Poland and Beyond: August 98

Photo essay of the Eastern Europe & the Short Excursion to London experience:

Oh dear, Leaving the wonderfully gutsy Baltics. Three countries that have been ruined by the Soviets yet are being brilliantly rebuilt in the polluted area. The Baltic Sea is simply a brown sludge. Now it's here in Poland where they appear to be so far behind the Baltics when it comes to getting through the border and the old style bureaucracy still prevailing. It only took us two hours to get through but man, did they procrastinate or what?.

We have been to Poland before, taking a train from Berlin, and spent a week in Warsaw, loving getting over one million zlotys for one hundred pounds, not anymore however, they took away three zeros and hence only three and a half zlotys to the dollar, oh and the prices have nearly met the USA as well, with a coffee, which is no longer the sludge once served, a cool four zlotys and that sums up the prices these days. Prices for beer at 7.8% acl.vol are only 2.20zl.and as usual, supermarkets (if you can call them that) are still the way to buy.

The Polish border was no place to take a movie camera out and shoot some stuff as they were very serious about their jobs so instead the camera was kept hidden, as it was for most of the journey to Warsaw, not so much because of the law but the few hundred kms to Warsaw was not exactly the most exciting load of scenery we have encountered, (thank goodness really as the batteries were found to be pretty flat as well) rather a load of straight but ragged narrow roads commonly known as highways and flat terrain with simple farms and yes those damn forests again, this time however they were suffering from acid rain, in other words they could have looked alot better. To be perfectly honest, with Robs rear wheel so bent and almost touching the rear forks and encountering such terrible roads with such fast traffic, it was a relief to reach Warsaw but where the hell is the airport because by this stage we really had to get back to civilization and get the bike's wheels replaced with something alot stronger and Mary had a tooth ache (no wonder - with an abscess ready to go crazy) and what about those oh so essential visas needed for the countries yet to be covered.

Call us wimpy but we had to dismantle the bikes and take a taxi to the airport where we would hang around until we find a flight to London at the right price. Well we did, and yes we did. $600US return to London on British Midland (BA $1100) and three hours later we were on our way to London, bikes rapped in the ground sheet and a total of fourteen packages in all but Yahoo no excess luggage payment so good on yer British Midland.

Oh God, what the hell are we doing at Heathrow? Oh, that's right we need a break, talk English again, get teeth fixed, and bikes, visas, and information attended to.

Well, it is our third trip to London, three years living here in 72 then a world tour in 92 and here again in 98 complete with bikes an' all. Coming to London to speak English was the first joke as most people are a mix of everything we had already seen elsewhere and it was more a mix of the world's people than we had experienced before in this ULTRA EXPENSIVE city.

Simply said, London is a total rip off, the sterling rate is 100% (ask any British Exporter) more than it should be and as we headed for the hotel, in, where else as it happened, Earls Court, It was amazing to see how many Ozzies & Kiwis etc were there wasting their time. God, can't people realize that the European mainland is the real Europe compared to the UK being the big joke! All our lives we looked up to the UK as being the model but having experienced, again, mainland Europe, oh how wrong they all are. All Europe drives on the right, uses the same two pin mains plugs, has 220vac mains, everyone tries to learn other languages etc etc, but oh no the UK is so arrogant in being different in every way. No movies of London! Everyone knows what it looks like and everyone's been there before such that it would be such a bore and a waste of tape taking a movie of it. To sum up London these days is as we have never known it, with such massive wealth, (the poms must have a nice car, and there is no shortage of them, silly really considering there is no where to go, at least with out everyone else there as well), such poverty oh and then the rest seem to just hang around because somebody must have said it's the place to be. Is it that we're getting older or is it that we see through it all? We used to think of it as our second home, not anymore.

What a lot of crap people tell you about visas and vaccinations and that dreaded malaria. We only needed to get a Syrian visa (55 pounds) after being advised to get over twenty different ones for the countries being visited, and what about Lariam, the latest anti Malaria pill at 2.50pounds each pill. Take one a week at five pounds for the two of us but! take a testing one for three weeks prior which will only lead to dizziness, bad dreams and hallucinations in the meantime. Great for cycling NOT! So to hell with more of these rip off prices, we'll get them somewhere else. Two months budget gone in just a few days, mind you we now have new Mavic wheels with larger spokes and Mary had a really enjoyable root canal done on her teeth and we both got ripped off by British Airways vaccination centre by being charged one hundred and sixty one pounds for four injections. Bye Bye London. We did have a relaxing enjoyable time there however, viewing all the old haunts, and squeezing past the masses sealed in like sardines, but it was no adventure! Except cycling around London was a breeze and great fun, beating all the other traffic.

Now for the real stuff again.....

Back to dusty old Warsaw and the bangers they call cars, oh and the beautiful black stuff that pours from their rears. The great ruts in the tar roads that make cycling more like surfing.

Followed the river Wista out of Warsaw and down to Putawy where we camped wild yet again but very scenic, if you like farms and rivers. Just outside of Annopol we were gazing around looking for somewhere to camp when a man and his tractor appeared yelling "problema, no" so explained by showing the hands together resting against the head then showing the hands together depicting a tent and he got the drift. "no problema, stay at my house" so we followed him up this dusty track arriving at his huge house with dogs barking and turkeys gobling noticing his nice daughters then the patch out back where we were to camp alongside the cows. Great!. As is usual when we meet the locals, they can't resist hovering over us with hospitality, first the coffee then the kilogram of monstrous sausages, then the load of cucumbers. Great, but where was our truck to cart all this away in? Then before long we were invited indoors to have soup and play charades with the language.

Next day, back in the kitchen for a huge breakfast consisting of a huge omelet with peppers, tomatoes and onions. (Polish tomatoes must be the juiciest we have ever encountered - must be the acid).

Heading south and not a hill in sight but knowing full well this would end when we hit the carpathians just north of Slovakia, and yes we did. Having not climbed any big hills since France and a bit of Finland, it was damn hard work. After two days of it we had toughened up again and could cruise over mountains.

So talking of mountains, well one could write screeds on Poland as it certainly took ages to cross it but to not bore the reader we did cross the border into Slovakia at the top of a very hilly range and did the usual passport around the border guards thing, show it on the way out then show it again on the way in to the next country. The inefficiency hurts Rob watching it.

Slovakia, and a great fast ride down the mountain and into a more idyllic surrounding probably due to the fact that for most of Slovakia it was cycling along valleys with large hills surrounding us. Very different to the Chezk Republic side of things as we had previously visited Prague in 92. Slovakia was always the poorer side of the country so when they split it looked like Slovakia was the loser. Still the ugly Soviet style apartment blocks prevailed in the cities as with all other ex Soviet states. Quite disgusting, is the best way of describing the architecture. It was one time when they should have been on drugs, in order to at least create something different occasionally. The best lifestyle seems to be in the country side where at least the people have space. Like all the previous four countries toured, Slovakia shops still lack any imagination and efficient use of staff and space...If only Rob could speak the lingo's he would be in there advising all in sundry how to set up a shop and increase turnover, and stress, no doubt.