off. We eventually were offered a lift about 5 or 10k down the road, which we accepted gratefully. As we were driving, we noticed lots of hitchers on the highway, and one group seemed to have a white car parked next to them. We were dropped outside another petrol station, and stood on the road to try our luck. We hadn't been there even 10 minutes when a white car came and parked next to us, too. It said "Policie" on it. They told us off for standing on a freeway, which was apparently illegal. We explained we were sorry, but didn't have any other way to leave, and we were trying to leave as fast as we could. They fined us about $30 each (or something) and told us to go to any Czech police station to pay it. And to stop standing on the road. We retreated to the petrol station, figuring we'd just ask someone for a ride there. Turned out to be the least well patronised petrol station in all of europe. We were there about 2 hours, I think, during which time there were about 2 cars. It was getting dark, and I was off scouting tent spots for the night, and admiring the sunset, when a couple came to use the petrol station's car vaccuum. As they were nearly finished I went to beg them for a lift, explaining that we were stranded here, and need to be anywhere else but here. They were nice enough to take us about 30km down the road, to a big road side restaurant. We were only there 5 minutes before we accosted a young guy walking back to his nice car with german plates, and asked for a lift. He was going to Vienna, more or less, and, although we were aiming for Bratislava, we knew they were only an hour or so apart, so it was good enough! And that's how we finally managed to leave the Czech Republic.

a brief visit - Wroclaw, Poland
3 Stars This place was Average visited Aug 27, 2005
We decided at the last minute to head for Prague next, instead of down into Slovakia as originally planned, and Nicola offered us a lift as far as Wroclaw. Wroclaw consists of an enormous, colourful, historical square, (with buildings in the middle, making it more of a ring than a square) and then a modern city built around it. You only have to go about 2 minutes walk from the square to find dull concrete modern buildings. Modern or communist, of course. We only spent a couple of hours here, and then got a lift to one of the highways out of town, having decided to get back to hitching. We stood for hours and hours before finally getting a lift by asking for short distances in a petrol station. A lovely young couple who spoke some english took us right to the Czech border, as they were going to visit relatives nearby (on the Polish side) anyway. We spent most of the last of our zloty on dinner in a road side restaurant, walked through the border, then failed to get a lift, or find anywhere suitable for anyone to stop for us. So we kept walking. It was about a kilometre before there was a good place, and although it was dark by then, we hadn't been there more than a minute when someone stopped for us. A truck driven by a polish man who spoke some german (they all speak some german) took us all the way to Prague. June 2007 EDIT: I have just found this post about the same day that I must have written and lost. So here it is again in different words! Wroclaw As we had suddenly decided to take a flying visit to prague (Kate's long lost bag was supposed to be in the care of a friend there, but we couldn't contact him, but hoped to be able to when we got there), when nicola offered us a lift as far as Wroclaw, we accepted gratefully. It was a pretty town, but funny because you only had to take about 2 steps off the enormous, beautiful, historical main square to find the familiar grey concrete box style of communist architechture. We only stayed a few hours, then nicola drove us to a service station half way out of town, and we spent the next several hours trying to get a lift. Poland is not easy for 2 hitchhikers! We finally begged a ride from a lovely couple who were driving to see one of their parents just near the Czech border, and offered to drive us right to the border point, which was great. There we stopped for a final polish meal before walking through the czech point (sorry, couldn't resist) and discovering there was nothing on the other side. At least, not for a long way. No where even for cars to stop. Or to walk safely. After a kilometre or so (by which time it was completely dark) we found a stopping bay, and were there approximately 30 seconds before a polish truck driver picked us up and drove us right to Prague.

Nicola's place again - Biala, Poland
4 Stars This place was Great visited Aug 26, 2005
While at Nicola's place, we also got the opportunity to sample more polish cuisine, which, like most eastern-european food I've sampled so far, I found fantastic. It's been too long for me to remember the polish names for things now, but the hearty, thick soup served in a hollowed out loaf of bread was definitely a favourite!

Auschwitz & Birkenau - Oswiecim, Poland
4 Stars This place was Great visited Aug 25, 2005
A Day Trip I was sort of in two minds about seeing Auscshwitz. On the one hand, I couldn't have missed it, but on the other, it is part of the sort of gruesome, disaster tourism I'm not particularly in favour of. Still, I'm glad I went. It was a beautiful sunny day, with a bright blue sky, which seemed all wrong once we were there. With that and the green grass that is all over the site, it was all way too cheery for the serious nature of the place. While Auschwitz was interesting, with most of the brick cell blocks turned into museums of different aspects of life in the camp, or related things, it was the sister camp, Birkenau, which is a couple of kilometres away that was most thought-provoking. Birkenau was established after auschwitz to accomodate the huge numbers of prisoners that were being brought in towards the end of the war. It is a huge area of shoddy wooden barracks, most of which look more like barns than anything else. It is cut in half by the railway tracks and platforms that were used for unloading and sorting the prisoners. On either side of the end of the tracks are the remains of two of the enormous, purpose built gas chambers. Although we got here quite late in the afternoon, we spent nearly two hours wandering around. Definitely the 'highlight' - if you can call it that - of the day.

Nicola's place - Biala, Poland
3 Stars This place was Average visited Aug 24, 2005
It was great to see Nicola again, and, as usual, she had a full schedule planned to keep us running around the whole time we were there. The twin towns of Bielsko-Biala both had their highlights, although I have to admit I can't remember which was which! One had an old town square with eccentric architecture, while the other had the kitchest pebble-crete fountain I have ever seen.

Sean's place - Gliwice-Sosnowiec, Poland
3 Stars This place was Average visited Aug 23, 2005
Sean's place was a welcome pit stop. We decided to take a train from Krakow to Gliwice - it wasn't expensive, and hitching in Poland had proved difficult (police are strict about trucks taking more than 1 passenger). Sean met us at the station for the short walk to his flat. We spent two days in his one-room flat, doing little but soaking up internet time. It was wonderful! We managed a half hour walk around the highlights of Gliwice - which is pretty, but quiet, it seems - and went to a few of Sean's favourite eateries. One was a creperie with delicious savoury crepes. Another was a cafeteria type place, where we had an incredibly cheap take-away meal of 'pigeons', giant polish ravioli and traditional tricolor salad (red and white cabbage and carrot). I should probably mention that pigeons are cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and meat, and are very tasty!

Restaurants and walking tours - Krakau, Poland
4 Stars This place was Great visited Aug 22, 2005
Krakow was lovely. The hostel was seriously downmarket, true, but the location was good, more or less accross the road from the old jewish area (Kazimerz) and about a 15 minute walk (or 3 stops on the tram) from the centre of the old city. We hadn't realised this. After reconciling ourselves to at least one night in the tip of a hostel, we decided to treat ourselves to a restaurant meal, and decided to see if the guide book recommended one nearby. There appeared to be one practically across the street, listed as a "jewish style" restaurant, and, incredibly, it appeared to be one we could almost afford. We set out to find it, crossing the drab, ill-lit tram-lined street, we turned a corner down a dark alley, and emerged from the end into an amazing cobbled square, lined with bustling restaurants and beautifully lit by warm yellow street lanterns.The restaurant (Alef's) was winding down for the night (as was the rest of the square - it seems 10pm is a little late to eat out in Poland!) but the waiter kindly agreed to serve us, and we promised to order something that was quick to cook! The restaurant was decorated in a way I want to describe as "homey" complete with giant crocheted doily tablecloths, and dried flowers (or were they plastic? I can't remember now!). There was even a picture of Prince Charles on the wall - along with others I assume were celebrities I didn't recognise - all obviously taken in the restaurant. It was also full of cats. Very homey. While in Krakow we decided to take a walking tour - I did a couple in Berlin and found them really interesting, so seeing the famous jewish quarter of Krakow with someone who actually knew what to look at seemed like a great idea. As it turned out, we were the only people on the tour, so we had our own private tour guide, who showed us around for three or four hours. Krakow was one of the few places in europe that welcomed jews through most of its history, and had an enormous community before the second world war. They had been more or less given their own town (Kazimierz) just outside the city walls, which is, of course, only a ten minute walk from the centre of the old town today. It was once big enough to rival Krakow itself. The tour also took us to Schindler's factory, which hasn't yet been turned into a major museum and tourist attraction, but probably will be soon. We saw what was possibly his office (although our guide said it wasmore likely his secretary's office, but that's close enough). The Jewish Quarter tour was so interesting that we decided to take another walking tour the next day - this time of Nova Huta, the created Soviet suburb on the edge of town. We had the same guide, and again there was only the two of us on the tour, and we got the impression that Lukas (in polish it's pronounces Wukas) was getting a bit sick of us. The tour was nearly an hour shorter than advertised (perhaps we walk faster?) and there were only a couple of sights on it, some of which are interesting. including the completely hand made church paintakingly built during the communist period without any nails and with rocks carried in in buckets by the parishioners. We also spent at least half an hour in a cafe, for no particular reason we could work out. It was a cafe that communist party members used to frequent, apparently. It was all interesting enough, but not exactly what the brochure advertised!

A pretty city, a horrible hostel - Krakau, Poland
4 Stars This place was Great visited Aug 21, 2005
Rides: 1 train Before leaving Warsaw, we rang a hostel or two and found one that was reasonably prices, offered free internet and laundry, and free transport from the train station. Perfect! we thought. The Hostel Cadillac is a student dorm during the year. Poor sudents. In every sense of the word, I think. We were on the top floor which it felt like climbing a small mountain. I never did find a toilet in the place that had a properly attached seat. The showers were communal, which is quite common in hostels, it seems, but they were also unisex. There were plenty of washing machines, but finding the one that worked in the whole hostel was the challenge (they haven't heard of "out of order" signs). The first night i rang another hostel to arrange to move the next day, but by the ext morning we decided that having our own room (no one was ever put in the spare bed in our room) and not having to pack up again and lug our stuff across town made staying worth while.

The kindness of strangers and crazy bus drivers. - Warsaw, Poland
2 Stars This place was Poor visited Aug 18, 2005
Our friend the Lithuanian truck driver dropped us off the next morning about 60km from Warsaw, with some story about not being allowed to go closer because he wasn't a local truck. This was fine, except he once again dumped us in an inconvenient spot - probably annoyed that we had refused to share his bed for the night, and had spent the morning reading instead of entertaining him with conversation! We seemed to be in a small village, and the locals looked at us a little strangely when we got our signs out on the side of their road. We hadn't been there long when a woman came up to us and started chattering in Polish. From the few words I understood (I'm so glad "autobus" is an international word) I gathered there was a direct bus to Warsaw that left from a stop about 1km down the road, and it would cost us 5 zloty (AU$2) or so. We thanked her for the information (I hope) and she continued on her way, or so we thought. 5 mins later we were still on the side of the road, thumbs out discussing if the bus thing was a possibility, considering we had no local currency and the thought of walking a kilometre with our bags and not sure where we were going wasn't overly appealing. The woman returned, and managed somehow to explain to us (only in polish again, gods know how we understood anything) that she had arranged a friend to drive us first to an ATM for money, and then to the bus stop! And the friend turned out to be a travelling chocolate salesman, and after making sure he was leaving us at the right bus stop, he left us with a huge handful of coffee-toffee chocolates! We arrived in Warsaw around 11 or so, exhausted, in desperate need of showers, and without a clue where the bus had left us, although the driver told us in no uncertain tones (no idea what he said, but we got the message) that we had to get out of the bus - I suppose it must have been the end of the line. We miraculously found a bus to take us to the centre of town - a bus with a driver intent on scrambling his passengers. Even the locals were hanging on for dear life as we screeched on two wheels around corners, and he slammed on the breaks for each stop before roaring off again. The poor lady sitting behind me very nearly ended up with both me and my pack in her lap more than once! Not surprisingly under those conditions, I didn't manage to get the map out in time to see the best stop we should get off at for the most convenient hostel in town, and we ended up going one stop too far, but that was ok. Warsaw is not Poland's most beautiful city. We decided to go there for 2 reasons. Firstly, it was a convenient place to stop in between Vilnius and the south of Poland where we are going to visit sean. Secondly, Kate's student visa for Turkey had been sent there, so our main mission was to find the embassy and pick that up. We did also get to do some sight seeing. Warsaw was flattened during WWII, but in the last 15 years or so they have meticulously rebuilt the old town from scratch, so that is looks identical to its prewar state. It's all a bit odd. After a wander around the "old" town, with frequent rest stops, we realised that the thing we most wanted to do was find a supermarket for dinner ingredients, and collapse in the hostel. So we did. The supermarket was in the shadow of the Soviet built "Palace of Science and Culture" which just happens to be Poland's tallest building. With the visa mission successful (despite a slight difficulty in trying to find a currency exchange place when we discovered that the only acceptable currency to pay for said visa was american dollars...) we felt quite happy that we had seen the little that Warsaw had to offer, and caught a train to Krakow Yes! A Train! Shock! Horror! But we've decided to skip the hitching until out of Poland where it's just too hard with 2 people. And the trains are pretty cheap, so we'll survive!

Well, somewhere near Bialystok, anyway - Bialystok, Poland
1 Stars This place was Awful visited Aug 17, 2005
The petrol station turned out to be a bad spot. It was on a sort of ring road, and everyone was going the wrong way for us. We were there 2 hours or so before a polish truck driver liked our "PL" sign and stopped, but said he could only take us to the border for some reason. We couldn't communicate so well with this one - my polish is pretty minimal, and the phrase book very inconsiderately doesn't have phrases like "Where do you plan to stop for the night?" and "Can we go with you all the way to Warsaw?". Still, the border was several hours closer to Warsaw, so we thought ourselves lucky and settled in. Just after the border, we were unceremoniously dumped next to 3 other hitch hikers. We should have realised something was wrong, but continued to wave a thumb at passing trucks. One of them even stopped, but then wouldn't let two of us go with him. It seems there is a pretty strict rule about trucks only having one passenger in Poland, which makes it very difficult to hitch hike with 2 people. 2 hours later, we were still on the side of the road. We had walked a kilometre or two away from the border, and were again assessing the local area for possibly tent sites, when a truck finally pulled up next to us. It was our friend of the morning - very smug about having caught up to us, despite spending 3 hours in Kaunas. He again offered to take us to Warsaw in the morning, providing we didn't mind stopping for the night. At this point, any lift away from the border was a good thing! 4 or so hours later, we stopped in a large truck pen - a fenced off area that was little more than a car park and toilet block. We declined to share the second bunk inside the truck - or as he suggested, he and Kate share one bunk and I have the other one - and took our bags and tent and found a discreet spot behind some trees in the vacant field next to the truck park. Glad we have a green tent! We had to be back at the truck by 7am, which is obscenely early, but did mean we were treated to a lovely dewy almost-sunrise over the dandelion field!

Our friend the Lithuanian truck driver dropped us off the next morning about 60km from Warsaw, with some story about not being allowed to go closer because he wasn't a local truck. This was fine, except he once again dumped us in an inconvenient spot - probably annoyed that we had refused to share his bed for the night, and had spent the morning reading instead of entertaining him with conversation! We seemed to be in a small village, and the locals looked at us a little strangely when we got our signs out on the side of their road. We hadn't been there long when a woman came up to us and started chattering in Polish. From the few words I understood (I'm so glad "autobus" is an international word) I gathered there was a direct bus to Warsaw that left from a stop about 1km down the road, and it would cost us 5 zloty (AU$2) or so. We thanked her for the information (I hope) and she continued on her way, or so we thought. 5 mins later we were still on the side of the road, thumbs out discussing if the bus thing was a possibility, considering we had no local currency and the thought of walking a kilometre with our bags and not sure where we were going wasn't overly appealing. The woman returned, and managed somehow to explain to us (only in polish again, gods know how we understood anything) that she had arranged a friend to drive us first to an ATM for money, and then to the bus stop! And the friend turned out to be a travelling chocolate salesman, and after making sure he was leaving us at the right bus stop, he left us with a huge handful of coffee-toffee chocolates! We arrived in Warsaw around 11 or so, exhausted, in desperate need of showers, and without a clue where the bus had left us, although the driver told us in no uncertain tones (no idea what he said, but we got the message) that we had to get out of the bus - I suppose it must have been the end of the line. We miraculously found a bus to take us to the centre of town - a bus with a driver intent on scrambling his passengers. Even the locals were hanging on for dear life as we screeched on two wheels around corners, and he slammed on the breaks for each stop before roaring off again. The poor lady sitting behind me very nearly ended up with both me and my pack in her lap more than once! Not surprisingly under those conditions, I didn't manage to get the map out in time to see the best stop we should get off at for the most convenient hostel in town, and we ended up going one stop too far, but that was ok. Warsaw is not Poland's most beautiful city. We decided to go there for 2 reasons. Firstly, it was a convenient place to stop in between Vilnius and the south of Poland where we are going to visit sean. Secondly, Kate's student visa for Turkey had been sent there, so our main mission was to find the embassy and pick that up. We did also get to do some sight seeing. Warsaw was flattened during WWII, but in the last 15 years or so they have meticulously rebuilt the old town from scratch, so that is looks identical to its prewar state. It's all a bit odd. After a wander around the "old" town, with frequent rest stops, we realised that the thing we most wanted to do was find a supermarket for dinner ingredients, and collapse in the hostel. So we did. The supermarket was in the shadow of the Soviet built "Palace of Science and Culture" which just happens to be Poland's tallest building. With the visa mission successful (despite a slight difficulty in trying to find a currency exchange place when we discovered that the only acceptable currency to pay for said visa was american dollars...) we felt quite happy that we had seen the little that Warsaw had to offer, and caught a train to Krakow Yes! A Train! Shock! Horror! But we've decided to skip the hitching until out of Poland where it's just too hard with 2 people. And the trains are pretty cheap, so we'll survive!

Scene: A Petrol Station, somewhere on the outskirts of town... - Kaunas, Lithuania
1 Stars This place was Awful visited Aug 16, 2005
Rides: One truck Weather: Hot and Sunny. Sort of too hot and sunny, really. Not that I'm complaining of course... We knew we had found the right spot on the road out of Vilnius when we came across two other hitch hikers waiting on the side of the road. And then another girl came and stood in front of us, and of course got a lift in no time flat. An hour later we were still standing there, waving our signs at the traffic. By now we have signs that say "5km?" and the PL in the oval (the polish car sticker) and of course, the one that says "Istanbul", which tends to make people throw up their hands in horror at us! When someone did stop, it was a lovely brand new air conditioned truck, with a driver who really wanted to know if we were English. So suddenly I was. Luckily we could communicate quite well in a sort of pidgin German - his german was worse than mine! And it was littered with words from other languages like french and english, but that was ok too. He was just setting off on a long trip to England, and, once we convinced him we really didn't want to go to England, he said could take us all the way to Warsaw. But only if we waited 3 hours in the next town while he loaded, and then stayed overnight with him, as he wouldn't get to Warsaw til the next morning. The next hour or so was spent accompanying him while he did all sort of things necessary at the start of a long trip. He filled up on diesel (900 litres takes a long time when you go to a normal petrol station designed for cars...) and then waited for his wife to come to fill up her car with a siphon hose while we hid so she wouldn't see us. For various reasons, we decided not to go all the way to warsaw with him. For a start we had hopes of getting there by the evening, rather than the next morning. And of course, we weren't really interested in the dodgy dodgy lithuanian girly magazine he wanted to show us. Printed in black and white, or rather, blue and white. He dropped us off in what turned out to be an inconvenient spot in Kaunas (the fasted roads from Vilnius to Warsaw involve going in the wrong direction first) dissappointed that we wouldn't accompany him further!

Made it, just. - Vilnius, Lithuania
4 Stars This place was Great visited Aug 15, 2005
Country count: 36+1+half Another car and a truck later, we found ourselves at dusk on the side of a beautiful new freeway in the middle of the north of Lithuania, waving our thumbs at passing cars while admiring the sunset and assessing the local area for possible places to discreetly put up a tent for the night. We weren't really expecting another lift, but while standing on the side of the road, you may as well put a thumb out! We were in luck. A Lexus pulled up, and a young man with excellent english offered to take us all the way to Vilnius. Turns out he was a professor in law at the local university, spoke English, Russian, Italian, French and Lithuanian, was well travelled and provided fascinating conversation all the way to Vilnius. When he heard we hadn't booked a hostel yet, he asked us to stay in his enormous flat (we had a choice of rooms) and to show us around Vilnius the next morning. He had a red baseball cap that said in large white letters "I *heart* JESUS". So it seems he was a Jesus freak, or rather, Jesus Geek, but apart from the hat - and the religious art around his house - it didn't show too much! Having our own personal tour guide and chauffeur was a great introduction to the city. The next morning he rang the hostels we had mentioned we were going to try, arranged us two dorm beds, and drove us there. Then he drove us to the centre, through his university, pointed out some sights, and took us to the main cathedral square and the KGB prison museum, before having a light lunch in a cafe on the main street and then leaving us to finish exploring the town on our own. It was lovely. I've added a half to my country count, becuase while in Vilnius we visited the Republic of Uzupio, a small artists' enclave in Vilnius that has declared independence. Not that anyone has noticed, I don't think. But they think they are their own autonomous country, and even have a constitution that includes such things as "Everyone has the right to love and take care of the cat". It was a cute place. Next: Poland

The people you meet. - Riga, Latvia
3 Stars This place was Average visited Aug 14, 2005
Country Count: 35+1 Rides: Parnu to Riga: One motorhome all the way to the centre of Riga. Weather - Sun! We've had sun! At last! You meet strange people on the road. While we were standing on the road outside Parnu waving our "RIGA" sign at passing traffic, an older gentleman with long white hair came up to us, asked us where we were going, gave us a photocopy of an article about himself from a German newspaper, and then stood 15 metres behind us with a large "BERLIN" sign. We all ended up getting a lift in the same motorhome, and spent the next 2 or 3 hours discovering that we had the privelege of meeting Germany's most famous hitch hiker. He has been travelling by thumb, mostly within Germany, for the last 6 years, and has kept meticulous records of rides, people and distances. He has travelling the same distance in the time as 8 times around the world. He had some hitching advice. Amusing signs are apparently a good way to get a ride. So, somewhere between Riga and Vilnius we created a sign that says "ISTANBUL" which at least gets us noticed! After a day wandering around the old town of Riga (not as old or as contained as Tallinn, but nice all the same, and with one of the least elegant tallest church towers I have ever seen) we caught a bus to the edge of town, and tried for a ride to Vilnius. After nearly 2 hours standing on the side of the highway, we decided to ask in a petrol station, and the very first person we asked gave us a ride far enough down the highway to at least get properly out of town, and it wasn't so hard from there!

Pärnu - Pernava, Estonia
3 Stars This place was Average visited Aug 12, 2005
Not sure why this blog insists that Pärnu is Pernava, but at least the spot on the map is right! Rides: 2 cars and a truck Weather: after more days of mostly rain, we finally saw some sun today! And my shoes are dry for the first time in days! Finally properly on the road. We had been standing 20m from the last bus stop along the road to Pärnu for approximately 30 seconds when our first ride picked us up. And took us about 20km down the road. To an inconvenient spot. A short walk through a long downpour later, and we got another ride for another 20km or so. Then we waited an hour before a polish truck driver picked us up and took us all the way to the outskirts of Parnu. We had hoped for some sun, or at least, lack of rain, in the supposedly sunny beach-holiday destination or Parnu, but all we got was more unsettled rain, then sun. At least we managed to pack the tent up after a dry hour, so it wasn't completely soggy! Pärnu is a small town, full of the wooden houses typical of this part of the world. The beach, which we were on for about 5 mins, seemed allright, although the water was about the same colour as the sand, which disturbed me a bit. And the sky was absolutely full of parasurfer sails - it's a pretty effect on mass! On to Riga next.

The Story so Far... - Tallinn, Estonia
This place was Great visited Aug 9, 2005
Weather: raining, no wait, sunny! no... raining, no, it's sunny! I think they call this unsettled? I emailed this to a friend, then realised it would make a good entry, so thanks to the miracle of cut&paste, here is a summary of my first 3 days on the road: _____________ We're in Tallinn now - I arrived in Helsinki on monday evening after 25 hours travelling (it usually takes that long to cross the world, but to cross europe, it seemed a little much), spent 24 hours there, and have spent the last 2 nights in Tallinn. We're still in Tallinn, but have moved from our pleasant but overpriced hostel to a much less pleasant but still overpriced camping ground 10 mins out of the city. It hasn't stopped raining for more than an hour or so since I left the UK. And it's freezing. I'm hoping I will start having fun soon. _______________ We are having fun. Really. Tallinn is really pretty in the centre - but after a day there I really felt I wanted to get out and see something outside the heritage listed medieval Old Town. It was beginning to feel a bit like Disneyland - full of tourists and souvenir shops. Very nice though. But it was good to get out and see where the real people live!

And So it starts - Helsinki, Finland

Rides: 1 plane, 1 bus, 1 ferry Country count: 33+2! Today I have been in three different countries. I started in England - a night on the floor of Stansted airport to prepare me for the trials and privations of budget travelling to come, and then a way-too-early flight to Tallinn, Estonia, where I caught the first ferry I could to Helsinki in Finland. Kate met me at the ferry terminal, and took me to the hostel, where I promptly collapsed from exhaustion. I think this travelling thing will take a few days to get used to! And so it's begun. Our mad plan to travel from Helsinki to Istanbul, hitch-hiking and camping our way through at least 11 countries in 6 weeks. The route goes pretty much straight south from Helsinki, but as we don't have visas for the seriously eastern countries like Belarus and Ukraine, we have to stay a bit west - in Slovakia and Hungary. We will try to get a Ukrainian visa though, at some point on the way. Photos 1&2: After years of playing and singing "Finlandia" it was good to see the monument to the composer Sibelius. This is one of Helsinki's main tourist attractions, and in the half hour we were there, several bus tours turned up to take the required photo - usually from a distance and missing the best view - the one from underneath it! Photo 3: While wandering around Helsinki, we came across some completely inexplicable random statues. And one was a moose. Actually, two were mooses, but this was the best on. Perhaps if we could read Finnish, they would have been explicable, as there were some captions on some of them.