Single ticket to Sarajevo
Prologue
Travelling by motorcycle is the best way to visit a new country and people. You would expect me to say that because I am bias. However, when you weigh up convenience, distance that can be covered in a day, exposure to the environment, ability to set your own route and joy in the journey, then there is nothing else other than a motorcycle.
Go by foot and you are a slave to public transport and the limited places that it will get you. By bicycle, and the range extents considerably but still you are limited. There is great reward in these forms of transport when you want to spend time and get to know people, but the miles ahead so often cut short our stays.
Then you have planes, trains
and buses. Now you have time to sit down and talk to people. You may find that
you don’t want to talk to them after 5 minutes, but you are in for the long
haul if you are on a 10 hour long bus ride. But again, you are a slave to the
destinations on the timetable and the destinations will always lie about the
reality of a place. You will always find the heart of a country in its big toe!
So the car... It seems perfect. You cram it full of your possessions, you can eat in it, sleep in it, it is comfortable, you can cool it down, heat it up, listen to Justin Beiber on the stereo if you wish. It will take you wherever you want to go at your own pace. It would appear to be the real deal for travelling to just about anywhere.
But it isn’t. Why is the dream of riding around the world on a motorcycle such a popular conception whereas driving around the world in a car appears to be nothing more than the equivalent of trying to get to work half an hour early? The best explanation I can come up with is sat in front of the drivers nose. The windscreen.
A windscreen creates a TV screen, the doors shut out the surrounding world, the boot prevents the unexpected happening from behind. A car is a barrier to the outside world; it prevents the outside world from interacting with us. To reinforce this we have door locks on the inside.
Modern cars supremely reinforce this subconscious state, especially cars designed for the richer individual. They tend to be bigger, more defensive, taller, meaner looking. They say “keep away from me”. They are quieter, supremely comfortable and equipped with every possible entertainment option, bar a live cabaret act (this is an optional extra for the new BMW X6 series).
We feel safe in our cars, and there is a reason for this. They tend to force the world away from us. If you have never ridden a motorcycle, then you would not know that if you do, then you have to accept the world as it comes. Cars create a bubble which take a lot of effort to pop.
Most of the time, life on two wheels, one powered, is a total joy. Every corner is a three dimensional moment of joy, you are in the world and not separated from it. Your sense of smell, taste and hearing are aroused by fields, towns and woodlands. In a car these would only be aroused if you farted.
Travelling on a motorcycle is also good because it involves sacrifice. Firstly you sacrifice weight. If you need more than 3 pairs of skiddies to get around the world then it would be better to go on a cruise. I would point out that you may need to wash your skiddies from time to time if you are going around the world. I am not an animal.
Carrying less personal baggage has a big effect on the soul. Knowing that all that is needed for you little life is contained in a rucksack or two is am immensely gratifying feeling and I would highly recommend it to anyone. Life becomes very simple, there is much more time for important stuff!
You also sacrifice many of the benefits modern living brings. Mobile phones, ipods and the radio are not easy to bring to motorcycling, but in all but a few situations they are just a distraction.
Finally, riding a motorcycle is great fun. You can overtake quite safely in so many more places than a car, there is no such thing as a traffic jam. Even my own modest motorcycle will get to 60mph faster than a BMW M3. You can park it where you want and it allows you full use of hands and legs to communicate your feelings to other road users.
Once, when I was young, all by myself, I travelled 14 000 miles around North America on a motorcycle. Despite the craziness of exploring a different continent on a form of transportation I had never really used before, it was one of the defining moments in my life.
Me, somewhere in West Virginia on me Shitehawk. I was so cool. I also couldn't see anything because I'd taken off my glasses. (vanity)
I had allegedly grown up since then with wife, children, mortgage and job to boot. I had owned a few bikes since but had not ridden in a long time when I began to hatch plans for a motorcycle trip around Europe. At first I was planning to travel to the north of Norway and then return through Finland, Russia and Eastern Europe.
I love to look at maps and try to build up an idea of the terrain from the information in front of me. Gazing at maps of Norway gave me the ideas that the trip would be a very long one and with just one or two spots on the way that I was wanting to see.
So back to the map book I went. I didn’t really want to see too many cities but a few places were high on the list. Berlin, because of the history, Prague for the architecture, Sarajevo for all of the pictures I remember on TV and Dubrovnik because it looked impossibly beautiful.
There were other things that I just had to see. The Eiger and Matterhorn were must sees, as was some of the war graves in Flanders. I also wanted to see Auswitz.
I wanted to ride some great roads too, so the high alpine passes of the Alps and the Croatian coastal road would be important destinations.
So some sort of route was beginning to develop. I was beginning to get excited. When I asked Julie what she thought about the idea, she didn’t sound too keen, but she didn’t say any emphatic no.
What bike to do the trip on was my next biggest problem. I had had enough of sports bike (and crashing them) in years before, but wasn’t too keen on a bland bike. Also cost was going to be a big factor. I set myself a limit of no more than £1500.
When I was getting sick of my old sports bike I always said to myself that I would like an Aprilia Pegaso, what used to be called a ‘big traillie’. I like the look of the bike and the concept of on/off road. I had always wanted to do a bit of green laning also.
This sector of bike had grown into the adventure bike market, mainly helped by Ewan MacGregor and the Charlie bloke going around the world on big fat BMWs. They seemed to do a lot of falling off as well. Adventure bikes were everywhere, but they were all too tall, far too fat and just so pig ugly. And so very expensive too.
Luckily the Aprilia Pegaso was in its 3rd incarnation and sported the excellent Yamaha 660cc single cylinder engine. On paper, it was light, economical, quick enough, just about small enough for me to get on and cheap-ish. I had seen a few going at £2000 to £2500. It also looked very nice, being Italian I had to!
So I scoured MCN and ebay but found them to be always too much money. SO I was opting for a second generation model with the Rotax engine, still good but a bit older. One day, I saw a dirty scruffy, 3 year old 3rd model on an ebay auction, so I put a maximum bid of £1500 on it and checked back every few hours to see what was happening. The price of the bike slowly rose and one hour before the end of the auction I was outbid. A stickler for sticking to my limits, I renewed my maximum bid at £1700!
An hour later, for £1560, I was the proud owner of an ’08 black Aprilia Pegaso with 18 000 miles on the clock, a blown output shaft seal and enough dirt to sink the Conservative Party.
I travelled down to London to pick up the bike from a specialist who took bikes off dealers who didn’t want to deal with certain brands or condition of bikes. I was worried that the bike would be a total dud, but when I saw her, I could see with a clean up, things could be good. I was even given the output shaft seal.
After paying the man my £1560, I was left alone to contemplate the journey home through London and up the Motorway. Considering when I left New York almost 20 years ago, I was on a heavily laden bike 6 times the capacity of anything I had ever ridden, I was on the wrong side of the road, at rush hour and in one of the most congested cities on earth, I decide to throw caution to the wind.
Getting my leg over the seat was a bit of a struggle but with both feet on tiptoes, I could just about hold her. A strong cross wind would have upset me though!
Off we set down the congested streets of London and within a few streets I was grinning broadly. The bike was eager to go, exceptionally manoeuvrable, and being tall, gave a great view of the road. It had all the attributes for someone who likes to see and avoid problems before you become one. A sure sign that I was soon to strike 40!
Out of London and onto the M40, I was beginning to get native, squeezing through gaps and diving for spaces. I already felt at home on this rather underpowered pipsqueak of a motorcycle. The M40 gave a little of insight into what I had just bought into. Beyond 80 mph, the show got a little tired and I could not wring a ton out of her.
Still, I was loving this bike, the light came on for fuel and I pulled into a service station. I was about to congratulate myself with a paper cup of highly expensive coffee. As I came into the services the clocks when wild, the speedo stuck and everything went stupid after a few seconds. The bike cut out and I free wheeled into the parking spot. I thought that it was Italian, and anything could happen so don’t worry. Doing the correct thing, I went for a coffee and hoped thing would be great when I returned.
Coffee gave me a little time to consider the many possible problems, as to how to return a duff motorcycle to an ‘i’m not too sure’ address, somewhere in south London.
Back to the bike, I inserted the key and was greeted with an electronic moonie. All hope fizzled away and melted down the nearest gird. Somewhere out of site. I lifted the seat off and was greeted by the 3 main fuses. None were burnt out but taking them out and replacing them reset the whole bike and everything was working. So off we set again with a little bit of apprehension and a little bit of hope.
I took this as an anomaly and I carried on the journey home. The ride up the motorway was boring, but I so fell in love with motorcycling again. The wind, the exposure to the elements, the smells, the connection to your machine and the road below. Never had I ever enjoyed the M40!
Off the motorway at Stafford,
I was even more intoxicated. I was rasping around the little B roads like a mad
dog, not worrying about pot holes, gravel or cow finales, this bike was
designed for such encounters. We got home and I put her away in the back yard
rather pleased.
If it had gone badly I would have done her up and sold her on, that is for sure. No point in having a bike you can’t get on with or ride happily.
I had fixed my trip date as being the 20th of May 2012. This would allow the hangover of my 40th Birthday to subside (that never happened in the slightest) and ensure all the mountain passes in the alps had defrosted.
So I had about 10 months to get my bike into shape for a big 4500 mile trip around Europe. Most of this was spent going away for small/big trips and breaking down somewhere.
Most worrying was a tendency for the bike to die whilst in operation and then not re-start. Removal of the fuses under the seat would re-set the bike and allow me to continue, but sometimes it would happen a number of times. I had taken Harry on a little camping trip to Wales and the bike had died four times on the way back home on the A5. I could not find the cause, Italian electrics are renowned for their fragility, take the tank off and all there was was a bit of spagetti under there!
This is how my motorcycle also got her name. Elliot, my eldest son, when asked what I should call the bike suggested ‘Breakdown Betty’. The name stuck!
I didn’t want to face the thought of breaking down all over Europe and had to turn Breakdown Betty into Confidently Reliable Betty, and soon. I stripped her down in my garage, cleaned and checked every last wire and connection. That I was sure would do it. Of course it didn’t and the breakdowns became even more frequent.
I was fairly clear on why the bike had now been sold, breaking down in the middle of heavy traffic wasn’t much fun and it made me not trust the machine. I did note that the main 20 amp fuse was a little overheated and melted. I replace it with a 25 amp fuse and the problem was overcome. As easy as that!
Breakdown Betty was transformed into ‘Reliability is my middle name Betty’. The trip was on.
I concentrated on earning enough money to keep the family going for the month I would be away and also to fly Julie, Elliot and Harry out to the Bavarian Alps, where we would spend a week in June. We had rented a flat in Oberammergau for the week of the half term, So that would be an nice interlude to my trip.
I booked my ferry crossing and the flights, somewhat amazed that it had all come together. So much planning had eventually produced this trip. I was so excited, but the process of building up the money to do it too so much of my daily grind, I did little to appreciate it.
On my final Friday, I finished work, gave my chainsaw to Sam, my part time employee, to do what he could with it for a month and locked up my van. This was it. I had altered my route a bit. I would take the Hull to Rotterdam ferry as it was an overnighter and I could get a good nights kip. I wanted to see the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam also. From here I would hug the North Sea and find my way to Berlin. From here I would travel into Eastern Europe to Bratislava in Slovakia. Then, through Hungary to Bosnia and Herzegovina. I would then go to Dubrovnik and up the Croatian coastal road to the Dolomites in Italy. From here I would pick up my family at Munich and we would stay in Oberammergau for a week. After that I would bum around the alps looking at great mountains before coming home via Flanders. It was all so well mapped out.
Ready to go.1 month of camping, some grub, maps, guides and a few pairs of extra shreddies.
My time in the USA had taught me the skill and joy of minimal packing. I took with me: My biking gear, 3 pairs of undies and socks, 3 t shirts, one jumper, one waterproof jacket, one pair of shoes and one pair of trousers. I also had all my camping kit together with cooking kit and food. I had some spare fuel in my cooking bottles too. This filled my top box and a 90 litre bag I strapped on the pillion seat of the bike. It was a great package, very light, waterproof and secure because I had put one of those mesh bag security kits on the bag. I was ready.
I packed carefully and slowly because I am the Lord of Forgotten Necessities. All I need to do was to put my medicines, toiletries and other stuff in the bag and I was ready for the off. World watch out, it’s me on a bike again....
Sunday 20th May 2012 First steps
I awoke to find that it was a dull and cold day. This would be a reoccurring theme. The day was fairly ordinary apart from me occasionally going out to check that my bags were still on the bike and everything was as I had left it just a few minutes ago. I would be leaving home in the early afternoon, so things move along at a very slow pace. Eventually it was time to leave and with a rather contrived farewell I mounted up and left home with the dog barking at me like a fruitcake. As per usual. The dog does a very good job of barking at large or noisy vehicles. If she barks at them they always go away. It is a hard methodology to fault.
My first call was to drop in on my Dad who had been scattered on the Roaches 20 years ago after his death. It seemed like a good thing to do, just to sit with me Dad. I would have hoped that he would of liked what I was going to do, but I wasn’t too sure. We never really saw eye to eye and I so wish we could have spoken easily.
Climbing up to the spot where we had scattered his ashes under a windswept Larch tree I was horrified to see it had been blown over. It wasn’t an old or special tree in any shape or form, apart from being the tree my Dad had been put under. I was all fingers and thumbs now. Was this a bad omen? Did I really want to sign up to that kind of emotional turmoil, or had a tree just blown over in the wind?
I wanted to believe the latter but the former brewed in my head. The rest of the ride across the Peak District eased my mind, it was warm, fair and so pretty. I could see a happy road in front of me. Then I got on the M1.
The temperature dropped to the position known as miserable and cloud threatened like a tooled up bully. The journey was unpleasant. I stopped at some motorway services to enjoy an expensive coffee and a sit down. Little in the Costa Coffee sit down area helped to lighten my load. It was Sunday afternoon and not a smile could be seen. It was all serious looks and BMW this or Lexus that. Nobody seemed happy! I was determined to change it so gave up my seat for some grateful old folks and stood by the bin, smiling.
I got back on to Betty with a smile on my face. Rejoining the motorway I flipped down my helmet and resumed the cold grimace I had had on for the past 30 miles. I was aiming to refuel somewhere near Scunthorpe but missed the turn off so ended up on the M180 rapidly running out of fuel and with no signs of anywhere to fill up. I saw a large oil refinery and reckoned that there must be a fuel station somewhere near, and hopefully it would be cheap. Stretching the reserve tank to 22 miles was a useful exercise and I refuelled outside the oil refinery. It was now time to find the Humber Bridge, my first tick on the list I had in my head. This was once the longest suspension bridge in the world. I have always had a great love for suspension bridges after running out of fuel halfway across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. That was so cool. Partly.
I took the ‘by visual stimulus only’ approach to navigation and ended up amongst the huge uprights below the bridge, but with no appreciable way of actually getting on it. Backtracking, I finally got onto motorway that would take me over the bridge.
A word here about GPS’s. I purposefully did not bring or buy one. I did not want my trip organised by some frigid tart constantly giving me instructions through an obtrusive ear piece. If I couldn’t understand a map, then I had no right to try to do what I was doing. Also, lost is often a good thing. It is where all the best bit happen.
Over the magnificent Humber Bridge, I was truly impressed. Even better, I was lead to believe that motorcycles travelled for free. At the toll booth, I just shot straight through and gave the girl a quick wave. The rest of my trip around Europe was interceded by fits of panic that I had actually not paid the required fee and now James Bond had been dispatched to take me out in an all too familiar 007 chase scene. Lets face it, the bloke on the bike always gets it.
I arrived at the port terminal and surveyed ‘The Pride of Hull’, my ship for the journey. It was proper huge. I was by now, a little late, but I was loaded up easily and strapping Betty down next to a brand new BMW GS1200 Adventure (the one everyone said I should have bought). I headed upstairs like an overburdened slug with all of my packs to my cabin. Falling through the door, I lay on the bed for some time and eventually changed into my ‘evening wear’.
The Pride of Hull. Could be a little bigger than Hull!
I then arrived on the poop deck and ordered a cocktail (pint of Carling) and watched England disappear. It was a strange emotion. We tend to complain and moan about our country, but as you see it disappear out of site, you are filled with love, gratefulness and sentiment.
I returned to my quarters and enjoyed the last bit of home I had taken with me. I was a lovely pasta salad Julie had made for me for this very occasion. It were great!
The night was young and I had enough money for 1.5 pints of beer left with the English money I needed to get rid of. I Also bought a bottle of Islay single malt whisky on the pretence that it might make an exceptional bribe at difficult border crossings.
I was eventually found in the company of a load of Dutch Hells Angels on the back of the boat. These dudes were smoking some fruity roll ups and I many have gone over my 1.5 pint quota, but we had a great time talking about their experiences in England and things I might expect in Europe. They told me to call in on them if I was in Amsterdam.
With a thicker than required head, I went back to my cabin and fell asleep quickly.
Monday 21st May 2012 The Comedy of Errors
I awoke far too late after my alarm went off at UK time. I rushed to have my breakfast in the restaurant and watched the boat dock as I finished my toast. I hurriedly packed away all of my belongings in the cabin and rushed down the stairs to load up the bike. I was a little late and everything was rather thrown on board, but eventually I emerged into the warm Dutch air that was at least 10 degrees warmer than the air in Hull. It was sunny too!
I followed the Dutch biking gang to the front of the passport control past a line of cars. I had been advised to always do this, but was expecting at any minute to be accosted by an opened door or some other form of displeasure. It never happened and we were soon through passport control. I was wished good luck by a few of the bikers whom I had chatted to on the journey and after a more secure packing job, I was on my way.
Rotterdam Europort was an interesting place. It mainly consisted of a huge oil refinery with industrial units scattered in between. There were a number of flood defences made of grassed banks that were expertly kept in trim by a flock of sheep. It is not what you expect to see in an oil refinery!
I was concentrating hard on remembering the golden rule of driving/riding on the continent. At every junction just say, “Right, Right, Right”. It was going well. Onto the motorway I got and began to make my way to Amsterdam. A nagging feeling was beginning to well up as I tried to remember where my wallet was. It wasn’t in my pocket or anywhere to hand. The nagging feeling began to get serious.
I pulled off the motorway and outside another oil refinery I began to carry out of careful search of my luggage. As I couldn’t find my wallet, I became increasingly panicked and began to throw things about, where the wind would pick them and blow them against the fence. After 5 minutes searching I realised I had left my wallet on the seat next to my bed in my cabin on the boat.
All of my 700 Euros and my credit cards were in that wallet. If I did not find it, my trip would be over and I would be stuck in Holland with no money to get back home. Cursing the wind that had unforgivably picked up my clothes and stuck them to the fence, I packed and head back to the ferry terminal at maximum possible speed. I was racing the wind, the clock and the low paid cleaner who would soon enter my cabin and gain a big smile.
Smashing poor Betty onto the curb next to the front door of the P and O offices, I fell through the door and explained my predicament to the one and only man in the building. He sent security up to look in my cabin. I sat twitching and feeling rather silly, I was a prize burk! The lovely chap behind the desk could see I was in a bit of a state and brought me a coffee and chatted for a while. I am forever grateful to him.
Half an hour later, the security guard came through the door and approached me. “ Mr Bailey...... “ I shat meself because it sounded bad. “Here’s your wallet, there is a lot of money in it, you should be a little more careful.....” I was about to kiss him, but then remembered I am English. Instead, I expressed my deep gratitude in warm adjectives and took my leave of the whole situation.
Outside the P and O offices I had a mini breakdown and both physically and mentally slapped myself, really hard, on the cheek. Being a lone traveller is really liberating, but if you don’t keep switched on, you can find yourself galloping up diarrhoea drive without a saddle very quickly. From now on I would be super sharp.
I set off again in a rather more chilled out approach. My first stop would be the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. I have always appreciated the paintings of van Gogh, loved the pain and beauty they try to portray. Dutch road chaos managed to avoid me getting anywhere.
It appears that if you break down on a Dutch motorway, you leave your car in the lane it breaks down in. Then about 15 men in florescent jackets will turn up and cause total mayhem as they divert you down drains or up lampposts to avoid a broken down vehicle. There was a bit of a delay because 3 people broke down!
I got to Amsterdam well beyond mid-day and knew I could not stop. This stop was not high on the list and I needed to put so miles behind me on this day. Vincent would have to wait. Sorry old friend.
Northwards out of Amsterdam I drew the right wrist to the ground. I needed to make time up. As a very small child I remember visiting Holland and was amazed at the number of windmills. This time around I must have seen but two. There were plenty of new electricity generating ones though. They didn’t really give off the same ambience!
I felt bad about rushing through a country I had such an affinity for. To me the Dutch are such welcoming people, great travellers and proper dudes. Here was me, flying through their country without a glace. To be fair, I had my eye out, left and right, of the visor quite a lot of the time!
I was so amazed at the Afluklidjik. This was another tick list thing. Here is a dyke, 20 miles in length, a 4 lane motorway on top of it to keep millions of square kilometres safe from the sea. This is flipping marvellous! Big up to Dutch, they dig it.
A truely wonderful bit of engineering well celebrated!
So over the so impressive Afluklidjik dyke, we carried on into northern Holland. Lots of wind turbines and so little landscape experiences. The place is flat. Germany soon was knocking on the door. Land of the total right wrist to the ground, here I come.
The transition into Germany was seamless. On the autobahn, I had to see where I could max Betty out. 170 kph was about the max I could wring out of the old girl. Mechanical sympathy soon too over and I decided the recommended 130 kph would be so much better. Everything was going fine except for the critical idiocy I had manifested a few months before.
A few months before the trip, I had ordered a new set of semi off road tyres, Michelin Anakee 2’s. I had also ordered a pair of super duper inner tubes. I had fitted them myself as I had to make sure I could take the tyres off just in case I got a puncture. I had managed to put a tyre iron through an inner tube. Without really thinking about it, I mended the inner tube with a bicycle puncture repair kit. Bicycle puncture repair kits don’t really do too well at 170kph!
I knew something was wrong because Betty was bouncing up and down. Looking over the clocks I could see the front tyre was losing wind. I had to get off the Autobahn and was fortunate to find the next exit signed in under a kilometre. I was now down to about 30kph with my hazards on with BMWs and Mercedes going past at 200kph+ it was not fun. I chugged off the autobahn and stopped in a lay by to scratch my head. It was about 3pm and I wasn’t near any signs of help. I would have to do the repair myself.
Pulling the top box off the bike, I managed to rest Betty’s bash plate on it and raise the front forks off the ground With the wheel off I began to try and leaver the tyre off. This was very hard, in fact impossible, I had bought short tyre levers and all I was doing was wreaking the alloy wheels.
The first person to stop was Heinrich, a landscape gardener and fellow biker. He told me he had to go to a job, but would be back in 40 minutes so if I wasn’t sorted he would help me. The biking brotherhood crosses all boundaries and is much stronger in continental Europe than in the UK. I was so grateful.
As Heinrich left, a car pulled up and a chap in his 50’s came over. I was surprised to hear an English accent as Spencer introduced himself and told me that he had just finished work and he knew of a garage which could get my tyre off. More kindness. So I bunged all of my stuff in the back of Spencer’s car and left Betty sat on her forks looking the very saddest thing in motorcycling. I could almost hear her saying “don’t leave me....”!
Spencer had lived in Germany for 30 odd years after meeting his German wife when in the forces. We chatted about all manner of topics and I think he was glad to talk to an Englishman with who we could share our unique sense of humour. We had a jolly good laugh. At the garage we drew a blank, but were recommended to try a motorcycle shop a few miles away.
The shop was the front room of a residential house. Spencer translated for me my predicament and the old couple who ran the shop said they would need an hour to do the job in. Spencer and I went for a coffee which he refused to allow me to pay for. We sat watching the world go by in a small rural town somewhere near Leer in Lower Saxony. For the first time on this day of total disasters, I really relaxed. I was beginning to really love Germany.
Returning to the shop, I picked up the tyre and although my German is fairly scant, I could tell I was being told off for repairing my motorcycle inner tube with a cheap bicycle repair kit. I took that one on the chin, because I deserved it! With Dankes all around Spencer took me back to Betty whom appeared overjoyed to see me. Spencer helped me get the tyre back on and I loaded up ready to go. Spencer would not have any money for all of his help but then I thought... the malt whisky! That would be a worthy prize for such generosity. I got it out and presented it to him. He seemed quite touched but handed it back. It turned out he had given up drinking a few years ago!
With nothing but thanks, I left Spencer and got back onto the autobahn. I still had 150kms to travel to get to my first campsite and it was past 5pm. I dropped the wrist to the floor and passing Bremen, I disappeared into rural Germany, through little towns and finally ended up at the campsite by the mighty Wesser River.
Oh the quiet....
It was clearly early in the
camping season as there were few people at the campsite, but I was amazed at
the silence. All day had been noise, talk I didn’t understand in the whole, and
quite a bit of agro. But now, here I was, the sun was going down, the birds
were tweeting and there were no unpleasant noises. What amazed me was I was
where I had planned to be.
I cooked a simple meal after putting up my tent and chatted to a chap who was on a big trip on a motorcycle combination with his 5 year old son. I was full of admiration. There was even room on the combination for the child’s tricycle!
I was totally wrote off after
riding a good 600kms and was soon asleep although everything was a little too
quiet. The contrast was too much of a shock to my fragile mind and I felt very
lonely and a bit tearful. Early trip blues....
Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Berlin or Bust
The bright clear morning was cold as the wind blew through the aspens. I ate my breakfast of granola without milk. To wet it up I poured on some Ainsley Harriet wild mushroom soup. It wasn’t very nice if truth be told.
I was packed and gone by 9.30. My return trip to the autobahn was wonderful. Through fields of waving green barley and then through quaint little German villages. Everything was so neat and tidy, wonderful small shops selling shoes, books and clothes. It seemed that these villages were keen to keep their own identity and independence from faceless supermarkets and department stores.
Wonderful rural roads of Germany
By far the best thing were the bicycles that everyone rode around on. They all looked like they were from the 1950’s, but upon closer inspection they were modern, but retro styled. I thought they were so cool.
Back on the autobahn, today it was Berlin or bust. No sleep till bedtime and all of that kind of thing. Berlin was actually only about 300kms away so the trip would not be too long. Germany was so flat, that was the only thing I disliked about it. The amount of wind turbines was quite amazing too. I did not know what to think of them really. I was quite taken by the sight of them, but the landscape was fairly common so there was no detriment to the beauty of the sights. I still can’t make up my mind about wind turbines really.
It was early afternoon when I arrived in the outskirts of Berlin. I had opted not to use GPS for my journey because I couldn’t afford one and didn’t really like the concept of being told where to go. I knew my weakness would be in the cities trying to find places using just a small map cut out of a road atlas. I dined at a service station on bread and cheese bought from the village shop next to the campsite.
I managed to get to the hostel I had planned to stay at without any problems and found a good place to park outside the site. The Amstel House hostel was in a fairly poor part of North West Berlin. I wasn’t too keen on staying at a hostel because of my past experiences of getting very little sleep in them. I did however have a secret weapon this time, earplugs.
Betty had not missed a beat all day and had been surprisingly manoeuvrable through the Berlin traffic despite being heavily loaded. I was going to leave her again, this time chained to a lamppost. There were no complaints from her this time because she had a Suzuki GSXR 600 to talk to. I left them alone because I didn’t want to be a gooseberry.
The hostel was great, I was in a mixed room of 12 people. I was rather perturbed by the presence of a bar in the hostel. I had a feeling I might need to try to stuff 2 sets of earplugs in each ear tonight. But enough of worries, I was in Berlin! This was a big tick for my list. I was really interested to see what this city was all about and keep an open mind.
I went out for a mooch about. It was certainly the poorer side of Berlin, some of the housing was pretty grubby. It was very multicultural. All colours were represented it seemed very multicutural which was nice and intersting.. I used an internet cafe to update my blog and write a few e mails.
I ate an early evening meal at what appeared to be a Turkish cafe. I had kebab and chips and it gave me terrible heartburn. I walked around some more and was amazed to see no parking restrictions. You parked where you liked and did not have to pay for it! This appeared true in just about the whole of Berlin. Again bicycles were a favourite form of transport but I did not see too many of my favourite style of bicycle here.
I went back to the hostel about 7pm and read for a bit. Then I started chatting to Christopher the bar man. He was from the country and came to work in the hostel in the summer for the night life and culture, then would return to his rural life in the winter. We talked for a long time on every subject imaginable and I had a few beers. He recommended that I go on a tour of the city given by guides who do it for free and then are given a complimentary tip at the end of the tour. This sounded like a good idea.
So I went up to bed at about 11pm to find most people getting ready to bunk down too. I inserted my earplugs and got ready for whatever was about to happen but, very quickly, I was asleep.
Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Berlin snippet
Waking up at 7.30 or so was quite a surprise. There had been no noise all night and I felt refreshed and well slept. There were a few lads who had come in at 4pm after partying all night and even then, I hadn’t been severly awoken. This trip was a constant barrage of pleasant surprises!
I had paid extra to eat my breakfast at the hostel, so full as a bed tick, I walked out into the street and found the local underground station. I wanted to buy a ticket to let me see the sights of central Berlin. It took me a few wrong turns but eventually I was on the right train to Potsdamer Platz. I was amazed that you bought a ticket and just rode. There were no barriers to put tickets through or any ticket inspections. Perhaps there was some sort of contactless technology going on. I was rather more enlightened to think that perhaps honesty was in plentiful supply here.
Emerging from the underground at Potsdamer Platz, The hustle and bustle of central Berlin was good fun. A cobbled line marked the position of the Berlin wall. It was funny to follow it, taking an indeterminate line throughout the city. There were a lot of tourists about so I began to walk towards the Brandenburg gate. I was enjoying the feel of the city. This was a confident place.
Just round the corner there was a display of the killing ground in front of a reconstruction of the Berlin Wall. It was a stark reminder of the horrors of this place. Right next to it was the site of Hitler’s bunker. Perhaps this was not a confident place.
Memorial to those that died crossing the Berlin Wall
In front of me I could see the impressive Brandenburg gate drawing me forward. This was a confident and irrepressible image of Berlin and I was so happy to see it. My eyes were however drawn to my right. Here was the Field of Stelea. I had read about this monument but didn’t expect to see it so soon. I wanted to leave it alone and see it later in the day but now I had seen it, I was drawn towards it.
The Fields of Stelea
The site is the memorial to the atrocities of Germany against the Jews, the Gypsies, the mentally ill, the disabled, the socialist and the non conformists who died at the hands of the Third Reich. The site is over an acre in size and consists of over 2000 Steleas. These are stone monoliths, about the size of a coffin. The sides are smooth and the tops are rough. You feel an urge to touch them. At the edges they are small, but as you walk into them they become taller and the ground becomes lower. Soon you are surrounded by the Stelea and you are overwhelmed.
Within the Stelea you cant feel as if drawn in, overhelmed and judged by it. It is a powerful bit of art!
It is the finest piece of sculpture I have ever seen by an order of magnitude and it works on so many different levels. I came out from there with a tear in my eye and truly moved. I was moved also by the fact that this was here. It was right next to the US embassy in the middle of Berlin. The land was worth millions. The Germans saw it as fit to exercise their demons on grade A real estate, not far from the eyes of all. I was hugely impressed by that attitude too.
In the end everything was OK because Darth Vader in a huge pair of boots was at the Brandenburg gate. Two minutes later I was at the Brandenburg gate with Darth, some dressed up Russian and American soldiers and a mime artist. I snapped right back into tourism mode. I even got some sparrows to eat a bit of bread out of my hand. The monument was hugely impressive.
In a way, I feel like a bit of shitbag for not giving Darth Big Boots a couple of Euros for not making the effort of providing a relatively accurate depiction of the Lord of Sith. However, fucks sake, the boots and helmet turn it into ephisode of Betty Boop or even worse Space Balls.
I was early to pick up my tour of the city so ate some lunch of bread and cheese and watched people go by. I saw crowds begin to develop ready for the tour and decided to not bother and wander around myself. I was enjoying my solo Berlin tour.
Around the corner was the Reichstag, the building of the German parliament. Possibly most famous for the pictures of Soviet soldiers messing about on top of it with a red banner to signify the end of the war in Europe. Next to it was a simple memorial to the people who had died trying to escape East Berlin. It was again very stark.
Unter de Linden is a famous street in Berlin with a number of lines of lime trees that shade the footpaths. Unfortunately many of the trees had been removed and replanted. So it was more Ober de Linden! Past wonderful memorials and buildings I walked till I reached the Cathedral on Luststrasse. The building was especially fine sporting a very Baroque theme.
From here I walked into the Hackescher Market, a now very chic and fashionable area which was once ‘The’ place to shop. It had by now been somewhat diluted by brand names but was still a rather groovy place. By now I must have walked over 7 miles and my feet were beginning to ache. I reached Alexanderplatz, the centre piece of the old East Berlin. It was very concrete but had a certain open-ness to it also. I stopped at an open air cafe and had a coffee.
I had brought two items of footwear with me on my journey. My old chainsaw boots that had been replaced because of a defective sole that I had now glued up to make into a fantastic set of motorcycling boots and a pair of cheap trainers with the thinnest soles for off bike action. I had chosen the latter to walk around Berlin and consequently my feet were on fire.
Alexanderplatz was very trendy but was a little too much of a tourist trap for my liking so I took my sore feet and finally found the cafes toilet. One thing I really did not like about Berlin was the lack of toilets. You had to pay to pee. If like me, you tend to pee, quite free, the fee does not make you go he he. Perhaps Germans have bigger bladders?
Back on the underground I worked my way to Checkpoint Charlie. Now I had really arrived at bullshit city. This was the Mecca of tourist claptrap. Busloads of US tourists would arrive, take a load of photos and then bugger off again after spends some $ in the tourist shops. I was most hungry after my long walking trip so I had a Currywirst. A curried sausage with chips. I sat on a little table with my currywirst and a bottle of beer and watched the line of tourists come and go.
If Berlin could sigh at this site, she would. It wasn’t a fair reflection of this wonderful city and its people. There was so much more and tomorrow I was leaving!
Following the line of the wall can be hazardousI began to follow the line of the Berlin Wall, just to see where it would take me. I went past Trabbyworld. A memorial to the Trabant, the state produced car of East Germany. Then there was a still standing section of the Berlin Wall. And then to top it all off there was the SS museum. I had to go in here because I knew there was a free bog and the beer was pushing the wee wee envelope somewhat.
I spent and hour in this museum and again was suitably horrified by what it portrayed, inspired by the heroics of those that stood up and stirred by the warmth of goodness in the face of unimaginable darkness. Again, I was so impressed by the German attitude to their dark history. School children were brought in and sat cross legged to hear about the sins and heroism of their former fathers and mothers. They asked questions and discussions were had.
Perhaps Britain would be a better place if we faced up to the darkness of our past in such an open way. It still feels like an age old colonial stiff upper lip remains when we question the sins of Great Britain’s past.
Out of the SS museum and onto the train back to the hostel. My feet were on fire and tomorrow would be a long day on Betty. I got back to the hostel and changed back into my biking boots because they were more comfy than my trainers.
I asked the lovely Brazilian girl on the reception desk where was a good place to eat and she recommend the Thai restaurant around the corner. I had had a Thai meal before and really hated it, but on this trip was determined to eat local, so in this neighbourhood, I reckoned Thai was as good as local. I would give it a whirl. I was shown to a seat in the empty restaurant by a waitress that spoke a tiny amount of English and a little more German. We got by well and I had a lovely meal. It was a wonderful final meal in Berlin.
I was back at the hostel and in the bar again. Two school kids aged 17 were in there drinking beer quite legally it turned out. We talked at length. They where on a school trip and staying the hostel with their teachers. It was fine to drink beer but NO WINE OR SPIRITS. The funny thing was that everyone was so well behaved. The thought of this happening in the UK was like flicking on the Armageddon switch and spitting vodka at it. Despite me being possibly the oldest fart in the hostel, I appeared to have all the best stories and soon gained a small discipleship of followers. I had to finish and told everyone that I had to go to bed because I needed to be in Slovakia tomorrow. Everyone though I was so cool. That has never happened and is unlikely to ever re-occur.
I was in bed by 10pm well before everyone else and earplugs inserted, I was soon away.3am. Yes I know technically that is tomorrow and I haven’t written a clever tile for tomorrow, or indeed stated tomorrows obvious date, but trust me on this one. It is 3am and someone’s phone is going. After 30 seconds it goes off. Well hopefully they will turn it off now, like I have done with mine. Or have I? Haven’t I?..... no matter, no one calls me at 3am anyway!
Ten minutes later the call goes off again and I have to make a rather curt request for someone to turn off their phone or face me flushing it down the bog. A large Chinese American girl eventually steps up and turns the phone off. Some things are rather silly.
Thursday 24th May 2012 Long journey to Bratislava
I awoke early and had a large breakfast once again. Packing away I met the large Chinese American girl who was desperate to know about how to get on in Europe. I suggested turn your phone off when you go to sleep. How we did laugh!
Betty seemed eager to go when I unchained her from the lamppost, everything seemed good for a long haul into Eastern Europe. I scythed my way through the traffic and by 9am, I was on the autobahn to Dresden and then into the Czech Republic. I wanted to see Dresden as it was a blot on the history of the UK, but I knew there was no point. Dresden had been razed by four days of heavy bombing in February 1945. The resulting firestorm killed 25 000 people, few of them war mongers. Few people have seen the sense in this.
On the other side I see Great Britain, the only country that stood up firm against Nazi Germany in those dark days and survived.. We made full use and were aided considerably by that 24 miles of sea known as the English Chanel. But we did stand up, alone, and we did survive. I am proud of my country for that, because if it had fallen, then who knows what terrible horrors would have arose.
Dresden was surrounded by thing I had not seen in well over a thousand kilometres, hills. I love a bit of vertical. Without knowing it I had passed into the Czech Republic. I had no cash to spend here as it was not in the Euro, so I would buy fuel on the card and keep plodding. The road was clear, but often I would come across miles of Czech, Slovak or Hungarian lorries. This was now the production pot of Europe.
I got to Prague at lunchtime. I had wanted to visit the place because of its fabulous architecture. I had been told by many that it had been ruined by drunken stag dos from people in the UK. So I wasn’t to visit. I was told Bratislava on the horizon was a better bet, so that is where I headed.
Navigation has so far been very easy. I had cut up a European road atlas and stuck the correct bit of paper in by tank bag’s map pocket. Unfortunately there was not a clear ring road around Prague and the map I had was at a rather indescribably huge scale. I kept my eyes on the road number and signs for the E50 for Brno. It was by far the biggest road in the Czech Republic, yet rather unfunnily, the hardest to find.
Signposts appeared at unhelpfully small distances from critical turn offs meaning I had less than 100 metres to cross 3 lanes of intense traffic to get to my road. I was just about holding it together and found that keeping an eye on the Hungarian lorries was a canny early pointer to turn offs.
Finally the road to Brno took us all into an industrial estate and then through a gap in the laurel hedges. I wasn’t holding much hope but we soon joined the main E50 and Brno bound I became.
The road was evil. A two lane 130 kph motorway. The inside lane was heavily ridged by the billions of heavy goods vehicles and became seriously painful to ride on at 130kph. The outside lane was fine, but to stay in it was dangerous as there were lots of people who thought that the 130kph limit was a minimum speed, not a maximum!
I had to stick to about 100kph on the inside lane but it still wasn’t nice. The Czech Republic from what I saw appeared to be made of many a rolling hill with centres of heavy industry dotted all around. It appeared to be a very productive place. Being close to Germany, It looked like this country did well at supplying the ‘power house’ of Europe.
I stopped at a service station, filled up with petrol and bought a coffee in the cafe. When I returned to my bike a chap got out of his car and warned me not to leave my motorcycle un attended as there were thieves about. I got the impression he was a kind of Daily Mail reading Czech, who imagined that the worst is just around the corner and everything is fearful. I thanked him for his concern, but took no notice. It did, however, taint my very limited thoughts about the Czech Republic.
Around the bottom of Brno, heading south for Slovakia, I hoped for a different style of road than the ridged E50, but it was just the same. Overtaking the lorries you would see the back wheels skipping off the ridges in the road. This was the Highway of Hell.
Half an hour later I passed into Slovakia and the road became as smooth as a Gillette shave. Humanity had returned. Soon I had arrived in Bratislava, capital of Slovenia. I was really loving it already. It was full of decaying Soviet era concrete blocks, but every now and again there would be a wonderfully decorative church or bar. People here had certainly re-discovered their identity after the Communist blanket had been cast off.
I rode over the UFO Bridge into town. So called, for the restaurant on top of it that looks like a UFO. I found Hostel Blues quite easily and booked in leaving Betty downstairs in the Bratislava Bronx. I think she whimpered as I chained her to a metal pole sticking out of the ground.
The hostel was basic, but great. People from every nationality where there and I didn’t feel such an old codger. The receptionist was really helpful when I told her I would like to eat a proper Slovakian meal and she directed me to a place where she knew they did good food at a reasonable price. Off into the Bratislavan night I went.
The one thing that the Slovaks
have not lost is the Soviet stern look. Perhaps the Soviets learn it in
Slovakia from an early Communist exchange week, but stern faces is the new and
old black in Bratislava. However, you just need to ask a question or even do a
little Englslovak and the smiles come out and everyone is laughing.
I eventually arrived at the ‘Slovak Pub’. I was a little put off by the name but, it turned out to be a pearl. I ordered the dish that had been written down for me and out came what I could only describe as a spicy goulash wrapped up in a thick potato pancake. It was brilliant.
Bratislava has fast been going the way of Prague, as a stupid white man’s drinking destination. Many local people have begun to fight back against this and there are now a lot of laws that see people who are drunk locked up and ‘so I hear’, introduced to Mr. Cudgel. I liked this very much.
Back to the hostel, I ordered a pint of beer that came to 1.30 Euros and wrote a bit of blog and then chatted to a few fellow travellers. Talking to an American Chinese dude who worked in France (complicated), we had a jolly good laugh realising we were certainly strangers in a strange land.
Friday 25th May 2012 Bratislava and Hungary
Although I slept very well despite a load of party animals coming in at 4am, I still felt pretty tired. The long trip from Berlin had made everything ache. However today would be just a few hours in the saddle and most of that would be off the motorways. I was looking forward to looking around the old town this morning. My trip to the ‘pub’ last night had me most curious on what the centre of Bratislava was like.
I fought my way past a school trip of kids to find a space in the kitchen to eat. It appears hostels are a favourite place to billet kids on school trips. Had I known this before I had left the UK, I might have chosen different accommodation. Instead, my experiences so far had been very impressive.
I had my bags packed and stored at the hostel so I headed out to see the city. I passed Betty downstairs who looked at me with mournful eyes as I passed her. Through the decaying city I walked, every now and again a concrete monstrosity had been altered or restored, providing a welcome relief to the grey drabness.
I loved the tramsAll of this was in stark contrast to the beautiful city centre that confronted me as I walked around the corner. All around were wonderful Barok buildings of such style and character. It brought a smile to my face.
Even funnier were the statues. One, a Napoleonic solider leaning on the back of a bench Another, a man’s head coming up through a drain. It didn’t seem right, but it was really quite good. The Health and Safety man would have gone mad though!
I had a coffee in the central square and sat down to let the world go by and have a look at the place. The parliament buildings were on the square, but everything seemed so small and insignificant. It was a relaxing place, I really liked it.
Just a couple of streets away from the centre of this capital city, there would be abandoned cobbled streets no more than 12 feet wide with no one living in them. Everything closed and boarded up. The contrast was fascinating.
It was time to think about leaving, and again, I cursed myself for not giving myself enough time to look around some more. I got the impression this would be a reoccurring theme of my trip and I was entirely correct in thinking this.
Tesco, the big fat British supermarket has been making inroads into a lot of Eastern European countries for some time and on my way back to the hostel I had a look in as I needed some bread and cheese for my lunch. It was full of people whom seemed to be very proud of themselves because they were shopping at Tesco. Over the tanoy you would here offers announced and then the Tesco phrase ‘Every little helps’ stated. I knew this not because of any great language skills but it was done in precisely the same tones as in the UK.
I kicked myself for going in, it really bugged me. I had come here to get away from ‘Every little helps’ and no it wouldn’t let go. I should have bought something off the street and not put more money into the hands of Tesco. I was a fake!
Video - leaving bratislava
Betty was loaded and ready to go. Out through the city and over the UFO bridge and back onto the motorway south towards Budapest. It was good to be moving again and I was looking forward to getting on some real roads. I had spent the past 1000 miles on motorways and was looking forward to getting off them.
I only needed to do 40kms on the motorway in Hungary, but a vignette was requited for the motorway so I splashed out seven Euros for one. It was good that I did, as there were vans everywhere checking that people had them. Near Gyor, I turned off the motorway and began my cross country journey to Lake Balaton, where I would spend the night.
Hungary was a different country to any other than I had travelled through. Perhaps it was the route that I took but everywhere you looked, there were signs of a constant lack of money. There were very few modern cars. Vehicles from the 1980’s were the norm. Old Skodas, Zantavas, Yugos, Ladas and Trabants where the order of the day. Horse and carts were not too uncommon either.
The fields were huge and full
of crops with creepy Monsanto and Bayer signs on them. I wonder if the poverty
of Hungary allowed big agrotech companies to push their weight around a bit too
much. Every fifth vehicle on the road was a large lorry. It looks like Hungary
is centrally a well employed country, but it doesn’t appear in the way people
lived.
Every village I passed through
kids would run out into the street and wave or encourage me to do a wheelie.
Wave, yes, Wheelie, no. It always goes wrong for me, so I just don’t bother. If
the roadside advertising is to be believed, there are just 2 things that are
important to Hungarians. Their lawn and missing the local Tescos. Every
lamppost had an advert for the latest lawnmower and those that didn’t would
inform you were either 30kms from the next Tesco or you had just passed a Tesco
30kms ago and you should turn around.
It was lunchtime and I pulled off the road to eat my bread and cheese. The lorries thundered past and the wind gently moved the wheat. It was rather a desolate place, very few trees and a tad on the lonely side. I could not figure why I felt so upset by this landscape until I realised I hadn’t seen any mountains in this country. Indeed I was virtually on the other side of Europe and had only seen rolling hills at the very most. This was most unsatisfactory as I do love a good mountain.
Back on the road the pot holes and wasting roads really began to cause some great swerves but after a while I tended to smash thorough them using Betty’s long travel suspension to soak it up. This was certainly not sports bike territory!
Betty had so far run faultlessly. I had been worried the long motorway high speed, high engine revs would be murder on her single cylinder engine, but things were going well. These Hungarian back roads were real Betty territory. It was nice to ride on real roads at last. Twisty turns, short straights, quick overtakes, little villages, mammoth pot holes. It all suited Betty to a tee.
I aimed for Keszethely on the far most Western shore, a popular tourist destination and somewhere where I knew I would find a campsite. Lake Balaton is a favourite tourist destination for many people from many countries that surround the area. Some signs were even in English. This was a great help as Hungarian is a proper weird language, more like Finnish and because I was only going to stay for one night, I had skipped on any language preparation.
Some things like campsite
signs are pretty easy to spot and the word camping also tends to universally
translate. Thank God for the imperial dogs of France and Britain!
The campsite was a large complex right next to the lake but with no access to it. This was strange, as next door there was a private beach where you paid to get into to sit on the beach. It was a strange concept to me as in the UK the beech is for free. You may have to pay to park, but the beech is free. Admittedly there appeared to be a few facilities here but they very much reminded me of the facilities at Auwzuitz, barbed wire, little wooden huts, concrete toilet block. It was another world.
I bought some supplies from the local supermarket, namely fresh milk so I could have a proper brew. It had been some time. I drank tea cup after cup. As darkness drew in, the crickets began to sing like this place was in a 1960’s western film.
I still very much wanted to experience the local cuisine and as it appears that the whole of Hungary was very cheap and I had given myself too many Hungarian Forint, so I headed for the local on site restaurant and for quite some time, I was their only customer. Indeed, I was not too far the only customer at the campsite. Wherever I went, I realised I was one of the first customers of the season. Again a reoccurring thought of the trip.
The best seat in the house was
given to me as both I and the waitress spent a long and arduous five minutes
with a phrase book in between us trying to get me a beer. The menu was slightly
easier though as a thoughtful soul had multiply translated it into a number of
European languages.
One dish really did stick out as a culinary curiosity. The ‘Roast Gypsy’ sounded quite a feast, although personally, I have always preferred my member of the travelling community lightly sautéed in a white wine sauce with a sprig of mint. If we’re not careful Google translate could start world war three! I think they were looking for “Gypsy Roast”.
I had a local speciality that was well enjoyed, but not well remembered, a couple of more beers and took my leave. The bill was something like 3000 Forint, about £10. As I had Forints in abundance, I left a 5000 Forint note and left. I had had a good meal and enjoyed the challenge of getting what I wanted. I was chased by the owner trying to give me my change, but I managed to convince him that I was a happy man and I should make him happy too. I think I made a new friend!
Am I in a cowboy film?
Back at the tent, a father and daughter had pitched up close by and were preparing their canoes for an adventure. I was just enjoying tea, writing about my travels so far and listening to the crickets. I went to bed not long after with my earplugs in to try to get rid of the cricket noise!
Saturday 26th May 2012 Bridge to Bosnia
It was the weekend. Usually I would lie in, but today I was hoping to leave Hungary, skirt through Croatia and travel deep in to Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was going to be exciting, no doubt, so I was up and drinking tea early on.
Tea with pasteurised milk is so good. I was packed quickly and approached the father and daughter canoeist team to see if they wanted to keep the remainder. The teenage girl was so happy to speak to me in impeccable English, as if at last given a chance to let a hidden light shine. I was happy to tell her that her English was superb and she should not be so embarrassed as to think it bad. Her Dad just sat there, quite clearly not understanding a jot. How the English language had taken over the world!
I left Lake Balaton and continued on into impoverished rural Hungary. By the road, people sold melons. It was a strange site. I was surprised that Tesco had not thought to stock melons and do local people out of business in this part of the country. I guess there is still time.
Before midday I arrived at my crossing from Hungary into Croatia at Barcs. I was about to step out of the European Union. Despite the general apathy or dislike of the EU shown by many an Englishman, my trip had taught me to appreciate my European kin. I had become a lover of the continent.
Now I was about to step outside that almost familiar territory into a place where there was no European Human rights act, no minimum wage, no European song contest. It was a step into the unknown. Perhaps they do have the Eurovision song contest, actually, but perhaps that was a poor value to put on European Community status.
The Balkan states had also
been subject to some horrendous warring, slaughters and genocides just 20 years
ago and I would need to be mindful of this as to not cause offence or cause
trouble amongst people.
Although the prospects sounded
grim, I was really looking forward to this part of my trip. I was eager to see
how people lived in this most underdeveloped part of the continent. I knew the
conflicts of old still simmered below and that all sides in the conflict could
not claim they were good or innocent of barbaric behaviour. I was going to go
with an open heart and mind and find what I could see.
I stopped at the Hungarian border crossing and used a public lavatory. There was no point in crossing a border with anything that may be inspected. The Hungarian border control guard took an instant dislike to me and told me I was not allowed to use those toilets. Just for a laugh, I dialled in West Midlands accent to 9 and stated “Dyow, wont mey ter fish iyt art then fella?” He was unimpressed and questioned why I had no stamps in my passport. Because I was in the EU????
I left the EU rather unimpressed and was greeted with great welcome in Croatia. The lady gave me my first passport stamp and I rode off the side of the world. Funnily enough, it wasn’t all that different to Hungary. It appears to be a little more wealthy, but none too different.
I would only travel through 80kms of this part of Croatia but it left an indelible mark upon my mind. Soon I would see the occasional abandoned building, then similar buildings with bullet holes in them, then, similar buildings that had been knocked down and were piles of bricks ready for the next building project. Who were the owners of these buildings? Had they fled, never to return or had they been shot outside their houses. It was a very sobering thought.
The oppressive feelings
reached a height as I came into the town of Lipik. This was an affluent place.
The houses were palatial and money seemed to be in plentiful supply. However,
in the middle of the affluent town was a house full of bullet, mortar and
cannon holes, totally abandoned and totally forgotten. I stopped to take a picture,
because it was so strange and noticed people getting off park benches and
walking towards me in a less than relaxed manner. Betty and I met up quick and
I got out of that place very quickly.
In my own country we tend to think of the Serbs as being the bad guys in the Balkan Wars, but the truth is much more complex. Terrible atrocities were committed by ethnic Bosnicks, Croats and Serbs against the other ethnic groups and sometimes even against their own ethnic group. It is a very complex situation, but not beyond understanding.
I was glad to leave this part of Croatia, It smelt of hidden graves and guarded secrets. At Stara Gradiska I left Croatia and found myself in a big traffic jam over the river, waiting to get into Bosnia and Herzegovina. Now there is a name you don’t find on many tourist destinations! I was now doubly excited as this was the furthest I would be travelling from my home country.
There were a number of problems I would have to deal with before I could get into this country though, one of them, buying vehicle insurance. Very few UK insurers will insure vehicles in Bosnia because of the uncertain political situation and the unresolved land mine problem. I had been told that I could buy insurance at the border and on this I hoped.
I waited in the queue as we
slowly made our way over the river, I didn’t really want to overtake and cause
a scene, especially as everyone seemed to have a gun and looked like they would
happily use it on a 5 year old dropping litter.
A whistle pierced the relative calm of the traffic queue and to my horror I saw a border guard pointing his cudgel at me. I gave him the universally known “who me?” look. To my relief he preceded to wave me on to the front of the queue. Thanks dude....
The border guard spoke little
English and after a quick hello in Bosnik (probably wrong/offensive dialect), I
tried to explain I did not have insurance and would need to buy some. He took
my passport off me told me to get some insurance and to leave my bike with some
dudes that had been directly imported from a Guy Richie film.
As most of them laughed, apparently signalling they would be raping Betty or doing wheelies on her, I was told by “Brick Top” to speak to some bloke at some kiosk down the road to get my insurance. Things were getting really a bit worrisome. As I walked down to the kiosk, that appeared to be made out of the cardboard you would find two washing machines to be packed in, I was approached by what I can only describe as the Serbia equivalent of Arthur Daly.
In his best none too good
English he asked me if I wanted insurance. Sensing a mugging/shooting was on
the cards, I told him that I was told to speak to the dude by the cardboard
kiosk. He shrugged his shoulders. Every step I took away from him, I felt a
large weight come off my shoulders. He was a scary dude.
The smooth young dude at the
kiosk asked me what I wanted. I told him about my insurance problem and he said
“you need to talk to that guy”, pointing at Serbian Arthur Daly. My quantification of life expectancy had drained to about half an hour.
I walked over to Serbian
Arthur Daly, who had now lit up an evil looking thin cigar and began to tell
me off for not trusting him. I was told to follow him and off we went. I was
getting more and more scared as we walked down the back street of Bosanska
Gradiska, I had no passport, very little money and I really needed a wee wee. I
could not fight/bribe/or run away from trouble. I was having to ride the storm if it were to break. These are the days that must happen to you is what some forgotten author had written. 'Ere we go!
After unlocking about ten
doors I arrive in the headquarters of SAD’s Insurance call centre. I was told
to sit, which I did, and gave all of the usual insurance questions. As to the
type of vehicle ridden driven, all that was needed to be known was the make,
engine size and whether it was powered by petrol or diesel. 30 Euros lighter
for 1 weeks of travel in Bosnia and Herzegovina, I was a happy customer.
Fair enough, I had not got
1000 Nectar points or a cuddly toy that vaguely resembled Serbian Arthur Daly,
but my head was still on my neck and I had not been asked to star in a movie
where I pleaded for my life with a gun at my head.
I returned to the immigration officer and felt it hard to enter a queue of vehicles as a strictly pedestrian born entity. I just barged in and was handed my passport without even a look at my insurance document.
Betty and I were reunited
quickly. The extras from the Guy Richie film were emptying out the boot of some
Czech dude’s fancy Mercedes with great enthusiasm. I think the Czech dude was
in for a long afternoon!
I rode into the town of Bosanska Gradiska and was immediately hit by the relatively poor living conditions in the town. It is however, relatively unsurprising. Croatia was immediately given aid by the EU after the Balkan War, whereas Serbia got very little aid, generally being thought off as the perpetrators of the war. The Bosnians, no one would understand what they were about so were generally ignored.
I told you it was complicated. Did I tell you it was/is terribly unfair also?
Bosnia and Herzegovina is
split into two virtually autonomous regions, the Serb Republic and the
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina . It is not hard to work who predominantly
lives where. I was certainly in the Serb Republic as everywhere flags flew and
a great deal of time and effort was spent on asserting cultural identity.
Out of the town, I carried on down the road into the countryside. Every 20 miles or so, a policeman with a radar gun was checking speeds. This made progress rather slow because the national speed limit was just 80kph! The roads were generally ok though but occasional pot holes lurked to catch out the unwary.
I was unsure of what to think of the place. Every 10th house was abandoned, full of bullet holes or burnt out. Occasional trees would grow through the roof. Next door life seemed to go on as normal. It was a very curious situation.
The occasional shower interrupted the views as I carried on towards the wonderfully named Banja Luka, one of the largest cities in the Serb Republic. I chanced upon a newly built motorway. With a speed limit of 130kph, it was like hitting Warp factor 9. Banja Luka, here I come!
I skirted around the bypass in the heavily industrialised city. People were certainly busy here! I was overtaken by a small car full of teenage girls who were enthusiastically waving at me. I waved back and reminded myself that wherever you go, people tend to be kind. For some time I had been worried about being kidnapped or seen as some kind of unwelcome foreigner. It had been some time since I had seen a British number plate, the Czech Republic I think.
Coming out of Banja Luka the hills began to rise and the road began to find its way through steep sided valleys. The majority of Bosnia is mountainous and this increased my love of the place. The mountains did bring the rain though and I soon found that my supposedly waterproof biking trousers happily leaked onto my unmentionables. Joyous.
I filled up with fuel in a
small town and took in a sight I had never seen with my own eyes. A mosque with
a Minaret! I was really a long way from home now but I was feeling very relaxed
now. One thing that worried me was that I had not been able to get any Bosnian
convertible marks, so had to pay for everything with my credit card. I needed
to find a bank machine.
The mountain sides became
steeper and the rivers began to thunder as the rain swelled them. The road soon
became treacherous as rocks and mud dropped from high above onto the road. It
was quite scary at times and I had to slow down considerably as the roads were
very twisty. I still had some distance to travel to get to Jajce where I was
hoping to find a campsite.
In a break of the showers I stopped at a high point on the road. 500 feet below lay a lake that weaved its way amongst the wooded mountains. The mill pond stillness of the lake was broken by a small boat that came around the corner and I was lost for 5 minutes and the boat putted its way through the landscape until it was lost behind the next hill. The tranquillity of the situation was somewhat spoilt as the rain started again.
I had long given up looking at maps to try and preserve them away from the wet so seeing Jajce was a welcome relief. From the viewpoint on the road I could see the impressive castle on top of the hill above the town as well as the river thundering through the town. This place really had some looks. I was looking forward to camping about as much as tearing my eyebrows off with some pliers so I had a little look around the town for more comfortable accommodation.
Two German motorcyclists on
GS’s stopped and we had a chat. They were on their way from Sarajevo to Banja
Luka. I did not envy them the long trip through the mountains in the rain. It
was late in the afternoon and the sky was sombre. I warned them about the rocks
in the road as they left with a wave and a toot.
The Stari Grad hotel opposite the mosque in the centre of the town looked a bit posh, but the other place looked like a car crash so I parked up and had a quick look at the tariff. It seemed to come to about 20 Euros for a night. Shopping around for another deal was now out as my wet trousers were sticking to my legs and would not allow me to get back on my bike. It was a good excuse and worth sticking with.
The inside of the hotel was very nice. Old and quaint. Underneath a glass floor the remains of an Ottoman bathhouse. I was shown to my room which had Satellite TV, a big bath, free soap and custom printed towels. This was not 20 Euro territory, but that is what the chap said!
Betty was half slid under an outbuilding cover and I spent half an hour with absolutely nothing on laid on my bed in a warm comfortable hotel room with a cup of coffee. This was proper travelling.
It was at this point that someone started to sing on what sounded like my window ledge. I hurriedly dressed in my wet gear and peeled back the curtains. Half expecting to see a fantastical sight, I was confronted with a view of the square and but 20 metres away the town mosque. I had been rumbled by the call to prayer. I bet Allah was slapping his thigh with that one.
I took a little walk around the town after dressing in my best clothes. This amounted to the t shirt that I hadn’t worn yet and my jeans. The town was surrounded by very impressive medieval walls that had been fortified in Ottoman times. They had to be 20 feet thick. I found a bank and withdrew some local currency from the cash machine. It took about four goes and I think I may have ordered a statement but with 100 Convertible Marks, I was ready to eat.
It was about half past six and I found the whole town to be eerily quiet, most of the cafe/bars appeared to be closed or not serving food so I headed back to the hotel, secretly quite happy that I would not need to go out again tonight. The place was OK but there felt like there was an atmosphere. It could well have been me that had brought this feeling, but I just didn’t feel so happy to be wandering around in such a quiet place as the light faded.
I sat down in the restaurant and ordered a local beer. This appeared to be the usual Euro-fizz but it was OK. It cost 3KM. That was 1.5 Euro or about £1.20. And these were hotel prices. I had a great meal with a few more beers. There were a few Americans eating in the restaurant too, but it appeared we were the only guests.
I had finished my third or was it fourth beer and thought about turning in as it was at least half past eight. So placing my meal in my bill, I headed up the wooden hills to my room where I made myself tea and got the maps off the radiator as they had now nicely dried off. It was at this point I realised that 10kms from Jajce, I had crossed into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I don’t think I had seen a sign!
I would be making my way to Sarajevo tomorrow, a mere 250km, but given the mountainous terrain, this may be a bit of a do. I didn’t want to leave Jajce without a good look around though so I would spend a few hours here before I left.
I was settling down to sleep as the sound of nightlife in the town began to rise. In one massive, explosion of noise there were horns honking, people singing, dustbin lids banging and in the hills I’m sure I could hear automatic machine guns going off. Just my luck a new war starts as I come to visit. Fill the bath, its a revolution! I switched on the TV to see when the SAS were going to come and pick me up only to find that B+H had won a game of football.
Sunday 27th May 2012 Miss Sarajevo
I had slept wonderfully in my comfortable bed and was now confronted with a breakfast that defied belief. Lots of ham and cheese, a few crackers and a bit of bread if you could find it. It wasn’t right.
I was out of the hotel soon after into a bright crisp morning. How the town’s atmosphere had changed, I no longer felt worried, rather full of intrigue. I walked up the hill to look at the castle on top of the hill. I went past St Stephens Church, where the Bosnian kings were once crowned, past Tito’s catacombs where Tito hid from the Germans, up cobbled streets to the 14th century castle at the top. It was as if nobody cared.
If it had not been for the liberal use of corrugated steel sheets for roofing, this place could be out of Lord of the Rings, it was truly spectacular. As I surveyed the town below from the gates of the castle I was approached by a rather dishevelled looking chap who asked me in quite good English if I wanted to look around the castle and It would cost me 2KM to do so. In my hurry to get out, I had left my wallet behind in my room, so refused the offer. I was most apologetic and felt even worse as I walked back down the hill again to see he had placed a few mementos and trinkets for sale outside his house. It must have been before 9 in the morning too. I should have returned to reward him, but the hill was very steep and I was very lazy.
I had to see the waterfall in the town park. I have never known a town park that has a 20 metre high waterfall with a major river crashing over it. This was especially so given the current weather conditions that had swelled the rivers to breaking point. More amazingly was the condition of the town park. It was littered with Soviet era half finished concrete shells that made your typical war zone look classy. Covered in graffiti these buildings made the whole park look like a paintball war zone.
I left the park in utter
amazement that such a natural phenomenon was not used to raise the profile and
tourist profile of the town. I was like a miniature Niagara Falls, but no one
seemed bothered.
This was the other glove from the thing I had seen in the Serb Republic where ethnic Bosnik or Croats had been persecuted. Here, one night in 1993 just about every Serb in the town upped sticks and left, virtually all never to come back. Their homes sprouted trees and burnt roofing timbers.
It was time to go, Sarajevo was calling and I did not know what sort of fight the roads would put up. My hotel bill came to about 60KM or 30 Euros for Dinner, Bed and Breakfast with at least three if not four beers. It was a wonderful place, and I would love to go back.
The roads were indeed winding, perilous and littered with speed traps. Fortunately at every speed trap that I came across whilst over the limit, there was already some poor dude taking a ticket, so I managed to avoid any paperwork.
The long motorways of Europe had helped me to hatch a plan for the inevitable getting pulled over by the local Five-Ohh. If I had done nothing wrong, then be as nice a pie and as helpful as possible.
If I had done something wrong,
then I would do the above, but in the broadest Scottish accent I could put on.
To this I would liberally apply a large dose of “What was that”? I would also
add as many colloquial sayings as I could muster from around the British Isles.
Hopefully the pulling officer would just give up and send me on my way. If not,
I would get a ticket, but that was the most likely outcome anyway. It was a
fool proof plan.
The worst of the mountain roads over I found that Bosnia had created a motorway. It was still under construction where I met it but it was coming along nicely. You did have to laugh though, because you would expect that during the construction of a new motorway there would be some disruption to your journey. However, I found myself riding through a building site, quite correctly. The road surface was hardcore, quite slippy in places and every now and again a construction worker would wander across the ‘road’ in front of you. Sometimes it might have been a dumper truck, or possibility a big 360 digger. This road was probably of the same importance as the M6 in Britain, it was a major trunk road for the country!
Route finding became slightly problematic and I ended up in the construction workers car park at one stage but generally the rules of the road were pretty fluid so overtaking a slow moving car through a hardcore storage area appeared to be a fair manoeuvre. I don’t think anyone was too bothered!
The new tarmac of the freshly made road lured me on and again the speed limit jumped from 80 (or 50 through the construction zone) to 130kph. Any Klingons just blew away. The weather was warm my destination not too far away, it was early afternoon and I was a happy bunny.
I came to the pay booths at the end of the motorway and paid a few KMs for this new road. It was one of the first motorways in B+H. I am sure the locals find it quite an asset. Unfortunately, my maps had no indication of this new road and I was left guessing which road to take on my exit from the booth. Left or right, I had 100 metres to make my mind up. I couldn’t make my mind up so crashed at low speed into the plastic bollard that separated both routes. The middle way is not always best.
Deciding upon the right route, I headed off leaving a little mess behind me as I had also got caught up in a bit of barrier tape and dragged over a few other bollards. I hope that CCTV is not too popular in B+H.
I soon entered the suburbs of
Sarajevo and into the heart of the city. It was a busy place, made all the more
busier by the steep sided valley in which the city stood. I had very poor
directions as to the positioning of the hostel I had looked up the night before
as Google maps seemed to map B+H at the same sort of scale as Timbuktu.
I had worked out that as route 18 met Route 19 I would take a Right turn and 1.3 Kms along the Miljacka River, I would find the hostel somewhere on the right. This was a little like ‘follow the B1476 through the heart of central London’ for 1.3Kms. I did my best, but after about 1.3 Kms I slotted Betty into a little space and breathed in the atmosphere. This was a truly different place. Yes it was busy, like any big city, but there was a different underlying culture. It felt really exciting to be here and I was keen to find the hostel and go mooch about.
A little bit of semi detective work showed me I was not far from the hotel I was after and I turned off the main road, up a tiny pedestrian street and found the place I had seen on the internet. I went in to see if they had any rooms and I was offered my own private room for just 15 Euros a night. I booked in for 2 nights and emptied Betty and locked her up in the street. Just down the ally way was a huge mural of a Bosnick irregular aiming up his rifle. It said ‘I love my City, I defend my City’! Yes I was certainly somewhere very different.
Out into the afternoon sun I went to find some supplies. I needed a few important thinks like milk bread and cheese, all the important staples. There were no supermarkets, just the occasional convenience store. I got the impression that people tended to buy their food much more direct around here. What I am trying to say is that It was good to see no Tesco! I came back with a few bottles of beer also as I was planning on staying in tonight to catch up on journals and converse with home.
 |
| Pigeon Square. One poplar dead but a bit of a survivor even in this state! |
I wandered into Pigeon Square. This is the cultural heart of the capital, a little like Trafalgar Square in London. Three bedraggled Lombardy Poplars were in the centre of the square. One of the poplars had died. In the centre was a fountain that I recognised off some B+H coinage. All around there were cafes with people drinking coffee, talking and passing the time. To many people it would have been classed as an eyesore, but the whole mood of the place was just so great. It was really chilled out and unpretentious. You try finding that in Trafalgar Square!
I passed through the square and into the old town market place that resembled an Arabic Bazaar. As well as the usual tourist tat, there was a whole collection of rug sellers, jewellery shops, metalwork emporiums and eateries. I took my time and enjoyed the whole process of trying to work out who was who and what they were doing. There were plenty of tourists here, but all the businesses here didn’t appear to solely cater for the tourist trade. There was real business going on in shop fronts and on the street corners.
Perhaps the most amusing sight was the beggars trying to implement some of the poorest scams you could imagine. The most basic was for them to approach you whimpering some unintelligible talk with hand outstretched. Others would sit on a street corner, usually with a baby asleep on their knee using Bambi eyes on you. Possible the most effective was a young boy asleep in the middle of the main street.
Does it sound like I am being cold and hard hearted, well not as much as these scamsters. I have never in my life seen such well dressed beggars in my life. They were immaculate! Quite a lot of them were carrying a good 10-15 kgs of winter reserves with them also. Beggars can’t be choosers so they say, but quite a few of these were definatly Salad Dodgers. The young lad asleep in the street would wake up every 5 minutes and go off to find better picking followed by his elder minder whom I am sure was there to make sure the dogs that do the same thing didn’t come and pee on him. Nike tracksuits cost a lot to dry clean! Perhaps he had sleep apnea but I doubt it!
I wandered away from the old town and into the new town which wasn’t all that interesting. It was full of the usual with occasional older buildings, mainly churches and mosques. Disinterested, I headed back to the hostel to have and hour with my feet up before I went out to find something to eat.
Sarajevo was a queer place. Apparently 80% of the population was Muslim, but there were a lot of churches about. There seemed to be no religious conflict what so ever. Here, people seemed to get on what ever the faith chosen. Some lessons learnt there.
In 1992, when Sarajevo came under fire for the longest siege known in the 20th century, the western world could not give one bean. It is recorded... Douglas Hurd, the then UK secretary of state let the Balkans burn because he would not stand up and say, enough was enough. Douglas Hurd tends to be rhyming slang these days, but the message never got through.
The mural I had seen said it all. Bosinck, Croat and Serb held off the 3 year siege of Sarajevo with homemade gun, starving gut and resilient obstinacies. These people loved their city and fought to an unsavoury and bitter end to ensure that they and their children would survive no matter what their creed, colour or political standing.
The call to prayer came gently flowing through my window as I wrote my blog and sent a few e-mails home. I was beginning to really enjoy the Adhan. It seemed like there were a number of mosques competing in the call to prayer now but I began to appreciate it. My window looked out over a rather battered back yard with little in the way of glitz unless you were a rat. I enjoyed looking out of it at the cats that prowled amongst the detritus of human kind.
What was I doing? I was at the far end of Europe staring at a dump and I could do that at home by looking in my garage! It was time to eat. I walked out into a rather fierce rainstorm to try and find some authentic Sarajevo food. In the old town there appeared to be many cafes serving food and I took an uninformed decision and dived into a place that look liked it had a good seat for observing what was going on in the streets.
I asked what was a traditional local dish and was told that it had to be Cevapi. I got a brief description and not really knowing what I would be eating, told the nice waiter to bring it on. He asked me what I would like to drink and upon asking for a beer and watching his face drop, I realised I had asked for quite the wrong thing. He very apologetically tried to explain that they were Muslims and they did not drink beer or condone serving it. I had to stop him and explain that I was a bit of an idiot and should of realised that. We were laughing at each other after a few minutes.
So armed with some kind of Yogurty drink, I was served up with my Cevapi. It was a bit of pita bread stuffed with minced meat lamb sausages and fried onions. I had been given a side salad as well. It was very nice but rather rich and did give me a bit of heartburn. The Beverage was just about right for this kind of indulgence.
I sat and took a look around.
It was about 7pm and the shops were shutting, the beggars were jumping in their
BMWs to shoot off to the casino (perhaps I made that up) and the old town took
on a much more social guise.
There were a lot of people about, mainly looking for places to eat, with them a lot of families, quite obviously people who lived and worked in the city. It was really nice to see ‘normal’ people. You could see them chat knowing that although I understood very little, it was obvious they were talking about the ‘usual things’ in life. ‘Today has been a hard day’, or ‘heres a great story’. It was even better to see the families that had arrived to get some food out of the house. The children caused the usual amount of trouble, there were all the usual hugs, talks and tellings off.
I felt very humbled to see that wherever you go, people are really just the same. You just need to forget yourself and stop and stare for a bit.
I thought back to my own family, 1500 miles away. Everything seemed to be going well from the communications we had had, but I so missed everyone and would have loved for them to be with me in this strange but wonderful place.
I thanked the waiter for my food and decided I would go and find a bar in the new town and have a couple before I went back to the Hostel. I came to an Irish Bar with gleaming Green shamrocks adoring the walls and thumpy music leaching out of the door onto the street. Now, I might get a half decent pint of Guinness in there, which would be a major bonus, but I can do that any time at home. I had not come ot Sarajevo to drink beer and thought it would be respectful to not drink tonight.
I went back to the hostel, saw that there was no one in the common room, so went to my room and read one of the three Terry Pratchett books I had brought for the all important holiday read. I love Pratchett for the wonder worlds he creates whilst ‘Pointing gentle fun’ at all humanity. Unfortunately, I broke my abstaining moral high ground and had a couple of glasses from the emergency bottle of malt whiskey. It was now one third empty. What sort of bribing power this would buy in an emergency, would be debatable. It was now, all in the hands of Allah!
I read until way too late. I just don’t like early nights!
Monday 28th May 2012 Sarajevo the wonderful
The Adhan woke me up and reminded me I had a lot to do today. There was a lot of tourist stuff I needed to get out of the way and I could not stay in bed. I left the hostel by 8am and decide to take a walk up to the Yellow Bastion high above the city for a good clear view of the city crammed into this narrow valley.
I soon left the city centre and after walking through a few residential streets I was confronted by the Kovaci Martyrs Cemetery. Here lay at least a few thousand people killed in the siege of ‘92 to ’95. Most of the graves were for people who had never held a gun. There were a lot of children. You need to look at thinks like this to take stock of life sometimes.
The cemetery was for Muslim people and was interesting as the gravestones were pillars with an Arabic beginning. A small stream ran through the graveyard and it brought about some peace. I got to the grave of a 14 year old and found I had to shed a tear. I had read Zlata’s diary before I had left the UK, the diary of a young teenager living through the siege of Sarajevo. U2 had written their song Miss Sarajevo about her. Here lay a young girl who had not managed to survive. It should not have happened. I was pissing about riding a motorcycle around the USA when this was happening. You can easily and rightly feel guilty by not being interested.
There was some kind of ceremony happening in the centre of the cemetery. There looked like there were lots of heavy body guards involved as well as many people and plenty of Imams. Had I known the occasion, I would have paid my respects, but I did not know what the sad occasion was for. I walked through the cemetery with a very sad heart and finally got up to the Yellow Bastion, a medieval fortification that gave a fantastic view of the valley. Amongst the trees someone had shoehorned a city into the valley. There wasn’t much room for it, but it managed to fit!
A big city in the valley
A couple of dodgy geezers were inhabiting the Yellow Bastion with me engaging in some kind of small time drug deal/experimentation. By this time, I really couldn’t care about dodgy geezers. I was enjoying the view.
Stream through the cemetary of martyrs.
I walked back through the cemetery following the stream. I felt so many emotions, mainly I feared that the lessons learnt in this graveyard had not been really learnt. I got the impression that at any second, Bosnia could descend into genocide once again. It was a terrible thought as nowhere in Europe had I found a country that I loved so much. Perhaps because of the people, perhaps because of the lack of material possessions, maybe the cultural diversity or maybe the relaxed atmosphere.
I was back in Pigeon Square and it looked like it was time for a coffee. I sat down at a cafe table with a good view. It was time to experience Bosnian coffee. I was told it was rather strong and If I had a heart condition I should not try it. Last time someone said that, they were an ethical Ecstasy drug pusher. This time, I was going to give it a go.
Bosniack Coffee
The problem was that I had sat down at the one place where they did not do coffee, because, I was rather unobservant. However, the wonderful Restaurateur walked over the street and brought me a coffee from next door and we talked a lot about Birmingham and Manchester United. Manchester United is universal currency people. If you travel, then you need to know Manchester United. I had a few stories so I was a Pigeon Square God for a few minutes.
Settling back into people watching mode, I saw the people, the dogs and the pigeons. There was a connection here. The dogs were strays the where now allowed the roam without being shot by the local ‘dog shooting militia’. The pigeons were fed by the people who would buy pigeon food from the rather erratic man who sat under the dead poplar. Every now and again the erratic man would launch at one of the dogs with fierce gesticulations or a dog would launch at one of the fat pigeons who had lost its ability to fly through overload of pigeon seed. We think that Darwinian principles are so easy to see but to my mind they are impossibly compromised, and I hold an honours degree in a biological science!
All of that crap got launched when the coffee arrived. This was like mainlining. You got a tiny pewter mug with the goods and a little egg cup to pour it into after it had burnt off a few malignant demons. There was a bit of sugar to beat off the nastiest demons with, but that was all you were armed with. This was getting almost religious.
The coffee was very strong, and as I was diabetic, I didn’t have any sugar either because you just don’t. After the first eggcup, all of the people in the square turned to flamboyant unicorns and floated around fountain in the centre of the square on an inspiral mist.
This coffee was a proper legal high so I went to fill up with the remainder in my pewter mug. As I poured it into my eggcup a cold hand of warning fell upon my shoulder. The Restaurateur told me to refrain from drinking more. If I did, the bits at the bottom would ‘stay with me forever’. A note of caution to all drug users there, both legal and illicit.
I enjoyed my coffee and it took me gracefully through the old town, the new town and eventually I came back down close to the eternal flame. This was a flame to remember the countless thousands who died during the Second World War in the Balkans. This was a very complex state of affairs with strange allegiances and savage reprisals. Many people died, and a large proportion of them were innocent people.
Upon seeing MacDonalds in central Sarajevo bustling with people keen to eat corporately flavoured food, I felt rather at a loss. The arm of the golden arches reaches everywhere to make people fat.
I walked on for a good couple of kms till I came to the Holiday Inn. Now this is a place that really brought back memories. During the siege of Sarajevo, the Holiday Inn was where all the journalists stayed. Now no one ever wants to kill a journalist, especially if there are other journalists there to witness the foul deed, so the Holiday Inn became a relatively safe haven. Every now and again it would get hit and there would be a journalistic eruption of news coverage, I suppose it is understandable.
Whatever you may say, the Holiday Inn, Sarajevo is an intensely ugly building. I can’t believe they destroyed the library with countless Balkan artifacts and texts gone. I can’t believe they shelled the ancient Mosques and Churches but why on earth did they not reduce the metomphosising brick that is the Holiday Inn, Sarajevo. I mean, it was even painted yellow. It was asking for it!
I took some pictures for the album and behind me was the new parliament buildings for B+H, appearing like any corporate HQ for a relatively self conscious multinational country. The whole thing said to my rather cynical mind ‘corruption’.
I walked on past the university, it was nice to see young people, talking sat around on the grass debating and looking like they were really making use of the collective academia in the place.
Next I came to the museum of the Sarajevian siege. I knew this would be a hard one, but I wanted to see it, this place was becoming an important place for me.
Although not well translated and relatively poorly presented, the whole museum was fascinating, graphically portraying the struggle of the people of the City to survive. To surrender would be to invite slaughter. People made homemade guns out of scaffold poles, cut down every tree in the city to keep warm and ran across the sniper galleries every day.
I was incredibly moved by the whole museum and the strength of the people who lived in this magnificent city.
Before I went, I saw there was a photo exhibition downstairs and I thought I would take a look. It was an exhibition all about forced displacement. The Photography was of top quality, real Don McLean stuff, but the one picture captivated me and to this day haunts me, stuck me between the eyes.
The light is beautiful, early morning sunshine strikes through the trees, the colours are really intense, I would say that it looked like a Ciberchrome print. The framing is perfect, the depth of field so well used to show the refuge’s camp behind but sufficiently out of focus to avoid detraction from the main subject material. Here, an old man knelt in front of a stream and was ceremoniously washing the naked body of a very young baby who had died of cold due to the fact that the people had fled their homes and were hiding from terror. The expression on the old man was of terrible pity, grief and sadness.
It was the perfect image of what war brings.
It was good to get out into the sunlight and the normality of bustling city life. I sat on a wall and watched the ancient looking trams pass by, the students milling about and the traffic rushing by. It was a strange feeling.
“Are you French”? I was questioned by some dude who was selling something. It was strange how he asked “was I French” in English. I was more surprised that he thought I was maybe French from his visual appraisal of me. The French are usually stylish people. Given my clothing, I would have been more expecting, “are you a tramp”? I was about to move into my last set of knickers tonight after a shower and I didn’t want to stop and wash my clothes for a good 1000 miles after this.
The guy wanted to know if I wanted to do a tour of the city for a reasonable sum but I declined. I had visions of disappearing. It was a long way to get back to the old town, a good 2 to 3 miles, it was hot and my feet were on fire. I reckoned it would be fun to take the tram back to the old town. I soon realised that I had left my phrase book back at the hostel and I didn’t know the name of the place where I would have to get off so instead of embarrassing myself I walked back up into town following the Miljaka River.
The river runs at the bottom of the valley and is obviously subjected to some high levels of flood water given the tall walls that keep the river in place. It was not the kind of river you could dip your feet into or paddle. It was also a little bit turdy too, so it was a good idea to keep out.
Feeling very tired I approached the old town and came across the Latin Bridge. It was here in 1914 that a Bosnick freedom fighter shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. These were the events that proved the catalyst for the beginning of the First World War. It was strange to think that this little bridge held so much historical influence. Generally it was not promoted as a tourist attraction by the locals, who generally thought of it as a stain upon their characters.
To no avail, there were hundreds of foreign tourists piling all over the bridge, being photographed pointing at the small brass plaque on the bridge noting the monumental historic event.
It felt a monumental historic event as I got back to the hostel and dispensing with my paper thin trainers, I took to socks. I had been invited to have coffee with Sabena, the lady who ran the hostel and her friend who never seemed to leave the place and appeared to be avoiding work and or his wife at all costs.
We chatted about the city and how people lived whilst drinking pretty strong coffee. It wasn’t the violent stuff though. I went back to my room and returned with a box of PG tips tea bags with the promise of presenting to my hosts a taste of English tea. They took great interest as to how this delicacy is prepared and were very surprised to see how much milk I added.
Throughout my trip around Europe, it is quite apparent that in the UK, we drink a massive amount of milk compared to Europe. Only in Germany could I find Pasteurised milk, elsewhere it is only in a UHT form which doesn’t go well with tea, or breakfast cereal.
The look on my Bosnick host’s faces was a picture as they took their first sip of tea. I would class it as mild revulsion mixed with facial expressions to do their best to hid this. Fortunately, before they had to comment on the tea, four bikers from Germany turned up and caused enough busyness for the teas to be forgotten about.
I wanted to get some suitable souvenirs to bring back to Julie and the boys, so I thought some Bosnian football shirts would be a really good buy. The flag is somewhat distinctive all blue with 10 yellow stars across it. I couldn’t find one of them, even after walking all the way around the bazaar.
I could buy a coffee set, but I wasn’t sure it was wise on health reasons. Then I saw a shop selling Bosnick rugs. Now that was the kind of thing you really ought to carry across Europe on a motorcycle, I was sold on it.
In the shop, I enjoyed a really long chat with the shopkeeper who spoke excellent English. I didn’t want a handkerchief, but couldn’t really take a full sized rug with me. He showed me a nice medium size and got them all out for me, there must have been 20 rugs on the floor. One by one, we whittled them down until I found the one that I eventually bought.
The rugs are similar to Turkish rugs, but were quite distinctively Bosnian. Much more bold and colourful. They were made as a cottage industry in the hills, especially around Sarajevo, and had been produces ever since the arrival of the Ottomans hundreds of years ago.
With fond words of gratitude I left the shop and headed back to the hostel. Things were busy now and I chatted to the German bikers about where they had been and if they had been on any notable roads. Unfortunately, I was going a way they had not come, so it was all going to be on the fly tomorrow.
I was wanting to visit Mostar, then head over the hills and, through a remote mountain pass, get into Croatia and find Dubrovnik. Before that, I needed a shower.
My room was right next to the shower and I could clearly hear that it was in use. I read a bit of Terry Pratchett whilst waiting for it to be vacated. This duly happened, and in between the door closing and me finishing the page (it was an exciting bit of the book), I heard the door open and sounds of shower usage begin again.
I huffed and puffed a little, but this gave me time to finish the chapter. Upon finishing the chapter, I prepared my shower strike kit. At the drop of the hat like a pin sharp paratrooper I could grab my kit fitted with soap, razor, flannel and spare clothes all wrapped in a towel, jump through the door and be in the shower.
The sounds of showering German motorcyclist began to give indications of his soon to be exit of the shower. It was like the red light went on and the back door of the plane was opened. The book was in a poor spot so I was ready to discard it at a moment’s notice. The lock clicked on the door, I put the book down and reached for the kit. “Get ready boys.....”.
The shower door opened, I counted to five, the green light went on and with my shower strike kit, I strode out of my door like Field Marshall Montgomery onto the deserts of North Africa.
I was just in time to see a young girl, dressed in just a little towel tiptoe into the shower with an exceptionally large toiletry bag and shut the door. I had been defeated by Partisans! I had never seen anyone else at the hostel, and was sure there was only two other rooms, both occupied by the German bikers. I went back to reading my book. So much for the quick strike, this had now turned into a war of attrition!
Defeated, I slumped back onto my bed. I finished the book and started another as the eons passed by. The dirt on me slowly fossilised and turned into a whole new period of history. The door finally unlocked and I strolled out of my room expecting to join a queue of a hundred. Funnily enough I managed to walk straight into the shower and found it to be spotlessly clean. Perhaps the young girl had spent half of that eon cleaning the shower after her. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so judgemental.
I emerged from the shower and as the final Adhan of the day called the faithful to prayer across the city I entered into a semi religious experience as I donned the final clean pair of underpants and the cleanest t-shirt I owned. I was as clean as I was ever going to be.
It was time to eat again. I ate more Cevapi and got a double helping of heartburn. Despite cooling my feet down in the shower earlier, they were giving me some grief, so I retired back to my room and slowly packed whilst making further inroads into the emergency bottle of single malt. There was, by now, just half left. It was lovely to smell and sip with my eyes closed. I could happily see the remote and lonely hills of the Scottish Inner Isles, the tiny roads, the peat stained streams and the heather. I was just about as far away from home as I was going to be, experiencing a very different kind of life that I so appreciated but still I could see where I have come from and still enjoy the thought of the journey home.
Everything was soon packed and as the sun set I thought it best that a followed him. Tomorrow might need a clear head.
Tuesday 29th May 2012 Inside a Thunderstorm
I was awoken to the sound of a thunderstorm. It was in fact one of the German motorcyclists falling down the rather rickety stairs and dropping all of his hard luggage. I think I was laughing as much as his mates were. At least he wouldn’t have hurt himself.
After a quick breakfast I was out with them in the courtyard loading Betty up and looking at the ominous skies, it looked serious up there. I helped one of the Germans on with his wet weather gear and hoped that my gear would be more waterproof than what I knew it really was.
We left the hostel after wishing fond farewells to each other and our hosts and were soon weaving an intricate line through the streets of Sarajevo.
The trams that looked like they were made in the 1930’s were not running today as the tram lines and associated roadways had been dug up. This had caused people who lived on side streets to be stranded because the road works were at least 30cms deep. Ingenious stranded motorists had got around this by placing wooden planks across the road works, supported by bricks to ensure they could get to the other side. I was tempted to see if I could get Betty across one of the planks but soon forgot about such an enterprise after catching site of at least 15 workmen trying to lift the dented remains of a Yugo back onto the street after it had fallen off one of the bridges.
Once out of the town I began to get back into the groove of Bosnian riding. It was very slow. The roads generally followed gorges through the mountains with very few passing places and long convoys of cars behind ancient lorries that made more smoke than an industrial revolution northern city.
The blue tinged rivers that thundered through the valleys were magnificent. Above them, trees clung to the rocky mountainside. Directly above, you could see the sky. The landscape was Blue, Green, Blue.
It got to about mid morning, so I stopped at a lay by and got a drink and snack out. To my left I could hear a few bits of bleating and over a little hill a Sheppard lead his flock of maybe 100 sheep. In the middle of the flock was a huge sheepdog that looked like it was bred more for protection than for rounding up sheep.
The Sheppard walked straight across the main road without looking either left or right whilst the flock and dog followed. Vehicles on the road literally screeched to a halt to avoid hitting the sheep. A Mercedes locked up all wheels and leant on the horn, managing to stop a few feet from the crossing sheep. They weren’t bothered, I’m sure they had seen it all before.
After the last sheep had finished crossing the cars sped off. Perhaps there was a reason for the 80kph limit on Bosnian Roads!
I passed an interesting sales yard deep in one of the mountain passes that appeared to be selling tanks. I could see a couple of that old dependable model, the T72 and despite the rough and ready appearance of the sales forecourt, they had one of those new fangled fancy T90’s. I bet it even had a full service history.
The deep gorges finally gave way to more open land and I was soon in Mostar. The place was a bit of a dump on the outskirts but things soon improved as I got closer to the city centre. I was here to see the old town and the ancient bridge over the river. The place looked like it was a bit of a tourist trap, but I was prepared for all of that.
Using the very rudimentary map I had of the city I found myself riding up just the right street to park a stones throw away from the bridge. It was at this point, I was stopped by some local Hawk who told me that I had to park on clearly a publicly owned bit of road. I was then asked for three Convertible Marks. I paid up as it was only 3 KM and it looked like the street belonged to these guys. They told me not to bother locking my helmet to my bike as they were providing security too. I think 3KM was not bad in that case.
It then rained like it really meant it, and everyone disappeared. It was time to eat, I had planned to food up at a local market, but found nowhere so Cevapi it was with more heartburn. I ate at a little cafe just outside the market and watched the market traders trying to keep their goods dry under a sea of well used tarpaulins and plastics. The rain began to die down, so I returned to the tourist hot spot and took a look around one of the Bazaars.
I eventually found what I was looking for. Something that my children would surely consider as being cool. .50 calibre bullets that had been carved and made into a pen. I also bought a few fridge magnets. You will always be thanked for fridge magnets from unusual places. Not as good as the bullets though.
Back at the bike, ‘Security’ had failed to stop water from getting into my helmet, but had been successful in every other matter.
Looking off the bridge after the rain had washed all the tourists away!I filled up with fuel before I left Mostar knowing that the next 100 miles would be very interesting. I was leaving the main roads and travelling to dots on the map that didn’t even appear to have roads going to them. I was heading for a tiny border crossing that would take me into Croatia. It would be unlikely that anyone in the towns between would speak much English and as I was crossing from The Bosnian and Herzegovinian Federation into the Serb Republic a few times, neighbourly relations may be a tad strained.
I left the main road and began my ascent into the mountains. At first the roads were good. It rained on a off but settled into an unpleasant drizzle. The landscape was very barren. Generally rocky with little soil and scattered with tiny stunted trees. It was not a place to stop and look at the view.
I soon came into the town of Stolac, the last town before the border with the Serb Republic. As I had climbed into the mountains the frequency of abandoned and destroyed houses grew. Stolac, looked to be made of far too many of these sad reminders of terrible times.
A few miles later I was greeted by a huge sign hanging from a lamp post. ‘Welcome to Republica Serbia’ it shouted in a number of different languages. 20 yards further on, there was a house riddled with bullet holes, clearly burnt out and a sign on it saying danger of mines. I think Republica Serbia need to think a little about the message they are sending out here!
Do not step off the road!
The rain was really coming down and I stopped to take a look at where I needed to go to get to the mountain crossing into Croatia. I looked at the map and found the way I needed to go was jealously guarded by a big black cloud. It flashed a bit of lightening at me like an arms folded five year old girl.
I may have been but 40 miles from the Adriatic coast line but I was proper cold and wet. I was going to keep on going in any case. Somewhere beyond that cloud was the beach.
As rain turned to hail at times turning the road into an ice rink. I passed through tiny villages with pencil cypress trees framing the barren landscape. Everywhere, signs warned not to enter areas due to landmine risks. The Cyrillic alphabet used by the Serbs caused me real problems in trying to find my way to the border. I had to take a few guesses that ended up wildly wrong, but soon, after a long retrace, I could see the tiny border crossing and stopped for a minute or two to consider the country I was about to leave.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, what a wonderful place, a land dominated by trees and mountains. My kind of place. A place so near, but a culture so very far away from my norm. A people of such warmth and generosity. Yet so deep the hatred and bitterness. So open and painful the wounds. There was little that I could offer to help this, desperate plight. Perhaps be best I could do was to communicate this to the outside world in the hope that someone would possibly care. So here it is.
I arrived at the porta cabin crossing as the rain eased and I got my papers out ready for the guard. He told me in very broken English that I was not allowed to cross here and would have to go to the main crossing at Duzi, 60kms away.
I nearly died because Duzi was situated just about underneath the rain, hail and 10 million volt spitting cloud I had just ridden through. I was going to drop to my knees and plead for relief from my rain soaked lower torso, but thought that I should at first try basic sympathy.
I pointed at the cloud and told the guard that I would have to ride through he storm again. To get to Duzi. He immediately told me that he understood my problem and went off to talk to the Croatian guard in the next porta cabin.
This was my moment to rehearse. I needed to look like the saddest, wettest, most forsaken, most pitiful and pathetic person, ever. I was forcibly stretching my eyes to look like the cat of Shrek. I really needed some incidental violin music.
Instead the border guard strode over, slapped my passport into my hand, raised the crossing post and said with a wink “you go....” I was so grateful and gave both border guards a bow of honour from my motorcycle. Kindness needs to be recognised!
ressize frog video
The mountains were very quickly descending into the sea and despite their being a frost covering of hail at the side of the road, the temperature was rising every km I rode. The scenery was still very barren, with no trees just large shrubs and coarse grasses filling the landscape, but at last, there were no signs of burn out houses and fallow ground.
In my mind the All Saints track, “Take me to the Beach” began to play in my mind. Ever since I left Berlin I had been chomping on a lot of Eastern European gristle. Now that is good to a certain degree and I had really enjoyed it but for a few days at least I was looking forward to a bit of Adriatic sunshine and tourist stuff. It would be nice to become acquainted with “The Beach”.
I rode through wonderful single track road, past roaming cattle and barely working mines until finally I came upon a spectacular vista of the inner Adriatic Islands with the coast road weaving its way to Dubrovnik.
After experiencing the joys and the rather unshaved corners of Sarajevo, I was convinced that Dubrovnik would be a poor tourist crammed corner filled with hawks and cheap souvenirs. I would be pleasantly surprised.
Getting down to the coast road was a motorcyclist’s joy, the roads were empty and you could really give it the berries around the bends. Upon joining the coast road I observed a whole host of vehicles that I had not seen since leaving Hungary. There were Belgians, Germans, Austrians, Swiss, Italians, but most welcome were the Dutch. They seem to travel everywhere and are always good to speak to and spend time with. In my mind, the Dutch are the absolute pinnacle of what Europe should be all about.
Entering Dubrovnik was like diving into Rome at rush hour, just after it had got really hot and the ice cream van had just opened. On a banks holiday, when every other Ice Cream van man had called in sick.
To be frank, it was busy. Using a hopelessly out of date and out scaled map I found the campsite of my choosing and pitched up on a campsite of shale rock and occasional soil particle. After I had finished, anything more than a puff of wind would have deposited my tent somewhere in Serbia. With great fortune, it was not windy.
Well, it is on the ground, so lets be happy!
Maybe it was, because after sitting on poor, poor Betty for an hour or so to write my journal on my pda, Betty was blown over by the wind and dented the fuel tank, rear fairing and handlebars. I had drunk two glasses of the emergency fund at this point but I think they helped me to react quickly and jump off the bike as it fell to the floor. At this point the Emergency fund was looking very poor. Just over one third of a bottle. In hindsight, maybe it was I that knocked over the bike after a little too much of the Highland Bull!
The night drew in, I chatted to a biking couple form the UK that were touring the area, but soon left as I felt they were a little too preoccupied in what they were doing. Some people think they are amazing, other people aren’t quite sure and other people don’t really pay it much attention. I walked around the local area and found the beach. It was past 9am and quite dark. Now would be the moment to indulge in something that I had been planning on doing since I had landed in Europe.
It was a little crazy and a rather silly but, after looking around and seeing that no one was about, I was possessed by Mr Bean. I took my shoes and socks off and had a little paddle in the colder than expected sea. Knowing that this point was the furthest from home I would get, a celebration of some sort would be needed. I opened my arms out and embraced the cold sea, the warm air, the sparking lights of the port and the family of bewildered people looking at a total knob dancing round in the sea.
I tried to look like I was on drugs, but all I could do was smile and off they went with bemused looks on their faces.
It was time for bed, I had tourist stuff to do tomorrow. I trudged back up the hill with one wet sock after a little beach/sea interface action accident.
Wednesday 30th May 2012 Dubrovnik the beautiful
I was not awake with the larks, indeed, I was not awake with the polish dude next door. I was having a lie in. I made myself at least 3 cups of tea in my tent and just enjoyed being alive.
Emerging well after 9am, I soon got myself ready to ride to the old town and look around this wonderful place. It was very strange to ride with no luggage and no biking gear on. I was soon overtaken by the Mediterranean way of traffic management which dictated that if you saw an even 10% change of getting through then you musty take it. If it didn’t work out, then honk your horn.
At first, I found my English sense of order made it difficult to ride over pavements, undertake lines of cars and make liberal use of the horn. However, as the old saying goes, when in Dubrovnik....
I turned into a total idiot and with the help of a few scooterists I made my way to the Old town. I slapped Betty onto a pavement outside the walls of the old town dispensed with my helmet and entered the truly immense city walls. At their base they must have been 40 feet thick.
Dubrovnik, wonderful!
Within the city walls no vehicles were allowed. Many of the streets were no wider than 10 feet, some even narrower. I was soon lost in the back streets of the old town. I knew the place was busy but here, away from the tourist streets, it was quiet. The cool shaded narrow walkways with at least three stories of houses above, were obviously residential. Trees grown in unfeasibly small pots reached up between the houses, using each wall of the street for support. The trees were fed by rainwater channelled from the roof.
The rather impossible tree!
I had made a preconception that I would not like Dubrovnik after visiting Sarajevo. I was very wrong. The two places were worlds apart, but made an equally big impression upon me. One thing I cannot stand is a total tourist friendly experience, where everything is laid out on gilded rose for the visitor. Places where any kind of reality has been substituted for the cash laden cows of tourists on a budget and with certain expectations in mind. Dubrovnik, although busy and tourist laden, was a great place.
I eventually fell upon the main street, sun drenched and hurting my eyes from the white stone reflecting the sun. Here I rested my back in the shade and took five minutes to watch the way of the world. It can be a very canny thing to do if you are travelling, just to watch people, for a little while. I found the usual tourist fare. Even still, it was good to see visitors led by hotel concierges leading people through the streets with luggage dripping forth. No amount of Kuna would allow a vehicle into the town centre. Only the street cleaners were allowed a vehicle! Now that is company car allowance!
Wandering around the main streets, there were plenty of entertainments and a lot of museums to have a look at. I wasn’t really too interested in the museums, I just wanted to wander. Into the very idyllic port I came, with offers of many a trip on glass bottomed boat into the beautiful turquoise coloured Adriatic.
I stayed a land lubber and ventured away from the town centre. It seemed to me that the narrower and darker the street, the more interesting the sight. This was shown to be true when I came across a proper guillotine which had lots of cat food placed around it and an unhealthy amount of feline company. A small sign requested money to feed the cats.
I did not contribute. I imagined the shameful beheading of thousands of innocent mice. Some things are too horrific to think of.
I weaved my way through the streets, happily lost. I hate being lost, I have to know where I am, or at least where I am headed. To not know either is a bit of a faux par in my usual modus operandi, but at the moment it was a bit of a hoot.
I was trying to head West to see if I could find the city walls on the seabound side. I was clearly in a residential part of the old town with narrow cobbled streets. I stopped and looked around. Up the street, down the street, no one was to be seen. There was not a bit of signage, writing or even plantage to give away the age. I could have been 800 years in the past and there would be no evidence. Finally I noticed that on the washing line, high above, a red thong was neatly pinned by the crotch to the line. That narrowed the centuries down remarkably.
Little passages. I am now 5 years old!
Not long later, I knew that I was walking next to the seaside city walls, when I came across a little hole in the wall, with an open iron gate. This I had to investigate, so wandering through the walls and after a few turns, came out onto the rocky shoreline. Carved into the rocks were a few places to sit and a small cafe served drinks. It was about mid morning and I was happy to loose my mind to some stupidly strong coffee, so I sat down and ordered some coffee. I was asked what kind of coffee I wanted, Cappuccino, American, Espresso? I told the man “Bosniack”. He raised his eyebrows and went away. I guess it was like asking for a beer in a Muslim restaurant.
I was supplied with an espresso and figuring it was as close as, I got suitably caffeine stoned. The drugs weren’t really very good when compared to the view. A few feet away the brilliantly turquoise sea lapped against the rough jagged rocky sea line. Out to sea I could see the many islands that hug the coast of Croatia. The sun rose high in the sky and it became pleasantly warm, something I had not experienced since, well, Berlin!
In the background there was some very vaguely familiar music going on. I am not a fan of background music. I am not such a fan of music as to give it my entire attention at all times. Or am I so much of a music heathen as to ignore it constantly. I guess I can take it or leave it! But some words were coming through and they took away the cosiness of the situation.
Give
me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that's an order!
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder.
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
They were the words to the Leonard Cohen hit from the early nineties hit “The Future”. They seemed to echo something about everything I had left behind in Bosnia and Herzegovina. All that had happened and perhaps, worse that could happen. If we as Europeans believe in a Europe, we should help when a part of Europe is in need.
There is no substantial oil, minerals or useful natural products in Bosnia and Herzegovina, so the whole of the world will happily stand by and let the country fail The worst of Stalin and St Paul will come out.
High on caffeine, I found my way out of the cafe. I knew I was going in the right direction because my feet weren’t getting wet. Through some more streets and over a tramp (terribly sorry about that old boy, If you’d been drinking meths, you’d of been in a better state than me), and I was in front of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Now many years of Churchology had told me a little about Orthodox worship and tradition. So leaving behind any kind of preconception (easy to do in my state), I entered the building.
The security guard didn’t really help me to feel too relaxed, but I guess it was like opening up a Manchester United store next to the Chelsea store, in Chelsea. There may be trouble.... This is a predominantly Catholic country on the borders of Catholic country. Indeed it is the border of Muslim Country. The Border of Orthodox country also.
Inside the church, there was a wonderful sense of calm after you had ignored the security guard. There were many Icons on the walls. In this time and age, we do not know what an Icon is. It is not the latest boy band, it is not an enduring rock group, it is certainly not someone who has put on a few trendy clothes. An Icon is a painting of someone who has done a noble deed in the name of God and someone has thought to portray an image of that person in a painting to try and convey their hope, their trust, their obedience and their love for the Almighty.
You gaze upon them pictures, but they peer so much deeper into you! I enjoyed my Iconic gazing for quite some time until a guide brought in a group of tourists and noisily talked. I could have listened and probably gained much insight into the Icons, but I had enjoyed my gazing and decided to leave without hearing the facts and data.
I bought a few Croatian football shirts for the boy and decided that it would be best to leave the old town now, it was beginning to get really busy and I didn’t want to be fighting my way around the streets.
I left the wonderful old town of Dubrovnik a happy tourist. What a wonderful place. I must come back and have another gaze.
Back on Betty, I set off by riding the wrong way down a one way street and joined a big queue of traffic filtering around the old town. The road was narrow, but after seeing someone on a moped riding over a foot wide stretch of grass, Scooteritis caught hold of me and I was again riding like a local. I think some kind of mist had descended, because I couldn’t quite remember how I had got to Cruz on the other side of town.
No matter, I smashed Betty up a 10 inch high curb to park her right next to a multi million pound yacht moored in the harbour. If I had the necessary language skills I would have said to the incredibly smooth dudes who looked like they were out of a Hugo Boss perfume advert, “It’s a dirty motorbike, get over it”.
I locked my helmet onto Betty under the disapproving eyes of Hugo and Boss. I walked off and wondered if they were going to push Betty into the sea. They probably would, but I had the ultimate deterrent. Betty had 2500 miles of dirt on her, and those posh white chinos and silk shirts with overthrown sweaters would really suffer. Checkmate!
With happy thoughts, I found the electrical store that I had been told to visit to try to find a charger that would charge up my camera. I had a fag lighter socket that I had fitted to the bike but It was not charging the camera.
I was helped by a smashing chap who closely looked at the whole dilemma at hand and soon found me the right charger. He seemed so happy to help. I bought a few supplies for my journey ahead and got back to Betty. Hugo and Boss had gone, but were replaced by a lot of seagulls, one who had shat on Betty. Betty was frowning at the whole incident but in my mind, you take the rough with the smooth. She was wearing her splattering of bugs on the windscreen with pride, so the seagull bomb on the tank was just collateral.
I got back to the campsite and made myself a late lunch. I wanted to walk down to the beach and have a read and little paddle. Before this, I went into the campsite offices and asked them to charge up my camera. I just wanted to be sure that I could record the next part of my trip, just in case the new charger didn’t work.
I had had a lot of fun with the people in the site office because they spoke such good English and I was making life very hard for them. Yesterday after getting all my instructions and bits and bobs, I told the chap “smashing”! He was most confused and told me not to break anything on the campsite. Then he asked what was this, “smashing”? That really did put me in a corner. How do you explain that one? I did my best.
I walked into the site offices and all three staff pointed at me and said, “smashing”! As things were not too busy, they all wanted to know where I came from, where was this place where happy people said “smashing”?
I tried to explain I was from close to the Potteries, but it didn’t really register but saying I lived near Crewe and Bentley Motors, they all laughed and looked at each other, “Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson”!
My heart sank, Jeremy Clarkson, I do not like. Not the Jeremy Clarkson we see on the telly or the real Jeremy Clarkson, because the real one felt compelled to make Jeremy Clarkson we all have to sometimes endure. The shoulder shrugging, middle class appealing, Daily Mail loving, environment hating (!), narrow minded, self loving, headline grabbing, low punching and stereotypical enforcing xenophobe appeared to be the one thing that people come back to when I try to talk about my country.
I felt dirty and ashamed. Truly filthy.
I had to steal myself for a few minutes, because If I rode hard, I could be back in the UK in 48 hours, half that if I engaged Scooteritis, and I could soon find Clarkson, probably somewhere halfway up David Cameron’s bum, and put right a terrible wrong. But perhaps not. It was only TV. And rather predictable crap TV at that.
With my camera on charge, I grabbed my maps and a book and headed to the beach. I had my shorts on and no socks, I was ready for whatever the Adriatic could throw at me.
Croatian beaches are a tad hard going on the feet, due to their make up of a Cheshire gravel quarry. I do not do foot pain well at all, so well dressed in my shoes I walked to the bar and ordered a pint of Euro fizz which was elegantly delivered to my table for a large sum of E,s.
I got the maps out and tried to do the maths. Somehow, I was on time, on budget and on a really non descriptive boring Euro larger of no discernible name. I did have a challenge though and that was in three days time I needed to be in Munich to pick up Julie, Elliot and Harry. Munich was one hell of a long way away, both distance wise and culturally.
I ordered another beer as I had to work out a way to pace myself. I was looking forward to riding the Croatian coastal road as I had been told it was a bit of biking heaven. But I also needed to be close to the Slovenian border if I had any hope of getting to the airport on time. It was a long tab. Another beer would of course help.
The wonderful blue Adriatic smiled at me as I got up and decided to have a paddle. Walking over the pebbles was like crossing no mans land. The beer did not help either. I was in desperate need of a piss and finally reaching the super chilled sea almost made me wet myself. This was a Northumberland coastline sea. Only a Geordie lass would swim in that. It was not what you would have expected. Even the fish were popping up in frozen, ready to eat containers.
I came to the conclusion that the trip north along the coastal road would be fun, but would need to be fast and without longs stops. It was now late afternoon and I tried to read a few bits of my pratchett book, but was soon falling asleep. Beer and beach are an intoxicating recipe for sunburn. I awoke a few minutes later to find the sun had gone in and it was a little chilly. I needed my tent.
At the tent, I chatted to the Polish chap on his BMW 1200 GS bike. He had rented it in London and was riding it to Greece where he would leave the bike and fly back home. This was a brilliant idea. It was, however, so hard to talk to him, because his girlfriend was sunbathing next to him in the most skimpiest bikini I had ever laid about 1/3 of an eye on. Single travel does have some major drawbacks!
The night went quickly as I gave Betty a mini service, checking fluids and replacing a few consumables. Before long, I was happily in my sleeping bag and ready for sleep.
Thursday 31st May 2012 The road of dreams, and a bit of motorway
The early bird caught me and I was ready to go early. Today would be a day of Motorcycling mojo, The Croatian costal road. By 8am we were away on the rather congested coastal road heading north west from Dubrovnik. The weather was good, not especially warm, but neither raining, overcast or dull.
After a while, we found ourselves back in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia has a tiny 6 mile strip of land on the Adriatic and it appears to be full of cheap booze/fag merchants. I had seen this before in the USA. People who could at least declare kingdom over what they had left would etch out a living to whatever they would see fit. It was not a happy site.
The road passed back into Croatia, I was worried that the nice bloke a the checkpoint a few days ago had not told me that I needed an entrance stamp to get an exit stamp, but I really didn’t give much at that stage. All I wanted was to get in front of that Austrian bus that had held me up for the past four miles. I jumped the queue and was waved through without even the request to see my passport.
For the next 10 miles the road followed the coast until I arrived at the junction to the new motorway. Most of the traffic left the coastal road and I was left to an hour or so of brilliant motorcycling. The scenery was very arid, there was not enough soil to support a lot of plants. The road was very good and grippy. To my right large mountains rose to almost 1000 metres. To my left, the turquoise Adriatic littered with islands sparked in the sun.
Betty was running fine and would happily scream past slower vehicles on the few straight. The road was generally very bendy, but this made the riding really fun. I was grinning for a good 60kms.
It was getting time to stop for a rest and I saw a roadside cafe. I was determined to use my Croatian and not resort to English and started off well politely asking for a coffee. The chap answered me, in better English than I, if I would like a Cappuccino? I was rather phased by this and asked instead for a Bosniak coffee, again. I think I have invented a new type of coffee here. I was eventually served with what looked like an espresso and sat staring out over the sea. The cafe was quite high up so the views were superb.
I followed a little boat as it weaved between the islands below, curious as to where it was going. I got lost in the whole occasion and soon found I had been sitting for over 40 minutes. It was not far from midday and I had covered just under 100kms of a 300km trip. I was getting late.
I got out the maps and hatched an ingenious plan. I would leave the coastal road in a few more miles and join the new motorway. I would blast up the country and then re-join the coastal road for the last 50kms or so. It would mean that I would not see Split or Zadar, but given the lack of time, I wouldn’t see them if I rode through them anyway. I would have to save that one for another time.
Back on the road, I had time to stop for a few wonderful Kodak moments, the views were stunning. With a heavy heart I left the coastal road and found my way to the toll motorway. I had not wanted to use this road, but time dictated that I should.
I flew down the ramp onto the motorway and found it to be totally empty. I think I was the only person on it. It had only been open for less than a year and it appeared that it was not too popular yet. I pinned Betty to 130kph, tucked in and threw the km’s behind me. I do like road measurements in kph. The numbers may be big, but they sure do drop quickly. I was travelling one kilometre every 27 seconds.
Somewhere close to Split, I pulled into a service area, refuelled and parked up to eat my usual lunchtime fare of bread and cheese. It was good bread and some nice soft cheese too with a lovely crust on it. I did like my lunchtimes. I would lay everything out on Betty’s top box and dine.
The car park was virtually empty, just the occasional obligatory Dutch car, usually pulling a caravan was to be seen. The wind picked up my lunch and dumped it on the floor, face down as you would expect. Upon picking up my lunch I could not find a single bit of foreign material to remove from either the bread or the cheese. This was how new and underused this service station was.
With lunch over, it seemed a shame to sully the toilets, but they would have to be broken in! I was soon back at 130kph on the deserted motorway. You would spot a vehicle half a kilometre in front, slowly you reeled them in, and eventually overtook. It was a most unusual experience when compared to the congested motorways of my homeland.
After an hour or so, Zadar came onto the horizon and the motorway turned right into the mountains. This part of the road had been completed considerably earlier than the first part of the road, and there was much more traffic. We travelled through some five kilometre long tunnels and came out of the other side of the mountain range to considerably different environment. It was greener and generally more habitable.
Finally, somewhere near the comically named Licki Osik, I got off the motorway and upon approaching the toll booth, I prepared to heavily pay for my 350 kilometre motorway dash. I paid about 20 Kuna, about £3 which was a rather reasonable amount considered.
I would now have to find my way over the mountains and back onto the coastal road. I had just a couple of town names on my rather high scale road atlas of Croatia, but I was looking forward to the challenge. I enjoy nothing more than using my fairly good sense of direction together with a few clues and town names to try to get where I wanted to go. It was about half past four in the afternoon, so I had plenty of time for the last 70 kms of my trip to maybe take a few wrong turns.
The mountains rose before me and the character of the place was very South European, I could have imagined that I was in Southern Italy, except the road users were particularly cool and easy going.
After about 10 kms and a small town, the road began to rise and became most entertaining to ride on. Sharp bends a-plenty with a few long straight through the trees with a steep rock face on my right, I spent a good twenty minutes just enjoying riding a motorcycle and felt very happy with my lot in life.
I managed to overcook it into a sharp left hand bend and had to lean Betty over a little more than I really felt comfortable with. Although Betty was on the right hand side of the road, my head and shoulders were on the left hand side and it was at this moment that a police van came around the corner in the opposite direction to view my antics.
Safely around the corner, I decided not to stop and get myself back together, but to press on just in case the police van was doing a u turn.
Soon I was at the top of the mountain range, well over 1km above sea level. Despite this, the landscape was lush and green with heavily wooded valleys. It is rare to see the slightest bit of greenery in the few places you can get above 1000 metres in the UK. I was so amazed by this, that I thought the signs must be wrong.
After coming around a corner I was greeted by the fantastic view of the Adriatic with the Kvarneric islands in front of me. A hazey sky meant I could not see Italy but my height above the sea indicated the signs at the top of the pass were most certainly correct. The ride back down to the coastal road was going to be fun!
NOt a bad view after a long ride
The landscape had quickly changed back to a very arid rock strewn mountainside on the coast side of the mountains with little growth. You could easily mistake if for the side of a volcano. The road led down to the coast with fantastic corners and short straights. The warm tarmac encouraged high lean angles and at one point I managed to touch down with Betty’s peg.
Totally unnerved by this, I calmed down and slowed up and took in the fantastic views, eventually joining the coastal road that I had left at midday. The road was equally delightful here as it was before and I sorely would have loved to of ridden the whole thing, but I had not given myself enough time to do it. It was now well past six o’clock and I began to keep an eye open for somewhere to camp.
Just south of the town of Senj I found a small campsite next to the sea. It appeared to be as good as it could get, fantastic view over the sea, little bar and quiet neighbours. I pulled up the at the entrance and found no one in the shack. Looking around I saw a chap waving at me in a kind of slightly sozzled fashion, sat at a table eating with his family. I remained at the booth. The slightly sozzled man carried on waving and eventually an adolescent from the table approached me and said softly “come”.
I wandered down to the man at the table who was now gulping down another beer, and it turned out to be the campsite owner and his family. If I were to write a review, I would call it ‘relaxed’, but not at all in a demeaning way, it was in a fantastic location, clean and friendly, but very relaxed.
The only downside of the campsite was that it required some form of explosive to get a tent peg into the ground. I suspected that this was the same for the entire Croatian coastline though.
After spending 20 minutes trying to hammer an increasingly bent tent peg into the solid rock, I gave up. My tent was free standing and it was as weather was as still as a mill pond. I bunged all my biking gear into the tent to keep it down and thought an hour by the seaside bar would be a good place to collect my thought. The real reason for this was that I wanted to be a relaxed as everyone else.
The beech side bar was very quiet, it was still early in the season, and I was glad of it. I would not have liked to be amongst a throng of people. The sea was very still and a few people sat enjoying a meal or a drink. A chap came into the bay and parked up his little boat at the bar and ordered a beer. It was a rather relaxed way to enjoy an after work beer!
I went back to the tent that was still there and cooked up one of my emergency packet meals. Pasta in tomato sauce with a few tinned sausages. I had a few of these in the top box for those times where I didn’t have any time to get some local fresh food. It tasted pretty good but I think the location pumped up the Michelin rating somewhat.
The sun sunk down over the Adriatic, unfortunately it was a bit hazy so there was not a good sunset, a movie sunset, but the sun went down so I guess I had to be greatful.
It was at this point I began to look in a direction other than Westwards and over the sea. Amongst me were many caravans, a few tents and lots of motor homes from France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland and Switzerland. I wasn’t sure that I had ever been in such a multinational campsite!
Despite the windless night, I decided that I should go to bed early just in case my tent should fly away and also because tomorrow would be another big day, I would be returning to Western Europe.
Friday 1st June 2012 Out of the Balkans and into Dolomiti
I was awake early and packed quickly because I had just two badly driven in and hopelessly bent tent pegs to remove.
On the road, I tried to make time as I had a long way to travel today, about 400kms and some of these would be on long mountain passes through the dolomites. I needed to be in Italy as soon as possible.
The coastal road became less pretty as I approached Rijeka with power plants and shipyards on the horizon, I was soon climbing away from the Adriatic and onto the busy main motorway that led into Slovenia.
The weather was grey and overcast and the quick transition from beautiful coastal road into grey drab commuter route removed the joy from my soul.
Into Slovinia and I found no joy lifting my spirits here either. It didn’t have too much of a chance though, because after 15 miles I prepared to enter into Italy.
For most of the past two weeks I had been in unfamiliar territory, not knowing what to expect. Now I was returning to Western Europe, to familiar territory. I felt myself relax a little, here would be a language that I could get by with a little easier and a people whom I knew.
Motorcycle border crossings are not an easy affair, even simple ones like this one. You tend to filter your way to the front and at some point you will remember that you need your passport. Hopefully you have placed it somewhere easy to hand, but even then, you will be wobbling your way up to the border guards one hand in your tank bag like an incompetent suicide bomber. The worst thing you can do is totally forget about your papers, Push to the front of the queue and then have to stop, get off and then find your stuff. That causes motorist rage.
So I wobbled up to the border crossing, hand in tank bag, pulled out my passport and dropped it. I quickly stopped, retrieved it before it got run over, re-mounted and approached the border guard who had been observing the whole incident through his aviator sun glasses. I sensed trouble because he would have looked much better in Columbia, not Italy. He took my passport, smiles broadly (revealing some fantastic gold teeth), gave it back, pointed up the road and with some gusto bellowed “via”!
Welcome to Italy! I now had a 180 km ride up the Autostrada into the Dolomites where the fun would begin. Betty was smiling from indicator to indicator as she was back in the country of her birth. I had half planned to go to Noale where she was built but that was getting a bit silly.
The Autostrada was quick and easy to navigate, although very expensive compared to Croatia. Top speed of 130kph made the kms melt away and soon I was in the foothills of the alps.
The valleys narrowed, the Autostada began to twist and find its way over bridge and tunnel. Grape groves were more plentiful than grassy fields. Little villages clung to the hill sides with beautiful churches and pretty barns littering the landscape. The Italians seem to have a very high regard for their Dolomiti architecture.
It appeared everyone else loved it too as there was a lot of tourist traffic on my road. Lots of buses heading north full of Tirol seeking, liederhausen photographing, sound of music fans in search of something that more likely didn’t exist. Things were getting quite busy on the motorway. Betty protested for fuel and we pulled of the Autostrada into a service area.
The Service area was total bedlam, full of people from coaches and tours. I felt a little strange, tourist had just slapped me in the face whilst I was trying to tiptoe around Europe and not disturb anything.
I filled up Betty first, knowing I might need to make a quick getaway and parked her near the entrance to the services. I was hoping to get some food, but the queue was horrific so I settled for a pee (still a queue), and went to see what was in my top box. I found some 2 day old bread, a bit of very sweaty cheese and a tin of peaches. Not good but better than the horror inside.
Using the topbox as a cutting board, I rolled the cheese into my bread and spent a long time chewing it. After that, the tin of peaches were a wonderful tonic I closed my eyes and thought that in an hour or so, all of this would be behind me, just Betty, me and the Dolomites. I kept my eyes closed and ate the rest of the tin!
A quick hop up the Autostrada and I left the main road. I was to find a pretty torturous route through the Dolomites to my camping spot at Campitello di Fassa. My maps weren’t too hot for this but given the now very mountainous terrain, there were very few options, so getting it wrong would be hard. I hoped.
Turning into a junction I passed four bikers waiting to turn the other way. I gave a quick wave and heard one of them say “Sarajevo” to his comrades. It then came back to me that they were the four bikers whom I had stayed in the hostel with at Sarajevo! I wished I had turned around to meet up with them again, but it had taken me a while for the neurons to connect that situation up and they would have been long gone.
The Dolomites began to show their true glory. Huge cliffs lead to massive mountains that looked like monumental rotten teeth. In between wonderfully picturesque villages full of tyrolean charm nested joined by roads that followed torturous routes amongst the mountains. It was fun on the bike as the roads lent themselves to a bit of spirited riding.
Betty Back in the country of her birth
This was the first place in Europe that I had been to before. Eight years before, I had visited for a bit of a mountaineering expedition with my friend Ian and I was soon spotting reminders of our trip. I stopped below the Marmolada, the highest mountain in the Dolomites at 3343 metres. Everything was deathly quiet, apart from betty emitting the occasional plink after the long climb up to the pass.
Again I was too early in the season for anything to be happening around here, the ski season had closed in April and the summer season was not to happen for a good month. Lady Marmolada hid behind a modest cloud.
I soon found the campsite that Ian and I had stopped at in Campitello de Fassa, an wonderful little village that seemed to primarily live from tourism, but also maintained its more humble origins. It was clear that things had gone highwire throughout the Dolomites since my last visit. The campsite was more expensive than a high class hotel in Bosnia and I could buy four beers in Bratislava for the price of one here. However, the same Italian hospitality seems to remain, I was welcomed everywhere with interest, conversation and good humour. Belamissio!
After booking in at the campsite and pitching up I spent some time talking to the owner about motorcycles and eventually ended up in the villages supermarket. Last time I had visited there was a whole Isle devoted to pasta. I had even found some pasta shaped into little penis shapes together with balls. I was keen to buy a pack of that for the Mrs.
I was most disappointed to find that the pasta selection had shrunk somewhat and no knob pasta was on sale. I did not trust my Italian to ask for ‘Pasta Pen Picolo’ so I just bought some pasta twirls, a bit of sauce and a nice bit of white bacteria covered sausage.
Walking through a foreign town with a couple of carrier bags allows you to blend into the background. It was late afternoon and I was keen to do a little people watching, so I aligned myself into a bar window, furnished myself with a sipper (it was over 5 Euros) and watched the world go by. The young people of the village arrived on scooters and foot, flirting with each other in such a stylistic way. It made me quite jealous. How I wished that I could have been so uninhibited and expressive when I was their age. I was a total failure at being a teenager till I was at least 25.
Back to the totally empty campsite to find that I was not alone. A cycling couple had pitched up and as I had heard them whilst they were shopping, I knew they were English too. We had a long chat and exchanged stories. They liked my Eastern European stories, I hated their crack chaffing stories and then I cracked open the last of the single malt. Not too sure how it ended, but I don’t think anyone was talking too much sense.
Saturday 2nd June 2012 Meet up in Munchen
Alright.... I had drunk a bit too much last night, no need to remind me. I was still ready to go early on, as today I had a number of thing to do, firstly, check out of Italy, Check in, then out of Austria, Check into my flat at Oberammergau, Bavaria, then pick up my wife and children at Munich Airport before driving back to the flat. I needed to focus on one thing at a time so choosing correctly, I headed for Austria.
I was on a constant downer as the Dolomites soon disappeared, heading towards Bolzano. Using Autostrada and little local roads I eventually ended up in St Leonard in Passeier, still in Italy. Time was passing quickly and I was not following the programme. Ahead of me was the Timmelsjoch, a very high mountain pass that would lead me into Austria. I was needing to ‘do’ Austria in quick time, so I dialled ‘Bit of an Arsehole’ into the riding mode, made sure everything was strapped down and had a little choccy bar to keep the demons at bay.
The Timmelsjoch was an astounding piece of road and one favoured by people out for a good drive/ride. I made good time and really enjoyed the road. Betty was made for this, a million tight turns where you could wind on the throttle long before the apex to fire yourself out of a corner whilst still leant over.
No I really mean it, it is!
At a junction, I was soon followed by a number of BMW GS1200’s. It was now Timmelsjoch Moto GP. I really needed Steve Parish to big me up, but I just couldn’t do it in my own mind, so I had to make it up myself. “Plucky Brit, long way from home on Italian machinery, facing down the relentless hoard of Teutonic, symmetry hating Gelände/Strasse, very close behind”. Then I realised that I sounded like that total knob Jeremy Clarkson and instead decided to have a race with the BMWs.
Well, Betty was up for it too. Despite being fully loaded, way less than half the power of the BMWs and armed with no rider aids such as ABS, traction control or cup holders, we were away. On long straights we were quickly caught and once overtaken, but in, around and out of the corners we were just so impressive. I overtook the GS that had passed me out of a hair pin bend and there were no straights left to overtake me on. However, we were now at least 2200 metres above sea level and some of the drop offs were getting pretty spectacular. In any case it was time for a Kodak moment, so I pulled off the road and prepared to show my appreciation to the G/S boys. It looks like they gave up a few corners ago or had all gone airborne and wouldn’t be joining us for the rest of their lives.
The valley floor 300 metres below looked pristine, so hopefully they were just having a coffee or something.
Over the Timmelsjoch and through the toll gate, I was given a sticker to prove I had made it over the 2474m pass. Now I see many a traveller’s baggage festooned with such stickers, but here was me, a man not looking for stickers, presented with one not too far away from home.
Therefore... If you go on a long journey, is it only to acquire as many stickers, with as many flags as possible on them? I missed the thought of having lots of stickers, it seemed to be a right of passage. Perhaps I was too busy exploring places to remember to find somewhere that sells stickers of that same place.
So into Austria. What preconceptions could I bring to this place? I was expecting sternness and rigidity. Again because I had been a little too influenced by negative stereotypes.
At the first town I found, I entered the Spar to get some bread and cheese for my lunch. In front of me in the queue was a rather large young girl pushing a push chair with a little girl in it. She was barely dressed in a tiny skirt and bousomed out her wares like a Muller’s cow. She appeared the life and soul of the Spar shop, so perhaps another stereotype I had to lay to waste!
Austria would not let me ride on her motorways without paying a fee so I felt my way around towns and cities, trying to get to Germany. It did not take long, after an hour, and a few hold ups, I rode into Germany under the shadow of the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain. After half a mile, the Police pulled me over.
I gave it all the Gutten Targe, but after looking at my number plate the officer asked me, in English, for my licence and documents. He was a young dude and I was expecting all sorts of problems.
He came back to me to tell me there was a problem verifying my insurance and was very apologetic and then out of curiosity asked me where I have been and what I have been doing. We then chatted for ten minutes about just about everything. Eventually, I was told I was free to go and the lovely chap told me to have a fantastic time in Bavaria. So far, it was just like that!
Through Garmish Parenkirtken, the main town in the area and on to Oberammergau. The town is renound for performing a passion play every 10 years since 1634 after the residents made a deal with God to perform the play if he would spare the townsfolk of the Bubonic plague that was sweeping the area.
The town was a model Barvarian town, the houses festooned with flowers and ornately painted. Despite their being a strong contingent of tourists, life seemed to trot along very well. I arrived at the flat where we would be staying and was greeted by Gerrad, the owner, who lived above it. A very jolly and humorous Dutch instructor at the nearby NATO army school, Gerrad was keen to hear about where I had been.
I was shown around the flat which was absolutely fantastic. Even better, I could have a shower, wash my clothes and clean up the camp cooker which was somewhat covered in caked on foodstuff of one kind or another.
Julie and the Boys would be arriving at Munich airport at around 8pm, so I had plenty of time to relax. I went to the local supermarket to stock up on essentials and enjoyed the feeling of the town. I felt so relaxed and content, I almost became late in getting on the road to the airport.
It was great to ride the bike with no luggage. Although I was travelling light, the bag on the back of the bike meant that I could not stretch out or move around much. Now, it was much more comfortable. We made good progress towards Munich on the Autobahn. As long as I could get through Munich quickly, I would be in good time.
We were cruising steadily at 130kph, when the clocks flickered and the bike stuttered. I eased off the throttle for a seconded and she came back to life, but I knew what was happening. The solder on the ignition switch commonly gets rattled off and this was more likely what was happening. Half a mile later, everything switched off and I fortunately found an exit to roll off.
A few waggles of the ignition wiring and it was confirmed to me. The answer was to hotwire the ignition wires, but I had left the majority of my toolkit in my bag back in Oberammergau! All I had was a screwdriver and a few allen keys in the tool kit under the seat.
It took some time to remove some of the body work to get at the wires, cut the wires with a screwdriver, strip the wires using my teeth and wind the wires back together. I was now half an hour late and it was beginning to get dark.
Munich’s road network was dug up for improvements just to add to my frustrations. There appeared to be no easy route to get to the airport on the other side of town, I just followed the road signs, unaware of where I really was. All I knew was that I had ridden past the town sized BMW factory and later, past the Bayer Munich stadium.
If the plane was on time, it would have landed by now and I was a good 10 miles from the airport. If I was not there to pick up Julie, Elliot and Harry, they would worry. It was dark now and I screamed into the airport and seeing a parking space in a rather exclusive car park right outside the main entrance, I rode over a neat bit of grass, bypassing the barrier and parked up.
I was observed getting off my bike, by a stern looking man sat in his Mercedes. He looked even sterner as I unwrapped my ignition wiring to turn the bike off. It probably didn’t look good.
The airport was busy and hot, I was sweating in my biking gear, but eventually got to the arrivals expecting to find an annoyed family, but they had not got through passport control yet. I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I realised I needed the toilet. It was a kind of bad needed the toilet, but I wasn’t in a position to go to the toilet as I had a meeting to make that had been given a blessed second chance of actually making. So I stayed put occasionally leaning casually on a pillar to cross my legs and relax my bladder cork just a little. I may have gone cross-eyed.
It was wonderful to see Julie, Elliot and Harry come out of the arrivals and as soon as we got the necessaries done, I burned a hole in the porcelain. Now I could think straight. We picked up a hire car and as the finals were dealt with I returned to the place where my bike had been left. I was expecting it to have been ticketed, clamped or blown up. Approaching from an oblique angle I could see no obvious problems so I sauntered up and after the quick hotwire, got old Betty on the go again. I exited the car park in a similar fashion as to how I came in and, whilst praising the Germans for their incredible national sense of good form, sensed that If I were to be mean spirited, I could do a lot of harm to this good natured country.
It was quite clear that after getting fuel and being followed by Julie and the boys in the hire car that I had not thought of a number of important things. I had a rough idea on how to get back to Oberammergau, over 100km away but it was now dark and my fairly good sense of direction was somewhat impaired. Added to this, all the motorways were dark with no lights so my road atlas stuck in the tank bag wasn’t much use either.
What was needed was to get a move on in the general right direction, but Julie was understandably somewhat unwilling to get up to Autobahn speed too quickly and hovered around the 100km mark, whilst I tried to get her moving a bit faster, ever now and again someone would come past at twice our speed and it was a little worrisome.
Somehow we ended up on the Autobahn to Frankfurt so had to turn around and then took a wrong turn and went around Munich the wrong way. I think everyone was tired and tempers a little frayed. The stresses of finding your way around limited access highways can be quite hard sometimes, but when you are responsible for other people and you really don’t know where you are can be a point where you are willing to pull over and wait for the dawn. That would have been a long wait!
All of a sudden, after travelling 270 degrees of the Munich ring road, I saw a road number I recognised and soon we were on known highways. It had been an hour and a half of brain frazzle but now I could see then end. Eventually rolling up at close to midnight we were all pooped but the wonderful experience of falling into bed with someone warm was rather nice.
Sunday 3rd June 2012- Friday 7th June
We loved living in Oberammergau for the week. We so enjoyed walking up to mountain restaurants, looking at views hiring bikes and going to see places, silly Disney catles, and even just wandering around the village and looking at the fantastic flowers and architecture.
We took a trip up the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain. which was something different to the UK’s highest mountain, mainly because it was twice as high, but also because it had a few restaurants at the top and sculptures, walkways and tat shops. I tend to have a very purist view on what the top of a mountain should be like, but to be quite honest the Zugspitze was far better than the top of Snowdon, so, I will not go on.
Betty’s ignition barrel was repaired by a lovely chap at the local garage and he only wanted 5 Euros for the job, I gave him 10 Euros and think I might have told him to rip his knickers off, or something like that. I was trying to tell him to have a drink on me, but it went all GermaEnglish. This is a new language that I have invented, and even I don’t understand it.
We enjoyed living in Germany as a family for that week to a great degree and it helped me to immensely better understand the German way of life that I can sum up in just one sentence. Lovely people and by the way they live, is it any wonder they do so well?
We had a wonderful week, but that isn’t for these pages but too soon it was time to be ready to move again.....
Friday 8th June 2012
This was a day where things would have to go right and past records did not indicate a good record. We were all up early and found our way to the airport with no problems. Everything was easily done but it was with some sadness we said goodbye. In many ways my trip took a downturn from here as I was now concentrating on home despite a number of must see things in between.
So kissing everyone goodbye, I returned to Betty whom I had hid in the car rental pick up point, about as close to the runway as you could get unless you had wings, and still appeared to have no ticket. I had been allowed to leave my main gear behind at the flat in Oberammergau, so I was lightweight, not so good when it rained and I had no waterproof, but, I was reasonably comfortable.
One of the big points of my trip around Europe was to visit a former concentration camp. At first I planned to visit Auswitz as it was the biggest and the worst, but soon I realise it was a long journey into Poland and soon found that Dachau was handily close to Munich. I feel a need for a comedy routine about handy and conveniently located Nazi extermination camps but perhaps I should stop. I needed to see this for my own humanity and grasp on what we need to ensure never happens again.
So the wind and the rain blew as I found my way to Dachau, the very first Nazi extermination camp. It was on an industrial estate. I was there very early, one of the first people in. I didn’t want to be there in a crowd.
The audio guide was massively illuminating, ranging from some of the people who worked there, the prisoners, the local people and the people who liberated it.
The gates with their horrific cynical statement of Arbeit macht frei – “Work will set you free”, the exercise yard, the death strips and finally, the gas chambers.
It is hard to describe how you feel when yuo walk, quite alone, into a place where thousands of people died, screaming, scrabbling, scratching for life amongst the already dead. Even worse, the women, the children, the infirmed. They all died where I was standing. In this room with a drain at the bottom. Due to arriving so early, I was given the rare opportunity to sit and imagine the horror of it all, without interruption.
The next room was the furnaces where bodies were burnt. My mind went from horror to a morbid curiosity as to how so many bodies from the gas chamber could be processed and I Imagined that actually would have taken some time to ‘process’ the remains from the gas chamber.
After leaving this area I came upon a memorial from a number of different religions and groups paying homage to those who had been exterminated here. At this point I really began to cry, because the reality of it all became all too apparent.
Dachau was the very first concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Concentration camps had been invented by the British during the Boer War, 50 years before. Dachau was there to ‘re-educate’ people who were politically adverse to the new National Socialist state. However, as time went on Dachau became the blueprint of every concentration camp constructed by the Nazis.
I spent 3 hours there, wandering around, listening to peoples tales and wondering some horrid thoughts. As I left, there was an inscription that summed it up.
'They came for the Trade Unionists, but I said nothing, because I am not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, but I said nothing because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to say anything'.
There are many a fool in life, and I do a very good job of being such a fool. However words such as this, after such a terrifying journey, help me to make sure that I am not always a fool.
On the way back to the bike, I soon realised that I had taken my entire journey around the site without the security of knowing the keys to my bike were on my person. Upon returning to my bike I found them sticking up from the ignition barrel. Did I mention something recently to say I was a fool?
So out of Germany, into Austria and onto Italy, looking for the Stelvio Pass, at 2758m above sea level it is the second highest pass in the Alp. I had a long journey to get to the infamous pass and was, to be quite honest, underwhelmed.
Yes it was high and there were lots of 1st gear hairpins but, to be quite honest, I can do that in the cul de sac where I live, So I was very un-Jeremy Clarksoned, if that is a word, it now is’ed . There was too much of the same old shite with very little of the bees knees. It rated pretty low.
Possibly this was because it was early in the season and at 5pm when I arrived at the top and nothing was open. Also because the top was a total shit hole, I had recently seen better in Tin Town, Bratislava, Soviet Block.com. It resembles two weetabix boxes cut out with bad scissors, with really bad windows and a poorly sculpted bat thrown on the top. ‘Mama mia, we have crapped in the eternal fountain of youth!’
I left after an purely “if you don’t believe me here is a picture” Kodak moment.
Two minutes later, I crashed into a kerb and a large snow drift whilst taking in the panorama.
I had ejeced safely from the bike as it was a low speed incident and looked upon poor Betty as she lay wheels up and pxxxed off at what I had put her thought. I tired ever so har to get her upright as she cried a tear or RON 95 onto the road. At this point, I was knackered after the long climb and could not find it in me to lift this horrid machine of total hatred to a vertical position.
So I looked at the view and tried to ignore the little trickle. I would have said I was waiting on the Divine to help me, but I have been having some different thoughts of late and perhaps I was relying on a kindred sprit, or a decent person. Anyone relly?
30 seconds later, I was born again, as a concerned German dude stopped on his big GS. We had a hearty laugh at my sillyness and his help was well received. When you are an idiot, don’t try to be an professor, be an idiot. People like you and will help you then!
Philophody over. I had broken the clutch lever off to a little stub, but it was still usable. So off we set.
I was hoping to wild camp in the verdant spring hinterland of the newly emergent alpine ecosphere somewhere near Livigno. What I found was about 1 metre of snow , rain and it being a little bit poor for a bivouac. If I camped, it would be my last ever camp.
Back down the valley I went to find a place where rain, horrid cold and a beer might be sought and into the arms of Albergo Forcola where Betty was tucked up in the dry underneath the building and I was shown a very nice room that probably cost much more than the 30 Euros it was offered for, but I could tell the owner really wanted some custom.
I had come quite a way over the day so after hanging out all of my wet clothes I had a shower and a little lie down. As with a lot of Italian places I have been to, a room temperature of close to body temperature, was the norm and after my shower, a towel was barely needed. Looking out of the window as it grew dark I looked up the steep wooded mountainside that disappeared into the clouds. The rain continued and streams thundered whilst I laughed at my lack of understanding of the Alps. The foolishness of thinking I could camp at least 500 metres higher from my current position didn’t bear thinking about. “Plans are nothing; planning is everything”, as Eisenhower said, flowing to a new plan of not staring out of an open window looking at a huge landscape air drying my naked body. Curtains closes, I got dressed and went down for some fodder.
I was really looking forward to dinner as I have had some really interesting and tasty meals in the Italian Alps in the past. The owner, a man perfectly suited to the job of welcoming host did his very best to bridge the gap between my somewhat lacking Italian and his limited English. By this point I was all language out. I had used 7 different languages besides my own over the past 3 weeks and somewhere a trip switch had flicked to a state of semi lingual standby-mode.
I threw myself open to experience the local specialities and my host, most pleased to oblige danced off to the kitchen. I was alone in the dining room apart from a group of 3 Italian bikers in the corner who were keeping themselves happily entertained. The interior of the dining room was heavily clad in wood with occasional stuffed heads of beautiful boars and deer on the wall, just spoiling the mood a little bit.
Out came a lovely bowl of food, big thick tapeworm like pasta smothered in a lovely thick cheese sauce with lots of fresh veg and salad. It was a welcome meal and it filled me to the rafters. Out skipped my host who gathered up my bowl and with some theatrical prowess stated “Now, we eat some meat”, twirled on his heal and left the room. The prospect was somewhat terrifying, I was as full as a bed tick and more food was going to be painful.
With my best faux smile I was presented with a huge dish of various meats in different forms. The memory somewhat clouded by the sheer intoxication of food, I took on my new task with all the strength I could muster. Aided by loosening of buttons, fake trips to the toilet to rattle digested food around into little spots that could be filled up, I managed to finish half the plate. I sat back on the verge of exploding, hot flushes pulsing around my body and living in fear of the D word.
Desert, it appears, was not compulsory and unable to drink a beer in the bar, I trudged upstairs. My room was like a sauna and adding to that the events of the past hour and a half, I was somewhat uncomfortable. I opened my window and breathed in the cool air. It had stopped raining now and some of the cloud had lifted giving me a view higher into the surrounding mountains.
I got up onto the window ledge to swing my legs into the cool and in a small way it gave me some comfort from the gastronomic atom bomb gestating inside me. If the worst came to the worst I could throw myself out of this second floor window to end it all, but this really did seem a last resort.
I tried to sleep, I read, I did light exercises like walking to the toilet and back, but the bubbling belly really didn’t want to give me a break. At some point Lady Lullaby took pity on me and I drifted into an uneasy sleep.
Saturday 9th June 2012
I was still not feeling too well in the morning, but managed to eat a bit of breakfast. With fond farewells to my ever enlightening hosts, I loaded up Betty and it started to rain.
Up to the top of the pass, I was where the rain was coming from, right in the middle of a cloud. Everything had steamed up and I had to peer over the top of my glasses as I trotted along at 30kph making sure I could see road. Very close to where I had planned to camp I came across a caravan with an old VW Bettle in front of it parked up in a rather exclusive camp site. I’m glad I had chosen my dwellings in the valley despite the ‘foodbomb’.
The rain continued whether up or down and the passes became steeper and higher The Oberalppass saw me Switzerland. Coming to the top I leaned Betty up against a 3 metre high snow drift and took a look at a very useful lighthouse at the top of its 2046m high pass. It would be easy to laugh, but there has never been a recorded incident of a shipwreck on the Oberalppass, so it must work.
Onto the Julierpass, taking me past some pretty fantastic dams and more importantly better weather. Finally in bright sunlight I wound my way up the Furkapass with unrivalled views and bright snow drifts making it hard to grumble about my wet feet and legs.
No, it is!
Coming down from the passes I was in lowland Switzerland, never far away from a large cliff face or mountain. I had to avoid the motorways where a special pass was needed for their use, but I was happy to tootle along through the villages and towns on the minor roads. I was relishing the thought of my next little box to be ticked, The Eiger.
My dad was a very keen mountaineer and climber and the Eiger always came up in stories. When I was eight we had visited the area on a skiing holiday and had skied below the infamous north face. I had read many a book such as The White Spider detailing the triumphs and tragedies on the mountain. The place had a rep!
I was aiming for Grindelwald, the largest road accessible town near to the north face of the Eiger. Up the little roads I went always on the look out for the sight I had seen in so many a book, but always the clouds hid her.
I filled up with food at the local supermarket and found a small expensive camp site just outside town. It appeared to be mainly used as a skiing hotel and I guessed I was camped on one of the pistes, the snow long gone. The hotel had a rather poorly named open air drinking den named “The Quickie Bar”. This certainly didn’t relate to the speed of service and at the equivalent of 6 Euros for a pint of Eurofizz, I didn’t stop for any more.
I had camped in a spot where I could keep an eye on the position where I thought the Eiger would be, but the clouds kept her clothed and as it went dark the weather got worse. I had managed to buy some proper milk, aptly named Eiger milk for my tea, I had also managed to get some Eiger beer as well. I was living the EIger dream.
Before bed I nipped to the toilet and the Eiger had slipped her shoulder out of her clothes. High up on the Mittergelli Ridge I could see a lonesome light, probably belonging to the mountain hut that sits precariously on the ridge. It seemed an awfully long way away!
Sunday 10th June 2012
I had eaten and gone to bed just before it started to rain. It was pelting down hard as I layed up for the night.
I was awoken at about 2pm by a wet elbow. In fact, just about everything was wet. It turns out that the hot temperatures of the Adriatic had unglued the taped seems on the tent.
The rest of the night involved mopping up water with socks or undies and atempting to sleep under a waterproof jacket.
Motorcycle clothes dryer...
I refused to get out of bed until the rain had stopped which it finally did about 9am. It was like a tsunami had hit my tent. I needed some way to stop this happening again. I would go to the shops, hoping they would be open as it was Sunday.
In a word they weren't. Anyway more important things were happening. Clouds were clearing, the sun was coming out and the Eiger was unveiling itself.
The North Face of the EIger shows it's face...
I zipped up Tsunami tent, and that somehow drew a line under it. The cog train up to Kleine Sheidegg wound its way up the valley, and it soon became apparent I was looking at the North face. It was camera clickquick, I wasn't sure if I would see the face again due to the number of clouds.
Kleine Sheidegg...
Arriving at Kleine Sheidegg in clouds was no surprise. The fleet of mostly Japanese and Indian tourists ran to the next train that would take them through the Eiger to the Jungfraujoch, 'the top of Europe'. Well, the top that sells coffee for 7 Swiss Francs and has a souvie shop.
I lost 99.9% of people by heading up the path to the Eiger glacier. Most of the time I was in cloud but every now and again a veiw up or down the valley would reveal itself. Trudging up the path and through the occasional snowfield was hard work. I was panting like I was doing a 100 metre race. I was 2300 metres up though.
A bit misty on the North Face...
Finally I reached the Glacier station and there in front of me was the North East corner of the Eiger. If ever there was a mountain to put the Willies up you, this one ticks all the boxes. Fearful weather, difficult route finding, a lot of loose rock falling, very hard to retreat, very limited chance of rescue, but more than anything, Its deadly reputation.
On the Eiger Trail... One at a time...
I was going to follow the Eiger trail below the North face and see if I could find a wire rope climb over the eastern corner of the mountain. Both trails were meant to be closed. Scooterisis had flaired up again.
It was a long way down...
I was a tad freaked just to be touching the mountain. I was expecting it to reach down and flick me off its knee, as you would an ant. Its all about reputation, and perhaps I had read too many books!
Following the Eiger trail below the cliff face soon became a bit of an ordeal. Snow and ice still lay around and one slip would send you to a nasty place with big rocks and 100 metre drops. It was ice axe and crampon territory. I was not kitted up for this. One foot was in a plastic bag because my boot was leaking an it had begun to snow
I did 10 feet...
Above me was over 4000 feet of cliff face. I walked half on a bergsrung, half holding the cliff till sense told me to stop. A small stone falling and hitting the snow confirmed this. I turned back still looking for the wire rope climb. I saw the rope had been pulled up so endevoured to reach it. It was only 20 feet of climling on V Diff material, but after 10 feet, I got the willies and retreated. So now I can say I have climbed (on) the North face of the Eiger.
Thomas the tank Engine's steroid munching, foul mouthed half brother...
Halfway down, I stopped for lunch of bread and chesse, weird Eiger cheese, I think it came from goats. I did a lot of stareing. Sometimes I forgot to chew!
The view tot he Wetterhorn from Kleine Sheidegg...
Back at Kleine Sheidegg, a train was just pulling in. Should I buy a fridge magnet for 7 quid or should I just get on the train and bugger off?
So my Eiger adventure over, I returned to the car crash that masquaraded as my tent. Emptying the whole thing, to dry, I gaffer taped the seams on top of the tent. I hoped this would hold.
The Quickie Bar... I hope not, for the price you pay, it needs to last...
Gaffer tape appears to come in two indeterminate grades. Grade 1 will not stick on anything. Grade 2 will stick a space shuttle to a space station. I had brought Grade 1. So a number of applications of the Grade 1 material and that would have to do.
So a herty meat of pasta, sauce and sausage and it began to rain. If the tent was not going to hold I was going in the toilet block. So far after an hour of rain, everything is still dry.
I have managed to pay back a little kindness to some Austrian lads by lending them my washing up liquid and scourer. Its hardly Live Aid, but it is a start!
Monday 11th June 2012
The tsunami tent had a semi successful night at keeping me dry but by 5.30, rain was leaking in at a steady rate. I got myself ready for the off.
Fortunately I had seen a tent ln the local supermarket. Being a terrible tent snob, it was a poor choice but it only had to last for a bit over one week. At 29 Swiss Francs it was cheaper than expected. I hope that it is a deal, not indicitive of the water repellant properties of the tent.
The relatively short ride to Zermatt was uneventful. It rained a few times, the sun came out briefly.
Wonderful waterfalls spat out their glacial meltwater...
At Tasch, just before Zermatt, I had to leave Betty in an underground
garage. She was not happy. It was like tying a dog to a lamp post and
going to the pub.
I lumped my luggage into the train station. I asked for a return ticket and went to pay with a card. The dude behind the counter looked into my wallet and said.'CASH', despite there being signs everywhere for card payment.
My experience of tourist customer service in Switzerland has been very poor. It is like, 'Heres the mountains, now empty your wallet, CASH. (you nob)'. Surleyness was off the Vikki Pollard scale.
Zermatt... reet posh...
The short train ride arrived at Zermatt where I was confronted by a riot of tourism. I had to wait 5 minutes, just to get my head in gear. The village only allows electric vehicles and taxis ferried people about whilst trying to avoid Japanese tourists taking pictures.
I walked down to the camp site which would be best described as basic. Saying that, it was a tenth of the price of the cheapest rooms in the town.
I got the tent up eventually, it wasn't too bad. Question is, what to do with my old one. I have had it for almost 20 years. Oh well, A bin in Zermatt is better than a bin in Market Drayton, if you want a semi heroic end.
New tent up... The blue one...
I needed a shower. The men's shower was locked. The only option was the ladies. I returned to the tent to plan my blitzkreig tactics for a shower. Currently the campsite was deserted. It would be just my luck that as I was happily washing my nads, a large group of grubby femenists on a weeks retreat from the evils of men, would pitch up and line up for a shower.
I really had no way of talking my way out of that one, but l recon the odds were slim. Blitzkreig shower worked well.
I went for a walk around the village. These electric vehicles are a menace. They sneak up behind you and try to run you over, they drive on whatever side of the road they like and the drivers quite clearly couldn't give a care in the world.
I never saw a police electric vehicle, but I would of liked to point out to the authorities the bloke driving up the road smoking a big fat reffer. His eyes were rolling about on his cheeks and I think the whole of Steinmattstrasse were a lot more chilled after he had passed.
Indeed, I saw a four headed shrimp in the next street along.
Oh, yes, the Matterhorn, that Toblerone shaped mountain that peers down on this little town. It doesn't show its face too much. You can see it is there, but clouds veil her.
The best shot I could get of the Matterhorn. I think someone ele may have got a better one!
The shops here are great. Snap up a Rolex for 6000 pounds. Buy some mountaineering boots for 450 quid. A pint of beer costs 7 quid and it is 68ml short!
Tuesday 12th June 2021
t had rained all night and cheapy tent had kept me dry. It continued to pour down outside, and I was left thinking what I could do.
I chatted with a few Swedish climbers who were hoping to climb the Matterhorn even though it was very early in the season. They were just sitting around waiting for the weather to break. We all agreed that Zermatt was not a place for anyone but the very well off.
Dark Tourism... have a guide go round the graveyard telling you how everyone died, in detail...
I walked into town to try and find a WiFi spot, eventually having to buy a coffee in McDonalds to get one. The weather was looking bad for this day and the next, so my mind was made up. I would ride to Chamonix where there was more to do, it was cheaper and the weather would break quicker.
I packed in the rain, wished the Swedish lads all the best and trudged off to the station. I had not enjoyed my visit, apart from a brief glimpse of the Matterhorn.
I ate my lunch in the Tasch terminal of the station under hard glares from the staff. I just don't fit in here! Stranger in a stranger place again!
At least Betty was glad to see me. It had been a long stay in a rather dark underground garage. Motorcycles are afraid of the dark. I know this is true because they all have headlights. Think about it.
As soon as we left Tasch, lt stopped raining. It was quite nice and sunny at lower altitudes, warm too.
The trip to Chamonix was relatively uneventful. I didn't want to use the motorways because you had to buy an expensive vignette for using them. So I took slow roads that made slow progress.
As I rode up the pass that would take me into France, it started to rain hard again. Hard rain tended to run down my front, and end up somehow, in my pants, despite my biking trousers being waterproof. I had come up with a cunning plan and placed a carrier bag over this region to avoid this problem. It did look a bit odd at filling stations, but that is beside the point. In fact forget that last bit altogether.
It appeard to be working well. What was actually happening was the water was being stored up. So as I enterd the first hairpin bend the whole resevoir of freezing water let rip into my shreddies.
This had a number of effects, I screamed, I kind of forgot about motorcycling for a moment and I stopped steering. Like a true professional, I regained control just in time to avoid having to get landing clearance from Geneva airport.
After that incident, I removed the plastic bag.
Chamonix was bathed in a bath of drizzle when I arrived. I did find a nice campsite that lay right under a couple of Glaciers. If it is nice tomorrow, I will go and have a look.
Some tents have all the luck...
I set up the damp new tent and used the poles and flysheet of the old tent to make a rather spiffing lean to on Betty. Think of the tent as an over amourous dog and the bike as your leg, and you have the picture beautifully.
So I cooked, read and wrote most of this, out of the rain and dry. A million dollars!
Wednesday 13th June 2021
I know the past few days had taken a bit of a toll as I wasn't up until 10am. I was going to take things easy, although this was slightly enforced as it was raining quite a lot.
I decided to walk up to the glacier and have a look around. I fashioned a rudimentary ice axe on the way up but the paths took me to a mountain hut. From here the views were fantastic but acccss to the glacier was impossible.
The Bossons glacier below the Aiguille du Midi...
I wasn't too keen on the risks involved crossing a morraine valley with a few million tonnes of doggy ice above me. In the valley below they had constructed a kind of glacier catching dyke. It must have been 20 metres high and wide.
The Bossons glacier...
So down I went, spending a few hours reading in the tent, whilst the sky emptied itself of rain.
I am rereading a great book all about probalility, luck and chance and how humans are very bad at understanding it. Apparently rats outperform humans in totally random games because we look for pattern. A lot of things in life are totally random, so often there is no pattern.
I finish filling my head with Pascal's Triangle and went into Chamonix to find some money and food.
Chamonix was nice, a bit like a normal town but with a mountaineering slant.
One thing that got me rather irate here, as well as in Zermatt, was the amount of Aisan tourists walking around with face masks on. Now my understanding is that people wear them to reduce the polution entering their lungs or because Avian Bird Flu is flexing its pandemic muscles.
I don't think you need a face mask in places like Zermatt, because all fossil fuel vehicles are banned and you are 1500 metres above sea level. The air is so pure, you can smell a fart from 200 metres away.
So lets explore the other posibility shall we? From an internet searh, it appears that no international pandemics are forcast. Imagine what I must of thought when I saw all these face masks and haven't looked at the news for a month.
Personally, I think face masks should be banned. A terrorist could be hiding behind one. But really, if I were to go around Zermatt shouting."Plague, Plague, the plague is coming"'! I would soon be locked up in a loony van (I bet they don't have an electric loony van in Zermatt), and helped into a straight jacket. The good afluent people of the town would not want visitors to think the Plague was visiting?
A quick supermarket sweep bought all the necessities. Back to the campsite to plan my next move.
Better weather is coming but I don't really want to do some of the big passes into Italy now, I have done enough. So I turn my head North West and in the direction of home.
It doesn't seem too close, and then it spits at you...
Wednesday 13th June 2021
I was awake at a reasonable time and ready to go by 9am. Of course the clouds had disappeared to reveal the French Alps in all their glory. A better view from any campsite, I have not found.
I love waking up in France, when people say Bonjour to you, it is like they really mean it. It is a real welcoming of a new day. I wish I knew more French so I could discuss the joys of living with them.
The overiding desire was to get home, so no views or temptations to go see would shake that. I didn't have much of an Idea where I would end up but if I could chew off 500kms of France, I would be satisfied.
To do this I was going to be a heathen and use the toll motorway. Most of France would pass away unseen, but, sorry France, I have a garage full of bits of shelves that really need to go to the tip.
You do get what you pay for on French motorways. I scudded through France with Betty held open. At 2pm I had reached my 500km goal, and I was still feeling OK. So we go a little further, and so it continued.
Somewhere near Reimes, I came off the motorway (total cost, from Chamonix, 36 Euros - Good value to me). I was looking for a campsite. To be quite honest, I was shocked at how dilapidated the buildings were. It was like I was back in Bosnia, just without the shell holes!
So I carried on riding and looking, but nothing looked even remotely habitable. I had got so fed up with the region that I made my mind up to skip the country.
Belgium was far smarter and looked nice. I just couldn't find a campsite, or hotel. I guess I was so far away from anything I knew. So I looked at the map, the only thing close that I knew anything about was Ypres. There would be lots of hotels there for confused English people as that was where most people stayed who were visiting war graves.
Passendale was also on my list of things I wanted to see and it is just up the road.
Another desire to get back home is the fact that Betty is not at her best. Todays 850kms will not have helped. She has been going 130kph+ at 5000rpm+ for over 10 hours today. Her oil consumption is at addict level and there is a sickening scrating noise when the brake leve is pulled in, indicating the clutch cable is disintegrating.
Hopefully it will hold on till I get home. I hope Betty might appreciate me as much as I appreciate her. I have a terrible feeling that she may be nothing more than an antidave. Some inanimate object for my own character to strike back against.
I best stop talking like this, otherwise the loony van, possibily even propelled by electricity, will come calling.
So tomorrow will be looking around WW1 sites. Funny that I was there where it began in Sarjevo. Here it ended for so many, too many, a shameful many.
Thursday 14th June 2021
Waking up in the Best Western Hotel in Ieper, or Ypres as is is known to English speakers, was quite an experience. I was in a comfortable bed, there was no sound of rain, I was not freezing cold and no immediate concerns sprang to mind. Had I died and gone to Hell?
I needed a few problems at least, so I went for breakfast and left my jacket on my chair when I left. All around me were gernerally British people, on War trails, following stories from both World Wars. I was shocked by how fat everybody was in comparison to the rest of Europe I had seen. Still, the law of small numbers could be operating here, so I put it to one side. The breakfast could of done it.
Tyne Cot war cemetary...
I loaded Betty up. I wanted to visit Tyne Cot war memorial, at Passendale, the largest Commonwealth war grave in the world. It seemed an important thing to see, it would be my last, To be haunted, yet again, by the foolish past seemed a good way to go out.
The trip up to Passendale was through functional villages, rather bland and post modern. very 1930's looking. Then I realised, this whole area would of been flattened by a million shells. The only history in these parts would be underground.
I suddenly felt a lot of respect for the architecture. Every roundabout had some sculpture on it that cried out the folly of war. Whether it did or didn't had no clear meaning, but it did to me. Them is the best sculptures.
I arrived a Tyne Cot at about 9am. From the car park, it was hard to see the place. I wandered around the long path into the place and as little glimpses took hold, I was rather taken aback by the size of the place. What should 20 000 graves look like?
The pill boxes at Tyne Cot...
The whole experience is carefully managed to bring you into the graveyard with some understanding of the depth of loss felt by the Commonwealth of 55 000 of it's children. It was an increadibly moving exprerience, expecially the reading of the names. every name is read out on an endless loop.
35 000 bodies are scattered across France and Belgium and have never been found, their names are recorded here. It was an emotional experience yet again. I have got quite emotional a fair number of times, and I think I have a common denominated apart from horrific death, injustice and innocent blood liberally spilt. It is the crazed selfish ambition of idiotic, psycotic and selfish political leaders.
The walls contain the names of the 35 000 who are missing...
So, what now? I could visit a million war graves and get even more irate. I could go to Amsterdam to see Vincent, as I had promised, I could go to the beach, but I reconed it to be a bit like Skegness, but with no guarentee of donkeys.
My topbox was beginning to smell like a French supermarket. Very organic.... Both my feet and socks were now in plastic bags as both boots were leaking and the socks smelt almost as bad as the topbox. Betty's clutch cable was liable to go at any second, and it looked like it was about to rain.
I have really enjoyed listening to a very mature young Scottish folk/rock singer, Amy MacDonald, at times over my trip. A wonder tune, The road to home.
Oh the leaves are falling from the trees
And the snow is coming don't you know
But I still remember which way to go
I'm on the road, the road to home
Oh the sound is fading in my ears
And I can't believe I've lasted all these years
But I still remember which way to go
I'm on the road, the road to home
Oh the light is fading all the time
And this life I'm in, it seemed to pass me by
But I still remember which way to go
I'm on the road, the road to home
Now I must say goodbye
Keep telling myself now don't you cry
But I'm here where I belong
I'll see you soon, it won't be long
I'll see you soon, it won't be long
I love that song, It may talk a bit about a final end, but it is a happy final end, and my eyes were fixed on the not so final end, but a kind of final end (hoping the final end wasn't a broken clutch lever on the M25......Suicide awaits).
Travelling is really good, it makes a man, or woman out of you. But coming home is so fantatic, because you get sucked up in love and great tales and then you start to reminice and then make plans as how you should change your life for the better. Coming home is wonderful, especially when you have left so much.
If I shook my beetle, I reconed, I would make the 12pm sailing from Dunkirk, so I shook that very same beetle and, after a few wrong turns, ended up at Dunkirk ferry terminal. 100 Euros seemed a complete rip off for the next ferry, seeing as an internet search a few months before came up with about £35. but I was ready for home and the beetle was still, irritatingly, still shaking.
I was assigned row B and found to my joy I was 6th on the boat, 3 lorries and 2 bikes in front of me, hopefully 6th on 6th off. although, this had been proved otherwise in past experiences!
Betty had to be tied down because she was so excited about going home...
The ship set off and for three quaters of the journey it appeard that Frnace was about a mile off the Port side. I was getting well into my voyage, I even knew where my lifejacket could be found (should I need it).
I had an expensive coffee with no kick and a cheese and onion pasty, now that was really good. It then dawned on me that I should get some rest. I lay my head down on the upper outside seak only to be surrounded by excited 13 year olds on a school trip. The kiddies ball pool was empty but I knew I was on the home straight, don't spoil it with some wild accusations now I thought, so I put my head down on a table in the club class restaurant and had a few minutes.
A farmiliar site to welcome you home...
There were the white cliffs of Dover. A wonderful welcome home and I really mean that. Home is home, it may not be as wonderful as some of the things that you see, but it is home, and home.... well.... its Home! Boat docked, second off boat, sneeky overtake of lorry on Customs corner and I was in the lead coming into Passport control chicaine. I dazzled with passport in mouth and was useded through with cursory looks, behind me the 2nd place campervan was pulled over for full cavity inspection.... What a crushing victory...
It had gone from right right right to left left left, but old habits die hard so I reveted to scooteristis and took whatever lane I wanted. Soon I was on the M25 and found the Dartford Tunnel creating a 5 mile traffic jam. It was Friday. I filtered between cars expecting a right who har, but to be honest, I had no problems apart from a transit van driver whom tried to kill me by closing up the gap. Well, he might need a new nearside wing mirror, because I hit it pretty hard. Nob.
I got ot the toll booth and didn't pay anything again only to find Betty was flashing red and overheating, her fan had not come on and she was about to pop, so a slow build up to speed brought the temperature back down. Any standing in traffic was going to be bad so I guess I had a doctor's note...
The rest of the trip up the M1 and M6 was a nigthmare, stop, start standing traffice, roadworks, it was a terrible welcome home. I decided to take the M6 toll road to avoid more traffic around Birmingham, although I was convinced that there should not be so much traffic. Typical English people working late on a Firday Evening. The I realised I had not put my clock back, therefore, I was infact in the middle of the rush hour!
The toll road was great apart from a massive thunderstorm that turned it into the M6 toll river. One biker had stopped under a bridge, it was so bad.
Getting off the motorway, I was supprised by how many people had put out bunting and union jacks to celebrate that I was coming home, especially as it was a bit of a suprise for everyone. I wonder who had told... Saying that, it could have been some other minor event that had happened like some old lady having a job for a very long time being celebrated...
So I arrived home... How good it was to see everyone again, should I start telling the stories now.... No. I was going to enjoy a really big cup of tea that someone else had made, but before I did that, Betty and I had a little 'Valle' moment. It wasn't 'bye bye baby', it was 'Well done Baby'. 'Oh, and I will buy you a new clutch lever'.
