Road taxes, paying bribes and getting out of Romania

Planning, as has been stated before, is extremely important when going on a driving trip abroad.

This includes having a good Sat Nav system (and Lilith is just that), but also a good road atlas and, of course, a travel guide book. My holy travel tome is "The Rough Guide To Europe On A Budget," and it is thicker than the Bible.

With this wealth of experience at one's disposal, one can map out and plan a journey safe in the knowledge that it will all go well.

Last night, the route to Sofia in Bulgaria, was well-planned and - according to the road atlas - was about 200km away. This was established using the atlas' scale measurement key. That shouldn't take too long to travel, even if the traffic is bad or the road is under construction, or if the speed limits are extra-ordinarily low.

That would give plenty of time to check out the sights in Bucharest in the morning, and still get in a bit of Sophia in the afternoon. Both planning and the day's blog done, it was off to bed.

Morning arrived and it was raining, ruling out the morning photo session. This might not be such a bad thing because the travel tome describes it as such: "Arriving in Bucharest, most tourists want to leave as quickly as possible...". It might have been a good idea to have read that before including the city in the tour.

The trip out of Bucharest was cleverly planned - first I stopped at a petrol station and spent my remaining Lei (Romania money) to get Paulo's tank up to three-quarter's full - more than adequate for the 200 km journey ahead.

Lilith was programmed to get us to Sofia and she announced happily that the journey was 243 miles long. This is a lot longer than 200km.

Never mind, when in Bulgaria, we could fill up again when we draw some of the local currency.

Off we went, the rain pouring.

We reached the border in quick time and I was not surprised to see that the border post was manned, but something looked decidedly different - the first was the money exchange booths that lined the streets up to the post, and signs which suggested that some kind of levy needed to be paid. I got closer and there was a board in English that said bridge tax.

I had no more currency, local or Bulgarian. I also could not turn round because I had already entered the one-way.

I parked Paulo and trudged, fortunately the rain had reduced to a drizzle, back to one of those exchange kiosks.

The man behind the counter had no English but somehow, I understood that he was giving me 25 Lei for the bridge tax and some Bulgarian currency. Of the 60-odd Euro I had on me, I was left with about 25.

I drove up to the boom gate and offered my passport, drivers' licence and vehicle registration - after-all, I was now wise to everything that is required in such circumstances.

The women in the gate booth then asked for something else. I hadn't the foggiest what she was on about; but after a bit of banter, I got to understand that I was supposed to pay a road tax in Romania. "So how much is that? And can I pay it here?"

She seemed to understand, but said she couldn't sell me road tax, and if I didn't have a road tax ticket then I had to pay a penalty - that would be 150 Euro.

I was dumbstruck and resorted to looking very pitiful about my current circumstances and absolutely at a loss as to what to do.

She pointed past the gate and said I should park there. I asked about my passport and other documents. She said "Park!"

I did, got out and trudged back to the gate.

She met me along the route and started asking about how much money I had. I showed her my Lei (for the bridge tax), the Bulgarian cash and the remaining Euros.

She scooped up the Lei and walked back into the gate house. She met me at the window again and motioned for me to give her the remaining Euros and Bulgarian cash. I did.

She returned my documents and shoved 10 of the Bulgarian stuff in my hand and said for me to go. She also said something that sounded remotely like, "Use the 10 I gave you to get yourself some Bulgarian road tax".

I think I was properly robbed there. In fact, I was probably robbed by the exchange kiosk bloke too. In fact, at those roadwork stop-and-goes the pervious day I was confronted by hawkers on the side of the road and was conned into buying glasses. Lots of glasses; wine glasses, whiskey tumblers and tall glasses too - so as I'd have a complete set. I was probably robbed there too. Eastern Europe is a lot like Africa in this regard - keep your windows closed when stopped in traffic, and don't make eye contact. You simply can't trust anyone who makes a living on the side of a road.

All of this has served to dim my already less-than-wonderful view of Eastern Europe to somewhere just above detestation. They mightn't like foreigners much, but they do like their money.

I crossed the border and understood why there was a bridge tax. It is massive and takes you across a massive river. I have no idea what it's name is, but there were large ships in it.

The city on the other side, Ruse, is ugly. Butt ugly. A lot like the people in Bulgaria. Some are so deeply tanned that you might think they're from Africa, or India, but their facial features are chiseled - there are no soft lines, just harsh angles. Weird, really weird. You can sort of see that you are heading towards Greece, because they look a bit like their southern neighbours and their writing is all Greek to me.

I was able to find a Shell filling station which sold me a month's worth of Bulgarian road tax. Apparently you can't buy less than a month's worth. I suspect I was robbed again - but at least I'm legal, even if the local population aren't.

Back to Ruse which is heavily industrial and the housing consists of huge concrete blocks that are only vaguely colourful because of the washing that hangs out of almost every window. It is everything that comes to mind when you think Communist Bloc.

At least, however, the Bulgarians have a better understanding of town planning than the Romanians and once on the open road there are few villages and towns, and those that exist are away from the main road.

The road has a lot of rest stops - little lay-bys where you can stop and rest your legs. I did this soon after crossing the border because Lilith insisted I do. "You have been driving for two hours; you may want to stop for a break," she said.

I used to just ignore her when she does this and she would come up with the same message every 30 minutes after that. I figured out that if I shut her off for a minute and turn her back on again, she would still remember the route, but would think I had stopped. I suspect she knows that I do this.

This time, however, I did stop and after a few stretches I felt much better about everything.

In retrospect, I'm glad I heeded Lilith's advice when I did, because almost all the other lay-bys were occupied by hitchhikers and, travelling alone, I'm a bit fearful of picking up strangers.

I had seen a few hitchhikers along the road in Romania, but not nearly as many as in Bulgaria. Here, they're at every niche in the road.

The all look very similar; they are always alone, they're always female, they always wear high-heels, they all wear figure-hugging jeans and they all have a lot of hair. The ones with blonde hair look strange because it clashes against their dark tans. Many also wear huge sunglasses with white rims.

What I can't get my head around is why they are hitchhiking. Certainly they seem to have more money than most of the rural people, because their clothes are new and expensive-looking compared to everyone else - surely they can afford, at least, to buy a bus ticket?

I've been taken advantage of by many people in this part of the world, so I thought it better not to give any of them a lift; even if they did look very innocent.

This brings me back to the poverty around here. It is extreme and if you look at a map of Bulgaria, you'll see that just like Romania, it has very few highways. Romania had just the one and it was very short, but Bulgaria has three. I got to travel on one and it is impressive.

After travelling at a maximum of 55 mph for so long, it was wonderful to be allowed to go 80mph. It is three lanes wide and perfectly flat. This despite going through a series of mountains. They've achieved this by tunnelling through the mountains and spanning the valleys with huge bridges that must be hundreds of metres high. It's an engineering marvel and I felt a lot less ripped off for having to pay a month's worth of road tax.

Paulo was thrilled to stretch his legs too.

Incredibly, no sooner did we get on the highway when the clouds began to disappear and the sun shone through. My mood perked to level just above despondency.

The magnificent highway brought us to Sofia in double-quick time and despite the 200-odd mile journey, we arrived at our destination a little after 3pm.

The rain was back though, but it was not such a downpour that it obscured my view of Sofia.

I wish it had.

Sofia is a slum. I think if there is a city worse than Bratislava, then it is this one.

Fortunately the rain is keeping me indoors, it breaks every now and again, but not enough to encourage me to venture outside.

While stuck in the hotel I've had a chance to look up Sofia in that travel tome and again I wish I had done my homework properly. It says .... "With its drab suburbs and distinct lack of charming old buildings Sofia can appear uninspiring to first-time visitors...". It goes on to say that new developments are making the city better, but I think it ain't worth getting wet for whatever new buildings they've put up. I want to see history.

Tomorrow, I figure, will be planned a lot better. I've watched the telly and things are getting worse in Greece - others have also told me it's nothing to write home about unless you go to the islands around it, so I'll give it a complete and utter miss.

I reckon I'll slip across to Skopje in Macedonia; it's not too far and it is the birthplace of Mother Theresa - They have a lovely monument to her in a delightfully old chapel. It's also got a peculiar review in the travel tome, which says "It's one of those places that can be described as appealingly ugly, with brutal Yugoslav-Era designs augmenting the mazy lanes of Carsija, the charming old Ottoman centre."

The guide says there's lots of great places to visit, and all within a small centre. Sounds good enough for me. What's more, there's no road tax, just a few toll roads that can be easily avoided. Planning done - we'll get out of Eastern Europe as fast as possible, but by the most charming route, then we can enjoy the far more impressive Western European culture at a leisurely pace.

That's the plan anyway.

Roads and roads, this is Romaina, rather stay at home

Romania, a place of superstition and intrigue and Dracula and... And everyone lives on the same road. At least that's the case in northern Romania. It's called the E17, it's narrow and it stretches all the way from Hungary in the west to Suceava (which is near the borders of the Ukraine and Moldova) in the east. A time zone changes somewhere, maybe it's at the Hungarian border, but it might as well be that a time warp has sent you back to another era - on that isn't know, and that doesn't know an awful lot about town planning. The entire northern population lives on this road, right next to it, house-after-house. There's countryside out there, but you can't see it from the road because it's in everyone else's back-garden. You wish they would live a bit away from the road, or commune together and create towns or something; but no, it's just one long village that follows the main road. Admittedly, there is some swelling of the population in some places to create what you might call a village - invariably around a church, but mostly it's just a row of houses that goes on and on and on... You'd think this would play havoc for the postal system - I live at No. 50 372 on the E17 - but they get around this by having a minute interruption of the houses, never more than about 100 metres, then you enter a new town - which is just a new row of houses next to the road. This plays havoc for driving because the speed limit in town is 50kph - 30mph. You just try driving 200 miles at 30miles per hour. Then there's the horse carts. And the trucks. It is also poor and driving all that way, it's hard not to feel sorry for these folk. Your mate lives in the same street but 100 miles away and the nag is feeling a bit ill sort of thing. There's also not much by way of work; there are a few factories, but they are now simply hunks of rusting metal. You get the feeling that people around here aren't into employment. It's not as if they're lazy though; there's always someone sweeping! They sweep a lot and it tells, because there's no litter and everything is clean - which is not the same as neat, because what verges there are, are overgrown and the entire road has a look of being unkempt. The destination was Dracula Castle Hotel. Yes that's silly and immature, but, hey, why not? The travelling is why not. If someone says to you: "Hey, you've won a trip to Romania and you'll stay at the Dracula Castle Hotel but you have to drive there," simply say: "No thanks, I think I'll remain here". There is a reason to visit northern Romania though and that would be to confirm that it is better wherever it is that you live. The only work anyone seems to have is to sweep and to move heaps of hay, by horse cart, from one place to another. Quite why they move hay around isn't clear, since there's quite a lot to be found in everyone's back garden. Perhaps they do this to annoy the trucks that grumble along down their road. Whatever the case, Lilith was mostly silent along the trip because there was nothing to say except, every 10 miles the inevitable: "Keep going on the road for another..." how many every miles were left. She'd also send out the odd warning bell if I slipped past 30mph. Paulo was sulking about the speed and was still smarting that I had blamed him for the traffic ticket we got in Hungary. Initially fascinated by the architecture, the horse turds that littered the street, the horse-drawn carts that carried hay, the women sweeping outside their homes - which explained another fascination, the lack of litter, and the fact that people could live like this, it all soon became dreary. That was after about half-an-hour of it. The next eight hours were just tedious. We arrived at the hotel (it was nice, like any hotel) as the sun went down and I awoke when the sun rose. I had hoped to get photos of the Carpathian mountains in the morning - because they are magnificent, but the place was heavy with mist. Perhaps that added to the atmosphere, but mostly it made for crap photography and hazardous driving. So we set off. South to Bucharest. At first the road was much like the one we had left, but then it clears - as in there weren't any houses next to it. But no sooner does this happen when you hit construction work. One has to think that once that road is redone, it'll be beautiful and evveryone will want a house next to it - it'll become prime real estate and the envy of anyone who currently lives on the E17. For now though, it is a hundred miles of stop-and-goes. Then you hit Brasov - I saw the industrial area, thanks to Lilith's sense of humour - and it is an industrial area. Just like any other industrial area. After that, you head into the mountains again and then it gets beautiful. Really beautiful. It's as I imagine Switzerland will be, except the architecture might be different... It's also obviously the bit that tourists visit - can't think that there are too many tour operators who offer discount prices on a drive along the E-freaking-17. But to think that we'd move faster to Bucharest was simply folly; the windy road, while beautiful, went on and on, and the trucks made the going slow. It was going to be another entire day of driving, and there was no chance of visiting the castle where the Dracula movie was shot... That was sad. So we learn to plan a bit better... We arrived in Bucharest in rush hour. It wouldn't have been too difficult, but they're in the throws of redoing the main road - the resurfaced road, all four lanes of it, have no road markings. This makes the traffic circles a nightmare. There were horns tooting everywhere, but I'm proud to say none were directed at Paulo. Lilith, probably feeling sorry for me, led us directly to the hotel and that's where we find ourselves tonight. Tomorrow, we go to Sofia: it's not that far away and hopefully, traffic willing, we shall have a full afternoon to take photos. That's what we hope anyway. One thing concerns me though, odd places like the Slovak Republic have ornaments above most of their letters and that place was strange... Hungary has fewer decorations on their letters and it was better; Romania, not only has the same ones above them as the Slovaks (or are they Slavs?), but they put squiggles under their S's and T's too... In Bulgaria they change the entire alphabet, turning Rs around and stuff like that. We shall see what tomorrow holds.

Eastern sunrises, traffic vioaltions and moblie shebeens...

Romania is east of Hungary. The sun rises in the east. I know this because I left at the crack of dawn and the sun was in my eyes. This would not have been a problem, except that my sunglasses were missing. They might be in Prague. It's the last time I remember seeing them, but there was an element of debauchery in Bohemia and it may well be that a painful head left them in the hotel room after checking out. If this is so, Prague is cool and the Ray Bans may well feel right at home there; even they spend there time on the bridge of a house maid's nose. Budapest had been good, the room was alright and, all going well, the road ahead to Romania may be long but there was much to think about and reflect on en route: not least of which is, what else might have been left in Prague; and how much is Hungarian money worth? The thing is, I started with 50 000 of whatever currency it is that the Hungarians use, and after buying McDonalds and other refreshments, the obligatory local ales, and paid for the hotel room; there was still something close to 35 000 left! I figured I would drive as close to the Romanian border before filling up with petrol and unload a lot of it there; the rest, well I was sure to find an supermarket to get supplies. Watching the road signs, the last town with ornaments over it's name was Puspokladany (imagine two dots above the U, two dots above the O and a little dash above the second A, I'm reluctant to try pronounce it, but suspect that if you put an Afrikaans twang on it, it might sound like a very unpleasant disease) and it seemed the ideal place to stop. So we did. Paulo is a conservative drinker and needed less than half a tank - that brought the total down somewhere near 30 000. I need to mention that the previous night I tried to buy a Coke with a 10 000 note, but the cafe owner refused to accept it. So I suppose it's a bit like a 50 pound note which I found awfully difficult to palm off in England and thus had to buy a car and open a bank account. Anyway, with so much left, we found a Tesco's in Puspokalot, and lots and lots and lots of local chocolate and liqueurs later, the money was off loaded. But I still had no idea how much the money was worth. Driving out of that strangely named town I was flashed by an on-coming motorist and chuckled to myself that I had nothing to worry about since Lilith was very good at keeping us within the speed limit. And so it was that we passed the speed trap sans problems. Less than 100 metres later though, there was the local Plod on the side of the road, motioning for me to pull over. You can't believe how my heart sank; but knowing that I hadn't been speeding made me a little more confident. Thoughts of all those beers and newly acquired liqueurs all about the car, made me decidedly nervous. Plod couldn't speak English, but his mate could. Plod-who-couldn't-speak-English made it clear that he wanted to see my documents. I handed him my drivers' licence. He wanted my passport and I didn't need to understand Hungarian to know that. I gave it to him. He marched off. His mate, who could speak a smidgen of English let me know that it is the law in Hungary that you drive with your lights on. I explained that I had had my lights on, it was just that I had put in petrol at Puspok,-whatever-and-Paulo-screams-like-a-stuck-pig-if-I-stop-and-don't-switch-off-my-lights-and-forgot-to-switch-them-back-on-when-I-pulled away.... I tried desperately yo look naive. He didn't go for that. The fine was a thousand-and-something of the local currency. "About 15 Euro," English-speaking plod explained. And thus I learned the value of Hungarian money. Still don't know what it's called though. Hopefully that little indiscretion will not lead to points on my licence. It was sad to leave Hungary with this experience, and really, if I were a plod, I'd let a tourist off the hook for something so silly, but the non-English-speaking one had a bit of an attitude to him, even had a slot in his sleeve, just above the cuff, that he rammed his pen into with on swift, yet abrupt, motion after I'd signed receipt of the multiple paperwork he handed me. That image shall forever be branded on my mind; a lasting memory of Hungary that overwhelms the joys of its capital. Having said that, I'll also remember causing the accident too... With that wretched feeling that accompanies getting a traffic ticket, I headed towards the Romanian border where, for the first time so far, the border crossing was manned... I was overcome with paranoia. What about the booze in the car? Paulo was practically a mobile shebeen. And those guards; they were intimidating all in official dress and everything. I began wondering if Eastern-Europeans hate the British being in their country as much as the British dislike East Europeans being in theirs. I considered using my South African passport; but dismissed that quickly - firstly, there are no visas in it and, secondly, Paulo has British plates. Somehow, without any obvious shakes, I handed over my driver's licence and European Union passport to the guard, which wasn't all easy because I had to hand it through the passenger side window. All I could see was the guard's crotch; he not bothering to duck down to get a look at me. He muttered something like "documenti match-sheen" which I guessed was the vehicle registration and dug it out of the glove-box before handing it to him. This motion ment that at least I saw a bit more of him, about belly button level. It was with great relief that he handed them back and motioned me on. I never saw his face, nor he mine. I drove on, deeply traumatised.... It wasn't a great way to leave Hungary, and it wasn't a great way to arrive in Romania. But heck, this is Transylvania, country steeped in superstition and stuff... This was going to be great!

Contour lines and causing crashes

Geography is important. Take the Slovak Republic as an example, there isn't a contour line anywhere to be seen. It's flat. From end-to-end, just flat. Flat is boring. It's straight roads. It's bland horizons. It's not at all conducive towards anything remotely creative. And it is, perhaps why Slovakia is so utterly crap. All the buildings, including the little houses in the villages in the countryside and square blocks, have not an angle in them except at the square corners. A splash of paint wouldn't go amiss either and graffiti doesn't count in this regard. In fact, even the graffiti is dull; it's neither creative nor colourful. Just meaningless words (admittedly, they often carried those strange adornments mentioned before), but they all in the same black paint. For heaven's sake, you just wish someone would make an effort. Then there's the main city, Bratislava, which is also crap. Call it the capital of bland if you will. Just tall, square, grey buildings. There's nothing that can remotely be described as architecture - except, of course, the Castle, which can be seen for miles before you enter the city, but just didn't seem worth the effort. Dumplings; that's the staple diet of the country. And they're dull too. Properly dull it was. Then there's the countryside; even the trees look as if they've given up trying. Not that there are many trees; just ones planted next to the road, others to partition fields. The fields appear equally demoralised by their own existence. It's not as if Slovakia is incredibly huge; it's probably about 100 miles across - but that's just too much space for so much blandness. Immediately driving into Hungary, you notice a difference. The first are the hills, right there on the horizon, not that far away at all. Then there's the houses, someone's making an effort - they aren't all the same and there is definitely an attempt at gardening going on. You can see it in there language too, they don't have to dress it up as much as the Slavs (is that what one calls folk from the Slovak Republic?) do. Sure, there's a the odd dot on top of some letters, but there are no obscure v's above every vowel. Then there's the road that heads up into the hills; it gets all curly-wurly. Suddenly there's just forest - because you can't plant fields on slopes like these. There's contours everywhere. Paulo was in his element; all that revving and braking. Lilith, who at the best of times can be described as melancholy, had been positively morose in Slovakia but didn't say much in the early part of Hungary. She might have been upset with the sudden excitement; or, admittedly, it might have been that there were no turns that she is programmed to mention as this was simply, one long - delightfully windy and hilly - road to all the way to Bood-a-Pest, as she likes to pronounce it. But she got her own back; she brought us in through the less-affluent side of town. The nightmares that were Leipzig and Bratislava are still very recent and that part of Budapest is very, very similar. All the joys of the road vanished... but only briefly. Nevertheless, it was nice to know that Lilith hides a sense of humour. She has remained rigidly austere since then, although I suspect she may have chuckled to herself when I left the car to explore the sights. We parked in front of some major landmark - looked government-ish, might have been the town hall for all anyone knows - which is close to the castle that Lilith had directed us to. I left the car after unhooking and hiding all the gadgets around the dashboard - including herself - and headed for the pedestrian-crossing to get to the afore-mentioned castle. It was midday and the traffic was quite busy. I waited for a while, but the drivers here are similar to those in Prague and have scant regard for anyone other than themselves. When a gap opened, I shot across to the middle of the road and stopped because the traffic going the other way was equally busy. That's when everything went into slow-motion; and I remember it vividly: An old man who was driving towards me, noticed me and made to slow down to let me pass - it was a pedestrian-crossing and he was doing the right thing. The bloke behind him, however, was not used to such grandiose displays of common decency and didn't have time to brake. If ever there's a feeling of helplessness, then this was it... And I was the cause! The inevitable crash happened and it was loud. One minute, there was this old man smiling at me and making gestures with his hand to motion me to walk on; the next he - must have seen my expression - his face changed and his head was thrown forward. I swear, it'll be a miracle if he doesn't have whiplash. The bloke who did the crashing was the first to react; he was out of his car, making apologetic motions with his hands while heading for the driver he had hit. He, at this stage, was getting out of his car, still stunned but looking okay. I offered him some apologies too, and he seemed to understand my English, because he replied: "Nou Praab-lem". Then he and the other driver got to discussing the damage, which did not seem too bad considering how thundering that crash was. Very surreptitiously, I faded into the park nearby and headed towards the castle; feeling very guilty about doing so, but having no intention of becoming a witness and having to return to Budapest. As far as I'm concerned it's one more city I can cross off my bucket-list. Been there, done that; that kind of thing. Besides, if I never have to drive through a geography-less Slovakia again, then that would be too soon. The rest of the visit was uneventful. Saw the sights, photographed them. Walked many, many miles, but it was pleasant. And I spilled my left-over food at McDonalds and felt very silly cleaning it up. As far as I'm concerned today is done and tomorrow it's off to Transylvania. That's got mountains - which is just about as much geography as anyone could possibly desire.

Discovering contours and causing crashes

Geography is important. Take the Slovak Republic as an example, there isn't a contour line anywhere to be seen. It's flat. From end-to-end, just flat. Flat is boring. It's straight roads. It's bland horizons. It's not at all conducive towards anything remotely creative. And it is, perhaps why Slovakia is so utterly crap. All the buildings, including the little houses in the villages in the countryside and square blocks, have not an angle in them except at the square corners. A splash of paint wouldn't go amiss either and graffiti doesn't count in this regard. In fact, even the graffiti is dull; it's neither creative nor colourful. Just meaningless words (admittedly, they often carried those strange adornments mentioned before), but they all in the same black paint. For heaven's sake, you just wish someone would make an effort. Then there's the main city, Bratislava, which is also crap. Call it the capital of bland if you will. Just tall, square, grey buildings. There's nothing that can remotely be described as architecture - except, of course, the Castle, which can be seen for miles before you enter the city, but just didn't seem worth the effort. Dumplings; that's the staple diet of the country. And they're dull too. Properly dull it was. Then there's the countryside; even the trees look as if they've given up trying. Not that there are many trees; just ones planted next to the road, others to partition fields. The fields appear equally demoralised by their own existence. It's not as if Slovakia is incredibly huge; it's probably about 100 miles across - but that's just too much space for so much blandness. Immediately driving into Hungary, you notice a difference. The first are the hills, right there on the horizon, not that far away at all. Then there's the houses, someone's making an effort - they aren't all the same and there is definitely an attempt at gardening going on. You can see it in there language too, they don't have to dress it up as much as the Slavs (is that what one calls folk from the Slovak Republic?) do. Sure, there's a the odd dot on top of some letters, but there are no obscure v's above every vowel. Then there's the road that heads up into the hills; it gets all curly-wurly. Suddenly there's just forest - because you can't plant fields on slopes like these. There's contours everywhere. Paulo was in his element; all that revving and braking. Lilith, who at the best of times can be described as melancholy, had been positively morose in Slovakia but didn't say much in the early part of Hungary. She might have been upset with the sudden excitement; or, admittedly, it might have been that there were no turns that she is programmed to mention as this was simply, one long - delightfully windy and hilly - road to all the way to Bood-a-Pest, as she likes to pronounce it.

Of headaches and other miseries

Sometimes preplanning is essential when going on a road trip abroad. But the delight of Czech ale has a way of dimming the senses and replacing them with wild euphoria. The next day is always the worst, and a lot more damn worse if you hadn't thought to pack headache pills into your luggage. But ever the intrepid and courageous traveller, one dismisses these things and moves on. And move on we did, destination - Slovakia. In particular; its capital, Bratislava! Sounds all very exotic and all that... but it ain't. But we'll get to that later, first the woeful tale of how everything went so horribly pear-shaped. We set off around 8am after a continental breakfast - the hotel gives the minutest plates to dish up on and mostly it's just cold meats, cheeses and breads on offer - there is also scrambled eggs and what appears to be bacon bits. The eggs are strangely runny and have the appearance of having being nuked in a microwave; the bacon is crispy, but cold and oily. Never mind though, the grub and a glass of orange juice reduces the headache from sledge-hammer painful to a dull throb that settles itself in behind the left eyeball. That aside, we were still in great spirit as we hit the road and Lilith again suggested we avoid the tolls and took us on a scenic route through Prague's suburbs, which was very nice. Prague drivers are lunatics though, but having experienced minibus taxi driving, I was well equipped in dealing with the renegades. Although it took some restraint to hold back the middle-finger, which wanted desperately to physically manifest the thoughts going through the alcohol-mangled brain that controlled it. It was rush hour, but patience prevailed and before nine it was open country roads again. By ten the dull throb was back to a blind ache. Fortunately there was A Tesco supermarket at one of the little villages we passed through and Paulo turned in, much to Lilith's chagrin and she expressed this with the usual "Make a U-turn as soon as possible" rebuke. This Tesco's was less a supermarket than it was a cafe. There were no headache pills in the toiletries aisle but there was a friendly, but extremely ugly, manager-type fellow near the entrance who looked as though he might helpful. "Do you sell headache pills," I asked, pointing to my forehead. He shook his head and said something unintelligible. Strange thing this language of theirs, it's all flowery when written down - the letters have all sorts of little decorations; like little circles, slanted dashes and little inverted 'v's on them, but it doesn't sound very pretty. Very hard on the ear it is. I tried a bit of charades: I pointed to my forehead, said a meek 'ouch' and then I motioned with my hand as if putting something in the my mouth then cupped my hand and made as if to drink. A light seemed to go on, and the man smiled - making him even uglier - and motioned for me to follow. I duly did, but was a little taken aback when we arrived in the liquor aisle. Just looking at those rows of wine and beer made me nauseous all over again. 'No, no,' I said and again pointed to my head, this time I gave a pained expression when I said 'ouch', then I made like I was pouring pills into my hand, which I then threw into my mouth. 'Tablets!' he exclaimed. I almost hugged him in relief, but simply nodded with a stupid grin on my face. He took me back to the toiletries section where he too came to the conclusion that there weren't any in stock. 'Moment...' he said, and scurried off. When he came back he pushed a solitary capsule - still in its plastic packaging - in my hand, making motions that suggested I could have it for free; that obscene smile on his face again. I thanked him and no sooner was I outside when I popped the pill, silently wishing he given me two. It eased the pain, but it would return an hour later. Only worse. It was after 11 when we crossed the border into Slovakia - all the border posts are vacant, this is sad because there's no one to stamp my passport to prove that I've visited all these places. There's pros and cons to have a European passport. I was very impressed with the country. Every little town I passed was beautifully manicured, the houses neat and well maintained - that horrid orange colour still well in prevalence, but there were also pastel shades of blue and yellow ochre. All very pretty indeed. The roads too were excellent. Obviously, I thought, Slovakia is a lot wealthier than the Czech Republic. Certainly, instead of Skodas (mostly a dark green colour) that were so evident on the other side of the border, the folk here seemed to prefer VWs, Mercs and Beamers. In fact, they seemed to have adopted a very German set of values. Even their writing was unadorned, and decidedly Germanic. One frustration though was the number, and close proximity, of all the little villages. No sooner had we left one and Paulo had revved up to 55 miles per hour, when we were upon yet another urban area and reduced to 30 miles per hour again. This went on for ages. Soon it became apparent from the sign boards that Wien is a major town en route to Bratislava and I was looking forward to passing it by with a thought of stopping in and taking some photos. About twenty miles from Wien I got to looking at the vehicle registration plates and saw that they all had the letter A on them. I wondered if maybe I had to pass through Albania before getting into Slovakia? If that was the case, then I was rather enjoying the Albanian countryside. Before reaching Wien, I stopped at a filling station and was pleased to note that they use Euros in Albania and I still had a wad of them in my wallet. I purchased a ham and cheese sandwich and a Red Bull. It was only when I was looking at the beers - I've been forced to buy samples from every country by my brother, that the realisation dawned - I was in flippin' Austria! Wien, I realised, is actually Vienna! I cursed Lilith, how could she have gotten us this far wrong Getting back into Paulo, I consulted the atlas and said sorry to Lilith. She didn't care, she just wanted me to make a U-turn again and follow the signs to some place called Bood-ah-Pest. I obliged. Wow, Vienna looks amazing and one wishes we could have stopped, but time was dragging on and we'd already booked ourselves into a hostel in Bratislava and we were expected by two. Amazing, the highway doesn't take you around Vienna, it takes you under it! It's like the Underground, only it's for cars. While being amazed and impressed by the ingeniousness of the tunnel under the city, an aching head could not help but think of the weight of all those high-rise buildings baring down and it all began to feel a bit claustrophobic. Soon enough we were threw it and Lilith said that Bratislava was only 20 miles away. Again the frustration of a vacant border post went past and the reality that is Slovakia came into view. It ain't pretty and it's a lot like East Germany. Bratislava might as well be Leipzig for all it's graffiti, except no one's making an effort to remodel the place. The hostel is in a back street and there's no parking anywhere nearby. Paulo will sleep two blocks away, and I probably won't sleep a wink out of concern for his safety. Lilith will sleep with me tonight; she hasn't made any comments about that because I've switched her off. On the plus side, Edo - who manages the hostel - has given me a map of the city and the best places to visit. There's also laundry facilities and that's good because I'm wearing my last pair of clean underwear. There's also free wi-fi which I've already used to book into proper lodgings in Budapest - it has free, secure parking; so tomorrow should be a better night altogether, if not me, then for poor Paulo. For now though; the sun has set, the clothes are almost finished in the drier and I'm keen to try out 'Halusky' washed down with 'Zlaty Bazant' (these words should come with fascinating adornments on, but I wouldn't know how to put them there, and frankly I couldn't be arsed to find out) at the local restaurant that Edo has pointed out on the map he gave me. I'll take my camera with me, because maybe this city looks better in the dark. We are better prepared for our travels tomorrow, and tonight, well, we won't quite indulge in the local brew regardless of how good it tastes.

Arrgh, let's not go to Prague

Don't trust a weatherman, even if she is pretty... Oh, and don't trust your own instinct either. That's what we were faced with this morning. The previous night, the delightful young lady on BBC World News said that the weather in the Czech Republic would be shite today, well, not quite in those worlds, but she suggested the rain would be severe. Having survived the horrors of Leipzig, and really it was awful, the prospect of going further east was not one that inspire whoops of joy nor wild outbreaks of ecstasy. The option of heading south was enticing, but Switzerland and Austria - to my mind anyway - are best enjoyed in the dead of winter. So booking out, I headed to Paulo, got in and with a heavy heart, asked Lilith to direct us to Prague. She was having none of it... she said she couldn't access her heavenly guides. At a loss, we pulled away and, maybe it was the overhead tramlines that were upsetting her, or it was the act of moving again that got her inspired, but not only did Lilith come up with all sorts of routes to take, but she also said that the most direct one was plagued by tollroads and might she take us around those. Well, there's no arguing with that and thus we had a very rural and scenic tour of East Germany and large tracts of undiscovered Czech Republic. Except, that is, by many, many truck drivers who drive ruthlessly down the narrow country lanes. Paulo wasn't awfully enamoured with the route and, with fond memories of the freedom of the Autobahn, went about the task of getting to the border sluggishly. Can't say as I blame him; the roads are full of potholes - although nothing as compared to those in the eastern Free State and various parts of Mpumalanga in South Africa. If east Germany was industrial and bland, then large tracts of the Czech countryside are worse. It's obscene really; all those glorious green fields interrupted frequently by large chimney stacks, huge square industrial buildings and more of those dreadful block-type apartment buildings. But then they disappeared... Hills formed and trees grew, the roads became curly-wurly, up and down. This inspired Paulo, who rev around corners and charge up the uphills with gusto. The usually taciturn Lilith was positively vocal in announcing every twist and turn, and the fact that the speed limit changed frequently had her ringing bells too. Then we arrived and since the currency changes (Czech, like the British are a member of the EU, but they're not Eurozone... dunno what that means exactly, but it does mean they have different money) Lilith directed us towards a hole-in-the-wall. Getting there was largely unsuccessful because roads were closed down and each time Paulo drove down another possible access route, Lilith kept screeching: 'Make a U-turn as soon as is possible'. Sure, Lilith doesn't screech, but after hearing that for the umpteenth time, it sounded a lot like it - heck, you'd swear we were married the way she goes on sometimes. Suffice to say that eventually we stopped as close as we could - because parking is impossible to find in this city - and I headed out on foot to find that the bank machine was bust. Resigned to failure, it was back to Paulo to ask Lilith for the nearest Hotel. Up came a 'Golden Tulip - Savoy' and memories of Gouda returned - we spent the evening of the 'Rotten-dam' episode in a Golden Tulip hotel and it wasn't totally dreadful, particularly since the service staff spoke English, even if the television didn't. And the wi-fi was free (or as free as can be considering the price of the room). Paulo drove us, under Lilith's direction, to the hotel and... Wow! The room is 25 metres long, true's Bob; I did giant John Cleese-like steps across it and they definitely come to twenty-five. In between these steps is a desk - at which I am penning this, a double bed that looks king-sized, a television cabinet with a telly in it that shows Sky News (I haven't bothered channel searching any further, it's just good to hear proper English again and can scarcely wait for to wake up to Eamonn and Charlotte for Sunrise), a conference table with eight chairs around it, two wardrobes and two bathrooms (the one has the the bathing facilities in it and the other the toilet-type facilities in it). All of which is very nice. Then it was off to town. It's exactly like Leipzig in the same way that chalk is to a cherub. If Hamburg was romantic, then this place is indubitably hanky-panky, and not just because of the obscure museum to sex machines exists in one of its back alleys. It's because of all of its back alleys. The place is a labyrinth of narrow streets inter-linking larger thoroughfares, and at every turn is another significant feature - invariably a church; because there's lots of them, each with a higher and more ornate steeple than the former. The cherub mention was not for sake of wit, but rather that there are many, many cherubs around this city... truly, they abound. Iconic cities, by my reckoning, can be identified by the number of 'tourist' shops they have - you know, those little places in which teaspoons, plates and saucers with landmarks imprinted upon them, and cuddly-toys stitched in the shape of local icons, are sold. Prague has many of these, more than Edinburgh for sure and almost as many as exist around London's most iconic centres (interestingly, there were none, absolutely zero, that were obvious around Hamburg). But the shops here are a little different; instead of British flags and Union Jack underwear, these shops have marionettes. You've never seen so many marionettes in your life and they take the form of everyone you've ever imagined - here there's Hitler, there there's Charlie Caplin; and here there's whatsitsname who currently runs Russia... I didn't see Boris Johnson though. And yeah, that's it. Prague is gorgeous. You'll love it, make a booking soon. Me, I'm going to hit the sack - in that gloriously-large king-sized bed. Tomorrow it's Serbia. Oh heck, didn't they have a war there recently? I'll have to wait to hear what the weather-girl predicts, lest we find another way to get around and into Romania!