Cheers to the first third!! Please help men everywhere and donate to Prostate Cancer UK through our link, http://www.justgiving.com/journeytotheeast
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Final Destination!
Countries visited
5,000 km from London and going strong!
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Night at the fire station – 19th Sept
We are now five or six days outside of Istanbul and are heading east along the Black Sea. Leaving the big city behind, we’ve rediscovered Turkish people’s unbelievable hospitality, whether in the countless teas they offer us (it’s practically a second word for hello), in the way they drop everything to help whenever they can, or just in their beaming smiles and frantic waves from the side of the road when we zoom past. As a Londoner who desperately avoids eye contact on the Tube like everybody else, this behaviour comes as a very welcome shock! Our night in the fire station a few days ago works as quite a good example of how things have gone so far:
Tea is a way of life in Turkey
Father and son at the teahouse
We’d set off early that morning from our previous sleeping spot, which had been the first floor of a quiet building site in a small coastal town. Not our Plan A for a place to stay to be honest, but it had started to pour with rain in the evening and at that point floorspace indoors suddenly became very appealing. So it did for half a dozen stray dogs it seemed, who fought it out amongst each other for control of the ground floor. Certainly added excitement to the evening, as Turkish dogs are both big and bloody vicious. We somehow managed to retreat upstairs and barricade the stairs off amid all the commotion, the barks and the thundering rain, even marking our own territory by peeing emphatically on the landing. Still, having survived the night it seemed foolish to stay for round two, so we sneaked off and pedalled hard on our way the next morning. So it was that we arrived at 3pm in a town called Alapli, where we intended to spend the night.
Rain forced us in here
Classic use of a painting to mark the open manhole in a flood
Romantic dinner with a view
The barricade
Clearing off before round two
Enter Mehmet, a thirty-something bloke who had spotted us from the town’s tea garden. Sat with a bunch of mates, he waved us over practically before we’d brought the bikes to a halt. Tea first of course, which comes bitter in tiny glasses and needs at least two sugars. Then we talked. It turned out that Mehmet, recently unemployed, had decided to turn his life around and learn English. He’d done it all from CDs on his own and spoke very well: he quickly became our table’s translator. So we spent the afternoon chatting away and he introduced us to the most important teahouse game in Turkey, a tile game which is a sort of variation on rummy. The men seem to while away their afternoons smoking, drinking tea and playing round after round of this game, called Okey!, letting the women do all the serious work. Anyway being keen to gamble with the local regulars we quickly accepted to playing a best-of-21 set – Mehmet and his mates kept letting us win and ordering more tea as prize money. This set extended into the early evening as the heavens opened again and it poured with rain to remind us of England.
Three blokes simultaneously playing for Lobby at Okey!
In fact we were both too engrossed in the tiles to notice the light quickly fading, which is a pretty basic mistake if you consider we had camped our whole way across Europe: we knew from the few times we’d done it that looking for a camping spot in the dark was about as fun as it sounds! Mehmet translated the swear word we had both just let out, to the amusement of the table, who asked what the matter was. We explained. An excited debate began around the table in Turkish – mates were dragged in, phone calls were made and people actually began fiercely arguing with each other about how best to help us out. So much so that when we left for the police station – somebody knew somebody in the force, it seemed a good idea – a whole troupe of spectators/fans/old men accompanied us, forming a little parade around our bicycles in the narrow streets of the town.
Tea was served. We were in an office with about 15 bystanders who between them had explained our situation to the two young coppers across the desk. Asking for tea had been their first and only move since the end of this explanation, and now we waited in a slightly awkward silence for the chief of police, who was apparently in a meeting.
Various policemen floated in and out (some in incredible tie-shirt combos) and each time we were introduced with a double handshake and an emphatic thumbs-up. Then after a while (it was completely dark outside at this point) clearly the chief walked in: suddenly teas were put down and everyone jumped to their feet. Silence. The chief walked through the tunnel that our fans had formed and stuck out a hand to us, unsmiling. We tried another cheesy travel magazine smile back, but this one was met with an indifferent business-like exterior. Pinstripe and black shoes I could see my reflection in. “Football team?” the chief asked. Lobby replied instantly, “Manchester United.” Another long silence. It felt like the breath had been sucked out of the room as everyone held theirs, waiting for the chief’s reaction. He studied us in our grubby lycra, face giving nothing away – until the corner of his mouth twitched. “Okay.” he said slowly, and walked back out of the door. Apparently this answer was all that had been needed, as we were then hurried along to our next destination: the fire station. I wondered what would’ve happened if Lobby had said Man City.
Mehmet explained that we had needed the chief’s approval to stay the night in town without being officially checked into a hotel, and that we were now off to spend the night at the fire station with one of his old mates. He apologised for not being able to host us himself, explaining that he lived with his parents. Were we hungry? More phone calls. So when we arrived, not only were we introduced to the entire brigade and given a tour, but the head of the local political party showed up to shake our hands and our takeaway dinner arrived in a police car. Not bad for a game of tiles in a tea garden!!! We were swiftly shown to the showers (which ironically had no cold tap – some really do like it hot) and spent the rest of the evening chatting with the brigade. Mehmet, something of a hero figure, stayed around until the end of the brigade’s midnight shift to translate. We can confirm that there were no fires in Alapli that night as we slept undisturbed in the mess room until the morning. After eating the breakfast spread which was laid on by our firemen hosts we cycled away eastwards, wondering if this kind of luck could possibly hold.
Nick
The midnight shift
Shower and changing room
The mess room
The morning shift
A team of helpers poring over their map of Turkey for our route
Setting off once more
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Welcome to Istanbul
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Visa dramas in Istanbul – 15th Sept
So as you’ve probably gathered, we enjoyed a prolonged stay in Istanbul. A five-day sightseeing pit stop turned into ten, and all of a sudden we were pushing the two-week mark since our arrival on 1st September. Of course, in some ways this was fantastic – the point of our trip is not to get from A to B but to enjoy the bits in between, and Istanbul is definitely worth a good explore. Besides, we had planned to slow down after Europe, so this hold-up did not mean we would have to race across the Middle East. But we hadn’t banked on staying here for a fortnight. So why so long?? VISAS.
Istanbul by night
Things could be worse
Visas are a desperately boring topic to write about, the type of thing you couldn’t really care less about the vast majority of the time, that is, until you need one. Then suddenly it becomes very important, very quickly. The ten-man squeeze to get into the visa office turns into the crush to get out of a sinking ship (we shelved the idea of good old-fashioned British queuing in favour of the elbows-out, don’t Φ@£# with me approach which the locals seemed to have perfected); sign language with some Russian-Turkish-English thrown in to the bloke behind the counter (elbows out to stop others smashing past you) became frantic pleas. “Give me a visa. Get me out of here.” I mimed desperately. Still the bloke repeated, painfully slowly, “Why – you want – come – Uzbekistan?” in the most amazing Borat impression I’d heard so far. Good question, we were beginning to think. Under normal circumstances it would have been hard not to laugh, but on this occasion a forceful Uzbek lady was digging her elbow into my back to try to get to the bloke’s window. Thinking desperately, we gasped, “Uzbekistan – harasho! (Russian for “great!”)” giving the corniest fake smile (the lady’s elbow in my back turns that into a grimace) with a thumbs-up included, like something out of a tacky travel magazine. The man was clearly convinced however. “Passport.” he said slowly and deliberately, stretching out his hand below the glass as if throwing a buoy to a drowning man. Phew. We were getting there.
Seafront for a recovery cay
I will spare you the details of all these applications – as there is nothing worse than reading about someone else’s admin issues. Because of consulates’ varying processing time, letters of invitation, hotel booking requirements and exact entry and exit dates needed, we have spent a lot of time trying to make numbers and dates add up with various officials across Istanbul. Then add to that the Turkmens who want you to have an Uzbek visa before you even bother applying, and the Uzbeks who want to send your application off to their capital Tashkent while you wait… And that’s before even mentioning that Brits are not “flavour of the year” in Iran, whose visa policy has tightened to such an extent that we stand the best chance of success by applying from a small Turkish town on the Black Sea coast. A real headache.
Buying kit for the Pamirs as we wait for visas
There have been some hilarious encounters on the various visa runs however. The Turkish are unbelievably helpful, a trait which is made more striking when simultaneously dealing with Central Asian consular officers – who are distinctly uncharming, shall we say. The hunt for the Tajik consulate (which had moved to an unmarked semi-detached house in the suburbs) was coordinated by a large tea-drinking Turkish man, who practically jogged along hailing minibuses for us while offering us tea all at the same time. The building was impossible to find, until we enlisted the help of a couple of Syrians (outside their own unmarked semi-detached consulate) who banged on the door loud enough before declaring that the consul “had probably taken the morning off”. Sure enough we came back at 2pm and there she was, and Tajik stamps were in our passports in under half an hour!
Tajik visas outside the semi-detached consulate in suburbs of Istanbul
So we took in a very full experience of Istanbul, combining looking around gigantic mosques, bustling bazaars and beautiful castles with more stressful trips to consulates in the city outskirts, before eating our fill of kebabs and baklava to recover.
‘New’ Mosque, nr Bosphorus
Recovery kebab
Fish festival in Kumkapi
Yedikule fort from 15th century
We now have the Uzbek and Tajik stamps safely in our passports. The day we left (Monday) we launched our final assault on the Turkmenistan consulate – a darkened room with paintings of President Berdimuhamedow (the supreme leader of Turkmenistan) perched on top of a bucking horse. As a result of the West condemning the single-party Turkmen government for its human rights abuses, Turkmenistan only grants the vast majority of Westerners a 5-day transit visa across their country. Luckily, that is all we will need. A consular officer with impeccable English helped us fill in each form (and there were quite a few, including a dodgy-looking ‘statement of intent’…), and let us know it would take a solid two working weeks processing time before any mentions of stamps. But we could pick them up from “any big city with a Turkmenistan consulate” further east. This was a result. Did they have any sort of receipt? we asked hopefully. It all seemed a bit too well-organised to be true. “No receipts, he replied. This is our old system. You must not worry.” And shut his window. With that we left Istanbul – running through how we will possibly pick up this Turkmenistan visa in about 1,500km!
Sunset over Istanbul with Uzbek visas in hand
Nick
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Bulgaria: To See the Sea Once More – 30th Aug
A low murmur in the distance. A rumble, accompanied by increasing vibrations. A chill shoots down the spine. The ever nearing sound of doom indicates only one thing. No matter how fast you pedal there is no escape. It moves closer. Should you stick firmly to the road’s edge or move out a little to avoid falling to oblivion? Adrenaline pumps through the body as the beast draws near. It’s all flight, fight would be futile. The gigantic monster eats up the path we’ve trodden. His roar becomes deafening as you feel his breath on your back. Raging past, you dare not look back, dare not wobble. Muscles contract and prayers are spoken. Leaving only a cloud of dust behind he ploughs on. The nervous cyclist breathes another sigh of relief. Welcome to the Bulgarian highway.
Welcome to Bulgaria
An online article argues that the UK should allow cyclists to be allowed on the hard shoulder of British motorways, as is the case in Bulgaria. Although I’m not convinced, the Bulgarian motorway was far safer than the one-lane highways where we jostled for road space with cars, trucks and coaches. The sheer quantity of roadkill in Bulgaria did little to calm our nerves! From foxes to badgers, snakes to lizards and owls to deer, Bulgaria’s roads were a nauseating wildlife patchwork. Just as in Serbia, small roadside shrines and memorials reminded us of the dangers of the roads on which we travelled. Hauntingly the monotone faces of the deceased stared on as we passed.
Bulgaria was a mishmash of unusualness and strange occurrences, which began from the moment we arrived in the country. Our very first act in Bulgaria was to stamp our own passports (probably not condoned by the EU). After that we arrived in a small village looking for an evening meal only to be greeted by a Spanish speaker offering us cans of Coke. By the end of Day One we had already spoken English, French, German, Spanish, Russian and were having to grapple with Serbian and Bulgarian too!
Stamping our own passports!
Northern Bulgaria remains frozen in the past. Large Communist squares, overgrown and weary-looking through neglect, occupy the hearts of every village and town. Socialist statues stand proudly, in vain, almost forgotten. The towns are home to countless elderly people. Children play in the streets. But there are no young people. “There are no jobs, no opportunities here for them,” one elderly fellow tells us in perfect German. Berlin had called him many years ago, just as many European cities now call the Bulgarian youth. The northwest had once been the centre for tyre manufacturing in the former USSR. Signs for ‘gumi’ (tyres) still line the roads, but they bring little to the local economy now. People are very poor here; horse, or cattle, drawn wooden carts are the norm.
A solitary statue
Since we had decided to cycle the length and then breadth of Bulgaria (rather than cut diagonally across) in order to visit a friend from school and to take in the beautiful Bulgarian Black Sea coast, we had a lot of mileage to cover in just a few days. 100km+ a day for a week was not easy going, especially on hilly roads. Fortunately, due to EU funding, the roads were in better shape than they might otherwise have been. At the end of the cross country slog we knew that we would have beds with our names on. This eased the pain we felt in our legs.
A rare bit of bike maintenance
Not all roads lead to Rome!
Despite being linguists we were having trouble ordering food in restaurants. Chicken was not a problem and chips were the easiest side to ask for. Unfortunately this meant chicken and chips were on the menu for several days in a row. Luckily we did have some variation: chicken breast, chicken wings and chicken nuggets… In one restaurant, having been literally taken around the houses by a man who cycled barely faster than I walk, we ordered three chicken and potatoes (hopeful of any form apart from chips). Ten minutes later we were informed there was only enough chicken for one, twenty minutes after that there wasn’t even that much chicken. We promptly left, no chicken = no custom.
Going around the houses to no-chicken restaurant
Chicken dinner… Again!
Wild camping remained our accommodation type of choice in Bulgaria. On one night we found ourselves running out of options as night began to fall (a consistent theme of this trip!). Cycling through a village to what Google Maps said was a green space we came across an abandoned tobacco factory. We pitched tents between the factory and the stream, as far from the stray dogs as possible and settled down for the evening. Sometime later, during a heavy downpour, Nick and Will were woken by the sound of what can only be described as rockets or flares. Were they trying to seed the clouds? Were we under attack? I slept on, oblivious. On another evening, when looking for a green space away from the main road we came across an old man and his cow. Despite a few cowpats the field was suitable. Nick spoke to him in Russian, he replied in Bulgarian and the pair of them seemed equally baffled. Nick and Will then went to a farmhouse to investigate the situation. Armed with a Bulgarian phrasebook I attempted a full blown conversation…
Me: Hello.
Him: Hello.
Me: How are you?
Him: Good.
Me: I’m good too, thank you.
Me: I’m Laurence.
No reply.
Me: (running out of appropriate phrases in the very limited phrasebook) What’s that? (pointing at his cow)
Him: Crava (cow).
Me: Crava?
Him: Yes.
Me: Crava good!
Him: No. Crava not good.
Now at an awkward juncture and with no vocabulary left we waited in silence for Nick and Will to return. Almost jogging back they called out, “They threatened to call the police, let’s go!”
A campsite with a view
The tobacco factory
Crava good!
Arriving in Varna, a city on the Black Sea, we were treated to first class hosting by Aleks and his parents. Two fabulous, several course evening meals with local wines, spirits and teas and coffees got us back on our feet after a hard week cycling. Discussions about Bulgaria past and present, about Communism and about the future shed a great deal of light on a country we didn’t know nearly enough about. Aleks and his parents really gave us a home away from home and we are all very grateful to them for that!
In recent times the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria has become the modern equivalent of Magaluf, where Brits Abroad go to savour sun, sea, sand, and of course, a few beers! (2.5L of good local beer in the supermarket only set us back £1!) It’s not only Brits, however, who have discovered this holiday treasure trove. Russians and Ukrainians were in abundance. Most tourism focused around the resort towns of Obzor and Byala, separated by steep hills (to stop the foreigners wandering off?). Further down the coast, Sunny Beach, where it was ironically raining when we arrived, was a package holidaymaker’s dream – water park, funfair and British themed restaurants! Land in the local area is going cheap (€1/m²), worth an investment if you’ve got a few Euros left from your last holiday!
How beer is advertised in Bulgaria
Get investing!
Leaving the coast behind we turned inland, sights set on Turkey, the other side of the mountains! Before commencing the climb we spent the night at the end of a lane outside a couple’s house. Their cat attempted to share our tent, Nick was having none of it. Looking for more sympathy it went to Will, only to promptly return and curl up with Nick. In the morning, having expressed an interest in football, the wife brought out photos of her daughter, a semi-pro, and did her best, using body language, to tell us how beautiful, intelligent, kind, and so on her daughter was, a real catch! But we had to forge on.
The end of Bulgaria
Climbing to the border
Almost there!
Twisting, turning, winding, the steep road took us to the peak of the mountain, the edge of the EU. Arriving at the Turkish border our e-visas were barely looked at, let alone checked. A red stamp indicated our being accepted for entry. The gateway to Asia awaited!
Laurence
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Getting closer to the deep end – out of the EU and into Serbia!! – 20th Aug
Having been warned by several Hungarians to avoid Serbia at all costs and with no rerouting option in the end we just had to take the plunge and hope for the best! We crossed the border and it was the first passport check since Calais – since Serbia is not yet in the EU. Serbia was also our first country that used Cyrillic script on road signs. Fortunately, Nick stepped to the fore with his GCSE Russian and we were able to muddle through!
Here goes…
After the warnings we decided wild camping – much to my disappointment… – was too risky and so we headed to one of three campsites in Serbia. Before arriving though, we had the fortune to pass through – according to an old guy on the side of the road- Vidic’s hometown (a Manchester United star and the pride of all Serbs – apparently)! Off went Laurence following this local character to Vidic’s birthplace. Not being one to miss a potential Tweet we took a few snaps and were off – only to find out later Vidic was born about 250 Km away!!
We arrived at the campsite to be greeted by ‘Steve’, a large chap wearing a flowery pink shirt. After a cheeky wink at topless Nick, he showed us to his less than crowded gem… and we left him with Nick in a slightly darkened room to sort passports!!
With room for about 100 tents we were the only campers! After setting up camp, we headed to Steve’s more than average restaurant for our first taste of Serbian cuisine.
Meanwhile he’d taken the liberty to try to add Nick on Facebook… but hadn’t managed it! Storming down the stairs, Steve started to chastise Nick and got very emotional. Trying to move the conversation on, I dared to ask Steve if he’d cooked the food himself. Steve, a slightly touchy chap, took this as a personal attack and the whole thing went from bad to worse! We settled up and went back to the tents all in agreement that wild camping would have been far more predictable than a night at Steve’s! Fortunately we saw no more of Steve.
Steve’s Pool – what we thought we’d get and what we got!!
In the morning we pushed down to Novi Sad to rejoin the Danube. We came across a cool cycling cafe there where we met owner (Anna) and another couple (Jonny and Alex) who were following a similar route to us.
After meeting them we decided to aim for Belgrade that evening. Pretty uneventful cycling followed until we reached the top of a hill to find a BMW that had supposedly ran out of fuel. We stepped in to lend a hand. As we got to the top, the driver got out and leaving the window down of this unlocked BMW jumped into his friend’s car! We moved on swiftly, hoping we hadn’t left too many finger prints over it!!!
We arrived into Belgrade to find our hosts (a couple who Jonny had met on his travels) lived on one of the most exclusive streets in the city. After cycling past the US and Chinese embassies we found our place about four buildings down! To tell the truth, it went through my mind (as we were cycling past the residencies of countless Ambassadors) that the couple had pulled a great prank on Jonny but fortunately all came together!
We spent a couple of nights in Belgrade and met up with a couple of Lobby’s friends from Trinity. Being keen athletes, it was only after Mihajlo insisted, that we agreed to show our faces at the largest beer festival in Eastern Europe. After a few beers, we were jigging along to Orthodox Celts – a local band playing traditional Irish music. The crowds loved it!! In true Serbian style, the diehard fans formed what they called ‘pits’ – basically groups of people who would run into each other aimlessly in the name of fun!!
After the festival, we then visited a splav – a permanently moored nightclub boat. Knowing we’d agreed to be on the bikes early the next morning we jumped at the opportunity to rave into the early hours… as you would!
We got back to the house at 6 am and into the tent just as the sun was rising! We found another tent had been pitched. This time it was another couple Jonny had met! The hosts surely got more than the bargained for when the offered Jonny a place to stay. To date, over ten people have camped there on the back of this invitation. As we were leaving John and his girlfriend were asking to stay another week. They’re probably still there at the time of writing!!!
After a late start, we cycled about 40 km out of Belgrade and came across two old chaps eating watermelon by the roadside! They insisted we join them for a coffee. Lobby – not being a coffee drinker – asked for a tea but our trusty translator, Nick, somehow managed to plant the idea Lobby was not just a drinker but an extremely heavy one!! It wasn’t long until he was given a beer bottle filled not with beer but local home brewed spirit – rakia. More than contempt, he sipped away on the 40+% liqueur as we had coffee. We decided we’d stay at the guy’s place and after a dinner of fried eggs in his mosquito filled basement, we set up camp in his allotment!!
Due to budgeting issues, on last day in Serbia we ate only bread and drank only water. Just what you need when you are about to start an eight days of cycling 100+ km on the trot!! In the evening we stayed at a campsite just off the Danube, overlooking Romania. The place was free on the condition we ate in the restaurant. We coppered up and got a pound or so together. After explaining to the disgruntled owner we had no lev, euros or even dollars, we were allowed to stay on the condition we bought a plate of chips. We did and had an absolute ball – as you’d imagine!!
Our first view of Romania
As we neared the Bulgarian border, warnings from the Serbs started about the dangers that awaited there!!! After the kind hospitality we’d received in Serbia (with the exception of Steve) we’d cottoned on to the whole thing. On each border, the country to the East is always going to be worse… or so they say!!
We crossed the Iron Gates (not as cool as it sounds) into Romania – just to say we’d been and do a Tweet!! Disappointed by the lack of an official EU sign, we turned around and left!! Crossing back into Serbia we pushed on up to the Bulgarian border. If that’s not getting the most of #openborders I don’t know what is!!!
Romania in all her glory!!
William
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Out of the West – 13th Aug
The next stage of the expedition was to continue east from Vienna and into Hungary, “the gateway to Eastern Europe” as one Austrian bloke put it. We would follow the Danube as far as Budapest and then cut directly south towards Serbia, leaving the river in favour of the main trunk road across the country. But first we took a good couple of days in Vienna to sightsee and rest our bodies (see the previous post!) and owe a huge debt of gratitude to Kerrin and Leisa for hosting us. A couple of 12hr sleeps and a wash made us socially acceptable once more – so it was time to leave before we got too comfortable with the idea.
The essential travel companion
The route out of Vienna is on the Eurovelo Cycle Path number 6 – a bicycle route which links the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea along the Danube. Immediately we began to spot a whole bunch of odd characters. Coming across a stark naked rollerskating Austrian man at 9am was a bit of a shock to the system (jewels swinging freely in the breeze) – a warning that we were about to cross the nudist section of the Austrian Danube. We quickly realised that the types of people you might possibly want to see on a nudist beach are definitely not the ones who bare all, so we moved on rapidly. Next on the oddity tour out of Vienna was a bloke with a white beard on a dogsled who looked uncannily like a Father Christmas figure. He even raised a puppy Rudolph to the heavens before disappearing off back towards the nudist beach. Luckily we’d met up with a few other bicycle tourers following the same route at that point, who can confirm the story. Otherwise I’d have started to wonder if I’d been slipped something in my cereal at breakfast!!
Christmas comes very early here
We managed to cross into Slovakia for lunch just beyond the 2000km mark from London, and we took in the view from the castle in Bratislava. Confident that we had no need for maps anymore (“We’ll just follow the river!”) we rather awkwardly found ourselves in Hungary that evening, having cruised over an (open) border without realising. Awkward because our euros were now completely useless (Hungary has the forint and Serbia beyond it uses the dinar) and we couldn’t speak a word of Hungarian between us. I’m not sure if any of you have tried speaking Hungarian, but it is a long way from Spanish or Italian!!!
Blue Church in Bratislava next to the Danube
Make sense of this please
In fact from then on the smooth sailing we’d had all the way through Western Europe with maps, currency and language seemed to take a significant hit. At the first maths hurdle the team faltered (thank God for the card limit on withdrawals). Google Maps became unusable and Hungary didn’t seem to sell old-fashioned paper maps, so we relied on asking people. Pretty much all the way to Budapest. Now once quite a long time ago I thought it was hilarious to misdirect people who were lost in London (this was a long time ago I promise). Well now I believe in karmic retribution – nobody seemed to have a clue how to direct us!! Either that or our sign language needed serious improvement. So we spent a lot of our time in Hungary either lost or getting lost. Best moment was when we flagged down a police car at speed which then did a handbrake turn and mounted the curb to help us out, cutting straight across oncoming traffic.
Directions
More directions
We did miraculously manage to get to the outskirts of Budapest more or less on track, largely thanks to a dramatic improvement in our sign language. The usual evening routine was to spot a field that looked suitable for camping far enough off the main road, i.e. flattish, limited crops, no farm animals and few gypsies. This night should have been no different, except for some reason we were late on our sundown estimate (it sets earlier as you go further east, that was our geography hurdle) and found ourselves looking by torchlight at options which became less and less suitable. Luckily we were approaching a tiny little town which can’t have been more than ten houses, so asked the only lady still outside if we could camp in a patch of grass next to a house with a vineyard.
Phone calls were made and the owner summoned, a bloke who matched the Hungarian stereotype I had lingering in my head: crew cut, white vest hanging off a huge upper body, and tracksuit trousers tucked into white socks. He asked a few pointed questions, grunted agreement and left for his house again. It was then that we simultaneously realised just how scrawny we’d become, especially compared to our gym monkey host – cycling like we’ve been doing basically wastes away your upper body. So we pitched and ate quickly and silently in the dark, aiming to stay out of trouble and leave first thing the next morning. To the whole team’s surprise however, Gym Monkey emerged out of the darkness carrying not a mallet but a bottle of homemade plum brandy (palinka). He’d relaxed considerably and was keen to hear stories from England while exchanging a few of his own, with a shot each in between each story. One bottle down and the whole situation seemed a lot less threatening, my personal highlight being when we asked Gym Monkey about Hungary’s neighbours – as we reeled off countries in the Balkans he became increasingly rude about each one, until I slipped in France (to lighten the mood) and he produced his strongest reaction, spitting the name out on the ground in disgust. He claimed France and the Treaty of Versailles were the reason Hungary lost its empire to the @$#”! other Balkan countries, to which we nodded vigorously, so he produced another bottle of palinka for the road. We slept extremely well and were only woken up when the bloke tending to his grape vines next door let out his geese in the morning.
Early morning surprise
The approach to Budapest was on terrible roads right up to about 5km from the city centre, where they then clearly fell under city jurisdiction and were transformed to match any other Western city standard. Not wanting to break a good trend we arrived after dark to another capital city and dodged traffic as best we could to find our hostel. Budapest was my favourite city so far on the tour: we spent a great couple of days exploring and eating, a bit shocked to find ourselves amongst so many other tourists after the Hungarian countryside.
Keep your distance from this one on the road
It was in Budapest that we decided to leave the Danube in favour of the main road south into Serbia, which would cut significant mileage from our route and hours of faff for navigation. This turned out to be a cracking decision as we left our navigation issues behind (the low point having been a diversion into Horsefly Field very early in the morning as an attempted shortcut) and the traffic wasn’t bad at all. There were signs every few kilometres forbidding horse and carts but judging by the type of traffic we came across these were completely ignored. On the approach to the Serbian border we found a Chinese man on a touring bike trying to decipher a sign in Hungarian (see video section!) – this guy had been on the road for two months across Europe and spoke literally not one word of English. He’d claimed to have travelled to each Chinese province by bike as well as the whole of Southeast Asia, relying on just a compass and the sun for navigation. For this trip he had a one-page foldout map of Europe with him. A true nutter.
Main road south through Hungary
Showing off his navigation skills
Our last couple of nights in Hungary were spent amongst hay bales in a farmer’s field – he turned up the next morning with his bailer a bit bemused to see us emerge from the straw – and on a young guy’s farm about 20km from Serbia. He introduced himself as Norbert, which didn’t seem to fit very well with the little old tractor, geese cows pigs and horse that he looked after. Two years younger than us (though he looked about 16), he was already in charge of his girlfriend’s parents’ farm. He showed us his newborn calf of two days in a tiny stable near where we slept before offering us beers and having a long chat about Hungary and his plans for the future.
Norbert’s newborn calf
His parting words the next day were to be extremely careful in Serbia as we entered that day. The people were very different and “could be dangerous”. With baited breath we left Norbert’s farm and headed south, out of the EU…
Last goulash in Hungary
Nick
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Tagged Austria, Cycle to the East, cycle touring, Hungary, Laurence Gribble, Nick Codrington, Prostate Cancer UK, Will Lord
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Mein Arsch – 10th Aug
We are now one month into our expedition and we hope (depending on how kind our routemaster Lobby is feeling) well over half the distance of our first leg from London to Istanbul. While we’ve talked through a few highlights of the route so far on this blog, we haven’t yet touched upon any of the real physical side to the cycle. For me this is quite a key part of the trip – and it has certainly dominated discussion here over the last couple days – so I think it’s only fair that I should share some details of what it feels like to sit on a saddle all day (then repeat the experience and times by 250).
Essentially the sore bits are the parts of you directly connected to the bike. I thought that I’d be aching in my back, calves and quads, but instead the pain is mostly in the hands, feet, and – you guessed it – what an Aussie cyclist we met delicately dubbed “down in your undercarriage (mate)”. The hands and feet get number from being under pressure for long periods of time, but frankly that’s quite easy to deal with. It’s the rear which gets the brunt of it and has been this week’s feature. This is definitely the bigger problem.
I personally found out the extent of the problem on our cycle into Vienna, which ended up being a 200km day and nighttime arrival. For me, pain begins just beyond the 100km mark (at which point brain told undercarriage “You’re halfway there!” and undercarriage replied with a dull ache) and noticeably intensifies after 150km to become a persistent tingle, then throb. At the 200km mark it feels like someone is giving you a Chinese burn on your delicates every time you sit down, so by the outskirts of Vienna we were practically all cycling standing up!!! Stopping once in the darkness to shake things out a bit, we were greeted by an Austrian couple off a river cruise. The bloke had clearly done some cycle touring before because, instead of giving the hairy tourers a wide berth (we were massaging our rears at this point, usually cause enough for people to cross the road to avoid us), he came straight up to us and grinned knowingly. “Die arsch is kaputt, yes?” he asked. This seemed a perfectly normal conversation starter at the time. Grim nods all round. “But die spirit, still strong eh!!” he continued, laughed, and disappeared off into the night. We took two days in Vienna to ease the saddle sores.
It’s not that we set out totally unprepared though, far from it. Among the lycra that we now proudly own are padded shorts, which do what the name suggests really. They pad the important bits to make the saddle feel less like an offensive weapon. On top of that we’ve picked up tips from bike shops and cyclists along the way, and the team is now using combinations of talcom powder, chamois cream, moisturizer, vaseline and the list goes on. One German friend even went as far as to suggest we get the infamous “backen sacken und cracken” citing aerodynamics as well as hygiene as legitimate reasons for the procedure. I can confirm that none of us have yet gone down that route (in case anyone was wondering), unsure as to how shaving your back could increase your bike speed. We’ll put that one down to cultural differences then.
So as you’re reading this, sitting in front of a computer at home or at work – even if it is on one of those flimsy plastic chairs – then do spare a thought for how much comfier your experience is right now than poising your rear on a sweaty saddle for most of the day.
(Seriously though, medics with any knowledge about potential undercarriage issues do have a comment below, cheers)
Nick
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Tagged Austria, Cycle to the East, cycle touring, Germany, Laurence Gribble, Nick Codrington, Prostate Cancer UK, Will Lord
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Hitting the Danube
After spending a few days in Munich, we decided that we’d push on down to Vienna via Marktl – made famous for being the birthplace of Pope Benedict XVI (the one who recently stepped down).
The day getting out of Munich was pretty straightforward. The only really memorable thing was how easy Munich city dwellers were annoyed by cyclists breaking rules and how easy it was to wind them up (accidentally, of course). On one occasion we pulled up by the side of a bike lane waiting to cross the road, when a guy stopped, looked us up and down and shouted something in German. Apologetically I smiled and shouted ‘Sorry!’. Chancing we were English speakers, he angrily translated what he’d just said in English- something about a green light!!
It was nice to get out of the city and back on to the country lanes. We faced quite a few tough hills. The mind was starting to play funny tricks when going up them – half way up a steep one, I managed to convince myself a stream was the Danube River flowing downstream- hoping it meant one thing and one thing only- DOWNHILL. This wasn’t to come for another couple of hundred miles!
The evening was spent on a farm and after a hearty breakfast of pretzels we hit the Benedictweg – a specially dedicated cycle path for pilgrims leading straight to the Pope’s birthplace. Ever the sceptic, Laurence was convinced this route would detour and (I quote) go via each local church on the way so we stuck to the country lanes.
The Benedict Way
The village itself had maintained a lot of charm and not completely sold out save for the local bakery. Gutted it was closed, we were left wondering what Vatican bread, Benedict torte etc were! We did the tour of the village visiting Pope Benedict’s home of two years and his Baptismal Church. That afternoon we headed for the Austrian border.
The Benedict Bakery
The Benedict House
Just a few miles over the border, we were invited to set up camp in the fields of another farm. Again we had stumbled upon a really obliging family! We were introduced to Matthew – a guy living just down the road from Shrewsbury town in the UK! (What were the chances?!) On Saturday morning we were invited to go to Matthew’s for breakfast to be treated to a ‘Taste of England’ – sausages and fried eggs! Over breakfast we caught wind that there was a beach party happening that night in the village. As good fellow travelers, Nick and I decided to go and check out the venue (a water filled pit), leaving Laurence to write our last blog post. We decided it would be rude not to stay an extra night!! At about 7 pm (just as we were getting changed into our beachwear) the heavens opened and heavy rains and thunder and lightening pursued. The beach party was off and, ever the optimists, we were grateful of an opportunity to test the tents out in a storm. We were in bed for 9 pm!!
Perfect weather for a beach party
On Sunday literally all shops are closed in Austria, I was fortunate to have found someone who shares my love for pastries of a morning and knew of the only (perhaps illegal!!) bakery open Sundays in Austria. We jumped in the car for a 12 km round trip and I returned laden with breads!! (Austria’s al Capone?)
On Sunday we finally joined up with the Danube River – all downhill from here! (we hope!!) We passed through the historic city of Linz and decided to camp on a piece of land behind a complex of inhabited garden sheds! Just as we started to pitch tents the heavens once again opened.
As we were packing up the tents early Monday morning, we were approached by an elderly lady who lived in one of the sheds. Initially startled, she soon warmed and invited us into her hut for coffee and biscuits. Suspecting it was potentially a plot to keep us there whilst she reported us, we kept our bikes in eyeshot and eyed up an escape route. Fortunately all was in vain and I’m still here to write the blog without an Austrian criminal record! Tired of the drizzle we decided we’d try to get to Vienna a day earlier- meaning we’d have to cover over 220 km that day. At that point our maximum daily distance was only 130 km so it was not going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination. We followed the Danube cycle path which ran more or less parallel to the river. It passed through Austrian wine country and fortunately we managed to find a little tavern serving local white wine for €1 a glass – which helped to make the journey bearable! After our stop we continued along the dedicated cycle path until one of the group was stopped by a police officer for jumping a red light on this dedicated cycle path! Armed with a speed camera to make sure no cyclist broke the speed limit, we were warned about red lights on dedicated cycle paths and were back on our way! That day we were on the bikes for just over ten hours cycling time which started to have strange effects. On getting onto a newly laid piece of tarmac, I shouted out loud ‘Cabin crew for departure’ and sped off at 37 km/h – don’t ask… I can only assume I was pretending to be flying a jumbo jet as one does?!
50 km outside of Vienna we met two Italian cyclists and cycled into the city with them. They helped to break the monotony. Before we knew it, we’d done 222 KM that day and earned ourself an extra rest day and more importantly at 11pm a McDonalds!! We spent this morning relaxing and started doing the tourist sites in the afternoon- so far very impressed by the city and well worth the extra push yesterday (although I’m not sure my lower body agrees!!)
222km…it’s official
Downtown Vienna
St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna
The true tourist
We aim to head towards Hungary in the next couple of days via Bratislava (Slovakia). Stay tuned!!
William
Another day another football pitch
As we leave Munich for the border with Austria it seems barely a couple of days since we first put rubber to German tarmac, and yet so much has happened, we’ve seen so much and met so many people. In only a dozen days we’ve traversed diagonally across a country high on the euphoria of the post-World Cup era, a country of beer and pretzels, where the sun shines and men are not afraid to tan their bellies over a stein.
Germany began with inhumane plus 40°C temperatures. This led to 6am wake ups (something I personally am not a fan of) and several hours of afternoon stops in cafes with beer, Wi-Fi and shade.
While looking for somewhere to pitch our tent on the first night we came across a rather bedraggled looking fellow sat on a park bench next to huge rusty iron gates, clutching a bottle of wine. He recommended us to enter the gates into the dark trees beyond… Tired and in need of rest we did and found a clearing suited to our needs. Later on that evening, upon further exploration we found that we had pitched our tents in the grounds of stately home. We kept quiet until the cafe had shut up shop and decided we might as well stay put.
The stately home
The next day as we cycled into Cologne we stopped at a kiosk in the suburbs. Wi-Fi, water bottle refill and beer are our usual rest stop requests. On this occasion we didn’t need beer! The kiosk owner, a Mr Folker, after introductions, offered us Powerade, a quick five minutes each in his walk-in freezer and tales of his school trips to England as a boy. His kindness and hospitality set a precedent for what was to come throughout Germany.
After visiting the cathedral in central Cologne we headed south towards Bonn. Suddenly in the distance we could hear loud music and saw to our astonishment a tractor and trailor clad with balloons and flags. So we chased it. Through the fields we pedalled until we caught up with the tractor. It held a dozen people all in black, drinking, and singing to the music pumping out of the speaker strapped to the back. Getting close enough Nick was handed down a beer and in exchange we passed up a name card. Over the microphone they sang for us and wished us luck. We partied in this surreal environment until our paths diverged. We then found a quiet place to set up camp in the corner of a field. As the sky darkened, in fields around, farmers were spraying their crops. A car pulled up, this field’s farmer’s daughter who said we could stay but the field would be sprayed that night. We waited and waited until it was too late and we guessed the farmer wouldn’t come. Slightly concerned that a green tent on a green field might not be seen at night we fell asleep. Not much after Nick and I were woken up by immensely bright headlights and the deafening sound of approaching doom. Wearing only boxers we ripped open the tent as a monster of farmyard machinery hurtled past. As it stopped we went over to ask if we needed to move. A giant of a man, dwarfing both Nick and me stepped down from the tractor. This seven foot something BFG was our first non-English speaker. As translator I employed what was left of my 7 year old GCSE German to ascertain that our field wouldn’t be touched that night.
Party Tractor
Negotiating with tractors…again
As we made our way to Bonn we stopped to ask for directions from a man cycling towards us. Nick complicated with him for a few minutes with lots of pointing going on and repetition of the word Bonn. Then the man beckoned us to follow him, he turned 180 and cycled off towards Bonn. Not a slim man nor on a good bike, but he rode like the wind. He lead us the 20km all the way to Bonn. Pointed us over the bridge, smiled, waved, turned around and went back the way we had come.
That night we stayed with our friend Alejandro’s stepmother Madeleine in her beautiful house by the Rhine. We are most grateful and thankful to her for her fantastic hospitality, great food and drink that were provided, much needed showers and comfortable beds. Thank you for allowing three smelly, dirty, skinheads to even step through your front door!
Refreshed we proceeded down the pleasantly flat Rhine, enclosed either side by mountains with castles perched on top and villages nestled below. We camped on the bank of the Rhine before heading east.
Castles by ze Rhein
Camping and bike maintenance
This time it was my turn to get a puncture. With a split in the tyre as if it had been run through with a blade new inner tubes were doing little to keep the shape of the back tyre. I hobbled to a bike shop where we spent a good few hours over a few bottles of beer. As night fell we turned round to the fields and trees we had come through and camped between the runways of Frankfurt Airport. In the morning we found a herd of deer near the tents. A man biking with his dog approached to say we went allowed to camp there, then proceeded to say that dogs weren’t allowed either so not to worry!
Deer as we woke up
We pushed through the 1000km barrier only to be greeted by hill upon hill as we entered Bavaria. The climbs seemed relentless and were made the more difficult because of the heat. You know you’re in trouble when you’re cycling slower than you can walk! “It’s all good preparation for the Pamirs” we said. “You’ll be doing these hills backwards in a few months” Will said. I’m not sure whether hill climbs in sweltering heat or in the snow are worse!
1000km!
More than half of our nights so far seem to have been spent camping on village football pitches. In Marktheidenfeld (Mark in the field as we named it) this was no exception. Again in the morning we were approached to say that we shouldn’t have been there. “Zis is Germany ja, und, normally it’s not allowed to camping here.” We moved on.
We refuelled at Pizza Hut in Wurzburg before carrying on towards Nuremberg. Stopping in a village I was invited into a farmhouse to fill up with water and were, not for the first time, pointed towards the Sportplatz (sports field), such we were now translating as campsite – another night on a football pitch. It was also the first Lobby’s Noodle Night, with many expected to come!
We arrived in Nuremberg and like clockwork made our way round the cafes and restaurants in search of Wi-Fi. In position we took it in turns to explore the centre and the castle overlooking the town. In the evening we made our way to the Nazi Party Rally grounds. Dilapidated and overgrown, now with several football pitches in the middle, they are an ominous reminder of a time not so long ago. Imposing socialist realist architecture brought to mind previous trips to North Korea but this was closer to home, this is the history we had learned over and over again at school. Standing in the exact spot where Hitler had stood brought a torrent of indescribable feelings and emotions.
Nuremberg
Nazi Party Rally Grounds
After a few pints in the beer garden next to the site to lighten the mood we aimed south towards Munich. Cycling in the dark is little fun at the best of times, but losing our way in a pitch black forest, which on the map looked like a potential site to camp added a little stress to the proceedings. As we debated which way to take at the crossroads, out of the darkness came a middle aged man, dressed in a suit pedalling rapidly towards us. We called him over. He introduced himself as Chief Helmut and said we could sleep on the village football pitch (again!). We followed this complete stranger 5km through the dark woods. Thoughts of how likely it was that this could turn out badly for us flashed through our minds, but as with spiders, we reasoned he had more to fear than us. After pitching tents we went down to meet Helmut in the village as it was the first night of the Village Fest. Litres of beer, shots of Jackie’s (JD) and new friends were in abundance. We were invited to stay the next night as well as they were having their annual father-child camping day.
We woke up baking in our tents. As the afternoon progressed all manner and sizes of tents were erected around our small pair by the clubhouse. The children played while the dads drank. We had a BBQ and roasted marshmallows on a bonfire. Bellies, forged through litres upon litres of Bavarian beer, were on display throughout the day. We were fed copious amounts of meat and gallons of beer. Another much needed rest day.
Camping with the children
BBQ with the chef
The day we were scheduled to arrive in Munich was 28 July, my 23rd birthday. Another day of over 100km, 120km to be precise. We stopped for a breakfast lunch and ate food from the supermarket in the covered car park to avoid the midday sun. We rolled into Munich that evening, exhausted and anything but smelling fresh. We made our way to Nick’s friend’s cousin’s apartment, which would be our base for the next few days. Kim and Felix were possibly slightly taken aback by the state we were in. In the supermarket the girl in front in the queue then pointed that the other till was free (not sure whether it was the smell or her just being nice). Wandering around that night looking for a birthday dinner we were told that restaurants in Munich close at 10pm! Fortunately a Vietnamese place was still open – Subway and McDonalds had already shut up shop!
Birthday lunch in a car park
Birthday evening
From our new temporary base we explored what Munich had to offer, we put our bikes into a shop to be serviced and we clubbed Bavarian style.
After the fun, accompanied by new friends Kim and Felix, we went to Dachau to visit the Nazi concentration camp. The museum info boards made for horrifying reading and seeing the reconstructed sleeping quarters as well as the crematorium complete with gas chamber and furnace really hit home the cruelty and inhumanity of the place.
Arbeit Macht Frei – Dachau
My lasting memories of Germany will be the strict rule abiding nature, the ‘I speak a little English’ only to find out they’re fluent, and the warmth and friendliness shown by so many people. Beer, bratwurst and bellies are king in Bavaria. And Lidl has become our sole provider of breakfast, lunch and dinner.
From Munich we’re heading first to Marktl, the birthplace of Pope Benedict XVI, then into Austria to Vienna. Catch up with us again soon!
Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland!
Laurence
Journey To The East 