Roland's Diary Page
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Roland's Diary Page |
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DISCLAIMER: It is understood that this page is read by various family members nottomention one valued referee of the author therefore it should be understood than anything that gives the impression of an other-than-completely mature, intelligent and well-behaved member of society should be ignored and is almost certainly untrue. French friends should not be offended by disclaimers of other such pages and although it may appear the author associates with such prejudiced friends he hastens to add that he despises them and laughs at their jokes only out of sympathy.
Contents (in reverse
chronological order)
Rather smelly in Paris, 23 Feb
Quite enough snow now, Zagreb, 18 Jan
Apology to Belgians! 4 Jan 2001
Prague (Czech Republic), 30 Sept
| (photos coming) |
Waking up in my bunk to find French fields flying by, a fresh baguette and jam on the table and the realisation that we'd finally done it and the holiday had begun. |
| Stealing apples from a field near Colditz castle and returning to the bus through autumnal woods as it got dark to stew them. | |
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Starting Clara at the third attempt when parked at 1000m in the Fagaras mountains (Romania) after it snowed heavily overnight and we woke to find icicles in the bus. It was a scary decent on snowy windy roads through the most stunning countryside Transylvania has to offer in its finest autumn colours. At the bottom we warmed up at a posh roadside restaurant with sold us a huge breakfast for about 90p. The cold mornings. |
| Horseriding near Kekscemet (Great Plain, Hungary). Mark and I met Laslo on a cold morning at his farm after waking to find mice in the bus. Laslo insisted we start the day with shots of Palinka Sliva (plum brandy). Proffy, the horse, misbehaved for half an hour of his time then gave up completely and did whatever he felt like. Laslo insisted on more Palinka and we shot arrows at bottles with him for the rest of the morning. He disappeared the next day. | |
| Plovdiv, Bulgaria: Very cheap food and clothes; we met the French Lesbians there and we walked up to a mountain monestary with them. Dunc and I continued to 1400m. | |
| Writing letters at night by candle-light, parked in the middle of nowhere. | |
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Gendarmes stomping mud all over the bus and arguing with us that we surely must smoke Cannabis and where is it and the finding a large bag of white powder and thinking they'd hit the jackpot. Plus all the many other amusing occasions with the local law. |
| Driving into the misty mountains towards the Czech Republic border in S.E. Germany looking out for the two local roadside specialties: gnomes and hookers. | |
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Swimming in the Black Sea in November (and surviving). |
| Driving Clara from Carlisle to Wigan on a clear friday evening, watching the sun set over the Lake District. The day we bought the bus. | |
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Cycling down a 30km gorge to Leonido in Greece while Mark, Dunc and Sophie followed in the bus. |
| Traversing the outside of Dubrovnik's famous walls over the clearest blue sea in the Med. (Croatia) | |
| Harvest festival at Litomeritce, Czech Republic. | |
| The no. 1 boat bus ride along the Grand Canal,Venice. | |
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Christmas eve and day on the beach in the Pelloponese, Greece. |
poooooooooooooey!
Boy we really reek this time. Not had a hot shower since pompei! not funny really. Well this is the last continental stop on our Grand tour (though we expect to put more stuff on this site yet so keep on coming!). We plan to large it up bus-stylee one more time for Marks birthday tonight, though not before three long-awaited showers at our good friend Louise's place (poor, poor girl has no idea whats about to hit her new abode).
It's all particulrly exiting for me right now as Ive been pondering moving to live in Paris myself. Wonder if anyone would employ me here...
All is set in Leeds for the biggest party of the centuary and well be down "Le Ale Shop" in due course.
Long way from my last entry, we're now in the land of Mario, Luigi and their superb driving skills. Can't believe it but Stavros has competition. The streets of Naples are crammed with cars and mopeds all with a homocidal deathwith. We finally found a place to spend the night in the port. To my suprise it's a busy, dity place Naples, but it's got heaps of character and if this is Italy then I think I'm going to like it.
Found our way to this internet cafe thanks to Duncan's conversation with a local bobby - Dunc's stunning Italian skills are verging on the schizophrenic. Seriously though, the old language barrier has presented itself once again as a larger and less penetratable obsticle than that at the port customs when we arrived. Mark alone is tackling the intricacies and I believe is currently looking for an ice-cream.
Looks like the weekend is in Rome and then Florence by then end of next week. For those for you who haven't, go see the new photos mark has put up but clicking on the link on the main page. Also, we've added a page of our favourite places in Europe, also found by following the link on the main page.
In Sarajevo there are holes in the pavement, made by shells from the war of the last decade. Some of these have been filled with red rubber to make a pretty red scattered flower, which is called the Sarajevo Rose.
We took a public bus here from Split. On the way we passed a countryside thickly covered in snow. Many of the buildings we saw either had big holes in them or had been recently patched up. There is a constant UN-SFOR military presence everywhere and we saw one minesweeper near the road the bus was on.
Most of the buildings here in the capital are scattered with bullet holes. There are many tower blocks still completely uninhabitable from the war. The windowframes are blown to pieces and all you can see inside is the charred remants of what was ten year's ago someone's home. You can see where a machine-gunner has concentrated his fire on one spot on the second floor, below someone's window, until they've shot right into the person's living room.
This morning I walked along the main road to the airport, nick-named "Sniper Alley", because during the war, anyone who set a foot out of doors would be picked off by the snipers on the hills on either side of the city. I walked past the Holiday Inn, where the press held out in the years of siege.
Despite all this, the capital is clearly recovering. There are new shiny buildings springing up alongside the ruins of old. The town centre is ready for tourism and in the pedestrianised bazars you can almost forget the tradgedy around you. These Turk-influenced areas give a nice oriental touch to the European town.
The city sits in beautiful surroundings of tall mountains, sprinkled with small houses whose lights twinkle romantically at night. I'd say that in ten years time, this is going to be a very popular tourism city.
Very soon we'll be in Dubrovnik, then on a ferry to Italy. On Sat 2 March we intend to hold a party in Leeds to celebrate all the beer we brought from France.
Finally, go and look at the new photos Mark has added to the photos page. I believe he's put dates by them so you know which ones are new.
Right I'm running out of Convertable Marks, must dash.
Arrived in Croatia after a steep green card bill, but really glad to be here. Its still damn cold in Zagreb but soon well reach the Dalmatian coast where LP says the temp doesnt drop below 10 deg. I hope so as my boots have been wet for a week now. When your boots get wet they freeze over night. Its amusing opening a bottle of water and watching it freeze before your eyes for the first couple of times. Then you run out of water. Also funny when the milk freezes on your spoon. Ha ha.
Slovenia was a wonderful country and curiously similar to wales in size, population (twice that of Leeds) and beatiful countryside. Theres little traffic and good roads, such a relief after noisy, nasty, dirty Athens. The capital Ljubljana was about the size of Coventry or even Norwich. And very nice.
Croatia looks like a busier country and the roads so far have been chocker, like Athens. However weve barely started...
We sadly can only spend a fortnight here and so will take the ferry from Split/Dubrovnik to Ancona, Italy on around the 1 Feb.
Well we got the ferry to Venice which took said 32 hours and all went smoothly. We had a day paddling the canals of venice which was very nice indeed but enough thankyou and bit expensive. After a night in dodgy docklands we fired up the lady Clara and drove to Slovenia, stopping in the beautiful Trieste for lunch.
Unlike the sunny but cool air of Northern Italy, we enterred sunny but very cold Slovenian climes, soon to become not even sunny, but not until we were well inside the borders. No probs to us though and after a tour of a fantastic cave and underground river with massive icicles hanging off the bats we drove to a town where we parked next to a frozen river!
This was much fun and we walked and skated about falling regularly on our arses especially Duncan who only learnt to walk on his twelfth birthday.
Clara is starting fine in the continually sub-zero temperatures and now we have replensihed our tea stocks (thanks to the fair maiden Sophie) I also am starting okay in the mornings. It does help that we bought Clara a new battery for christmas which for those of you will little mechanical knowledge is like some of Twinning's finest and a bowl of readybreak.
Richard is apperently back in the UK and may even be at this moment trying to track us down to fly out. We expect him soon (to share the bill) but good luck as we dissappear into the un-emailed but beautiful countryside of Slovenia.
This means I may not be in touch for a while. After Slovenia we hope to buy motor insurance for Croatia and take two weeks to get a taste of that intriguing country. Apparently the Dalmatian coast doesn't fall below 10above which would be nice.
If this all goes well we'll be ferrying from Dubrovnik or Split to Ancona around the end of January and then after Rome driving North and West respectively.
Now I have some heavy snow to attend to. Laters all.
Hi all! I had a cracking New Year's Eve especially because of our new found friends the Belgians who were great fun. I bumped into this one guy 3 times. The third time he said - "Roland, this is a city of 3million people. If we meet again we must go and get drunk." So we did. Lot's of fun had by all. However...
I remember almost all of the night, but things get a bit hazy towards the end. Haha for example, when the Belgians went home, well I can't quite remember that bit. I seem to remember that around the time I said goodbye to one nice young lady (and soon to be famous sculptor), I may have spent a little too long in the process. Mark, who ran into the Belgians the next day got he impression this is true. Ooops! Not good when her boyfriend was there too!
So, if this, or something like this happened, I'd like to apologise to anyone who was offended. Anyone who wasn't offended, I hope you enjoyed it and someone please tell me what happened as I can't remember!
Get in touch Belgians!
Apart from that, my new is that I'm presently stuck on a Greek island. The weather, though lovely and sunny wh I arrived has gone stormy so the boats can't run. I'm stuck here today and until it changes...
Fantastic. Collected lots of firewood from the pineforests around our lovely beach on christmas eve, then cooled off in the med. Decided to start drinking a day early and invited two german families who were also there in their campers to join us. Got nicely drunk around the fire.
Stavros had a habit of driving up, pausing for a second then off again. One guy drove up and decided to show off 'doughnuts' and handbrake turns to his mates but couldn't do it and crashed through the bushes. How we laughed. Then when it got dark and a car pulled up with music and headlights dunc and I took it into our heads that they'd appreciate the good old traditional English dance 'the flying bottoms' (politer name). Off we ran into the headlights from the darkness. Sadly I fell on my face and lay there with my arse in the air.
Thankfully the german kiddies were in bed by this time and no one mentioned it the next day. In fact all were still friendly even after we flew the Union Jack teatowel me mum sent me from Duncan's kite.
Christmas day, after recovering from a stinking hangover and managing the fry up from breakfast, consisted of spit-roasting a chicken on the fire. Dunc the big girly veggi had baked spuds. Well the salmonella still hasn't kicked in and Mark and I are rather proud of our cooking skills (thanks to the liberally scattered 'herbes de provance' and some bits of grapefruit for an exotic look after I found a sack of them washed up on the beach). The chicken was only just done in time as the bamboo spit we'd found was burnt through and crumpled as we removed our dinner.
I doubt Mark and I will forget the experience of ramming that thick bamboo cane up the chicken's bottom and out its neck. Quite a gory and primal experience.
After the christmas pud we steamed on the fire had gone down we all swam in the monster breakers and returned to the bus shivering as the weather turned a murky shade of purple.
Today Mark and I awoke high up at the top of the Lousios gorge to discover we were deep in snow. The roads to get up there had been pretty hair and Stavros is not a particularly safe driver. We had to get to Tripoli to meet Dunc and Sophie who are getting the train from Athens at 6pm.
The local policeman told me (as he fixed chains to his tyres) that we'd be mad to continue now. However he said a snowplough would arrive eventually. Hours later sun and snowplough cleared enough of the roads. I had to pull off a psycho 3-pointer overhanging the gorge (embellished - ed) which really was rather scary and then wind our way through tiny roads and over tiny bridges with lots of stopping and reversing for stavroses left right and centre. We made it down to Tripoli somehow and now, although the weather in sunny and there's no snow around we have a good 6 inches on the roof. Hardcore.
Well thats quite enough for now. We're off with Sophie to Sparta then Athens for new year. Then I might go and look at some islands...
Merry Christmas and Happy New years to all!
Okay not feeling so shafted in this internet cafe, which is a wee bit cheaper. I say that, but they're playing the 'Shaft' theme of 70s Isaac Heyes fame but in greek. You can imagine...
Made the mistake of strarting today at the Poste Restante counter and now have to carry all my Christmas pressies around town that mum has kindly sent me. Sadly I think the big parcel is only my boots that I foolishly didn't bring.
Trainers now falling to pieces after such mountain feats as Olympus, home of the gods and the rocky Meteora, home of aid-climbing mountain monks who perched their monestaries atop sheer 100m high rocks, then winched up their mates in nets.
After meteora things got a wee nasty. We arrived at our next stop, somewhere along the coast near a small town, with no electrics working. For the final 20minutes of journey we could only use either headlamps OR wipers, and it was snowing. By the time we found somewhere to park we could not even use one.
That being a saturday night and we all fed up we got in some beers. By midnight we were in a warm bar getting pissed with Albanians, drinking the local dodgy wine from a coke bottle at 20p a glass. Everything got rather messy after that.
Painfully hungover in the morning we decided Sunday was a right-off and stayed in bed. When I finally got up the teapot broke and spilled boiling tea all down my legs. Can't believe tea did that to me.
I spent a good few hours after that in the snow in my underpants pouring ice-cold water down my burnt legs. The burns are healing now but I have big red patches and I'm sure Mark will publish the photo soon...
The good news, pushing aside all the medical and mechanical details, is that Mark's parents, who are currently visiting brought us gifts more valuable than gold, francensense and myhr. We got a new teapot, a giant jar of Marmite and Maltloaf. They also brought us a christmas pud.
Christmas, which should be on a cold beach somewhere will hopefully involve a spit-roast chicken, lots of mulled wine and pud.
Y'all have a merry one now.
Over and out.
(ages ago)
Duncan forgot to mention one major story that's worth my Drachma. A couple of nights ago a rat got in. A new pet - how exciting. Mark said it was as big as his boot. Next day, after driving to the very busy Thessaloniki and I'm fighting my way through the narrow streets with Stavros on my tail, on either side and even underneath at times. Then I realise the indicator lights don't work. In desparate searching for somewhere to park in a town where they double park on every tiny road we wind up on a one-way street that we can't fit down and many cars stuck behind us - plus of course no indicators or hazards. Lots of beeping and hand-gesture fun and much mayhem and aggrivation with Spiros and we made it back out alive. I think I've found the problem- a fuse had gone, but I still don't know if there's a wire deep down in the dirty depths of Clara's mechanical intestines that has had a nibbling. We soldier on...
Oh! and our poor Christmas-cracker joke book is in your hands! Click here to submit a corker and warm our lonesome Christmas with your humour.
Nearly Christmas! Argh! Can't believe I'm gonna spend it with these muppets! I bought some nice colourful candle holders in Istanbul which at the moment will be all our decorations.
We've been looking at all the Ancient Byzantine etc ruins which I'm fairly impressed with and we've also been swimming in the Med. I saw a dolphin jump very close to me the other day and was very impressed. I ran to get the other two but when I returned it had of course gone. However they decided my nice little spot was perfect for jumping into the sea from the high cliff and they did so.
Our most bizzare hitch-hiker joined us the other day- a Greek Orthodox priest. Dressed in full black robe and hat and big grey beard. He was very funny.
Tonight we're out on the raz in Thessaloniki but its damn cold. Have to drive further South...
Gotta go, email is very expensive in this country.
Right - quick announcement to say we're back to Greece tomorrow and there ?nternet ?s qu?te expens?ve so dont expect to hear from me ever aga?n. Or at least for a few days.
Well here I am aga?n. Amused to d?scover that occas?onally some people read th?s nonsense. Hope you all real?se I am acctually s?tt?ng ?n a dark room ?n Leeds mak?ng up stor?es and draw?ng conv?nc?ng "photos" of bus ?n b?zarre places (w?th help of encycloped?a). For those of you st?ll fooled/bored, here's the poorly-punctuated update:
Today I s?pped tea and smoked sheeshas ?n a Turk?sh tea garden and found ?t all very n?ce. Also I have eaten lots of Donners.
I've dec?ded I really l?ke Turkey so far and am qu?te sorry to be spend?ng SO l?ttle t?me here. It can't be helped - we must cross a fare whack of Greece before Chr?stmas.
As for the 'long-haul' to Ind?a attempt - all plans are off. Pol?t?cally Pak?stan and the M?ddle East would be hard enough on foot at present. For my part I'm a l?ttle sad we can't complete the rather hard-core challenge of the 70s H?ppy Tra?l. It appears that the other two had ruled ?t out before we left.
However I look forward to Med Europe (have already swum ?n med) and fun on a Greek ?sland at Chr?mbo and extra help?ngs of Euro-Kheso at new year.
The bloke next to me ?s s?ng?ng to h?s computer. It ?s poss?ble hes on some sort of web-phone as he has headphones on and also talks to ?t. R?ght now he seems deep ?n some sad Turk?sh ballard.
ps apolog?es for soc?ally ?rrespons?ble persons putt?ng rude words on other ares of th?s webs?te (oh don't go look?ng for them)
17 November - Nearly in Greece
Well we were walking through Plodiv (lovely town with cheap clothes) when what de we see but a French van that looks like someone's living in it. It had lots of strange pictures and graffiti painted on it and when we returned later it also had two French girls in it called Ben and Flo. Hello to Ben and Flo!
Soon we'd taken them back to our bus and Duncan showed them his new trumpet. I think this confused them as they didn't understand it was bought on that day. However, we drove in convoy to our next stop, some Monestary in the country, where Duncan impressed them further with culinary skills.
We were then taught a complicated card game requiring 5 players and a bizarre set of cards and got drunk on nasty cheap wine but good Bulgarian beer.
Ben and Flo have left us now but said they may come and find us for Christmas or New years, as they are headed in a similar direction. We hope the 'Arc de Ceil' fares ok on Turkish roads and no one draws any more pictures on your lovely rainbow painting!
Last night I sat on the back windowledge looking out at a stunning sunset over beautful landscape (we were parked high in the Rudophi mountains after a days hiking to 1400m). As I contemplated the natural beauty I saved a tought for my odd friends. One was up a tree attempting to photograph the view amongst howling gales and walnuts, whilst the other had wandered down the road to sit on a rock and practise his first scale on the trumpet...
For a brief moment the other day, we had Guitar, Trumpet and (my) Harmonica in harmony. Musical stardom surely awaits if my new genious money-making scheme doesn't work (which does not even get an explaination as top secret).
Discussion Romania Horror Stories
14 Nov - Plodiv
CAN'T believe Duncan is handing out our money-making schemes to the world - willy nilly. Glad he hasn't mentionned the most ingenious so far - to shoot blue movies from the bus with various exotic situations - damn.
Off to buy leopard-skin rugs and French langerie.
9ish Nov - Black Sea
Sitting in a 'internet club' in a small room in a tiny coastal village in Bulgaria. There is a wood-burning stove in the corner and the place seems to be run by a 9-year-old kid who is playing hard-hip-hop containing lyrics of a violent and crude sexual nature at top volume. Ahh reminds me of home (wordup homies).
Spent the day on the beach. Sunny enough to chill in deckchair but not really swimming temperatures (went in last night, briefly).
My mobile is now topped up and seems to let me receive messages but (conveniently) I don't seem to be able to call out or txt out on it. Don't know why.
hmm Beckham and Eminem really are the ambassadors/representatives of the Western world.
Clara is parked next to a big sandy beach, with bareable clear waters under a blue sky.
Wait! That can mean only one thing! We haven't seen SEA since we were in the Hague!... We must have crossed the continent!
In fact I'm so excited I'm off back to the beach!
(which is incidentally in Varna, Bulgaria and on the Black Sea)
Have you seen all our photos? Rich has put a load on! Good job Rich! The link is on the main page.
What fun we've been having in the mountains of Transylvania! Yesterday we drove to 1000m, had a nice walk then camped their, whilst planning to hike up to the high ridge at 2500m today. However, at 4am I noticed it had started to snow and was rather cold.
By daylight there was an inch or so, but it was coming down heavily. Being not too well equipped for Alpine hiking in the snow etc, we had to reconsider our walk. The other issue was whether we'd be able to find Clara when we returned back down, or just an H-pad, an arial and a couple of skylights poking out of the snow.
By 7:30, as the snow had raised to about 3inches, we got the hell out of there. Had quite a scary few minutes while failed to start engine. But Clara never lets us down.
Now in Brasov and headed to Bran Castle tonight.
Economy: Clara is doing about 19mpg - far better than expected. Romanian diesel 33p/litre - cheaper than expected. Just passed a bar and saw price of beer about 12p. Had big breakfast in posh roadside hotel for about a quid.
Choking to death in dark smokey room, when outside is beautiful, sunny Sibiu. It is haloween and we made it to Transylvania. We acheived the impossible and bought a Green card for Romania. This means we can now drive through.
We also have not yet frozen to death, been forced to search for chains for our tyres or even had to light a fire under the petrol tank to melt the diesel. I shall now go and touch a large forest in a supersticious type way.
Last night we parked in the middle of nowhere, but next to a garage. A crazy old man appeared from a derelict building and said if we paid him a pound hed stay up all night and watch over our bus (we're in bandit country). I told him to bugger off, but Duncan haggled him down to 60p and paid him. To my suprise he was still there in the morning and didn't appear to have blown our 60p on meths.
Richard if you are out there please contact the DVLA or tell us what they say. Its getting tricky without that documentation.
Romanian roads could be even scarier than their Hungarian relatives. Everyone wants to overtake on a blind bend while a massive turkish lorry storms towards us. The main differences are incredible mountain scenery to fall off and plently of over-laden horse and carts to dodge.
Finally we solved our back-door lock problem in Szeged. We have cunningly 'monkeyed' a fail-safe mechanism which even looks proper. (for definition of 'to monkey', see Duncan's diary)
We caught the second of our mice this morning, who like the first had made it miraculously into our food box and nibbled small holes in the bottom of all the bags of flour/bread/pasta etc.
Aaaaaaaaargghhhhhhh! We're gonna be in Transylvania for Halloween! Perhaps we'll even be at Brad Castle...
This Hungarian town is around 50kms from both Yugoslavia and Romania. Here we stock up on Deutchmarks, bribery goods (e.g. chocolate) and spares. Romania is going to be cool. Feeling V. psyched.
Cool, or should I say cold. It froze last night and were already on double-duvet weather. Transylvania could be much colder. It is a test of Clara if she can get up the mountainous roads, and that if she starts in the morning.
I went to a farm on the great plane the other day with the intention of learning to horseride. Of course we chose the cheapest, 3 pounds an hour. First thing 'Laslo' insists we start the day with a Palinka (plum brandy). Then Mark and I spent half an hour each on a very disobedient horse, some of it bareback, nearly falling off all over the place. Then Laslo gives up on the horse and suggests another Palinka. Then we shhot some arrows and he buggers off, promising more tomorrow. He never came back. Ah well, only charged us 3quid total.
We did pick up some new pets at the farms however. Our bus now has one or two mice living in it. Last night one found the bribery chocolate stash. I could here it nibbling away in the luggage rack about a foot above my head!
Happy halloween all!
Recovering from a cracking night out in Buda. Mark and I danced the night away with two lovely Hungarian ladies.
We're now resorting to carrying around a screwdriver as part of our locking device (oy oy).
Not a problem for Rich though, who has quite disgustingly decided to up and leave at a moments notice. Says he'll be back next year. Ah the life of the jet-setter.
So we have a spare bed if anyone wants it.
Weather is once again better that British summer.
Opera tongight! Rock n roll. Thats right we got tickets for 1 pound fifty to see Mozart's Cosi-Fan-Tuti. Gentlemen of class we most certainly are.
For the last couple of days, just as our fantastic summer weather died down, we've been floating around in a natural Hungarian spa, near lake Balaton. The place was packed with oldies in motorhomes who were naturally suprised to see a large red bus pull up alongside. Yesterday, in the 10 degree mist, I floated around in 28 degree water.
Food update: Last night Duncan began to cook his Lentil soup. However we ran our of gas fairly early on and are now faced with cold meals until we find the right type of gas bottle (fairly unlikely) or fork out for a new adapter. The lentil soup still sits on Clara's kitchen unit...
Slovakia - what a mission. If you're related to me then dont read anyones accounts of it until the 2 letters Ive sent come through - otherwise the story will be spoilt. Suffice to say, lots of fun with borderguards, their sniffer dogs and their power drills.
Looks like Romania is on after all. Thanks for all the useful info. I'm now really looking forward to it. Just hoping we make it past the mountains (eg Transylvania) before the whole place gets snowed under or something and we get stuck there.
Have you seen the new stats page? There seems to be a running joke about the time it took me to finish the book I've been reading. Some people read to fast, and anyway I'VE been reading lonley planets. And also if anyone reads anything about my fantastic sideburns: they are, contrary to the opinions of some, lamb-chops, due to their shape.
Visiting us (if anyone ever considers it) - this was the last place that was easy to pinpoint. After here our exact location will be tricky to predict until we get to Greece from Christmas.
From here the website might not be so easy to update and a week from now we may become rather more incommunicado. We shall see.
11 October. Some little town.
A very nice Moravian town, but the name escapes me. It begins with a K. I?ve received lots of useful advice on Romania and I think we?re gonna be just fine so long as Clara doesn?t fall apart completely.
No prises to Duncan for getting ill TWO MORE times since I announced his sprained ankle. I believe his and Richard?s dodgy stomachs are finally settling down now. Poor Vienna may take months to recover. But don?t worry kids - yours truly still soliders on in full health while all around him are weak.
Last night I cooked a loveley broth and was quite proud of it. It was up there with the Bratvurst, mash and Saurkraut/Borcht I did in Dessau. Thought you?d all be interested.
As you can see the petty games have begun between Richard and I on the website. This is in direct correlation with the games/punchups that we enjoy en Route. His 1er conker just beat my 6er conker titled ?Dubcheck?, but do not fear, Dubcheck only lost his string and will fight again, perhaps later today.
First apperently the lock that has just broken on the back door is a more pressing issue.
Plans are getting more coplicated as we work out our route through Romania. Have had some very useful 1st hand info about driving through. It's been getting worse and worse over the last 10 years. Roads are rough, police corrupt and bandits abound the gypsy areas to the East. When we've got all the info together, we'll decide if we do it or not. We have about 2-3 weeks as we roll through Slovakia and Hungary. I expect we'll rush through Romania. We'll spend more time in Bulgaria I think but the sitiuation is apparently not a whole lot better, and the people are generally poorer.
WILD time had in Vienna for Duncan's birthday. We polished off three quaters of a bottle of Absynth and immersed oursleves in Austrian student nightlife.
As should be expected Duncan went missing shortly after arriving at the party, having left just enough time for trousers-down catwalk antics and spent the rest of the night wandering the streets of Vienna looking for Clara.
The fun continues tonight as Dunc's Austro-Irish friends take us deeper into the Habsburg legacy, promising cheap beer and women that LOVE an Englishman. Rock 'n roll.
We thought we'd save some money and wait for Prague to get the spare tyre we need. Can we get a spare tyre in the Czech republic? Not a chance. So we hope to find one in Vienna, where we shall be by friday.
We went to the Prague Tescos today where we discovered a much-missed product: Heinz baked beans. Apart from this item, Mark and I managed to buy almost all the wrong things. Why can't we go back to countries where we speak the language?
We bought our month's supply of UHT milk. Only to discover it was fresh and will go off in three days, if we had a fridge. so let's say we're taking in our recommended annual calcium allowance today and tomorrow.
I got some piccys developed and found a bloke to scan them in. But he didn't brake them up or anything and what's more wouldn't. Enjoy.
30 September PRAGUERecovering from a wild night out in Prague.
We drove in to the Czech Republic two days ago. We crossed the border from Germany just south of Dresden up in the misty wooded hills that were no easy task for Clara. This is our first non-EC country.
We're missing lots of important things like a GB sticker and IDPs so god knows how we made it through.
We stayed at peaceful Terasin, a medieval fortress township that got completely emptied by the Nazis to make way for (over 4 years) 150,000 Jews. I don't need to go into details but there is only so much you can take.
So, shaken, we moved on to nearby Litomerce, where a medieval harvest festival encouraged us to buy pints of beer at 40p a go, and watch tradiotinal singing, dancing and swordfighting.
Japes were stepped up last night (following our dismal attempt at a rocking night out in Berlin) after arriving in Prague. We were escorted around the nightlife by a friend, before finding ourselves in a quaint strip-club.
Duncan then sucessfuly sprained his ankle whilst trying to impress the ladies with his dancing and we bundled him in a taxi around 4.
We'll be here a couple more days before we wind our way to Vienna. The route will either include Moravian towns such as Brno, or the slightly beer-orientated route through Bohemia, which includes Pilsen and Budveis. Also a stunning, hilly national park (Sumava) and some picturesque Czech towns.
After Brownshieg we drove direct to Berlin. There we parked bang in the centre of town next to the Tiergarten, for nothing. We stayed there two nights. The (slightly dissapointing) night out in Berlin resulted in bumping into a bunch of English-speaking inter-raillers, led by a Kiwi lesbian. We joined the crowd and got taken well out of the way to a (perfectly nice) gay bar. Where we supped a couple in the corner and made the long walk home.
Then we drove down to Dessau, a miserable place and home of sme new fancy art that involves Kandinski. The dreariness can be put patly down to us being by this point in old East Germany - many Soviet-style flats, and partly down to it being bombed to pieces in the 40s.
Colditz on the other hand is a fascinating place. It's where our boys were kept POW in the war and continuously broke out. The place wasn't open when we arrived and I nearly got caught credit-carding the lock on the back gate. I didn't know people lived there, just wanted to break in to Colditz and didn't have time for the 40m tunnel the French dug.
Ah, all is good.
21 September
Still heading towards Berlin. Did some mountain biking in Rhine valley region and fell off. Not much to report.
Just looking forward to the ex-CIS nations that we should be embarking upon in a few days. Oh and we??re celebrating Ducan??s birthday in Vienna on 10 Oct.
17 September.
In a climatic attempt to wash away sins accumulated, it rained heavily on us in Amsterdam for the duration of our stay. Germany has been so far more forgiving though now we are no longer exposed to the temptations provided in the Netherlands.
The girls in Frankfurt were not obliging when given the opportunity to buy us drinks on Saturday night so we head Eastward to try our luck in the capital.
After Berlin we will try the Polish border. If we can afford motor insurance inm Poland we'll include Krakow in our route - otherwise we head for Prague and the start of our Danube leg.
Back to main pageHere?s what the bus looked like when we bought it:
OldRedBus is about 4 Leeds (UK) graduates who buy a bus, convert it for living in, and drive it across Europe.
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Copyright Roland Birley 2001
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