Drive Home Q8 - UK

Leg 10 - Germany, another dose of ex-communism before the comfort of old Europe, the West

2009-12-14T14:14:00.000-08:00

12 Dec 09

The border is so close and we are over it almost without realising. All the traffic is going the other way – daytrippers. It is little faster in our direction tho’ ‘cos everyone is religiously obeying the speed limits – note to be careful. We do note that the roads are in good nick and there is an air of well-offness. Quite a lot of W German money must have come in here early on after The Wall came down.

As ever the cloud is low so we miss our first point – Brimham Rocks, German style – and go on to Konigstein Fortress. This is the largest castle in Germany atop a craggy hill. It is more a mansion than castle these days and it’s preparing for a multi-coachload Xmas extravaganza so we move on. Done the tick so press ...

Netbook GPS takes us to the hotel in Dresden by mid-afternoon. That’s the hotel we’re booked into – in a suburb – as opposed to the other Radisson Chris thinks we’re booked into in the old part of town ... A booking at 3 in the morning when she couldn’t sleep was good value, but ... In fact it turns out fine as we enjoy using local transport and this is on a tramline straight into town. A disjointed health-farmish hotel; we have the advantage of a suite with utensils for the first time so we can breakfast in the room. Free wifi,

but a charged car park – ha ha, the truck is too high to get into the carpark, so park in front – QED no car park charge.

A quick change and we are off into town, in daylight.

Dresden - we are always shown the worst picture they took, showing the "destroyed centre", and it was awful. If you look behind that camera, few of the buildings to the river and beyond were badly damaged (for WW II that is). So there is a swathe of class buildings about 200 m deep along the river side that survived. The other side of the river is similar. I read this when I was a kid, but Dresden was the 7th largest city in Germany and had not been bombed until that fateful night in 1945. Dresden in 2 days took 7.000 tons of bombs. The next highest, ie in the top 6 German cities was in the 30,000 tons of bombs bracket. So I am led to believe that some of the furore was from sympathy for a baroque city that those well travelled will have known well; the furore was also started in the comfortable time when the winning of the war was assumed by those in Britain. The Western views are, not surprisingly, Western orientated - here they of course have a more Soviet view. There was Soviet pressure on the Allies to bomb Dresden as it was seen as a point for the regrouping of German forces to re-attack the Soviet army as it worked across Germany; Dresden also remained a major transport hub. The arguments will continue for ever, but in the UK we tend to bend so far over backwards to be balanced and impartial that we can become partial in our unbalanced weighting of views. That's enough of that, it is 65 year old history thro' a modern eye and I only wanted to air the subject ...

It's fascinating seeing the recovered buildings - the Frauenkirche, the worst damaged one, a huge church, looks almost brand new, but the new white stone is dotted with recovered black bricks and it's possible to identify the 2 corners of the building (black) which remained standing after the bombing. It was only re-consecrated 5 years ago, following post-communist reconstruction. They have done a fantastic job of re-building the centre, it's a real demonstration of industry, and it goes on.

The Alt (old) town has a big Xmas market, a real one – the square is jam packed, but it‘s the best we’ve seen so far with more than just food and drink on offer. There’s all those different stalls you expect: wood carving, pottery, knitted clothes, Xmas decorations, blah ... Every square seems to be filled up with stall-holders all showing their wears. It's the second December weekend and it is heaving. My little co-traveller definitely likes pretty German towns – probably more than all that exciting Middle Eastern stuff. By the end of the evening we’ve seen half the town, well illuminated, and retire to the hotel early, exhausted. Too tired to contemplate the only musical culture we had found to be on in our 2 days here.

13 Dec 09

Dresden is famous for it’s skyline – certainly it is an interesting baroque-spired skyline and Canaletto was moved to paint it, but after all this hype we were surprised how small it is. It was more impressive to walk the streets and have these baroque buildings towering over us. As in the rest of eastern Europe, they put more statues and intricate work on their buildings than we have in the UK. These buildings are impressive in a different way from London’s and other UK cities. There has obviously been a lot of wealth here, from early days (15th and 16th centuries) and we wondered where from. Well, they mined silver and gem stones locally – the wealth of ornaments and gifts is shown in a museum called the Green Vault. Many seemed to be gifts to the elected ruler of the principality (Saxony) or their own wife, but the detail is stunning and over powers many of our Empire collections. An array of medals presented to the king from many countries brought the difference home – all with stones and gold inlaid, except the Order of the Garter from England. The Order is a pretty medal and with much detail, but it is largely enamel on base metal!

As we’ve been museumed out for a while now, this was the only one we paid for in Dresden, well worth it. The rest of the day was spent wandering the numerous Xmas market areas – they’re everywhere, you can’t move on the streets for Xmas market stalls, every single space in the centre is filled. This was interspersed with space-heated watering holes – almost like the desert, but – with gluhwein. We only found 1 iffy department store and a mall, but retired early again tired and not having bought much.

Something else wasn’t quite like the desert either: low cloud, grey sky, more real snow and its cold.

I’ve been conscious that as we close on Western Europe, this blog may become mundane and a yes we know all that, list of events. We had the idea on a walk a few days ago and refreshed it while walking around Dresden – we’ll try to draw-up some lists of tens, eg: ten biggest surprises, ten biggest disappointments, etc ... Of course when we first muted the idea we had loads of suggestions and were hooting with laughter as we walked along. Why is it then that when you sit down to record all these brill ideas they have evaporated? Maybe ‘cos we’re so often knackered at the end of a day; we will be glad to get home for a rest. Or was it too much gluhwein?

14 Dec 09

Out of Dresden and to Meissen, famous for its china pottery. That’s not to our liking, too flowery, but a proper little town and shopping cente – v pleasant.

Colditz castle – good little museum and worth the visit, but looking more like a baronial home than the grey stone castle in the film series. I was most impressed by a scale model of the glider they built but never flew out before the end of the war.

15 Dec 09

Leipzig as we drove in yesterday (straight to hotel as I’m getting a handle on this simplistic sat nav programme) did not impress after Dresden – it certainly doesn’t have a famous skyline. Today tho’ we were impressed, despite 3 degrees below. It’s a larger old town centre, it is more close, narrow streets with more in them and more real activity. Many more cafes and there are plenty of interesting old buildings, but they don’t have the towers dominating the skyline. So on balance a more attractive city centre. The Xmas market stalls were also more accessible as they were along streets and squares rather than clogging them. Better quality shops are also here, so we found a decent department store – for us one of the strengths of German shopping. A full day in town did not exhaust us and there is as much to do tomorrow, worryingly with a couple of ‘good’ shopping malls to come. Got some culture in as well ... The BBC has headlined recently how, from Berlin, the curryworst (a curried German sausage) is taking the country by storm. Thought I’d better try this extravaganza – what a disappointment, it's just a normal German sausage in a tomato based sauce with curry powder sprinkled over it. T’was v mild curry powder at that – back home we’d use the strongest curry and marinate it in the stuff for hours so it would blow your head off (well it would start with your head!). So after that cultural disaster ... PS: have since seen real (pre-curried) curryworst, but yet to try.

We never resolved the problem of finding a concert or opera on here (or in Dresden) as our dates just did not work – here, Xmas week is busy and autumn has been busy, but we’re just at the wrong time, in between. That was a real disappointment, but as many places do, there are often smaller scale local performances on. I’ve done the same in the UK and it is a different cultural experience. Today we found a choral performance, celebrating 600 years of university – historic instruments, a brilliant youth choir and several solo singers. It was in a church so pretty good acoustics and the heating was on – what more could you want? We also noticed tonight as we went into the centre, a lot of youths carrying musical instruments, maybe 1 in 3 – their musical heritage will continue. That is a sight I’ve not seen in the UK for a few years.

All was rounded off with an Italian and a sleeping draft. – we like Leipzig.

16 Dec 09

Another day to wander the streets, I think I could become a vagrant in retirement. So cold, -2 to -5, that we need frequent gluhwein stops to thaw out, but we cleared all the outstanding posh public buildings (and there are a few) and interspersed cafe thaw-outs, with shopping malls which also thawed us out. Finally, after 5 days, found an exchange to clear our Czech Koruna – the last of our funny money. Two other shopping malls were not as good as the first, yesterday, but still the best we’ve seen for a while and we clocked a few Xmas pressies. Will work out later how they’ll fit in the truck. Ate in a Sardinian restaurant in the evening. No chicken on the menu for Chris – do they not eat chickens in Sardinia? A good tiring day, so off to bed – we have an early start tomorrow and the truck needs some repacking. Will also be emptying the last extra petrol container if there is space in the tank – not been in a rush for this as they are strapped down under all the other luggage, but we’ve been getting just a few fumes from the petrol, surprisingly on the colder days, not the hot ones with this container.

17 Dec 09

A lot done to prep departure, but it is a short day – away about 11. Let’s not mess about – sat nav to get out of Leipzig and to Weimar. Weimar is to Germany as the Mount was to Moses – their 1st constitution was signed here and it was a power centre for Hitler – deliberately used because of its place in German’s minds. So early pics of the Nazi parades past Hitler show him outside the Elephant Hotel here and the Town Hall.

It’s a cultural centre in many ways and a pretty town, but not unusually so (they have so many). We saw Goethe’s house – he’s a cultural icon: playwright, author, scientist; a great literary influence. The gluhwein was okay as well – my friend is becoming an expert on this matter.

To Buchenwald, just outside the town a place the locals claimed to know nothing about. We have difficulty with that statement – it was the main centre for training Hitler’s dreaded SS and had a camp next to it where they could practice their inhuman techniques on the inmates. A camp that 250,000 people from across Europe went through and 56,000 died in it, but all sorts of cruelty and experiments were carried out. At the end of WWII, the Americans who captured it, paraded all the townspeople through it. A town living on the support of a camp of thousands must know where their income is coming from, especially in the closed communities of those days. It’s now a memorial, but we thought rather a sop to what went on. There is not a prisoners’ hut standing and nothing to make an impact – so all the school trips which go there will not have a dramatic experience, they’re more likely to be bored by the place. We did see a reasonable 30 min film, but not much archive stuff – the BBC has better.

It was in a dramatic forest setting, v pleasant. Off to Erfurt our night stop. Nothing booked – we’ll look around and choose a nice cosy little pension. Mme, that doesn’t work too well as where we want to be is restricted to cars and too often one-way, the wrong way! Found one interesting point, after negotiating the bridge which could only just take the truck, the cobbled road was so narrow that the tyres were rubbing on the kerbstones on both sides and it led to a ford. Apparently my friend anticipated future events and had decided that she would not let me cross the ford ... came to nought as I decided to turn round anyway – not an easy task either! So straight into the first acceptable hotel we find – plain but warm, hurrah, 'cos it's freezing.

We were straight out to gluhwein and Italian – good service and the most involved presentation of the ‘house red’ I have ever seen. Each glass was rinsed with wine to aroma them and there was a separate tasting glass. Of course the cork was presented for sniffing – doesn’t do anything for me, I know what cork smells like – and the wine was transferred to a jug decanter. All most impressive, but didn’t improve the house wine any.

We immediately warmed to Erfurt, old buildings, activity and Xmas market stalls, but plenty of character and variety with it.

18 Dec 09

Erfurt is delightful, we enjoyed a wander around with Xmas markets busy, decent department stores and old crooked streets and buildings. Despite several gluhweins and department store visits to warm up we were COLD, there’s a couple of inches of snow and it’s still falling. Must check, but at least -5; retired to do this blog in our warm room.

No BBC World – I guess they have started charging too much. Just as Kuwait’s Showtime dropped BBC World this year, it has not been much in evidence since Aqaba, Jordan. I think we saw it one other time in Bucarest. So the CNN weather forecast – not so thorough and near us the forecast for tomorrow is -12 Moscow and -6 Prague. I estimate we’ll manage -5 or -6 tonight.

Another Italian – they do good quick food and there is always an atmosphere – great. Too cold so early to bed again!

19 Dec 09

Out to the car before breakfast, just to see if the low temps might give us a problem. I think I mentioned that we put anti-freeze in the radiator back in Bulgaria – premature you may have thought! Good news, the water is still completely liquid. Well I’ll just run the engine for a couple of minutes to get everything used to the idea of working; it does feel cold. Starts first time and up comes the temperature gauge ... wot! It has managed an astonishing -13C overnight. The last time I saw temperatures like these in the UK, -12 in Lincolnshire, as I drove off to work and indicated to turn at the first corner, the plastic was so petrified that the indicator stalk snapped off in my hand! Best we be careful, Japanese motor or not.

I remember putting in our resume for the Blog at the right here, that we were going from the fire to the cool box – how prophetic. Tho' I should have said freezer.

We are not going to enjoy driving today, thankfully it will only occasionally snow. Another time – funnily enough when we drove across Europe with a failed wheel bearing - from hitting Holland off the ferry we were in frost, sheet ice and snow all the way to Munich and back with ice building up over the front of the car nearly an inch thick and even the lights covering in ice when on! Even with full heat on the windscreen then, the wipers froze-up, they did not sweep properly and a healthy windscreen cracked all the way across because of the heat differential.

Today has its points of interest tho’. Do you know about super-cooled water? Any pilots amongst you will. Water can remain liquid well below the freezing point, but when disturbed the shock can cause the water to then turn to ice – this is aided if there is something to exchange heat with, the latent heat of freezing. So in clouds with super-cooled water droplets, an aircraft comes along and disturbs them. The aircraft provides the shock and the heat exchange surface and the water freezes out, very quickly, as a most dangerous ice sheet. What on earth has this got to do with driving home to the UK? So, in our home, our little truck, once upon a time there were 2 sealed bottles of water, lying next to each other – one said to the other “I am going to turn to ice”. I found this one in the back of our home this morning, at -13. The other bottle said “I’m going to have a quiet night and I enjoy being liquid water so I will stay as water”. I also found this little chap this morning – a crystal clear bottle of water at -13 degrees ... then into the home came this big nasty man dressed in winter clothes and he disturbed our little clear bottle. He only picked it up, but as he did so, the shock started the formation of tiny ice crystals which made the water start to look milky. It became milkier and milkier, until within 5 minutes is was a block of ice, just like his mate... Sorry, no happy ending for our little bottle; once he’d thawed out he was poured over the windscreen many times ...

Back to matters in hand: just 2 places to see today and then a long drive up to my cousin’s in Hamburg, our jumping off point for the ferry home from Denmark. Judith’s was the 1st wedding I ever went to as a youth of 16 – hence the 1st suit I owned was tailored for the occasion. Burtons was a real tailors in those days, tho’ they had a reputation of making the arms different lengths etc. This suit was built to “allow for growth” and lasted for another 15 years! Judith was also one of my godmothers, so I can blame her for my misguided upbringing! Sadly she lost her husband Peter, suddenly, only a month ago between us seeing him in the UK in the summer and looking forward to spending some time with him this week. Insistent on us still staying with her, we’ll be there for 2 nights and it will be some relaxation. Then just the Esbjerg, Denmark – Harwich ferry to go.

Today we’ve planned Wartburg castle where Martin Luther (the 1st protestant) hid when the catholic church put a fatwah (sic) on him. It's a mere -11 now. The half mile walk from carpark to hilltop castle has me expecting frostbite in my nose. Best we get inside and do the castle tour soonest ... oops, that'll be after a gluhwein. We expected a quiet, maybe closed, castle, so why is the carpark full? That's 'cos there's a Xmas market here as well - getting fed-up with these things, and they always get in the way of a decent photograph. Worth seeing the displays, but the important Luther ones were the only ones without an English translation! Eisenach the neighbouring town is pretty (again) and worth a look, but beyond a lunch, at -12 it's not to linger in.

All day had to stop every other autobahn park to wash the salt off the screen, so I can see where we're going. Despite windscreen washer fluid already in the bottle and another load added, it's all completely frozen and not clearing. The blades are freezing up and not following the screen contour, so they don't work either. Can't get more fluid as the garages are running out. A messy day. A large stone chip we've got is starting to spread as a crack. Each time we stop and the temperature change across the screen varies, it extends. One neat little chink sound had it spread 2 feet across to my side. Later, no sooner than I had said to Chris: 'I wonder which one will win' - which what? Chink - 'I win'. Chink - 'you almost won'. 'We've cracked it' says me - pun intended! Within 10 seconds we are cracked completely from side to side of the windscreen. It's not a great problem as it's the outer glass laminate - the middle plastic and inner glass remain intact and still give strength to the screen. Replacement will wait to the UK.

The sat-nav got us straight to the house, brilliant, despite telling me we were wandering through fields, rather than on the road several times this afternoon. It is the better-off end of Hamburg with some old merchants mansions not so far away. A light evening meal and to bed, we have an early start tomorrow.

20 Dec 09

An early start ‘cos we’s off to church. This time it’s to Judith’s church so we’re a captive audience, but not without desire. We have been to many places around the World and dropped in on religious services, not only for the services themselves; we also find them a good bell-weather of local society and are often engaged and even invited to following events despite being known to be ‘tourists’. This expat centred church was of course different, we were introduced to many by Judith and it was the day of the children’s nativity play so a busy service. Importantly, Judith’s grandchildren were stars of the show – Emily was Mary and Frederico, the innkeeper ... and one of the 3 kings - an able young man of 8 years. Like so many in the family he speaks 3 languages - almost as able as my favourite Bulgarian police officer!!! It was a warm and welcoming community.

On leaving we were given the practised Judith grand tour of Hamburg. What a pleasant surprise that Hamburg has so much to offer. With multitudinous lakes and rivers (many frozen over) it also has many historic buildings, docksides and warehouses and culture to match. It’s been a cultural centre for a long time and was where the Beatles honed their skills for subsequent fame. The day was rounded-off with dinner for 8 chez Judith’s. A great relaxed evening with multi-lingual conversation – German, English and Italian.

21 Dec 09

Up early to clear the overnight 4 inches of snow off 3 cars, check oil. water etc and get ready for the ferry crossing. Sat-nav out of Hamburg and off to Denmark.

Ribe is a delightful old village, the oldest in Denmark, and just 45 minutes short of the ferry terminal, so well placed for a lunch stop and final drive to be on time for the ferry at Esbjerg. Lots of old buildings, well preserved, and tourist, quality shops displaying that classic Danish style and design. Oh and classic Danish prices ... just the £40 for 2 soups, a glass of wine and a beer. LP-less, we didn’t know whether Euros were still good here. No they’re not – Kronas are – good thing they took cards.

It’d been warming up this morning with temps around -3 and I’d hoped the windscreen washer system might thaw-out, but no such luck and a blizzard hit us whilst in Ribe. Little evidence of salting left the roads v slippery and not worth more than about 50kph, 40 max on roundabouts – exciting stuff. There was enough salt to block out the screen tho’.

Still, well on time for the ferry – shame really as loading took ages and we were 2 hours waiting – tall trucks were last on ... great. Hopefully first off at Harwich will be the pay back. Discovered why it took so long – it isn’t strictly a Ro-Ro ferry as loading and unloading takes place at the same, rear end of the ship. So every vehicle has to do a 2-point turn and reverse into position – maybe that’s why reversing and 3-point turns are still in the driving test. To watch the professionals position the articulated trucks is impressive and speedy work, but some of the private drivers shouldn’t have passed that driving test – so which way does that wheel turn when going backwards, is that the left or right? My left or your right ...?

Got chatting to a guy from Gothenberg, Sweden, he’d imported used bikes into the UK and put us at some ease saying tomorrow should not be a problem and we have 12 months to register the Pajero. We shall see, but he seemed to confirm my plan A for getting thro’ HM Customs etc at Harwich. He’d noticed our Kuwait registration, just as we’d noticed him loading – from our vantage point, I’d remarked how small the original mini is, after I’d persuaded myself it wasn’t the BMW model. His original (one of the last production models) was the Cooper Sport with massive flared wheel-arches.

On the ferry the Xmas dinner we’d bought into was a bit too cafe-ish, but for £50 for 2 t’was fair value – 1st Xmas turkey and it was spot-on. Good thing I checked that price, just noticed we’d paid for breakfast as well (doing this blog at the breakfast table) – we’re about to pay again. We booked this ferry about 3 months ago so we’ve forgotten what we paid for- the girl on the reception desk wasn’t so helpful and she didn’t explain that the dinner was included in my ticket, the breakfasts were on each ticket. The ticket was also a bar-code read door key ... etc, etc. All other items are paid on board; whichever currency is offered, it’s changed then any cash change is only given in Danish Krona – that really useful international currency. So we’re carding everything – a faff. Overall it’s a good service – DFDS Seaways have been £380 total (car, cabin, 4 meals), the sea leg is about 400 miles, so we may be saving 4-500 miles driving and at least one hotel stay. There’s not much in it and by ferry we are rested and delivered north of London.

22 Dec 09

Sailing towards the Thames estuary and the sky has just broken a little from the dark gray we enjoyed for a couple of weeks. Lots of deep tankers and container ships waiting for the tide to go up the Thames, we’re shallow draught enough to press-on to Harwich.

Harwich – I’m always reminded of an old article on the British Post Office and how good it was (note: was) at delivering letters despite difficult addresses. An example given was one from Pakistan addressed to a house in “Arrishaba”. Where is that? ... try it phonetically ... arich arbour? ... that’ll be Harwich Harbour then! These days we probably deliver such letters to the nearest lake, the UK equivalent of that post box in the desert.

Have to go out on deck to experience our arrival and met Andrew from last night – with Swedish acclimatisation he’s in shirt and t-shirt, impressive as we are in multiple layers with wind/water-proof outers as there’s a 30 knot wind over the deck. Oh for a blue sky and some warmth. A few castles and some history as we enter harbour.

We disgorge to a queue of course, but at least we were one of the first off the boat and are near the front.

The grandchildren are about to arrive pre-Xmas and I haven't done my usual minor editing (crop and shrink) of the pics, so I shall interrupt this blog.

My plan A is to declare our intention to take the truck to France rather than import to the UK. So I pull in to the "To Declare" lane and ask to speak ... nowhere near the difficulties I anticipated. We are home and dry with me driving on an internatinal licence and the truck on a Green Card for insurance.

The UK roads are not quite as bad as the continent ... but there's not much in it. There's as much snow, but the temperature is a little higher. Classic for the UK tho', the warmer conditions place the temp around zero - freezing point - these are the worst possible conditions 'cos the layer of water over ice is the slippiest. It also leads to our problem of overnight sheet ice which just forms that water layer in daylight to refreeze the following night.- slippy and hard to clear. My driving is cautious in these conditions and 'cos we're on the 'wrong' side of the road! (sic). In the last 11 years we've spent 8 overseas and are not as familiar with UK roads as we would like. Also, the steering wheel is on the wrong side for the UK!

A straight forward drive to Nottingham reminds us of some of Englands grand historic buildings, with a quick shopping stop in Peterborough and then we are there - car wash, arrival delayed birthday dinner for my friend and Christmas ... We dun it.

To all of you who have persevered thro' this blog and the few (limited number of addressees allowed) who have watched over us, with the regular GPS tracker position updates using Google Earth references, thank you. We've very much enjoyed and appreciated all the support we've had; I've enjoyed writing this blog and will continue to give it minor updates as it will remain our own record of our adventure and, despite all the time it takes and the difficulty of a clear enough head at the end of a long day, it has been a prompt and a reminder to record the events. So, finally to all our readers, a Happy Christmas and all the best Wishes for the New Year.

Leg 09 - Czech Republic

2009-12-08T09:04:00.000-08:00

7 Dec 09

We already have the vignette so press. Until we hit thick fog, well actually we’ve just climbed into the cloud. It is of course dark by now, the road markings are inconsistent – tend to be non at hazards and in the towns (skin flints), but okay on state financed straight stretches. So with a varying speed, down to 40 kph at times and following locals whenever possible we make it to Telc; Cesky K is too far. We are a half day ahead now and will enjoy the town tomorrow morning. I think 9 hrs driving is enough in mist and fog, we’ve covered 550 km and are feeling pleased we’ve made the most of the terrible conditions. Our 1st contact with the Czechs (not at the border as nobody there) was in a garage and was promising. The old boy there couldn't do enough, exercised his English and washed all the windows and lights v carefully. Wasn't bothered when I apolgised as I didn't have any change to tip; we're back into local currency here. I did slip him a Euro - sure he'll be able to use it. Another sign of progressing westwards, is that here we experience our 1st German style loo - but I'll go into more detail (sic) on 10 Dec.

We’re staying in the medieval town square and I am enjoying a Grambrinus – a local yellow ale before we eat. As nearly all the bars/pubs to date, smoking is the norm, only v few have no smoking rules – we aren’t used to so much smoke.

I blame you guys – apparently I’ve just missed tonight’s show – our barmaid, equipped with most things pierced, orange/red hair and tattoos, shirt lifting to apply a fresh dose of deodorant. You just don’t realise the culture you’re missing here. Love to all, din dins beckons.

Din dins (dinner) was not that easy to arrange – no restaurant in town had more than 2 people in and for most those 2 were the kitchen staff and chef! We knew it was the off season but not the NO-Season. To be fair, everywhere has been v good at fresh production of food; long menus should not be off-putters as everything is freshly prepared and as ordered. So tonight’s meal was good and for a grand total of £14 we had 2 main courses, 2 side salads and a drink each. The drinks here are 90p each. These must have been the sort of prices which set Bratislava off as a weekend booze city.

8 Dec 09

A fine night's sleep has us expecting a clear day - no such luck, the fog is still on the church spires and it feels like rain it is so damp. The town is impressive even in these conditions, but we press-on for Cesky K. In

clear weather it would be a delightful drive with pretty lakes and woodland; perhaps we'll return one summer. Though it's foggy there is not far to go and we are settled by 1 o'clock, with just a short deviation to look for a Mitsubishi garage - no luck. The bearing was squealing lightly on bends last night, both left and right; after 550 km of fast driving perhaps no surprise. It often happens with a failing bearing that an overnight stand allows the grease to settle and redistribute when next run - whoopee, that seems to be what happened. I doubt it will gets us home, but we'll see.

Cesky K is a delightful touristy town and fairly busy (for December!), but they are all day trippers from Prague or enroute to elsewhere. Guess we'll be almost alone again to night - I'll let you know. There are plenty of restaurants to choose from and we detect a sense of humour here - fun to come? Maybe after a couple of gluhweins we're imagining this. I think the cafe maitre was serious when he put on his hat and coat each time we asked for a gluhwein, which was in an urn just outside the door! I

was tempted to carry-on drinking for the entertainment., well that's my excuse. Then later when we leave our hotel room, non of the light switches work, so I have to get my torch to find our way out - well to the front door which is locked. Yes, we are locked in our hotel alone with no lights!

Quiet would be kind - same story, just 1 restaurant with more than 2 people in it. Good spot for carnivores tho' - my piece of duck came with a whole smoked ham steak, and just the 1 pork steak hidden under that. I've changed my ideas on sauerkraut - done properly it is great. It's certainly not the boiled cabbage I grew-up on. Following that carnivores delight, slept rather well.

9 Dec 09

Obviously our hotel owner/staff do not sleep on the premises, but now we have seen the town operate for a couple of days, we deduce that it is a bit of a Disney town that just happens to be medieval original (rather than mock). It does not function as a town, that must be the surrounding town outside the old walls. Its reason d'etre is tourists and that is all it does, so when the tourists are absent it is dead space. It leaves an erie feeling - UK equivalent towns (eg York) are living towns.

Okay, enough theorising. Good chilled day, wandeered the castle grounds and part of the bulding even tho' can't "go inside" as such 'cos it's the closed season. Sampled some red draughts and chilled in our v nice corner room/suite which is medieval with windows onto 2 old streets. Blogged and watched a film. Also got

receptionist, lovely helpful young lady, to phone ahead and book some work on the truck. We're in Plzen tomorrow (that's Pilsen to those boozers amongst you) - seemed a good place to be if there is any delay in fixing the truck! Youthful acceptance - she rapid fired a request for wheel bearing fix, 30,000km service and 2 new headlamps. No surprise when the garage said "no, too busy, try next week". She kindly advised me that it was not possible, try just the bearing, no they are too busy until next week. Just ask them again, bearing only. Okay, so that is what we are booked in for a new bearing tomorrow. 30K can wait, we'll only be 2 or3 over when home, but would be nice to do the lights - tried scrapping the lenses, more lens than fablon comes off! I anticipate that these jobs will be about half UK prices around here, just hope the parts are as well.

It will be an early start in the morning, to make the garage by lunchtime, so an early night is in the offing. Have done some replanning, binned yet another medieval town near Prague (can see that when we return to Prague another time and it will mean a lot more on its own); that generates an extra day in Germany which will ease a day's travel. It does tho' slip us forward another day - we've been struggling to arrange concerts/opera for Dresden and Leipzig, now it seems to be impossible. That will be a great shame as they are both towns renowned for their World class performances.

10 Dec 09

The day started full of promise with a blue sky, an early breakfast and parking ticket for the truck which allows us just an hour outside our hotel to load. On arrival, 2 police cars had stopped to check us – so we had hoped the same thoroughness would ensure the security of the truck in a public car park just inside the town walls ... yes, secure over the 2 nights. So while I get the truck Chris rushes off to see if the tourist shop which sold us a nice red vino last night is open to increase their sell on this rather pleasant local light red. No, most shops don’t open until 10 each morning – this is commonplace, but more so in this tourist only Disneyland.

Truck is covered in a healthy frost – must remember to get those longjohns out! We’re away by 0930, good going for us. It hasn’t seemed to be easy anywhere, there’s always a faff which consumes time and tho’ 2hrs is prob the norm, today’s 1½ is good – breakfast to wheels time. No wine – we’ll just check the Coop on the way out – 2 similar ones are okay. Am trying to have a collection from across Europe for our family Xmas. The blue sky didn’t last long, it became progressively greyer and then rainier as we progressed to Plzen. Sat nav last night had the garage and the hotel in it so no problems – we’ll drive by the garage then I’ll drop Chris at the hotel with the netbook and valuable bags, and she can research accom ahead (mainly Dresden and Leipzig – the replan has also made Dresden a busy pre-Xmas weekend stay!) while I get the truck done. Sounds dead easy. Now, I don’t think its me – this sat-nav can be really good; but the programme Dell seems to have bought into, tho’ I’m pleased with the European mapping, is the most user unfriendly I’ve used since the last time I swore at Bill Gates. Can we find the hotel ... no. The programme is called ‘Co-pilot’ and pondering (3 days later as I write this in Dresden) it occurs to me that co-pilots can’t do more than one thing at a time, so all is explained ... The girl on the desk is helpful but not especially good at directions – on the third attempt of mobile phone talk-in we make it. The garage booking of 1-2 pm arrival is in danger of fading as it’s now 1-30. Thankfully the drive-by paid off, I get straight back to it and we go for a test drive. Well, it took me 10 minutes to persuade the guy, who doesn’t speak any English that there is a bearing problem and his guess is the front left, okay, one of my 2 but not my first choice ... very EU and HandSAW (Health and Safety at Work – for those who haven’t had the pleasure), I am not allowed in the workshop while they are working so a good book (thanks Graham) and the reception room for me. “A problem” – they’ve decided that it is the rear left bearing and so discovered the slow puncture. Well actually now a fast puncture as they’ve made the mistake of taking the nail out! Can they fix it – okay. Brill – 2 hours and we are done and dusted - £25 the lot. In the UK I would pay more than that for the new part, the bearing, alone. Assuming that they did the right bearing (!) that is a good afternoon, 2 problems solved.

Now to a much more important matter: here we are at the centre of the known universe (for yellow beer drinkers) and there is some business to be done. Chris doesn’t even like beer, but has researched brewery visits whilst I’ve been bearinging – the better is in English and is at 4.15 this afternoon. Not only will we get a tour – lager is a different brewing process (bottom fermenting) from UK dark beer – we should get a free drinking session and meet some people to talk to. Everywhere we’ve been has been so quiet recently that we have not had a conversation with other than ourselves for days. Back to the hotel for 3.45 and out for a quick walk to arrive at the Pilsner Urquell brewery with 2 min in hand for the English tour – made it. So people to talk to ... mme, we’re on our own! The guide is a local PhD engineering student, his English is okay, but for an engineering student not as inquisitive as I would have expected –

maybe he was put off by these 2 smart a...s who kept asking difficult questions. I would have expected him to know how they got the pressure in the cans tho’. A gem he did impart but couldn't explain, was that the water tower was a coy of a Dutch lighthouse; does that make it the furthest inland lighthouse in Europe I wondered; I konw the UK's is at Cranwell! And the free beer – only a glass of unfiltered beer, but not bad. We did then go in the restaurant attached – the largest in the Czech Republic with a massive underground room and the best pilsner beer I can remember. So at last it was worth it.

Back to our v ordinary room. Ah, the 2nd with a German style loo (toilet). Those of a sensitive disposition may wish to skip this paragraph. What is so special about a German loo? They're the ones with the platform to the front of them, as opposed to the UK style (a la Thomas Crapper - you may recognise the name as he invented the UK flushing toilet) which drops straight down. So why the platform ... so you can examine your production for worms etc ... I don't think this is a Teutonic fetish, rather a practicality of eating uncured bacon and its like. Surprising these days as the general quality of German ham/bacon is outstanding and probably far better than the stuff we are served-up in the UK.

I should have said skip 2 paragraphs. The subject has reminded Chris to remind me ... Toilets we have seen - they've steadily improved as we've travel west. One of the most serious problems in the early days of this trip was the bathroom facilities, or lack of, for Chris. It's okay for blokes and anyway across most of Europe we can stand at the roadside (no not behind a tree) and wave (sic) at the passing throngs. For the ladies a different ball game. Thoughout the Middle East, the available toilets (shops, cafes, rarely garages) were only squat types and filthy - if you've seen filthy, these were worse! Squat is difficult when clean, these ... You know the Middle East attitude to waste and rubbish - now transfer that to the bathroom. I'll dwell no more. At least in Europe a visit to a cafe will normally these days generate an acceptable bathroom, tho' public facilities are sadly lacking.

Oops, just had a break from this blog – visited that other planet ... Ebay. Didn’t mention, while waiting for the truck, enquired at the garage what price a couple of headlamp units would be for the Pajero: a mere £370 each, yes each and without bulbs etc ... labour may be cheap in the Czech Republic, but not parts. Just bought the only ones on Ebay for £95 the pair, phew. I‘m a confirmed Ebayer, 1st buy was the Sony laptop I took to Kuwait – half price at a year old – the best thing I bought for the job in 4½ years.

11 Dec 09

Slept well on those sleeping draughts. Chris had seen the town, Plzen, in a walkabout yesterday and confirmed the LP judgement – not much to see/do. So today a lazy start, minor repack car ‘cos we have accumulated a few Xmas presents and decided to empty the powered fridge and store the pressies in it to protect them. We’re away about 11.30 and only have about 80 miles to do today to Hrensko, just short of the German border, via Prague and a concentration camp. If it goes quickly and don’t linger anywhere we could cross the border, but finding accom on a Friday night in Dresden which is only 34 miles over the border would be difficult and would lose us a couple of sights.

Not far except for the roadworks around Prague in which we never saw a sign for our road. Over an hour wasted going into Prague, then out, then cross-country to intercept the road we really wanted ... The essence of some of this is the Czech way of road signing - potentially a good idea that a turn is pre-warned by about 100m, except that the pre-warning and the 'at junction' sign are both in the same format so we don't know whether it is now, later ... oh, or just past! U-turn options are rare and junctions can be km apart so finding your way back to that wrong turn may not be possible, or on several occasions has given us an hour traffic jam - what fun. Well the upshot of all this is that we are running late, but have time to drop in on a Czech concentration camp, Terezin.

The camp comprised 2 parts in napoleonic era fortifications - those huge star shapes in brick with the entrances recessed between the star points and with large motes. One small part is a Jewish memorial and museum - we declined an hour tour here to get to the other large site, half a mile away. So a quick rush around and off to discover that the other much larger site, and the true concentration part, remains a military camp area and is not accessible. Only a small memorial, railway tracks and the crematorium remained accessible. What was interesting was that the town was within the old fortification walls and so immediately next to the concentration camp - there would be no claiming by this local population that they were unaware of what was going on. To this day a rather strange place.

Now we are running late, phone ahead to book Hrensko accom, he asks when we'll be there - that's okay and we have time to eat and look around Litomerice. This yet another pretty town square with a Xmas market - well an excuse for one and v few poeple around. Eventually find a restaurant with people in it and discover it is the LP choice. It's 3 floors down in the vaults/caves under the Town Hall, good food, an interesting spot but hard to find. This is not the first time we have struggled to find where the locals hide out - many of these countries need advice on how to sell themselves.

I didn't mention that tonight's pension owner did not speak English, German was the only language we had in common - of which I know v little. As I drive I'm trying to remember enough German to sort out our rooms when we get there. I'm also reminding myself of German numbers, mme, did he say a time in the 24hr clock that I agreed was our arrival time? I had thought I'd agreed 6 o'clock, but he'd said 16 (just as similar in German) which was 4 o'clock - I'd dismissed it 'cos it was 4.15 when I was talking to him. maybe he didn't have a watch on. I became sure that 4 not 6 was the agreed hour ... and it duly came to pass that the pension was locked-up with no lights and, we guessed, no heating on. 'Don't want to stay there, even if it is the LP recommended one.' A local advises that there is only one hotel open in town - that will be the one for tonight then. Basic, smoking and with a dog - there is a lot running against this place - but it is warm (space heating the district). Arrange an early breakfast and collapse into bed.

12 Dec 09

Breakfast was laid out by the night watchman, tho' he didn't even switch the room lights on for us- he was a man of no words. Away early for a walk in lightly falling snow and a healthy -2 degrees. This area is known as Little Switzerland (both sides of the border), for it's pretty hills, ravine valleys and fast streams. There are also unusual rock formations: limestone pinnacles and cuts similar to Brimham Rocks in Yorkshire. Great walk by the river in autumn colours, but cut short when blocked by a locked metal door - an off-season HandSAW directive we thought.

On our return thro' the village, what had been locked-up shed-shops (like Blackpool in mid-winter) are now displaying all their tripperish wears. They are ready for the cross-border day-trippers from Germany - it is Saturday after all. The border is only about 2 km away, the garage is full of cars with various petrol syphoning devices and there is even a duty free shop. We deduce that prices are about to jump.

The Czechs have been an industrious folk and helpful when approached, but their public face rarely shows a smile. The lovely places we've been to have been suffering off-season and, for some, tourist money seems to be the only lifter of activity. What has struck us is the speed of their speech and yet again the madness of some drivers - overtaking on double white lines over the brow of a hill and around a bend (yes, all at once) was almost commomplace. They would appear not to learn from the plethora of roadside memorials.

Leg 08 - Slovakia

2009-12-06T15:36:00.000-08:00

Writing this blog in the early hours of the morning; I am okay at about 6 hrs sleep, tho’ someone I know is more comfortable going beyond 9. Mind you I slumped over the keyboard at 11 last night when we got in and before (sic) sleeping. I try to be up so that the keyboard sounds are far enough away to not wake. One of the best gadgets I brought is a USB powered plug-in lamp that illuminates the keyboard – brill.

So, where are we ... one of the Bs, and which country will that be then. It’s a struggle not to insult the hotel staff by saying what a nice country they have and not getting the name wrong ... we are enjoying it all still but will be glad when home and in a bed for more than one or 2 nights without having to repack the truck in the morning. So, where indeed: Bratislava, Slovakia and this is our last night here, off into the countryside today. One of the more difficult countries to plan, it’s small but Bratislava, the capital, is tucked into a corner and we could have driven straight through without seeing anything else. That would not do justice to it. The other good bits are spread across the country to the NE and we will then have to re-trace our steps passing Bratislava as we exit to the Chez Republic. Thankfully most of that driving will be on motorways, if the new ones (being built on Google Earth as of 3 years ago) are complete.

3 Dec 09

This was a short day’s drive, only about 100 miles, so in Bratislava early and GPS to the hotel a newly completed pension in an old building. This is the last of the 3 Bs – a historic 16-19th century city I have hankered after visiting for a while. Like so many of the cities and towns in E Europe they have managed to preserve their historic centre while surrounding it with ugly communist era blocks of flats. Many buildings have lacked the investment in maintenance and have either been allowed to decay or have a cheap concrete fix for preservation – a great shame. Bratislava is better placed than many and obviously has a lot of EU and tourist orientated investment going in. The old centre is pedestrianised and the wide streets are open and to be enjoyed. They do catch cold winds tho’. It was hard to find the old centre but a pleasant walk around when found, another Christmas market was in evidence. ‘Twas interesting that this market was almost completely food and drink – and not very healthy food at that. Goose liver and fat was much in evidence. So, for a punter, having eaten poorly during the day, in the evening it was nigh impossible to find a decent restaurant but easy to find a bar/pub. Yes, an unusual regime operated where it was difficult to find restaurants, but the weekend lad/ette group could easily find booze. There were some decent eateries down alleyways and in courtyards but just not well advertised. This was yet another country blighted by graffiti.

We arrived early enough to book an opera performance. It was in their new National Opera building and was a modern choreography of Mozart’s Magic Flute. There were some whacky modern ideas interwoven into the story which we couldn’t decide whether they were a distractive entertainment for an unsophisticated audience or an attempt to blend modern themes to ‘update’ an old story. Mind you; I have enjoyed the music for many years, but this was the first time I had read the full story line; what a complicated story it is. No other opera I’ve seen is a mind bender like this. Probably a good thing it was in scribble – they had kept the original German songs, so the translation screen showed this in Slovak; whilst the narrative was in Slovak, so the screens showed this in German – no chance for a Brit! Still, a good evening’s entertainment, tho' I must confess to some Egyptian PT later on (just a short zizz!).

A World first clocked today as well - the lady taxi driver who took us there, refused a tip - "No, the fare is on the meter". Not so with the guy we caught to return us tho' - he had the tipees pause.

4 Dec 09

Bitterly cold, but an easy day. Castle first, being renovated (yes, EU money), town with Xmas market and just a little gluhwein (after 11 o’clock you realise), some mild shopping and back to chill. Out in the evening for an early meal, well no; we took ages to find a restaurant – great Italien. I must confess that his was delayed by a spell in the Dubliner Pub, with live music like most, to watch England’s World Cup draw – a good group, the USA should keep us sharp enough not to screw-up.

Enjoyed Bratislava, but too much a boozy weekend spot and a day and a bit was enough – we’ll leave early tomorrow.

5 Dec 09

A couple of days of inactivity and that tyre needs some air, stop to fill up and the air is in a rechargeable carry-bottle. We have these in the UK, but this is only the second country I've seen them in on this trip - rather advanced. Also had to stop to buy a motorway tax sticker, been called a vignette in every other country, but LP advises that it's a "nalepka" here. No it's not, after a 3 min exchange, surprisingly vignette seems to work! Got help from another driver with good English - "Okay, so you want a vignette, but where for, we don't know where you are going" Here. "Just here, we can do Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria ..." Tuns out he has been interested in our number plate and where we're from as he has friends who work in Kuwait, hence the confusion of where we might be going! That's great, 'cos we can get ahead with a Czech one as well - just have to decide which dates. How friendly and helpful - oh, and just a few more smiley folk than we have been used to, but a bit to go yet there.

We've had more interest shown in us here than all the other countries together: on arrival in Bratislava a car had pulled in behind us and taken a picture on his mobile of the back of the truck, before speeding off - had the communists really left I wondered - and later in Slovensky Raj (tomorrow) about one in 3 people/cars were interested.

A few miles to cover today, but hope most are motorway and yes most are. I’d planned 3 breaks in the day and all just adjacent to the main roads. Trencin castle – they’ve arranged the town so that for a casual passerby, us, there are not enough parking slots in town (off season note) and even negotiating the pedestrian precinct does not give access to the castle above – let’s press-on. Zilina – Budatin castle/mansion is a wreck, even with EU money which seems to have built a reception area and ticket office but done nothing for preserving the building that is their reason d’etre. Ten minutes was too much for this place. Slovensky Raj – national park, as we have re-arranged this part and are taking an extra day here as we think we’ve found a really nice town/hotel to stay in, this national park can wait until tomorrow. The evenings are really drawing in and by the time we are at the hotel it will just give us enough time to walk the town square before dark. Yes, the plan works and old-fashioned navigation took us straight to the hotel – hurrah for old-fashioned nav - Levoca, village panorama from our window above.

6 Dec 09

What a nice day – little driving and some chilling. This is a place that gave us some of what we really enjoy: late off the starting blocks, our 8 o’clock b’fast was at 0820. Felt guilty as the young lady who came in (the one who served us dinner last night – but was well tipped!) must have rushed in for 8. Then a lazy 6ml drive to Spis castle – largest in E Europe – not open ‘cos it requires 2 days notice for a visit and we can’t forecast tomorrow. Two guard dogs, which enjoyed chasing the stones Chris threw, and a young man who had no interest were guarding the place. Don’t think we missed much – a run around the hilltop was enough for me and we casually drove off (10 ml) to the national park for a couple of hours at Slovensky Raj. This is a beautiful area of lumpy and undulating hills with some severe gorges; streams and rivers flow though narrows; the footpaths are cared for and organised; the wildlife is natural and there is a calm – like a decent Yorkshire Dales walk. Today was particularly impressive ‘cos yesterday’s overcast was just thinning in the noon-day sun and gave a fantastic hazy depth to the views. You’ve seen the art shop pics with varying levels of haze at each hill line into the distance, that was today in Slovensky Raj – fantastic. Had a ‘German’ snack after our walk, or maybe Prussian in these parts. The bread came not with butter, but goose fat – yes you heard me right – dripping. The simple meal was fried, didn’t need to be, but hey, nothing wrong with some extra grease ... Give me some fresh fruit and veg – yes George green stuff. Returned to walk the town walls of Levoca (home today); chill over the blog etc with a red draught; pizza out, in a popular local ‘aria and back for an early night. A great day had by all. Crossed my mind at one stage – here we are in the middle of Slovakia, without a care in the World, beyond the first 56 of where we are going to live, how big should the storage container be, will it be there before the sea freight arrives, will we be able to drive the truck beyond Harwich ... blah, blah – you know, those everyday concerns ... Night, night, love to all ...

7 Dec 09

We also had time to muse yesterday about how we laugh about our experiences as we walk and then the memory banks are erased when we sit down to do the blog etc. I hope to have caught up on some of this yesterday, but must confess that the full cynicism will not have come across – this is an open blog after all! Tho' those guys on the free meals are no longer in the corners of our restaurants.

A frost in the village today, almost certainly not our second, but the second that I've noticed - in with a chance on that 8 o'clock breakfast as well. Frost, that's nothing ...

What a grey day – awful, glad we’re travelling and that we saw all the interest points (!) on the way out 2 days ago. Today is a return to Bratislava, not to stay but to pass, see a nearby castle (Devlin) and go up to the Czech border if the time works. We’ll consider this on the road as the cloudbase is 2000 feet above sea level at Levoca – that’s just 200 ft above us. We are in thick mist ... no we are in cloud or fog to you guys. There is cloud scudding everywhere, snow falling and building up on the windscreen wipers and we have fog lights on. Today will just be a driving day, but it will clear mileage and may generate extra time in somewhere interesting. I reckon we can do the border and make significant headway to our next point of interest a promising town called Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic, may even make it today, but need to check what is enroute – start netbook and check the stored Google Earth info. Okay, there are a couple of places worthy of a view – get a 2nd opinion – we’ll check progress, but would like to see Telc a UNESCO World Heritage town. So, we’ve binned the one point in Slovakia ‘cos a closed castle in thick mist doesn’t have a lot to offer and we are aiming for some promising Czech towns. Bear in mind, all the pretty towns we see/stay in are surrounded by communist era building showing liitle concern for future heritage. The cloud level has followed us down tho’ and is now at 1000 ft, still just above us, just. Border crossing a worry? – would be if there was anyone there – slowed to 40 kph but drove thro’ on a motorway. We already have the vignette so press. Until we hit thick fog, well actually we’ve just climbed into the cloud.

PS. If you were following the rest here, it was in the wrong post so it's moved to Leg 09.

Leg 07 - Hungary

2009-11-29T14:39:00.000-08:00

Just in case you haven't noticed, this is not quite your standard blog as I'm organising it into legs. So within a leg, the entries are chronological. The legs, as seperate posts, come up in reverse chronological order as per a normal blog. The header date for the post does not therefore represent the latest addition as most entries are edits of a previously dated post. That's why I put a date against each day in a post, as follows. All this allows me to update and manage the show, ie fill in the gaps. Thanks Jayne for that note.

27 Nov 09 (cont)

Nevertheless, the change as soon as we crossed into Hungary was marked. A wealthier and prouder country – our immediate sense is of a more Western country; cleaner and tidier than Romania. The language is harder tho’ as it is not Latin based at all – it has bits of Swedish and Asian languages. Don’t know enough about languages to give you the roots of it – teachers sign language is fairly international tho’. Afternote: Apparently Finnish (not Swedish) and as we got more used to it there seemed to be an Italian flavour to it as well.

Out into Eger this evening, too late to see any in daylight – our 1st Christmas market was on show and, most importantly our 1st gluhwein. Also our first real rain, so waterprofs out at last; appropiately you may say for a Christmas market, we felt the cold for the first time. The most significant buildings had some illumination, but we have yet to see a town make the most of itself with night illumination. Most before here, sadly lacking any. It must be linked with the idea of customer service – as in Bulgaria, where the idea of serving a customer was alien, their shop displays were just piles of stuff in a window and their buildings were not lit – presumably the “communist” way of doing business. Hungary is a pleasant change and so much more Western focussed. Eger was fairly quiet, way out of season, and we had our 1st real rain tonight, following some afternoon fog – must get the waterproofs out. It seems pretty and we’ll explore the castle tomorrow before we set off for Lake Balaton. Another mark of Hungary’s international outlook – changed those Bulgarian lira we’d been carrying.

Despite our hotel’s claimed wifi it is not effective in our room so this blog will be yet another day behind.

28 Nov 09

We woke to a cold, damp, overcast day with a thick mist and stil trying to rain. A good wander around the town - confident that we'll get to Lake Balaton later today without difficulty as it's nearly all motorway cruising. Retrospectively, checked that Eger was where daughter Melanie used to come on her own to advise a local steel mill on HR matters. Don't think she took time out to sight see - pity as we enjoyed the wander about and crawl over the castle ruins. Like many of the towns we have visited, Eger has an excellent museum - it's just that museums more than the real artifacts and buidlings 'in the wild' tend to be of a muchness and lose impact when all seen together. We're struggling enough seperating the towns and cities, but thanks to this blog I'm helped to reinforce my memories and think about where we've been.

Set-off for Lake Balaton - the largest lake in mainland Europe and Hungary's playground, tho' out of season now. Mostly a steady cruise, but that suspect wheel bearing (suspect since Syria) was noisier at the end of the long run - just slightly concerned, tho' we have driven across Western Europe before with a badly failed bearing. Looks like the rear left as that is a little warmer than the other hubs. Bearing failures are a pig (can I use that word now?) to identify: there is no obvious looseness; the rythmic rubbing/tyre noise sound reveberates around the car body, so the particular wheel can't be identified and the sound comes and goes. They tend to be noisier when on the inside of a turn and there is less weight on the suspect wheel. So now you can all identify one, eh ... I'd trust a garage! On the plus side the the variable nature of the slow puncture (same wheel, since Turkey) is varying to the particularly slow side at the moment. Still, considering having both looked at in Budapest; with all the stuff in the truck it'll be a time waste as we'll probably have to stay and watch the job.

More interesting matters, Lake Balaton - flat, well of course, but so is the surrounding area except for a few interesting hillocks on the north side. The sky had cleared progressively and we enjoyed a superb sunset again and super views over the lake, tho' our chosen town of Keszthely was disappointing - got all the old buildings and stuff alright, but - despite their own PR and the LP claims - it was like Blackpool and St Annes-on-Sea off-season - dead. We arrived with an hour of daylight to play with, but after driving around the outside of the town and not finding our Pension for the night it was almost dark when we did find it. The worst accom we've had so far - communist era mattresses (at least 20 years old), thought the bed would collapse from all the creaking whenever we moved, hit the pillow and a cloud of asthmatic dust came out of the Hapsburg era foam rubber lumps (did the Hapsburgs have foam rubber(?), they'd have been better off without this stuff), the sheets were too short for the bed and the towels were time-expired ... otherwise a lovely spot except for the lack of heating and no water from the shower in the morning ... Refused to pay the agreed price in the morning, perhaps not surpisingly a reduction was quickly agreed! A Trip Advisor entry will be coming their way. One point of note - had the 'Country Goulash' in the 'pub' last night and the flavours of naturally pruduced food were fantastic - good meat, crisp veg and the best sauerkraut I've ever tasted.

29 Nov 09

A speedy deparure from this western end of the lake having checked out the internet cafe where we bought the card last night (non in the pension!), useless as it connects but doesn't give the web connection(!), in hindsight could be a use once card; checked out the local castle/stately home and (for me) the Marzipan Museum (damn, it's closed). Completed the circuit of the lake (a mere 100 miles) - most interesting and cared for towns were towards the eastern end. Plenty of cycling and walking routes, so should be good in season.

Back on the motorway and off to Budapest. This has been an aiming point that has kept a little girl with me sane and focussed on our travels. She will also have a rather significant birthday while we are in the city ...

30 Nov 09

No driving for 3 days hurrah. It had been heavy rain over night and is still raining. Off to catch a bus, they stop right outside our hotel which is just a 100 m from the Fisherman's Bastion where all the great view pics are taken looking down on the Pest half of the city. Post Office for the bus tickets, unusually not the friendliest lady, but it is Monday moning and she seems to be doing the monthly return ... She's certainly not serving us. Afer a few days on the road, first stop is a doby (washing for the uninitiated) place reputed to be at the end of the bus line. A couple of older people are v helpful and we eventually find it - launderette translates to something like "dobrit dira", but that didn't work anyway! Then someone's eyes light up (despite awful cold) as we're off to the local equivalent of "5th Avenue". Thanks LP, you got that wrong - the first 300 m of the 2 km road we went to wrong end of had some posh shops. Anyway. looked around Hero's Square, did a Christmas market (well the gluhwein bit of it), saw some shops (nothing outstanding) and had a great posh lunch. Ambled back to hotel to chill for an hour and now getting ready for concert in the Opera House - a stunning building ... bye.

The only Opera Housr show that suited our timing was a "jazz/opera fusion" - sounds whacky but worked okay as it was essentially a range of jazz styles with a limited number of songs and some modern ballet. I liked the improvisation, but Chris was less enamoured. The best part was being in the stunning Opera House while in use, rather than just buying into the stagnant atmosphere of a guided tour. The big shows (Tannhauser was on on the night of our arrival and another oera on our last night) get booked up early both by locals and all the tour operators. We were happy with our arrangement. With doing B and B everywhere we (oops, I) tend to have a large breakfast, we have a late morning coffee and cake and then a late afternoon / early evening meal and often early to bed. So for evening peformnces we will eat beforehand, this just allows say a drink on our return at the end of the evening ... and so it was on this night, as tomorrow is an important day.

1 Dec 09

The birthday girl has a good lie in and today will be chilled in that we will, more than normal, just take the day as it comes. I have no big presents here for her as we hoped to find something unusual enroute and that has not materialised. Cards and stuff we normally keep for the evening and when we returned to our hotel last night we dropped in at the Hlton which is 100 m away across our square and booked a window table for dinner in their posh new restaurant. The position is to die for as it is next to the Fisherman's Bastion. Daughter Melanie had been giving me rocks for not spoiling my lady with a posh 5* hotel - all with the best of intentions, for Mummy to have a great day. The way we travel that is rather a waste tho'. We both resent paying for the upkeep of the swimming pool, sauna, jacuzzi and terrace restaurant etc in a posh hotel when we arrive about 7 in the evening; go out to a bar to eat as we do not need a particularly large meal before sleeping; retire to www and sleep in a dark room; up/shower/breakfast and out to see the sights or move on. The 5* is meaningless - we are a bit inclined to the US Motel 7 chain motto: "who cares what the room is like when the lights are out". Well perhaps that's a bit extreme, but you see where we're at. So, back to Budapest and 'our' birthday, the Burg Hotel was quite ordinary, the staff we're brilliant, good English and helpful and the position was to die for with free street parking outside the front door (important as we are are not that secure on the roofrack). Staying in the castle walls, we had walked around the castle area on our arrival night and seen all the brilliantly lit sights, so today was off to see the Parliament building and do some shopping ... errm, in the rain again.

We had one of the best guides we can remember around the Parliament, 3rd largest such buildling if I remember correctly, after the Romanian and UK ones. It is a stunning buliding and well looked after. It runs on Western lines, but only has 1 house surpisingly. There are some checks and balances tho' not as strong as a 2 house/chamber system. They do have a long tradition of rights for the people, so communism must not have sat comfortably with the people at all; their equivalent of our Magna Carta is an only slightly younger document and for the Americans amongst my readers, he enjoyed pointing out that they stopped burning witches several hundred years before the US, who I think he quoted as burning their last in 1632.

Now don't laugh too loudly: this was followed with a bit of shopping. Would we find the present to remember for the birthday girl - no, but we found a watch for me ...
I did so want to surpirse her tho' so - following an article in the local news, we went for H1N1 injections ... certainly surprised her there. Yes, apparently more virilant than expected, Hungary had bought in enough for the whole population, so as EU members we went for it. A little premature - the government supplies weren't out and the free for the over 60s(!) weren't yet available -so we both paid at a private clinic. What service, done in half an hour with personal advice from the doctor who introduced herself and shook hands, all for £10 each - a bargain. Wake up UK. That's one less concern travelling Europe.

Back for a pre-dinner drink and off to the Hilton - superb, service and food, a cracking view and a live pianist ... I won on that one. An able player; Summertime is difficult; Take Five is even harder; he volunteered the second and we requested the first.

2 Dec 09

We remain a day ahead of our itinerary and had an extra day in Budapest. Today is a take it as it comes day and as we had 2 days of rain in B'pest it is pleasant to enjoy some blue sky with just a bit of overcast., tho' some mist An early walk along the Fisherman's Bastion for me before we pack and depart. The parking was well organised on castle hill - as staying we qualified for a parking ticket which was validated by the hotel. On deparure we stick this in the machine and away - which machine will that be, oh the one in the other lane. Have seen another car coming behind, but he's already gone to the other machine, saw him turn - smack. Oh, so he has changed his mind to our lane and is hidding in my rear quarter, way below the line of vision. My fault (reversing car) but what a slow prat he was, couldn't have hidden himself better if he was trying. Must also have been v close as I do nothing quickly in this truck as the vision is terrible. Thankfully only a crack in a bumper light - new one I fitted in Kuwait for the rear-fog lights which are required in Europe, but all still work. And he was in the wrong lane anyway! One of the few points of minor annoyance in Hungary - generally an aware people and a well run country.

We'd seen a Tesco sign as soon as we crossed the border (impressed) and had wanted to drop in just to compare with the UK (you understand (!), also have Ikea and C and A the German chain); this morning we went out of our way to find one - big with a similar layout to a UK Tesco hypermarket, no petrol station (tho' later ones we saw did have - they are all over Hungary). We chose some local wines for Christmas and a tube of superglue to fix that light lens before the water gets in. Found a knive blade scrapper as well - why you may ask. In Kuwait because of the sand blasting that cars get, it is common to cover lights at the front with fablon (adhesive plastic film) to protect them. Windscreens akso get pitted very quickly, but they are less imporatant as they get broken, chipped and replaced frequently. Ourt truck's screen has 3 stone chips and a crack which will all go when we replace the screen. The fablon on the lights tho' has baked on in Kuwait's sun and is now a rigid, hard plastic film bonded to the lights. This diffuses the light and has turned brown, so our lights are annoying and not very effective. They will never pass the EU assessment and may need to be replaced, but I just want to have a go at scrapping off the film in case I can save the £250 that new lights will probably cost; it won't be easy as the lens are plastic as well and will want to be scrapped off at the same time! Where was I, shopping in Tesco - it was successful.

Whenever I have used face masks I have found them to be ineffectual with all the breathed air coming around the side, so it was no surprise when the UK declared that they were of no effect against the swine flue virus ... Our Budapest doctor advised strongly to wear a mask and we could buy them next door. The reasoning was that once we were injected our immune systems would be weakened for a couple of weeks while it acted. We were therefore more susceptible to picking up germs etc, especially when in crowded places. We decided the Hilton for the birthday meal was not a crowded place and the vaccine would not have taken effect by then - but Tescos ... We did get the attention for wearing them there - stared at, just as we stare at other such numpties ....

It was midday before we escaped the clutches of B'pest and were off up the Danube to see the 'Bend Towns'. The bend towns, on a bend in the river, are known for an easy day out from the capital, but as they are in the direction we are travelling we'd left our arrangements open. I was not convinced that they would be as unique as LP suggested and that was indeed the case. Szentendre is a pretty town. It's off-season of course so few people around and many outlets closed; we enjoyed the town and a light lunch overlooking a Danube tributary. Then we pressed: a castle was given a miss (just been staying in a rather grand one) and on to Esztergom the seat of power for a while in Hungary. Their 1st king, St Stephen crowned there and very much the point of pigrimmage for Hungarians. There is a huge church, but little decoration to it, so not fantastically impressive; panoramic views over the Danube were there to be enjoyed. We twice hit lucky: it was one of the clearest (but cold) days we've had and with an organised visit that had the organist on hand - may not be especially well decorated, but I would like to here a royal fanfare entrance here - a strunningly loud organ with more trumpets than a recall seeing for a long time.

Time for an assessment - we look like being 2 days ahead of plan and with a choice of routes to cross the border to Bucharest. The more direct to Bucharest was a bit too long to arrive comfortably to find accommodation in a capital city. Plan B via Sopron and to cross the border via Austria to Bucharest tomorrow was the favourite. What a delightful town Sopron turned out to be, except it was bitterly cold. The truck also developed an annoying warning beep whenever I started it! No warning lights tho'. Often referred to as little Prague, Sopron nestles up in the NW corner of Hungary; another circular town within its old walls the pedestrianised area is a delight to wander around. This was capped with a good quality hotel - shame we didn't have time to explore the 400 year old wine cellar. The hotel was a mere youth at 300 years old. Having decided it was a one nighter (yet again), we had time to walk about in the evening and following morning but no time to linger. Yes, enjoying the quality beverages as we travel is not easy; all the European countries (except Bulgaria) we have passed thro'so far have a zero tolerance attitude to drinking and driving (only marginally better than the Middle East some would say) and this will continue until Germany. This only leaves the short evenings to sample the produce - best I press-on then ... The produce is steadily improving as we progress.

3 Dec 09

Early breakfast as have limited time - have to load parking machine from 0800 for the max of 3 hrs. Town walk and away. It is low cloud, even on the church spires - an awful, cold, gray day and poor for viewing anything. That annoying beep still there on start-up - that will be the below 3 degrees ice warning then - it is cold. Worked that out while also working out how to reset the truck's clock - another Mitsubishi idiosyncrasy. Had to ask the time in back in Eger castle - that was why no-one else was in breakfast that morning then ... Two hrs is enough,off to the Austrian border. Not as easy as you might think for what should be a 50 mile shortcut. Is Austria in the EU; can't remember, it is 15 years since we were there; will we have the Green Card faff again - we have no info 'cos it was not in the primary plan and our E Europe LP doesn't cover it. www tells us it is EU, so no significant border checks expected. Does it have a motorway tax, yes we think so, but don't want to pay that for just 20 miles of motorway. So finally, no Green Card faff, but a bit of a faff to avoid the motorways which are tolled/taxed. It is so gray and we climb to all of 800ft altitude which nearly puts us in cloud, that Austria is not worth lingering in for any sights, there are no sights to be seen. What does smack us in the face is the clean tidy and wealthy appearance which we had forgotten. Shame it only lasted 50 miles ...

Apologies for all those of you who were content that we were doing 13 countries and had remembered all the flags - this will make it 14 ...

Leg 06 - Romania

2009-11-22T21:48:00.000-08:00

22 Nov 09 (cont)

Another slow day, over 4 hrs to do 102 miles including a directions faff in Bucarest. Though nearly 2 hrs was spent in Bucarest and we needed the sat-nav again. Romania's police were as keen as Bulgaria's to catch motorists, it remains to be seen whether they are as anti-tourist.

First snapshot view - a more industrious people with a care and regard for their environment. They have a spacial awareness, which makes them quick on the roads and a general awareness which lets them appreciate what others require and so give good service. These are all refreshing attitudes.

Eventuallly found the Golden Tulip Hotel, using the sat-nav and driving the correct road 3 times. I say that 'cos their web agent's map was wrong! It's on the best street in town and most places are walkable. Need a leg stretch, so a good walk downtown in the evening finds us the student bar area - all v bohemian with shishas in action. It's an active town, but not busy (thankfully, with it being Sunday). Retire to a welcome Italian meal and red sleeping draft.

23 Nov 09

Wake early as usual. Today will explore Bucarest, famous for outstanding museums and the 2nd largest building in the World after the Pentagon - amongst other bits and pieces.

But not before I do some blogging. Hurrah - I am now up to date with enough pics for all the blogs. So, for you enthgusiasts with enough time (sic) all previous blogs are now updated and up to date. Time to go and enjoy this thing ...

Mme, it all becomes a blurrr .....

3 days later shoe-horning a blog script in and I'm a day adrift ... so where were we then?

Right - sorted my life. Bucarest was a good walk about and I mean a good walk about. You remember I said that the House of Parliaments building was large - we came out to find a contemporary art gallery and it was just around the building. Halfway around became obvious that we were walking not around the building but the surrounding grounds - all I could do to get Chris to complete the hike. Okay, so we get to the gallery ... I knew I should have read those instructions in LP ... today will be the one day its closed, arghhh ... So with a 2 mile hike already buttoned - where's the nearest tube station - 2 miles away ...

Despite all this we enjoyed Bucharest - nice late lunch at the Hilton made everything better. Very French except the wine. We're trying all the local beers and wines - some leave a little to be desired, but all qualify as 'interesting'. The city has a lot of history to show off, some has not been well looked after in the communist years and there is also a present day lack of interest, witness a lot of graffiti over even the oldest buidlings. It is one of those old European capitals (mostly beginning with a B) that I've wanted to visit for a long time. We retired to www at the hotel and then wandered out for another Italian that evening, just around the corner so quite convenient. Early to bed (tired!) and ...

24 Nov 09

the lost day (unfairly): an early start to Brasov. Not that early - bless the EU, there are so many road works here that no road runs smoothly. With a wrong turn and stationary traffic at a couple of points, it took 2 hours to escape Bucarest on the right road. Well that's what we thought, until an hour later we intercepted the new motorway we should have been on. Oh and needed to put air in that slow puncture, it needs it every 2/3 days - unique in these parts, the garages do not have air lines, we had to find a tyre place called a vulcanisaire. That is after my Chinese electric tyre pump got hot and went phut, (not a great success this device - did remind me of when I was using it in Kuwait and a local walked past, are these good he asked, oh yes said I). Brasov, the 2nd city to see in Romania; we arrived early enough to enjoy the town in daylight. Rather a classic European town with a large central square, delightful surrounding buildings, a town fortified wall and a history of working associations such as carpenters, weavers, belt makers - UK's old towns such as York have similar guilds. Afternoon, dinner out and the following morning for another walkabout was v relaxing. Even the police were friendly - especially when telling me that parking in the no vehicle town square next to his police car was not acceptable and no it was not the parking area for our hotel - he he!

A proud town and cared for. Interestingly, for a Romanian town, the town was Hungarian occupied and the Romanian 'ghetto' was outside the city walls with a seperate town gate for entry. Was - well a couple of hundred years ago - things have move on.

25 Nov 09

A long drive today up to the rural areas; our replanned route. Towns progressed to steadily more rural/basic/religious. We tend to get stared at, but the crusty face is broken nearly everytime we smile and wave back. David Attenborough would have something to say about that. The devotion to christianity is impressive in these parts. Sights which flashed past but did not have time to be photographed: graveyards full of flowers and 'happy memorials', new churches (how to spend new found wealth?), oxen drawn carts and the mix of cultures from Romany through to Asian origins.

Even saw a traffic accident, at night - one of the many unlit horse-drawn carts had been rammed amidships as it tried to make a turn across the road - cart upsidedown, horse put down and driver (?) whisked away in the ambulance.

Lying in a pension bed in the depths of Southern Bucovina, Romania – we saw a couple of old monasteries today and lots of “rural scenes” – I’m writing this in a Word document and just thought I’d check for any internet and this place is wireless! No security – fairly standard in all but mid to upper quality hotels. So it’s the sort of place that wants cash up front, in case you do a runner, and when you try to pay by card they accept cards (as per the sticker on the front door) but it’s always for something else, not what you are trying to pay for now! She was miffed when I said that she’d taken all my cash earlier ... but after some thought offered to take Euros in cash. They are in Europe not the Euro Zone, but they take Euros as daily currency (tourist areas); Bulgaria was similar. And how is this for neighbourliness: Romania will not change Bulgarian currency – we’ve tried many banks and exchange offices, and the answer is always no. T’would be interesting to try the reverse. Perhaps the Romanians have the same view of Bulgaria that I do! Even in Bucarest capital of Romania and only 40 miles from the border with Bulgaria, no-one wanted to know Bulgarian scrungits (lira).

The only common ground we’ve seen so far is that the EU has bought new roads for these countries, indeed, any quality road hereabouts we wait and eventually an EU notice board appears. All other roads are past their use by date.

Today was a hard day’s drive on our replan from Brasov to Southern Bucovina; we lost an interesting drive, but reduced the mileage to a manageable level. Tomorrow, up to Maramures should replace the interesting landscape we’ve missed. We only just made it up here before night and saw our two monastries in the dusk, the second strictly in the dark, but a nun put the lights on for us – having checked that we were catholic ... had to ask her in French. English is little spoken except by the youngsters. I am surprised by how many words are similar to French in Romanian – they shop in a “magazin” and “Jandarms” police the streets.

Today, I noted was the middle day of our travels and we are in the middle one of the 13 countries we will travel through. Our replan will probably put us 2 days ahead of our schedule – at least one of those we’ll take in Budapest.

26 Nov 09

Our first frost - Jack (Frost) was all over the loevly misty countryside. From our pension we had an early start – language difficulties produced sandwiches made by the night security guard, rather than the access to the breakfast facilities we had expected. As it turned out breakfast wasn’t on offer until about 9 whereas we were away by 8. The facilities were locked up – reminded me of military messes where it is all locked up to stop the food being knicked overnight. Security guards are a regular thing around here - indeed everywhere. In cities, any significant facility has one. We have paused outside banks and been asked to move along. Surprisingly, here in the countryside, a pension on its own, needs a guard.

We soon turned off onto the country road – leading to the Middle Ages, or at least an area claimed to not have changed since then – the first few miles up the road were as expected, with country communities maintaining old-fashioned standards. They blessed themselves with the sign of the cross as they walked/cycled past the church; women knitted in the street as they watched the World go by, oxen drew the carts full of hay and women toiled in the fields. Every house has a well for its fresh water ... well it’s not quite the Middle Ages. The oxen cart driver’s are on their mobile phones, there is a dis-proportionate number of Mercedes/BMWs around and the building material stores have grown beyond recognition and are all in new buildings. We have caught the area on the change, another couple of years and it will be nothing like the Middle Ages except for the friendly attitudes. The locals remain essentially poor and cling to their religion and old standards. Despite the poverty, the new money, whether from taxes, tourist income or brought in from earnings elsewhere is spent on a new church before anything else. The roads are poorly maintained and there are few services, but old churches are refurbished and there are more new churches than there are probably people to fill them. This is a strange contrast with the UK where we change our churches into gymnasiums and pubs. It is a level of religious activity akin to what we’ve seen in the Middle East.

The best and most old/authentic area today was to the South of Maramures, away from the LP claimed best bits. The best bits are changing fast and must have a busy ski season which brings a lot of money in.

Sighetu Marmatiei is our chosen place of recidence for the night - a border town only 2 km from Urkraine - it has all the busle and mix of people that you would expect. Rather shabby, so we have a little difficulty finding an acceptable spot to lie down, helped by George the foreman/manager who is refurbishing his mate's rundown 'local' hotel. He kindly advises us that it is the best food in town and sets about denigrating everwhere else he thinks we will be looking. If he hadn't been a Tottenham Hotspur supporter from 20 yeras ago I might have believed him. He set us up with some drinks in his mate's bar (English was an unknown language) - v friendly, but we found a place he had not done down. Nice little hotel, but opposite the town gaol and recent communist political prison.

27 Nov 09

The last 2 days and today we’ve seen lovely scenery and countryside. Yesterday we took our time driving and so too today, after we'd toured the prison which is an education vehicle for the locals, including children, about the communist era. Today we had just one brief stop in Romania and then the border and on to Eger , Hungary – the supposed second spot to go to after Budapest in the country.

The Romanian people have been friendly and helpful – a complete contrast to Bulgaria. We’ve experienced none of the hassle and be difficult to tourists attitude. They are politer on the roads, give way to others and have an awareness of those around them and their surroundings – that spatial awareness. Despite their frequent poverty, they have a pride in themselves, their environment and their country – qualities not much seen on our journeys.

Nevertheless, the change as soon as we crossed into Hungary was marked.

Leg 05 - Bulgaria - Into Europe and the EU (with a bribe!)

2009-11-18T15:57:00.000-08:00

18 Nov 09 (cont)

Well, Bulgaria has some surprises to offer. At the border, all the usual are looked at, then, for the first time as its Europe – “Green Card” please – yes their English is good here. That’s not a problem, in the back of the truck – this is the 3rd party compulsory insurance for Europe that came by e-mail last week. Up to now we have used the Middle Eastern equivalent the “Orange Card” which is part and parcel of the vehicle tryptique, plus cheap insurance that we’ve purchased at each border. “This is a photocopy, I need the original”. That is all I have, sent by e-mail last week. It’s from London, Lloyds of London. “Yes, but anyone could print this on a computer”. Yes I understand, but that is all I have. We to and fro for 5 min – “You have 2 choices – go back or you may be able to buy insurance here, but it will be expensive, maybe $500”. That is too expensive, I will have to go back. I am not confrontational, I discuss. We to and fro a bit more. “Wait”. He discusses with his mate then comes and takes me over to an on site insurance office. A German compnay - $500 is for European registerd cars – Middle Eastern sit over the $1000 mark. My man is very pensive and I sense there may be a chink in the armour. He enquiries how long we are in Bulgaria – 5 days – that is my only opportunity I see to get some PR in. Yes, its a shame, if we have to go back we’ll miss 2 days at least and we were looking foward to seeing your Bulgaria. He remains pensive – “Where do you go next?” Romania, we drive back to the UK. He disappears back into his office, then out again. "You can go back, or you can make a present and arrange for the original Green Card to be sent to you in your hotel." Okay, cracked it. At the point of bribe, I am given the choice of how much this present is to be. I’d decided that our last Turkish Lira will be offered as a starter, they will be able to spend it easily. So £16 in TL was presented and we are through. An expensive border as we'd only just paid our Turkish speeding fine at customs.

Driving in ex-Communist countries – I don’t know anything about this, except that they were very good at state control. So until I know the ropes we’ll just do the speed limit. We don’t want to rush anyway because all the road signs are in a different, illegible scribble. The speed limits are also low – 50kph towns, 90 open roads and 120 motorways. No sooner than Chris has asked why we are going going so slowly – “Its not like you to obey the speed limits” and I have finished such explanation than we are stopped! Policeman leaps out and flags us down. Are you “Turkish?” No English. Beckoned to his car where his partner is sitting. “You were speeding”. No. Shown meter reading 89. This was an out of town highway, a wide road to become half of a motorway, but the other carriageway is not yet complete. They do have varying speed limits and so far every ‘danger’ area has been limited, so every junction and every bend has been down to 60, 50 or even 40. There are no dangers on this stretch and it is open and almost straight. “You were speeding – 89”. No, this is a 90 limit. “No 60” So why was every other car doing 95? I am waved off. Perhaps they expected a Turk to just pay up, or weren’t used to a robust defence. I may be reserved at times, but I’ll hold my ground! So 30 min into Bulgaria (a European frontier as I was reminded at the border) and I’ve paid a bribe (only the second in my lfe) and rebuffed a fraudulent speeding offence. Well that initiated some cynical comments as we pressed on ... particularly obeying every speed limit. How can people drive at 40kph? Our cruise control even refused on a couple of occasions. To cover the 110miles total ... including the border ... took us 4½ hrs!!! Chris has just pointed out that we have 210miles to do tomorrow – we'll never make it. I suspect I’ll get bored enough to speed. In that 4½ hrs tho’ we overtook one vehicle – a tractor. We were a hinderance, indeed a danger at times ‘cos of the responses of a minority of other drivers. More frightening was the fact that most locals were cowed into doing these stupid limits as well.

It was all worth it. Plovdiv, despite its unattractive name, is a delightful old town. With history from before the b****y Romans and narrow winding streets it was a pleasure to wander around ... once we’d found how to get into the old castle area that our hotel was hidden in. This will be the fifth time we have driven this road ... I didn’t mind the old roads where the tyres are rubbing the kerb on both sides(!), but the bollards stumped me ... bollards to you as well.

Late lunch in our hotel – delightful welcome sparkling pop – the most coverted restaurant in town – please keep our sparkling rose bottle for dinner ... Dinner included live jazz, a good improvising quartet, who did a masterful version of Summertime my bestest favourite. If this blog goes out of focus it’s the local Cab Sav that is to blame ... not me ...

PS. For those intrepid readers still with me - a substantial, but not complete update and tidy has affected all the legs since Leg 01. Enjoy. In reality we are first night in Bulgaria and with probably the last good internet for 3 or 4 days.

19 Nov 09

How wrong could I be – good internet again. There’s a reason for this. Courtesy of the awfully slow roads in Bulgaria, it took us all day to do little today.

Driving here is similar to the UK 50 years ago – and yes I do remember! Average speeds are approx 30 mph. To speed things up we changed our route and took a longer, but faster motorway one. As we expect, we get lost every now and then and today it was Sofia which cost us an hour extra. That negated the time we’d saved by going by motorway. So in total to cover a planned 120 miles took 4½ hrs! Replan required. We binned the furthest monastry and dramatic mountains to drive back in the direction of Sofia. We’ll find a hotel on the road or Sofia’s outskirts – we thought. After cruising Sofia’s sprawling outskirts in the rush hour for 2 hrs and getting nowhere ... Signage awful, I’d been reading handheld GPS and inputting to Google Earth to find where we were lost to! A slow process! I wonder if the sat-nav in the netbook will be any good yet. Earlier checks had shown few roads this far east in Europe. Turkey had non. I’d thought we would need old EU countries before it would be useful, but no – brilliant (in Sofia the capital that is – as I discover tomorrow!). Being an old fashioned real navigator I’ve only played with sat-navs occasionally, but am now sold on them. Sofia coverage was good, we went straight to an LP hotel buried in little suburbs, but stayed in one just a couple of blocks away. Exhausted – just had a v sound sleep – a couple of pints sleeping draft helped tho’ Today’s replan, will cut out Belogradchik Rocks, we’ll wander Sofia and drive straight to the NE. A day saved in this process will give much easier driving and generate an extra day in sowewhere much more appealling like Budapest.

Received a text from Graham Whitehead yesterday – v supportive thank you. Tells me reading this blog is like listening to me telling the tale. That is great news as it is the feel I wanted to give, though it may make it a little verbose. Any other comments willingly received.

So, who is Mountin Goat – a Welshman or you can’t spell? The jag pic suggests my old mate Pete – confess.

20 Nov 09

This morning’s wander around Sofia v satisfying, clear blue sky and we were out before most as the shops don’t open until 10 or 11. The graffiti, rubbish and desolation of abandoned buildings and the like disappoint us. The graffiti is new, the rest we have seen continuously on this journey. Perhaps what surprises us most is that Bulgaria is in the EU, yet few signs of that are evident – only fast cars and EU financed roads (only the good ones) are seen.

Right, so that you are quite clear where I am coming from but may never go again – Bulgaria (as it shows in it’s public face) is the most tiresome and obnoxious country I have ever been to and that includes nearly 60 countries. I have not been stopped this often since I was a student, then it was just once or twice a week, here we average once a day. So you remember the bribe to get in and the bogus speeding accusation. Well every, and I think I mean every, town has a police check (a car and 2/3 policemen) at the first hidden bend/pull-in with a radar gun. They leap out with a little red/white wand to flag you down – no that’s wrong ... to flag US down. That’s the standard, but the border to Plovdiv (2 days ago) had a greater number of police check points. In fact the very first we saw was 2 miles from the border and flagged down a lorry to check his paperwork – I do wonder what the guy imagined they did at the border with immigration, customs and vehicle checks ... Today leaving Sofia – how can they pack in so many check points and still have business to spread around? – less than every 2 miles there was a check, and that was only on our side of the road. Yes, you’ve already guessed, we got stopped. Typical of the attitude – "You don’t speak Bulgarian" (spoken in scribble). As if I ever wish to speak a language from this backwater. “I speak 4 languages (rattles off 4 related local languages) but you only speak one”. (I have no desire to extend this exchange by trying to communicate in French). The monologue continues in scribble as we have no recognised common language and fills more than 5 minutes (a standard police annoyance technique – to waste your time). Though I cannot speak Bulgarian, apparently I can understand the section in their Highway Code which states that you should always drive with lights on. (Interestingly their Highway Code looks remarkably like ours (in the UK) – is that what the Cambridge Five (Burgess and his mates) were passing on as seccrets? You can tell I was bored with this waste of 10 min of my life. Politely advising me that “Sir we always drive with lights on in Bulgaria, will you please switch yours on” – I wish – requires a 10 min time waste and a check of all my documentation – “International Driving Licence?” – body language and speach to suggest that this is not acceptable – “home country licence?” “Yes that’s right.” (Well actually both are right!) And to finish off I need to be told what others have been fined for such heinous crimes. This place has not grown up from communism yet. Oh, and if you are wondering, yes we clocked another before the day was out. No. It was not for falling asleep at the wheel because 40 kph (25 mph) is soooo boring. I don’t know what it was for. Perhaps they were bored and we were the next vehicle. Certainly we were doing 50 kph – correct for a town – it was night (no the gits don’t stop at night) – perhaps we just look interesting. No even I don’t buy that one. Gut feeling – if they can turn a dollar with little hassle they will go for it. Tonight, as I lowered the window (first one to get to the car before I was out) and said Good evening, his jaw just sagged a little. A scan of the roofrack and interior told him we would be hard work. “Documents” Now apparently, the International Driving Licence is enough.

For any Bulgarian readers (but more relevantly Ivan and Sam following us from Kuwait), how you imagine that any tourist would wish to visit your police state (worse even than Saudi Arabia or Syria) when the focus seems to be abbrasive one-upmanship, hassling tourists and to slow even the best roads (normally paid for by my EU taxes) to a crawl such that no more than one tourist sight can be seen in a day, is beyond me. Sadly, and we’ve never said this before, we will probably never be back. This is not reflected in individuals we meet, for the second time we have had a friendly taxi driver take us (cost free) to our hotel, in Veliko Tarnovo, tonight.

I think I’ve said enough – I am just saddened. If you drive here, any flash of a light, however slight is indication of a police check ahead.

After our walk around Sofia, Koprivshtitsa was our other event today. Enroute we had the truck washed - a thorough job and a ray of sunshine for Bulgaria (tho' not us), the guy who did it was sharp enough to notice a half flat tyre. Well down and well picked up, something to keep an eye on; it turned out to be a slow but variable puncture over the ensuing days. Koprivshtitsa, just 20 min off our route, is a quaint village with tourist anticipated money going in. Made pretty with quality refurbished buildings (houses, shops and hotels),it has a stream running through, a series of hump-backed bridges and that quiet timeless atmosphere that is so relaxing (off season mind). I should say that we have not seen any other village like it and no village buildings painted in such tourist pastels – but it is a lovely spot and with beautiful surrounding countryside and walks it could fill the best part of a week.

That relaxation and a wrong turn delayed us enough that the second event today was missed – sunset on the national memorial sight of Shipka Pass. If I remember, this was the site of a Russian-Ottoman Turkish battle that saved the day. The view in the early evening was stunning. We are now ensconced, with a sleeping draft in Veliko Tarnovo – the hotel’s a lovely old building, we have a suite over-looking the valley, and the dinner was enough for 6. Generally the price gives away the quantity of food – here we need to halve the figures.

PS. If you see a Bulgarian with an umbrella – don’t stand-still in a bus queue. (For those not read-up on the Bulgarian secret-police, see me after)

PPS. I almost forgot, just to finish off this police state - they block Skype type internet services, just like that other police state Syria.

21 Nov 09

A day to chill in Veliko Tarnovo, almost - a jammed cubby hole in the truck needs a hefty screwdriver to force it open. (Surprising for a Japanese car, I don't expect silly things like this to fail, but it's the second time it's happened.) As we are down at the bottom of the valley near the river, it is a long walk up windy alleyways to get to the main and shopping streets. We first search for and eventually find the bridge over to the art gallery in a narrow ox-bow of the river. It's a communist era show of pictures - gosh they are unusual. There appears to have been a limited range of subjects: religious with a focus on hell and fiendishly horrific faces of anguish or crowd scenes of life under communism with the most miserable faces possible. You might think this unusual, but we had not seen a single person smile in Bulgaria, let alone laugh until dinner last night. They must have been on a good wine. Then to the shops, but lunch first. An LP recommended cafe presents itself at the ideal time, it is well positioned, outside and popular. If only our waitress had any interest in earning the wage she presumed to take home at the end of each day. I'm never impressed when someone tries to remember my complete order - we were halfway down the order list before a correct item arrived. Someone close to me is saying, don't you ruin my lunch by making a show ... This has almost capped off Bulgaria, but there is just one (I promise) more thing ...

Since the Green card bribe incident, have been chasing the UK agent to DHL an original Green Card to us. For a mere £66 DHL claim to be able to deliver within 3 days - 3 days, are they using a local pony and trap? After a squabble about there being no postcode for Veliko Tarnovo, (Bulgaria doesn't do postcodes) and they can't guarantee Friday delivery without a postcode, the package doesn't get into Bulgaria until Saturday morning (would appear that the postcode isn't that relevant then) and - the clincher - DHL in Bulgaria is closed for Saturday and Sunday. I may have the wrong idea, but I don't think DHL will be retaining my £66! Well, we are not hanging around waiting for a Green Card, as you may have noticed we are not too enamoured with the place.

22 Nov 09

Veliko Tarnovo is an attractive old town with significant development going on. Our hotel is most attractive, as is the street of similar old buildings. It is lively and has character. This morning we will visit the citadel, a large hilltop with enclosed town, just away from the modern town centre before pressing on to the border a day early than originally planned. Various money grabbers are around the citadel, but we escape unscathed. There was also a market researcher - comments on your visit - no thank you. On reflection - our visit today or to Bulgaria - "Bulgaria" - give me one of those surveys now ...

So off to the border, the potential for a Green card faff concerns us but comes to nought. Not the slightest interest is shown. To my enquiry as to whether we can have a passport stamp - "No, Europe now" - he says with a smile (Yes a SMILE). But I lied - there is just one final nail in the coffin - to get out of Bulgaria there is another tax - non-EU vehicle tax of 6 ... Bulgarian Lira you would expect, especially as it is for non-EU vehicles and Bulgaria is not in the Euro zone ... er no, we'll take that only in Euros thank you.

We definitely won't be back - Clint, go elsewhere.

Another slow day, over 4 hrs to do 102 miles including a directions faff in Bucarest.

Leg 04 - Turkey

2009-11-18T15:56:00.000-08:00

9 Nov 09 (cont)

So what will Turkey offer, is it to be like Syria in these parts.

Just as we are mulling these questions, well I am, Chris is asleep already after her disturbed night before, and a rock thrown by a kid at the roadside thumps into the side of the truck!...

PS. Websites no longer blocked so will try to tidy-up the blog tonight in Cappadocia. Still behind with Saudi/Jordan stuff but getting on. This Aleppo hotel is wireless in most parts but not our room!!! so ...

PPS. For those intrepid readers still with me - a substantial, but not complete update and tidy has affected all the legs since Leg 01. Enjoy In reality we are first night in Bulgaria and with probably the last good internet for 3 or 4 days.

It was just a short run into Antakya, Turkey (Antioch as it was known in biblical and such times). The freedom and cosmopolitan atmosphere is welcoming. The stone throwing seems to be out of character and I wonder if it was from that disadvantaged section of the Turkish population, the Kurds. They and the Druze influenced locals seem to be rather gypsy like in this neck of the woods and not well regarded. The hotel shows a good example of industriousness - knackered at the end of the day, while manoeuvring outside I manage to tear off several pieces of best marble step at the front of the hotel. many apologies and I disappear for a beer, hoping that I won't be charged. A beer and a tidy-up and we are off into town for a knees-up, well not quite, but the important thing is that you could! What do I note - not only is the rubble from the steps glued back into place, the cracks are filled and the filler painted to match the marble ... now where would you get that? Certainly not in the Middle East that we know; not even in the UK. (I am doing this finish off while sunning on the balcony for our last night in Bulgaria) Certainly not in anywhere since Turkey either. Antioch was time to gather our wits and just do a liuttle tourism.

10 Nov 09

The little was this morning - we walked to the Museum, it is well managed and presented, and shows some stunning mosaic flooring from the local Roman villas. As ever you are tripping over bits of column and stone carvings. We were mixed up in the local Rememberance parade on the way there - it commemorates Ataturks death and they wear orange ribbon. Ataturk stands for "Father of the Turks" an assumed name which marks the fact that he was instrumental in creating the present day state. We will meet him again as he was also instrumental in defeating the allies at Gallipoli. A stroll by the river, then a pack and we went to St Pierre's church just out of town (unplanned) as it is claimed to be the first ever cathedral - its a cave with all the usual additions to allow the limitation of view and so the right to charge tourists.

We needed to relax, but also know that it will be a hard day's drive - 330 miles to Cappadocia. Had hoped to just take breaks at a couple of interesting points, but missed the turn for Snake castle which looked stunning and we binned Adana and Tarsus. It was still a long drive, the early night fall giving us a long time on country roads in the dark with little to navigate by. All the advice to not drive at night in Turkey is well grounded - poor roads, poor lighting, unlit vehicles and the death wishes of most other drivers are enough to put any sane person off trying it. Not for the first time did a gut feeling and stopping for a slight shadow ahead save our bacon. Without pilot standard eyes many would struggle or travel so slowly that it's not worth it.

Arrival in Goreme, Cappadocia, about 19.30 was stunning. The road in gives a view over the town and many rocks and caves are illuminated - it certainly wet the appetite. Sleeping in a cave was also stunning - the heating had been on all day as well so it was cosy - a deluxe bedroom (suites were available) was like a small suite. The town was quiet and there were few places to eat, but we found a bohemian sort of place and then slept solidly.

11 Nov 09

Modest start and first to the Goreme Museum - a good starting point which gives a feel for the place and emphasises the preponderance of religious caves that were carved out. Taking a couple of walks out of the LP (Lonely Planets), the first was disappointing and produced none of the promised unusual landscape - had we been spoilt we wondered - or was their idea of unusual something that was different from the rest of the Cappadocia hills? That would be strange, as most tourists must surely be there for the 'standard' Cappadocia hills which are very unusual. A conundrum indeed.

Back to enjoy our rock home and the stunning views ... with wifi access ...

If only - I decided to fix the blown circuit on the cigarette lighter. Having lost it, the only car lighter socket remaining is one I fitted which is not ignition controlled. If we use that every day, it will only be a matter of time before we stop and forget to unplug it; the coolbox/fridge will flatten the battery and we'll be stuffed. What a pain - I usually have a high regard for the reliable and straight forward design of Japanese motors - not this one. Firstly, why they should choose to put a fusible wire in the cigarette socket itself, when the circuit is already fused, is beyond me. But having done so you might expect ready access to that socket - no the gear shift panels and half the dashboard need to be removed for access - even then the socket is a b******d to get at and the cables are not long enough to allow removal. The fusible link is not a replaceable unit - so I bypass it - circuit is fused after all. Oh and to cap it off, the gear shift panel plastic is almost time-expired and cracks - brilliant piece of design!

Best restaurant in town for dinner, we found it this evening - the Orient.

12 Nov 09

Woken for the second morning by the wooshing of gas burners on hot-air balloons. They only flew in the early morning, before the wind got up, but added a sureal air to the place. Impressive to be sat on our veranda (on the internet!) with balloons flying literally overhead and looking over such a stunning lanscape ...

Today offers a modest drive (200 mls) to Side a Roman town on a promontary in the Med. We do want to arrive in time to look around the place tho' and our accom is not confirmed.

Turns out that our LP recommended hotel is closed - that'll be why the Aussi who runs it is not bothering to answer e-mails. That we discover from talking to locals after we've spent an hour driving the v narrow lanes of the pedestrian precinct area of the old town. Time and the day draws on; in near desperation and fatigiue we jump into a motel type place just outside the old city walls - it turns out to be well placed for an early morning stroll tomorrow, as it is so close by the amphitheatre and ruined town. This is the first time we have been cold and sleep with our fleeces on - there is no heating and the hot water doesn't work properly either. What is yet to come?

Side, pronounced cedar, is an attractive tourist town and warrents a return one day.

13-14 Nov 09

We're approaching the point at which the planned route doesn't work and v conscious of the difficulty of covering the ground so far experienced. The forward plan fron Kuwait to UK and the back plot from the Denmark ferry (last before Christmas) to Kuwait meet here in Turkey and produced a distance of 810 miles to be covered in 2 days. Apart from being fatigued, Chris has picked up a bug which is giving her a v sore throat which is developing into a conventional flue. Aching and lacking interest in the "tour", we are also concerned that she must not develop a temperature - Turkey was the first country to body temperature check us on entry, for the H1N1 virus. These are all, and each, good reasons to cut chunks out of our itinerary. We also juidge that this an area that we will return to - it is the popular holiday coast of Turkey and cheap to fly to from the UK. It is a fantastic coast to hire a yacht on and offers good diving - "we'll be back". So, not too concerned about missing bits, we set a gruelling drive to get ahead. Kas, Patara ( a spot we selected and friends John and Silvia recommended for a particular family hotel), Bodrum, Marmaris and Pamukkale, amongst others fall by the wayside. Sadly a few non-Roman ruins are lost as well - aware of becoming Romaned out I had included other eras whenever possible - Seljuk, Myran, Lycian. We'd also purchased a guide to the Lycian Way - a walk which stretches from near Olympos to Fethiye - that will have to wait until another day.

What won't though is 1000km overdue oil change - we spot a Mitsubishi garage on the outskirts of Antalya. How long - about an hour. Knew it wouldn't - hour and a half. Consciencious - check parts (I'm loath to immediately offer up the only spare oil filter that I've brought with us), no we only have diesel version oil filters - okay use this one I prepared earlier. It turns out to be a full service and signed up for half the UK price. The conscientious lad doing the tyre pressures is most upset when I tell him to re-inflate above his fugures 'cos there's a lot of weight in the truck. I may also have upset them when I recheck the oil outside - but I would be silly not to.

So, later than desired, but a good tick cleared and we are away. As if navigation wasn't hard enough, I have been struggling to convert our Google Earth references into degrees and minutes lat & longs and get them printed for easy reference ahead of our route, now on a re-route it is impossible so we are 'making it up as we go along'. Thankfully we are just about to creep onto our AA European atlas - its a large scale this far east but is an easily accessed reference. Mugla is our night stop and a business man's 2/3* is our hotel after an ineffective LP faff in town - this hotel is just out of town. We have cut inland to shorten the route, though night driving on country routes without a detailed map and with the usual hazards is as ever hard work. In 2 days we only take breaks and the points visited are:

Chimera - natural gas seeps from the ground and is warm enough to self-ignite on contact with the air. These flames have been burning for millenia.

Selcuk/Ephesus - said to be the best preserved Roman city in the Eastern Med. I suppose it depends how to choose your words - where does the "Eastern Med" extend to. It is a compact site and has all the makings of a Roman city. It is interesting to see such an intimate city and one over undulating terrain, but the old harbour has not been excavated. We were pleased we saw it and its many statues, but disappointed 'cos it doesn't hold a candle to Palmyra, Syria which is a vast site covering 3 distinct periods and Jerash, Jordan which is not as big as Palmyra, but is also a huge and complete Roman city.

We stayed in Selcuk and enjoyed the market - a short chill out. The LP accom did not appeal, so we picked a place opposite with an appealling veranda'd room and views to the basilica behind. We've needed the heat on every night now since Side and our fleeces are well used - it is of course November, but the rapid temperature changes as we go North are noticeable and the clear evenings are distinctly cold.

15 Nov 09

Today was not unusual – a late breakfast (0830) limits us to our start time, oh and Mustapha was late off the starting blocks, so breakfast was in fact 0845. Then some faffing to print the next 2 pages of our itinerary, the lats and longs of our pinpoints, and need to load Excel on to this Turkish computer! Then a print of our Green Card, 3rd party car insurance for Europe which was e-mailed to us yesterday – long story, but insuring a foreign registered car with a reliable UK company is near impossible. Well now we are fully covered – another Lloyds company is covering the fully comp part – we received that as we drove thro’ Saudi. Tho’ the trytique covers an element of insurance, the most important 3rd party cover has been purchased seperately at each border so far. After Turkey, we do not expect that to be the case – tho’ an open mind always helps with these matters!

Oh, not to miss - while I'm computer faffing, Chris gets taking to Mustapha who'd been okay but not stunningly on the ball - she mentions that she's a teacher (I've been a teacher as well everywhere we've been - engineering). Unlike the UK, teachers must still be held in high regard in Turkey, certainly Mustapha did his - he could not do enough for Chris. Unmoveable the previous day on the room price, this morning he presents a free guide book to Selcuk/Ephesus (indeed a choice of books), a pottery plate (inherited with his father's shop) and 2 carved rock animals for our grand-children. He's just given us the value of the over-night room! Amazing generosity, we leave with a chasened view and his parting advice - do 90 kph, police!

So, to the day. Not so far today with Gallipoli as the target, e-mail confirming 2 nights accom arrived last night. Had a brief look around the old part of Selkuc, exploring the back alleys in a truck is always exciting, then off to find Sirince a pretty local village – signage poor and we miss the turn so decide not waste any more time and press on. Have cut out several distant points so Pergamum (Bergama) the site of the largest Roman hospital in the East is the next point, but not to linger – we’re a bit Romaned out (wot more b---dy Roman columns) and wot did the Romans do for us anyway ... (for Monty Python afficionadoes). This proves a good 30 min detour from the through route – on a hill above the town we get a superb view of the Roman city, and Acroplis and fortifications on the hill above, with a theatre in each. A leg stretch and we are off. Now aiming for a lunch stop – will be a bit late but we’ll see how the time goes. I’d better come clean ... we ended up being a bit later still ... first speeding ticket. A fair cop as we say as I’ve been speeding all over the Middle East. Turkey’s limits are clearly defined if you can be sure what is in town, out of town highway or motorway. Rather like the UK there are no reminders, so is the town ring road in or out of town. What is a motorway, is it coded blue, green or orange and when they have multiple numbers what are they? So on an out of town 4-lane highway with central (but flat) reservation, it isn’t a motorway and I should be doing 90kph with a 10% allowance that is 99. Hmme, 115 will not be okay then – 128TL

please at a suitable bank. £45 is not too bad for the first hit, I guess. Ayvalik it is for lunch – slightly touristy harbour, several well positioned restaurants. Local help found us a car park and we settled to an almost French style lunch – well deserved we thought(!). I’ve behaved so far but stretched to a glass of wine before more driving today. We didn’t get away until 3.15 and it’ll be dark in a couple of hours. Cut out some more points and set Gallipoli as the next; sadly, as its always been one of those schoolboy dream spots, having to miss Troy, it was just dark as we passed the turn-off and we have the ferry to Gallipoli to catch.

Enjoyed a stunning sunset enroute – both before a cloud sheet and before terra firma, a double wammy as the politicians say. Find Gallipoli Houses and our host Eric (Belgian) easily from his directions. Nicest place we’ve stayed so far, good food (the Belgians are better than the French) and fine wine – enjoy. The European quality conversation is welcome as well, covering all sorts including our desert travels - Eric shows great interest in our sand ladders (see 7 Sep 09), but as they are the support for all our roofrack kit they are still necessary. This part of the World is not strong on heating tho’ so we are sleeping in fleeces for the second time.

16 Nov 09

Reasonably early start with 0800 breakfast – what a change, fried not boiled eggs. Clear the suitcase from the truck to re-organise before the European winter. Eric v helpful with detailed maps and guide book of the Gallipoli battlefields. A really chilled day, just wandering a couple of planned sites and some others as we pass. A beach walk, a hill walk and sunset with red wine on a beach after seeing, amongst others, the Lancashire Fusillers and Anzac memorials. The Gallipoli pensinsular is a lovely area, pretty and relaxing. The only other guest at the accom, Gary (Aussi who works for Woolworths – more successful down there than UK!) is staying 6 nights and will enjoy the plentiful walks. Dinner is the usual 4 courses (!) and tonight we have a local small tuna – only the second time we’ve had fish on this adventure – dryer than traditinal tuna, but still good. Ate too much, not the best night’s sleep for me.

17 Nov 09

I’m up at the usual 0600, I never need as much sleep as Chris, and do some internet – e-mails and banking. This morning will be a late departure as we set ourselves up to enter Europe and the cooler weather which we are already experiencing in the evenings. Clear skies are cold and we are leaving room heating on now. We’ll hopefully have more space in the truck when we’ve finished. Though the junk level has dropped a bit behind us, it is still consistently up to the window sills and a bit above, even tho’ I’ve now given away one of our water containers and one petrol container (both of which leaked a little). Today we have a leisurely run up to Edirne with just the town to look at on arrival.

It is a pleasant relaxed drive, tho’ navigating Edirne is not so easy. My navigator has some difficulty as there are far more mosques in reality than the LP (Lonely Planets) map suggests, indeed more mosques per square inch than we’ve seen before. After a run thro’ town and back we eventually find it – we also note that such small towns may appear the same size in map terms as cities we know, but they flash past outside much quicker! It was the first boutique hotel that opened here and sits between the main mosques and the museum, a v good situation. The mosques’ calls to pray have been steadily getting less intrusive as we progress, so we don’t anticipate an early wake-up call here. Nice room with a mix of Art Deco and Baroque furniture. The shower is a walk-in, sit down and have your body pummelled by water jets type – all in best white plastic. Rather like vibrating beds(!), it’s boring and a naff gimmick.

The journey and finding the hotel took longer than anticipated, but we have time to wander the town, drink tea and I drop in for a Turkish haircut. I can see why our ladies do it so much when you get this service. Chris regretted saying she would wait; the guys are funny and threaten me with a heavy metal type spike (if that’s the term), but I come out with a quiff, individually moussed and positioned strands, trimmed eye-brows and fresh aftershave. All this for 4 quid, bargain. Chris not to be left out goes for a street shoe polish – took nearly as long as my haircut and cost ... 80p. Squeezed in a beer in a local cafe, upmarket in that it had outside gas heaters, but positioned in a v old part of town – buildings unchanged in a couple of hundred years. Tucked up in this NW corner of Turkey, european Turkey, it has a european flavour, the language is markedly different from the rest of Turkey (E European) and we feel we are almost there. The market is interesting and we catch an indoor arcade (Victorian era to us) – its open ‘cos the local TV channel is hosting a magazine article there with interviewer etc. Are we TV stars – not sure.

Late and fatigued, we made do with a shawma on the hoof.

18 Nov 09

Not properly up as early as we wanted, but there is only a short drive of 110 miles to Plovdiv in Bulgaria today, with nothing to see enroute. I was on the netbook from 6 again, but showers and a slowish breakfast delayed us. The first time we have not had self-service breakfast – so it was portion controlled, I mentally note that we can expect more of this. But what a day to look forward to – Europe and “civilisation”, as Frenchman was to remark later over lunch. We are off and there is no rush - am not even up to the speed limit, which has remained steadily at 120kph almost everywhere we’ve been. It is foggy tho’; we saw the last of the sea until Denmark yesterday and I did wonder if it was also the last of the sun! Today I’m reminded of those large static low pressure systems that can sit over central Europe for weeks and wonder if we are to see few views as we cross Europe. It’s only 12 miles and we are at the border, the Turkish side is smooth with few checks and a general waving on – so unusual that it catches me out and I dawdle at windows unnecessarily.

Leg 03 - We Made It, Cracked The Code To Enter Syria - Amman, Jordan to and through Syria

2009-11-18T15:17:00.000-08:00

4 Nov 09 (cont)

Bethany may have been a disappointment, but Jerash our next stop is one of the best Roman sites going. I spent a few hrs there 20 yrs ago, but Chris has not seen it and I want to show her. Arrive in town 2 ish, not well signposted and end up, as it turns out, round the side by the diplomats entrance. Before even locked the truck, a kindly (1) local is offering to "look after" the truck. Haven't had this for a few years. Offer to have the tourist police look after him. He's reluctant to change but eventually sees the light of day and wanders off. We discover we're at the wrong entrance and are pleased to move the truck. I'd already taken plenty of photos of this geezer, but on return see him climbing into his own motor (so not exactly a povvy gypsy) and driving off. We go around to the punter's entrance and better security. There is only some much I can carry in the rucksack, a lot of valuables remain in the truck.

Jerash - a close run thing with Palmyra, Syria (which is a vast site) but stunning and very complete. Collonaded streets - yes and in good nick.

The day is late and we press to Irbid our planned night stop. We have a few things to organise before tomorrows border push for Syria. Anticipating at least 48 hrs camping out at the border, we need rations. The truck needs a tidy. Tomorrow is a Thursday, with possible delays if the visa saga drags into Friday - the holy day of the week, we want to get to the border fairly early. We bin all the other planned Jordan visits. Irbid

- you have to read LP generously to expect much in Irbid, though it is an active town and the student influence makes it more free flowing socially than other towns. We fail to find the hotel we've booked - a kindly local taxi driver takes us to it, no cost, and we are in a v ordinary Middle East arabs business 2/3* hotel. We walk out and eat in a local street restaurant. Some guidance from the proprieter produces a fresh and reasonable price meal - when presented with the bill it is £30 ... £3 wouldn't be enough - where's that decimal place? Good grief, it is £3, bargain. Breakfast ordinary - like the town.

5 Nov 09

Fairly early start and off to the border. Chris getting really wound-up, little I can do till there, then we'll take it as it comes steadily and persistantly ...

Out of Jordan easy enough, make sure tryptique signed off , 5JD car tax and 5JD ea visa stamp required - every country seems to turn a dollar on every concievable transaction. We are out of Jordan and so if we have to re-enter we will have all those expenses again - even the car insurance wil have expired. So to Syria, with some trepidation we enter the visa hall. Ther is a local desk, diplomats desk and foreigners desk. The latter 2 are next to each other and run by the same guy today. We are v particular to stand at the foreigners position. No discussion of previous attempts - I'd telephoned Mohammad, my contact at the Syrian Embassy in Kuwait twice earlier in the week, Chris had phoned their Embassy in London. Mohammad always offered a cheery welcome, welcome, maybe in 2 weeks. But I'm there tomorrow; maybe, welcome, welcome. I will go to the border. No, no. Maybe I will try the border tomorrow. London - no we can't help you, try this (wrong) number. You can get one at the border - unquote the most bored, disinterested, woman you can imagine. There we are at the border desk, trying to look relaxed/chilled and expectant of visas. David Attenborough did a recent programme on basic body language and the eyebrow and smile expressions - we would have been good examples for him. The guy on the desk is friendly and doesn't appear to have any reservations, even tho' he sits under a huge sign which correctly states the Syrian position, that if you are from a country with a Syrian Embassy, that is where you get your visa; one will not be issued at the border. There are enough blogs that suggest that the rules are incorrectly applied both positively and negatively. I was confident there woud be no record of our previous attempts - 6 visits to the Embassy in Kuwait over 7 weeks and 3 international phonecalls. I recalled last year when we were issued visas in 48 hrs - my visa had the wrong passport number and tho' this was punched into a computer at the airport on arrival and departure it was never picked up - I deduced that the fancy looking computer system did not go anywhere! As we completed, the nastiest officer arrived the other side of the desk - we were thro' in time.

1hr 15min - done and dusted. I did allow a willing young lad help me thro' all the offices and that saved lots of time for us at a cost of about $5. All payments US $ ! Visas $52 ea, car insurance (3rd party) $70

Well Syria is interesting - can't even access own blog! Police blocks are v effective. (Good news - got a visa at the border, will wait to tell you how.) Arriving in Bosra - capital of Nabatean empire after Petra fell. was like a WWII movie - car of 3 leather jacket clad feds surreptitiously parked on the entry roundabout. Just like a Kuwaiti nut stall - in the middle of the roundabout. This is a Druze area so a different atmosphere, generally the Syrians are v friendly and mis-represented by Western media. Even in the poor areas here not really threatened by anything.

6 Nov 09

Still not able to access the blog to check, so another up-to-date shorty. Now in Hama. I've got into the habit around the World of judging a local character by their driving style and aggression or politeness on the road - driving body language. Well in 10 minutes approaching Hama we saw the worst and most aggressive driving in Syria - worse than the rest of Syria put together. Hama has great potential, it is famous for its waterwheels (norias) along the river and there are some giant examples still working, its ruins and a v pleasant centre. There is an undercurrent of discomfort with life though. A sense of threat on the street, Chris was touched up by a begger today and more gangs of youths than we have seen elsewhere. The town, like most of Syria, is uncared for - some fantastic renovation of ruins dating back a couple of millenium and more, the centre piece of which is a Roman aquaduct. Rubbish piles up all over and plastics bags are a scourge on the landscape, as they were in Jordan. This is all rather sad, but the tourist outlets all still charge Western prices even when there cannot be any maintenance overheads. Despite this, we continue to relax and are more on top of events now. All great fun.

7-8 Nov 09

At last a day to chill, in Aleppo (written 8 Nov 09) with nothing to do except catch-up on some dobie and do a little forward planning. The sites worth doing are the “new city”, only a couple of hundred years old and the neighbouring souk 1000 yrs + old. We are staying in the new city, so that bit is easy.

Getting to Aleppo was not so easy. Yesterday (7 Nov 09) from Hama was a late start and a full day. The day is not quite aligned with reality here and in Jordan. The setting of the clocks back in both countries, the day before we arrived in Aqaba, has put daylight from 5 in the morning to 4.30 in the afternoon, whereas 6 o’clock for both would be more correct. The working hours are still from 10 and so the useful day is very short. Many of the roads are a bit slower than we expected and so many planned visits are being cut out and we are arriving at places to stay in the dark – not the easiest way to find unknown hotels. Yesterday saw us at the Musyaf Castle – the origin of the word assasin, from a group of rebels who occupied and developed it. Then Apamea a Roman site to rival Palmyra – a large city area with dozens of columns – forming collonades - still standing. Some locals were hassling us tourists, but a couple of ”no thanks” would send them away – ungraciously and unlike similar touts we’ve met elsewhere, these guys would then curse us under their breath. A planned route to visit several abandoned cities – eerily still standing but peopleless – came to little as darkness fell and the country roads we not quite so straight forward. I’d hoped to avoid night driving ... Unlit country roads with unlit cars, trucks, tractors and working folk rushing home inblack/brown clothing proved quite exciting, but not nearly so much as the same on the following motorway into Aleppo – oh I almost forgot, plus vehicles going the wrong way down the motorway with or without lights. Why – ‘cos its shorter than going the extra 200 metres to the U-turn. The hardest tospot were the trucks with just the one headlight working, always on the otherside to give a motorbike impression ... until the shadow of the full vehicle shot past in the dark. You (and Chris) might think that is all very exciting. Try putting the Kuwaiti driving style into a continuous form of the death roundabout, a continuous traffic jam and sqeeze it into lanes the size of a small souq – that was Aleppo at night. Oh and where were we going? An old renovated house in the old (new city) part of town with lanes approx the width of the Pajero and we don’t know where we are! To Chris’cries of mind that man’s cabbage stall, don’t run over his legs and the general white knuckle ride of battling taxis that should have been condemned a long time ago we found our way into the right area. A torchuous one-way system was a pain tho, but nothing that a 4x4 ride with 3 locals pushing to help us across a couple of kerbs didn’t put right. I was ready for that 1st beer and Chris was exhausted ...

The Aleppo souk is deservedly considered one of the best true Syrian souks. It is large and has narrower lanes than any I can remember for a long time. Being more original also makes it less touristy and so actually has less stuff that we might be interested in. All swings and roundabaouts. There wasn’t the same joi d’vivre and chattiness we enjoyed in the Damascus souk last year and so it gets a lower vote from us. Still, worth a good look. Chris didn’t enjoy the fact that it took a long time to get out of it – they are a bit claustrophobic – whilst I loth doubling back to get out as it is just repeating everything. Yes, an intimate souk! We didn’t labour the citadel – wot, another castle ... It is recommended though. We retired to our hotel and neighbouring favourite square to people watch, have a drink and chill – we’re paying for this old courtyard house to stay in so we should enjoy it. Late booking (day before), we probably got the last such room in town, so it was smaller and darker than we would have wished; indeed we spent the evening before chatting to a German couple from Dubai who had refused the same room and were in the Sheraton. Elevensis in the Sheraton had reminded us of true 5* luxury – a nice well run hotel for a change in these parts. Well, our place – dark and a bit dingy, not well run or expecially clean and a surliness about the service. They charge the top rate tho’ – Aleppo was the first Syrian town to do boutique hotels in these lovely old courtyard houses, so these are the earlier examples and not as bright and cosmopolitan as more recent ones. Though some were new and bright – Yasmeen d’Alep for example. Overall, we reckoned the Damascus ones, of which we looked at half a dozen last year ,were a better bunch. The attitude in Aleppo also led to a surliness – plenty of people around to do the jobs, but no organisation or drive to serve the customer. There was more interest shown in the blame culture and having effective power over those around them than pleasing the punters – us. This was rounded off by the hotel staff gabbing noisily in the reception area at 2 in the morning and Chris having to tell them to be quiet.

Oh, following a relaxed afternoon late lunch – French style we were not hungry in the evening so retired to our favouruite drinking spot in the square and, to return the pushing us over the kerbs favour, to their silver shop to buy some presents. Half a dozen knick knacks came to an expensive £S 208,000. Surprised that the sense of comradeship from the kerb incident did not kick us in at a discounted rate we pressed on to achieve a £S 125,000 purchase of said items. Thye still made a healthy profit from us and we bought at less than the UK boutique would charge.

So a lovely town with potential, but not too tourist orientated, we didn’t mind leaving. Some Syrian roads were smooth enough for me to pick-up a little sound like rubbing in the truck - could it be the beginning of a wheelbearing going? No, surely not in a Japanese vehicle; it's only 4 years old with 25,000 km on the clock - a mere youth.

9 Nov 09

Early start to: St Simeon – a bloke who slept on top of a stone pillar. His antics created a pligrimage tourist trade and the upspring of surrounding villages, churches and basilicas. One of the top 4 to do spots in Syria. We are still suffering the haze that has ruined all the good viewpoints since Wadi Rum, so poor views, but this site was well kept, tidy and a pleasure to wander around despite a couple of coach loads of Italians and Brits and what seemed like the World forum of Italian motor-caravaners. A v pleasant morning. Finding the route to some minor sites in the area proved too difficult; after we’d enjoyed a few local Druze and Kurdish towns and there being no views to be had, we pressed for the Turkish border. One of the slower borders and seriously clogged with lorries waiting to be cleared. At the Syrian side, I accepted help again which hugely speeded-up the process of finding the right offices – paid £S 300 for this in the end (£4) – costs and process: visa stamps £S 550 ea, visa/car, de-reg car, tryptique £S 300. Turkish side – not helped by not having enough Turkish lira and the border exchange rate for US$ having a 20% cream-off :- temperature check (H1N1), passport, visa stamp, bank, visa stamp US$ 20 ea, passport, toilet, car 3rd party insurance US$ 60, customs, car tryptique, customs, passport check and out. Attitude – mme, help from other mid-Eastern drivers good, little English spoken and difficult to relate the spoken words to the written Turkish; the lady in Bank for example couldn’t tell us where the toilets or visa office were – both were next door to her! Rather similar to the N Syrian attitudes. So what will Turkey offer, is it to be like Syria in these parts.

Just as we are mulling these questions, well I am,Chris is asleep already after her disturbed night before, and a rock thrown by a kid at the roadside thumps into the side of the truck!...

PS. Websites no longer blocked so will try to tidy-up the blog tonight in Cappadocia. Still behind with Saudi/Jordan stuff but getting on. This Alleppo hotel is wireless in most parts but not our room!!! so ...

Leg 02 - First Steps To Freedom - Madain Saleh - Amman, Jordan

2009-11-13T12:24:00.000-08:00

30 Oct 09

On returning to the hotel, there is coincidentally a policeman there. As we set off he waves us down and tells us we need petrol for our journey! Actually it seems he needs petrol to follow us, though his advice is timely as unbeknown to us, most petrol stations are closed on a Friday .. that’ll be today then. As we head off on the main road it is obvious he is a tail, kindly he remains behind, so I set the speed. Except – when the time comes to changover he pulls in front and flags us down. Quickly we learn that every time the tail changes, we have to stop and wait; the changeover involves a handover of paperwork on us. Nearly all the other tails set the speed by driving in front. The few times my frustration got the better of me and I tried to overtake we were flagged back – get in your place Shaw. All driving styles were in evidence from youthful steadiness, thro’ youthful impetuousness (drive faster than the Pajero can manage, then when it is obvious we can’t keep up slow to a snail’s pace then race faster than we can manage again, all the way to the I’m not bothered we’ll do 45 kph regardless. Two I stopped to tell to speed up, but the effect was short-lived. I never resolved whose fault it would have been if we did not make the border by midnight – the expiry of our visas! These tails changed about every 40 km and on entry and exit to each town as areas of responsibility changed – a mere 750km of this faffing. All I presume for out security. Incidentally, the media case of 4 (?) French tourists being killed in a drive-by shooting near Meda’in Saleh a couple of years ago was not actually the case. I had seen a blog suggesting otherwise and Abu Sultan confirmed, it was near Medina, a long way South, though they may have come from Meda’in Saleh. Anyway, this was 750km of not being able to freely find a loo, stop for a snack and leg stretch, choose our own pace or points of interest – we were prisoners on the road. Another 470miles driven.

At last the Jordan border, phew most speak a little English. The offices are not in the right order. We have a Jordan visa – needed it for the Saudi visa application ... no we don’t. They’re now out of date! But, new ones are free here. Okay where’s that office – no sign but find a room – v quick, written in log, stamped and out. Back to first visited (2nd in order) office, okay now we can be stamped in. Where next – car import, 3rd office, well no. Need 3rd party insurance first – 5th office. Oh, just in the middle of this, come and park over here, we’ll do your customs clearance (somewhere out of the 3rd and a half office(!)) . So – any electrical goods? What does that mean, do I have an encyclopaedic memory of every piece of wire I’ve packed. He stops me past “mobile phone”. Fuel/benzene, well yes; where, mme in the middle of this kitchen sink ... lets make it up as just 1 can of petrol. They were pretty good really. Okay now to that 5th office, no lets go to the 4th office to change money and get rid of all Kuwait dinar and Saudi riyals. Never bartered over exchange rates before, but it seems to work! Now the 5th then back to the 3rd. All done – visas free, passport stamps 11JD ea, car tax, car insurance (3rd party) 19.5JD. Like so many border posts, its dark at night and strangers are all over the place – take our time and watch everything.

The freedom as we emerge into Aqaba is palpable. There are people of both sexes walking about enjoying themselves, we’ve got rid of our police “escort” and I can go and have a beer ...

31 Oct 09

Up early (7) to take apart roof rack, make truck driveable again and extricate bag of dive gear. So time to shower, pack dive bag and breakfast - rather quiet in hotel and security (sic) guard asleep at scanner in entrance. All ready for my 0915 DiveAqaba (http://www.diveaqaba.com) pick-up, ten past and no show - phone up. Yes we'll be with you at about 0900! "Oh, our clocks went forward yesterday ..." No wonder the hotel was quiet. Wait an hour - dive bus arrives - "Is this Dive Aqaba?" - "Yes". Interesting, seems to be going in the wrong direction. Well after a further 30 min faffing, they pick me up from somewhere in town where the wrong bus dropped me off. To be fair - Dive Aqaba were very good - from an e-mail the day before, Rod Abbotson replied that evening; their pick-up was on time and when I ran off on the wrong bus they came and picked me up - brilliant. They were recommended by a Kuwait diving friend - Phil Barawitzka - who was there that day, but sadly I missed him in the faff. Most importantly, while Chris had a day tidying and enjoying the 5* luxury of the Intercontinental, I had a great diving day with the "Seven Sisters and Tank" as the first warm-up dive and the deeper "Cedar Pride" wreck as the 2nd. The first time I've dived the Red Sea and it lived up to its famed fantastic visibility. Dive Aqaba, ran a good tight ship with thorough briefings, tho' my "buddy" didn't subscribe to buddy checks and just jumped in and waited for me to join him - he'll have to wait longer then while I do my own "buddy checks"!

Diving is tiring stuff, so we ate in the hotel that evening - with the odd beer - the elixir of life. It was a 2 night stay, because most directions you leave Aqaba from are over mountains and just as you shouldn't fly within 12 hrs of diving, neither should you drive over mountain ranges. Lonely Planets was sharp on that - a shrewd piece of advice.

1-2 Nov 09

Off to Wadi Rum today, famed for its part in the film setting for Lawrence of Arabia (colour version). Just call in on the castle at Aqaba - it's the only feature of the town worth a special visit - but, refurbishment not complete and it is a small site with little special to offer so we do not linger. Sadly, the only local interaction we have there is with some wayward children (8-10 yrs - should be at school) who's only grasp of the English language seems to be the Hollywood version with mostly F-word use and the aggressive body language and facial expressions that go with modern violent films.

Wadi Rum - stunning. We are met by Nayil, son of Obeid Al-Amamreh (wadirum_disidesert@yahoo.com), at the visitor centre, led thro' the passes etc that we need, including one that allows us to drive our own 4x4 around in the protected area. We are well looked after by Nayil during our day and half in the Wadi except that he is running the show almost by himself and whenever a little extra attention is required, such as when one of the dormatory tents blew down he is absent briefly to arrange help. These pauses were frustrating but not a sig problem. Nayil did well to show us some nearby highlights in our arrival afternoon and the following full morning he included much more, including the more distant aspects. He managed almost all the features I had picked-out as worth doing. For the evening and the morning tour we are part of a group of 6 - 2 American ladies (Julia and Michelle) who added some

sparkle to the events and a couple of Belgian guys. A small and relatively subdued group - only to be expected in the off-season period. The plus side was that there were not so many tourists around the Wadi. We had the pleasure of a full moon that night , but the wind increased steadily the following morning and the visibility was dropping markedly as we left in the early afternoon. Visibilty worthy of Kuwait.

2 Nov 09

The wind is gusting as we set-off (a dormitory tent blew down in the morning) and aren't we glad that we have seen Wadi Rum before this awful visibilty set-in. The sad aspect is that as we turn off the Amman road for the Kings Highway - famed for its spectacular panoramic views and sweeping wadis - we can hardly see anything. Even stopping the truck to view is unpleasant as the wind is v strong at the panorama points and the dust gets everywhere, including behind your eyeballs. I know you would like to see what it can be like, so here is a Google Earth pic. Our pic was a sand collage.

Late away from Wadi Rum and with a few planned sites the day is too short. Some of the plans require good vis for the views,so we press on. We drive by Petra - enjoyed it 20 yrs ago and we don't have the time now. Shobak castle - mme, its dark by the time we get there and there are no tourist night sodium lights to make it pretty, so that is a miss as well. We arrive at our accomodation - Dana Guest House in the dark - it is run by the Park authority and has a hippy/posh pension feel to it with eco awareness emblazoned across all activities. Very friendly and well organised. The view is to die for, but it is still blowing a gale with poor vis. We will not be hanging around. An early morning walk around the once abandoned village proves interesting. A couple of "hotels" have recovered some buildings and made a go of it, but sheets of canvas and polythene seem to be required to fininsh the job off. About half the village remains abandoned with the rest awaiting the tourist boom. Dana Nature Reserve is deservably popular and quite a few walkers set off while we were there - it is poorly signed/mapped though, at present.

3 Nov 09

All the views were stunning, this is from our balcony - which I got locked out on, in a gale, in my p-jays, when the lock jammed - all to bring this pic to your home ....

So after a strole around, breakfast and some truck re-organisation including re-inflating the tyres after the Wadi Rum desert driving we are off. (Reducing tyre pressures (as far as half pressure) gives improved grip in the sand, but made the truck a bit wayward on the road.)

Karak Castle is a stunning fortress, tho' not as well described/explained or maintained as Crac De Chevalier which we saw in Syria last year. The vis is still poor, so a planned cros-country route down a steep wadi towads the Dead Sea would have little value, besides we are still tired after the long drives and pressure of departing Kuwait. We make straight for Madaba, well but for a wrong road out of Karak; that decides it we are cutting out those extra visits and going straight for Madaba. That clock change has really shortened the useful day, it is dark by five and with little dusk, just dark.

Madaba reads well in Lonely Planets. With our Middle Eastern experience we found the "historic" buildings quite ordinary and the town not unusual. It is starting to develop with the buidling work for a tourist precinct coming along. The main interest was the strong Christian community there and the multi-faith aspects of the town. We stayed in the Pilgrims House - its attached to a Greek Orthodox church and like so many minority religious buildings in multi-faith ares of the globe sat behind heavy security gates and barbed wire fencing. It was reltively basic and only one fellow traveller tried to convert us. The town is also a centre for mosaics, old ones, with some excellent museum examples, not that they are well cared for or maintained - perhaps with them surviving the last 2 millenium they are good for a while yet ...

4 Nov 09

Having cut out so many places – time, poor visibility and Chris has picked-up a sore throat/cold which is getting her down – we are prioritising what is left. It is tempting to try to see all those famous places from Sunday school bible lessons! Mt Nebo it is then – should be a pleasant drive out and the vis may be better looking down into the Jordan valley. It’s a short drive out of Madaba. Lots of tourists, but worth the run and pleasant countryside to boot. Views pretty good as well. Decide to add Bethany (Jesus was baptised here - according to tourist pressure and writings at least 20 yeras old ...) as the drive down the mountain into the Valley looks exciting. (Excuse me while I digress – if my writing goes funny (!) its ‘cos I’m doing this in Gallipoli accom and the netbook is well charged with static which keeps running though my p-jays to vital parts ... No, it is not as exciting as you woud imagine!) ... So, an hour out of our way to Bethany – what a rubbish site. There’s nothing to see unless you subscribe to a 1 hour bus ride to the site where you are dropped and not picked-up for at least another hour before the journey back to the carpark. No we are not prepared to waste 3 hours plus on what is a scimpy site anyway.

And so on past Amman – not worth stopping as the Syrian Embassy there DOES NOT issue visas! We (Chris especially) are starting to feel the pressure of these visas and may have to change our itnerary again to best tackle our perceived solution. Leg 03 next ...

Leg 01 - On The Road - Kuwait to Medain Saleh, Saudi Arabia

2009-11-04T23:26:00.000-08:00

27 Oct 09

On the road at last. Route to Saudi border easy, 6th ring road, route (rte) 70, past my old work, but a couple of hrs driving. All borders are different, but this reminds us of past days in Brunei where we needed 9 stamps out and 10 stamps to return when going to neighbouring Kota Kinabalu. You have to work out which offices to go to and which order to do them in. At this crossing they are in a good order to go straight through. Interest shown in: passports, car registration doc (Kuwait), triptyque (import/export doc for car – though not valid in Saudi!), purchase 3rd party insurance and customs. At Saudi customs, because the 2 customs officers were too busy drinking tea on the side at 1 in the morning, the 1st assault on the vehicle is by a couple of 3rd World nationals. Their brief and interest is to unload your vehicle. They were careful but all was coming out of the back, including the fridge which I have not unplugged yet! Approach customs officers at speed – suddenly all stops once they see the task- our 4x4 is full up to the roof and the roof rack is well loaded – only the kitchen sink is missing. The officer asks a couple of dutiful questions abpout boxes which look slightly unusual – brown box, gas BBQ; camping gaz light visible though window. Not having the triptyque stamped in was slightly unnerving, but convince myself that is okay – we will find out when we try to export the vehicle to Jordan!

28 Oct 09

We are tired, but have a huge distance to cover for Al Ula (centre for Mada’in Saleh) in the first day and only I can drive – women not allowed to in Saudi. Have to get onto the pipeline road first, which parallels the Iraqi border. It looks straight forward on the map, but at Hafr al Batin the old road goes square style around the town. Okay, I can almost remember that, but there are new roads, sadly lacking signs in English or scribble. Have to rely on compass directions and some spacial awareness, eventually find the pipline road which is only a few miles south of the town. We are off on the major NW trek across the arabian peninsula. 346 miles (ml) before we reach Ar-Ar and turn off.

Navigation will prove interesting – depite searches we found no worthwhile maps of the Middle East until Turkey. So we have Google earth which all the planning was done on – mme! There is the first problem. The detail you view on Google earth is partially saved in cache, so even if not connect to the internet you can view partially zoomed in detail. That would be okay if this was not a brand new computer which in the crisis management we have used to prioritise too many tasks running up to departure was connected to Google Earth only to load and prove it worked. Yes you got it, we have no, that is no, cache detail in this computer. Our other 2, respectively in sea and air freight to the UK, have lots of cached detail of all our planning. We can run this netbook in the Pajero as it has both a large battery and I fitted a mains inverter to power the recharger etc. Opening Google Earth produces a brown smudge of the planet, but does give our saved pinpoints. My project to take all their latitude and longitude references and put in a cross-referenced excel spreadsheet (!) came to nought, so as we drive Chris has to extract and handwrite down the references. I can use these to work out where the next turn is using our handheld GPS. Its not a clever GPS one of the earliest made, so it just gives a position,no mapping or rte detail. The netbook also has GPS, but the company Dell bought into have no mapping of the Middle East (EU will be okay). So the netbook is again a basic GPS for use as a back-up here. No, we have not GPS’d our way to friends houses in Kuwait. Straight roads are easy as you can just watch one of the co-ordinates coming down to the turning point, but twisty roads can be troublesome.

A sleep stop is required – pull off pipleline road into a road construction area and sleep in truck. 2hrs, a quick breakfast and off. We have 2x 20 L spare fuel canisters inside the truck, but this short-wheelbase Pajero only ha s 70L tank, so whenever it drops to about half we fill up. It’s also a leg stretch opportunity. Haven’t calculated the mpg we are getting – is obviously worse than the usual 17 mpg with the weight and drag of the roof rack. May do that in an idle moment! – the Pajero works in kilometers, though I have made a dual mls/kilometers speedo face all the distances remain in km. Our planning has been done in miles to ease the mental assessment of distances we can cover, but we now find the downside of that – in this rudimentary navigation a km plan would have allowed an easier tie-in to the distance driven.

Ar-Ar looks interesting, don’t have time to go in. Stop for petrol – Chris into adjoining mini-market. No sooner in than prayer time is called; have enough time to buy basic foodstuffs for snacks and out. Store is locked up during prayers – we remember this from our Saudi time. We cruise the road a couple of times in Ar-Ar as our lat/long ref does not produce the expected turn off or road number. It accords with a “wrongly” numbered road, but there is a lot of road construction in the area. A v kind Saudi stops us and asks if he can help – we find a town name that he and I can comprehend and he points us off down the “wrongly” numbered road. It is running in the right direction so paralleling the planned rte but about 5 miles to the east of it. It’s a fast new road so we stay with it. I’ve a feeling it’s a slightly longer rte which I chose not to use – that planning was about 4 months ago, arghh.

This continues in the right direction until the town of Sakaka. Well, this town doesn’t feature in our plans. The only reference we have is on a Lonely Planets (you will soon work out that this is our bible - suits our tastes to a tee) map; black and white, a one page map of all of Saudi Arabia. No surprise then that this gives no useful detail. The town itself doesn’t give useful detail either, few signs and all in scribble. So we will drive around a bit, we know the direction we want to leave in; then we will ask, why can you never find a person to ask when you need them. Right, arabian techniques required – ask neighbouring cars at traffic light stops. 4 people later, most v helpful, we are on the “wrong” side of town, but it feeds into a correctly pointing road. All the way we have had difficulty relating planned road numbers to the roads we were on. This was further confused by a plethora of new construction. Finally we think we have cracked the code. Not only are the new roads brandishing new numbers, but the complete system in this area has been re-numb ered. Yet another fallback navigation method bites the dust. We did find an interesting little castle in Sakaka, but have to press as time is going critical and it’s late afternoon. The limited navigation options will be extremely difficult at night.

Still huge distances counted in the 100s of km, but we at last intecept the planned route on a lat/long point and with our new found knowledge to ignore road numbers we are off. So far have correctly obeyed he 120kph speed limit of Saudi – there’s another good reason though, the Pajero has an annoying speed beeper at 120 which does NOT GO AWAY. Well we are now into permament speed beeper and it is going dark. As we go up into the mountains the reality of speeding is that the Pajero can only manage about 5-10kph above the limit. Using compass headings will be more important in the dark as spacial awareness reduces dramatically. We have a boy scouts handheld type of compass, which is accurate, but have to climb out of the truck to use away from the metal. I also bought a neat little watch-strap compass – saves rummaging to find a boy scout, but still for use away from iron/steel. The Pajero has a compass – let’s use that. Not tried it for a couple of years now – “recalibration required”. Driving in slow circles in a remote village garage forecourt to recalibrate certainly attracts attention – better press and get out of here.

[Slowly we’ll catch-up with real time. Loading this on 5 Nov a week late (!) We’ll spend a long time at Syrian border today (& tomorrow) as we still don’t have a visa!]

Once we intercepted our original route the points all came up okay, but fatigue set in again so a “short” nap was partaken of. Good thing Chris woke as I was a gonner – a full night could have passed – would have saved a night’s hotel bill ... no such luck, after a couple of hrs Chris woke and I was back at the driving treadmill. It was close, when I nod I always pick myself up – but a couple of occasions must have been close!!! Some big hills were crossed as well – Pajero’s altimeter reported about 4800 ft – no wonder we couldn’t drive any faster, and some impressive rosks passed at the roadside in the ¾ moon. Will we have a full moon in Wadi Rum in 2 days? Survived, got there about 0130 day 2 – 27 hrs and 1060miles driven. Zzzz. Uh oh – almost forgot to say – on arrival, hotel (Arac Al Ula) has us booked for next day; obviously not read v clear e-mail of a month ago. But does this mean that our guided tour (1½ day) is also for the wrong days. As I’ve changed the game plan, it turns out not to be a problem. Truck is so heavy that do not want to drive desert in our 4x4 but use guide’s own transport .... All was re-booked in the morning. For now, they’re not exactly busy so we are fitted in and dead to the World. Miss breakfast, have a late a la carte breakfast.

29 Oct 09

Seek out Mohammed – hotel manager. Our booked guide doesn’t have own transport – can he fit in ours. No chance unless he looks like a kitchen sink ... Mohammed got us a new guide with the ubiquitous Toyota pick-up; he’s ready to rock & roll at 12 but we are still gathering our wits and nip downtown to buy the rations we didn’t have time for in Kuwait. We have plenty of time so look up the old railway yards and find some of the railway debris left by Lawrence (of Arabia, of course). The camera is already busy – not a popular piece of kit in Saudi, so Chris is not surpised when our activity appears to have tipped off the local police and we are questioned. Well, actually, I am questioned, Chris remains in the aircon luxury of the truck. Ultimately I conclude that our independance is attracting their attention – more later. For now – the stop and questioning makes us an hour late, but Abu Sultan (son of Sultan (1st son) Abdulaziz Sultan correct name) is great (mobile: ). He is ex Saudi Air Force engineer and police officer of 20 yrs. Tempting to relate, but I stick to original plan of being an engineer under contract in Kuwait. He knows all the police and we are not troubled anywhere, but they are asking why we do not have a police escort – ‘cos we are independant travellers, more later. Abu is good, he takes us to all the spots I’ve planned, plus a couple of others and includes the desert railway (rather than in town) remains of the railway Lawrence attacked. We

are done in an afternoon and have time for tea and chin wag with some of his mates, then the sunset from a local peak. I’ll leave the pics to speak for themselves. Mada’in Saleh is described as Petra’s second city, it covers a larger area than Petra, but is not a city, rather a collection of burial buildings and some domestic dwellings. As Petra, Jordan it is a series of buldings carved into the rock faces. The carving is done top down, a few are unfinished, and several are in isolated stand-alone rocks and so are more impressive. It is in an area of dramatic rock peaks rising from almost flat sandy desert valley floors –a bit like

Wadi Rum. Overall it offers a dramatic mix of Petra’s carving and Wadi Rum’s scale – all 3 have the red sandstone; perhaps the Nabatean empire should be renamed the red sand empire... Abu Sultan having done so well we have a leasurely start in the morning and go into town to see what is one of the best examples in Saudi of an old mud-brick town. In, I think the 80s, the Saudi government encouraged/forced the abandonment of most old townships and moved many people into permanent accommodation. Bedouin,for example, near Riyadh were given a new township, cars and told to be taxi drivers. These abandoned old towns have generally weathered to nothing, but here in Al Ula there is a lot of the old town surviving and there is strong local support to renovate and make some of it a tourist attaction. With Meda’in Saleh already recognised as a money spinner, there is unusually an awareness of what tourism can bring to an area. So for an hour or so we wander the old town and are not bothered by anyone, though watched occasionally by the police.

Start-up - Q8 prep

2009-10-11T23:08:00.000-07:00

20 Jul 09

So, this is my first foray into blogging ... Google, despite their claims have not made it an easy process. There will prob be a few false starts, but the target is a working model in time for our drive home to the UK from Kuwait. Now does this make me a Blogger, a Blogist, a Blogonaut, a Blogospheric or turn me in a Blogophobe? I will await your opinion on the matter.

15 Aug 09

Been back from leave for over a week now, but have wasted a week of effort - had Chris' laptop stolen while passing thro' Geneva airport. It is the only computer that is low enough powered to work on the inverter I've fitted to the truck. In anticipation of the trip, had loaded all, and I mean all, our info on it. Spent the best part of 3 days just changing all account entry names/passwords etc. But the level of detail is worrying - colour photocopies of passports and so on. It has all been necessary while living abroad, but this will hit us sometime - probably with identity theft in the future. Tho' encoded you do not need to be a brain surgeon to break the code. At least I beat the thieves to all our accounts. Lost many other bits which I was bringing back to Q8 for the trip, so have to re-order those and accelerate plans to purchase a netbook.

Acquired our tryptique - authority to take the truck out of Q8 just before I went away. This was a major achievment and took 5 visits to the Q8 International Car Club and 3 to the Brit Embassy to finalise. Insurance to come. Next project is visas - waiting on Chris returning 3 Sep so the 2 passports go together. This will be a juggling act as we are away to Oman for a week in Sep. Ramadan is 21 Aug - 20 Sep - when virtually all activities stop in the Middle East. Then we need Jordan's visa before the Saudis will issue one and finally Syria's. Friends were unable to get a Syrian one recently for just a weekend holiday! We shall see - the whole project could fall on one piece of paperwork.

In the meantime, lots to do: prepare handover for my replacement at work, prepare for work/resettlement courses in the UK and where we might live for the last 6mths of employment, continue preparing the truck, pack-up the house here and all the administration that goes with that. Must go, up for work in 6hrs at 0320!

7 Sep 09

Wow, time stops for no man. While Chris was away in France and the UK I could not action passport dependent things, but she returned Friday morning (now's Monday) to go straight into a 60th party for our dear friend David (Oz). Sunday is the start of the working week in Q8, so yesterday I was off to get our first visa. What a pleasant surprise, the Jordanians were extremely helpful and the visas were in our passports by midday. It is the middle of Ramadan, so the working hours are here are 0900-1300 for another 2 weeks yet (not for me tho'!). This all adds to the sense of rush for our departure. It is 0300 in the morning, I've managed to wake up an hour early for work, so seemed a good idea to update you all. With "exit strategy" in place, the Jordan visa, I can go to the agent for a Saudi visa today - lets hope it goes as smoothly. We are off to Oman for our last local holiday on Friday, so the following visa - Syria (which may be troublsome) will have to await our return - at least Ramadan will be almost over then. We went to Syria last year and acquired a visa in 48 hrs, but a friend recently in similar circumstances was pushed from pillar to post for 2 weeks and had to cancel his holiday.

Chris brought our roofbars for the truck out from the UK - golf clubs in BA parlance - free as sports equipment. These were fitted Saturday and are quiet - Thule Aerobars - a nice change. Friday also saw the acquisition of a matching alloy wheel to make our second spare tyre for the journey. Aided by the brother of a Kuwaiti student, also bought some sand-ladders, pic to be attached - er no apparently (can't find the pic)! Sand-ladders are used to give a solid surface to drive on when stuck in soft sand, when the wheels dig-in. We have a pair of about 1.85 m length - each have 2 steel angle-iron strips slightly wider than the tyres with cross beams every 20 cm or so - rectangular matrix structures.

8 Sep 09

To Saudi visa agent today, Tuesday - "all will be done on computer, very quick" - he stated 4 weeks ago when I sounded him out. Pay money and off go the passports with stickers obscuring all exposed areas! He knows we need them back by Thursday to fly to Oman on Friday. No problems ...

9 Sep 09

Call from Saudi agent - no visas, need Embassy letter in broken English. Go to collect passports - office closed, no answer on phone. Such sponsorship letters are normally generated by our Defence Attache (DA) in the Embassy - mme, so the DA is away. There'll be no visa before we go away then.

Movers round to our apartment to assess the return of sea freight to the UK - appointment for 2 days packing arranged.

10 Sep 09

So we have 1 day before we fly and the Saudi agent still does not answer his phone ... at last a response, leave work early to get to agent just before he closes. Phew, passports recovered - we can go to Oman. DA letter in train, should be awaiting me when I reurn to Kuwait on 16th.

11 Sep 09

Off to Salalah, S Oman - this is the only area in the Arabian Peninsular which experiences the monsoon as it passes to India to the East. For a couple of months each summer the desert turns green, wadis flow with gushing water and lakes are formed. We missed the rain and drizzle which blankets the area for most of this time, but all the greenery was there and every morning we had an overcast.

16 Sep 09

Arrive back in Kuwait at start of the Eid al Fitr post-Ramadan 5 day holiday.

17 Sep 09

DA has not produced lettter, just a couple of questions ...

18 Sep 09

Now have DA letter, but oh! its the holiday and the Saudi agent is closed ...

23 Sep 09

Leave work early - becoming a habit - Saudi agent closed, no phone answer.

Next day - ditto. Then later phone answered - tomorrow ...

"Tomorrow" acquires a new meaning - akin to mañana but covering a longer timescale ...

27 Sep 09

Now the following week:

hand in passports and paperwork.

29 Sep 09

Behold a miracle - we have Saudi 3 day transit visas. A rare achievment and sig milestone. Interestingly they do not apply over a period, for example allowing the 3 days to be travelled at any time within a month, no these are specific to the dates I specified in the Visa Application. Those Appications also stated that we are deviating from the main road to go to Madain Saleh, the second city of the Petra Empire - that deviation must be acceptable then! Exactly 4 weeks to departure - must leave work early again to go straight to the Syrian Embassy tomorrow. We got a visa last year in 48 hours, so shouldn't be a problem.

30 Sep 09

Again I had checked out the lie of the land - none of these Embassies are where the web page says they are, ie it is all way-out-of-date.and if they bother to answer their phone they are unable to explain their address. Straight off to Syrian Embassy. I have 2 photos of each of us, but am not ready for the 2 Application Forms requirement. Write out extra copies and sign, pay and submit forms. No, that is not acceptable, given back money and passports - the forms will have to go to Syria. "Will be 2 weeks".

1 Oct 09

Battle of Britain Happy Hour for BMM – a traditional celebration and a farewell has been organised for me and Chris. All v good fun. I star as part of the WWII based sketch and am (also traditional) last away from the party.

2 Oct 09

A slow day!

6 Oct 09

So we are 2 weeks on (less a day) and a visit to the Syrian Embassy produces a “no come back in 2 weeks” (sounds familiar). Pressing for a greater response (saying we leave in 2 weeks – 3 actually!) generates a conversation which discusses the mess our passports are in – covered in stickers from the Saudi agent which I thought were relevant but aren’t. Also, in the middle of the mess is a sticker saying “Diplomat”. That is not promising as, if the Syrians have decided to apply for a diplomatic visa we will not be granted one ... arghh. (Even though I had been particular to say that we were not diplomatic, but tourists.) While waiting to talk to someone who speaks English – clean all stickers and glue (!) off passports – can see their covers now. In English the message is the same – plenty of time come back in 2 weeks.

My work carries on as usual and the course is busy, so I only have afternoons and early evenings to progress things. Embassy visits I can leave early to action, but it is a holiday season for the Kuwaitis, so me and the 2 expats (George and Chris) are holding the fort and doing most of the flying. As we vacate our apartment in just 15 days, we are maxed out packing and tidying paperwork so that on departure from Kuwait our admin should be complete and running for 2 months at least – fat chance! Our packers are famous for packing everything in more space than required – and so overusing freight volume such that you have to pay extra. We intend doing most of our own packing so that we are in volume limits – we still have all our proper wooden folding MFO boxes from time in Brunei. (As it turned out – we were to volume except for our kitchen crockery and glasses etc which came out in 2 boxes and returned in 4! Cheap valueless glasses were doubled in volume by overly bubble-wrapping them; plates were individually bubble-wrapped, rather than a sheet of paper between each and then being bubble-wrapped in packs of say 12 plates.)

9 Oct 09

Today is a day to celebrate. Correct Dell netbook received for return home journey. Chris had her laptop stolen in Geneva in the summer. It was the only one we owned that would power up from the inverter (car to mains power converter) that I have fitted to the Mitsubishi Pajero that we will drive home. It had all, and I mean all, our personal details in it. Well the battle to replace it with a netbook has raged for 3 months. Dell produce a clever piece of kit that I want. I know more about it than their sales folk, so on attempting to order it they don’t know enough to get the order right; the website is inconsistent and features appear and disappear by the day. End result: I have an incorrctly featured netbook ordered against my non-confirmation of order being delivered to Mum’s house in the UK; this is closely followed by a correctly featured one to same address – different order number and customer number. Don’t want to cancel 1st in case confused with 2nd – prices are within pennies of each other. Wait until second has had attempted delivery – Mum away, but card though door says phone and we will deliver. Great, so I can now stop payment on 1st and tell Dell to come and collect. How wrong can you get it – Mum returns, phones up and 2nd has been recalled by Dell. Another 3 weeks are occupied trying to contact Dell – no easy phone number and e-mails are hit and miss. (Later in this saga I received an acknowledgement on 20 Oct of an e-mail dated and received on 6 Oct!) It was 3 weeks to sort this delivery mess; 6 weeks to clear the debris. I can’t remember if I have touched on losing our mail system through BFPO - BFPO at best is a 2 week delivery system from the UK at UK postal rates. It was stopped with no notice at the beginning of September. This was just as I had re-order to UK all the tech bits for our return, including all the extras such as external DVD required for a netbook. Suddenly I could not get these delivered to Kuwait in a reasonable timescale at affordable cost. Mme – Chris also had her cross-trainers (walking/trainer style shoes) knicked at Geneva; on our holiday to Oman, my cross-trainers gave in to time-expired polyurethane soles – the rubber just crumbles away and the sole falls off the shoe. The only way we can replace with quality footware is through a UK order. All these bits were packaged together and freighted door-to-door from Mum’s house to Kuwait. Every day was critical, so a customs delay of a day in Kuwait was frustrating; the customs duty was annoying, having paid UK VAT etc.

So, have new computer. Well it nomally takes about a month to load and adjust a computer full of programmes. Then set all the tricks you are familiar with to speed your use of it. So I have 18 days – that won’t work too well. As if I have time to spare – I will be doing this up to departure and beyond as we travel and little things like wireless aren’t configured.

14 Oct 09

Life carries on as usual – Dive club committee meeting.

16 Oct 09

In a moment of madness we decided to run our own farewell party for a couple of dozen friends. Even though we went the easy route using outside caterers, there is a lot of organisation to manage. Oh, and the attendant getting over the party. Great time had – one of those parties where the hub-bub never dies – everyone engaged throughout. Dear friends, thank you ..... mme, a 4 o’clock endex and much of tomorrow lost .....

17 Oct 09

Two days to packers and much to do – half today lost. We have all those things that we planned to do backing up – framing pictures, re-plating silverware, buying gifts. I had wanted to have a fully fitted arab cloak made by the family (a tailors) of a student of mine; I have had to kick that into touch as I have no time.

18 Oct 09

Last week’s plan was upset, so into office at 0500 silly o’clock, as haven’t cleared it of stuff to be packed in sea freight.

Syrian Embassy again – comeback in 2 weeks – okay so the message hasn’t changed and we depart in 7 days. Seems to be a case of the don’t contact anyone outside this building, but wait at the whim of Damascus to return paperwork. Have prepared a 3 pronged attack: 1. Try Brit Embassy if they have any contact in the Syrinam Embassy. 2. Try the BMM staff college boys, see if a Syrian student on the course can help. 3. Try Chris Veitch – been in Kuwait longer than any other professional Brit here I know and has wealth of Kuwaiti contacts. All 3 produce leads which are followed over the next week by phone.

19 Oct 09

Packers do not arrive. A heated telephone call generates a midday offer of men. Even though they came and assessed, agreed and noted a date, we are not on their planning sheet – grand screw-up. Only spin off is more time to finish our prep and regain time lost post-party.

Syrian visa - Syrian student (one of 2) on staff college course produces a promising lead with a named contact at the Embassy. Can’t get there today too busy.

20 Oct 09

See packers finish. Off to:

Syrian Embassy highest priority – contact, Mohammad, does not answer mobile – go to Embassy, late and everyone leaving for lunch, but good chat with the English speaking lady I met before and she chases, finds Mohammad and long phone chat, but still a wait!! I do at least get across the idea that in 2 weeks (!) I will not be in Kuwait to pick up this promised visa, but on the road and NO I will not drop back into Kuwait to collect it..

21 Oct 09

Syrian Embassy – meet Mohammad. A high value meeting – Mohammad does not effectively speak English; nevertheless, we spend 2 hours chatting, drinking green tea, coffee and meetimg half his work mates. This is influence and contact forming stuff – called “Wasta” in Kuwait. I have established the right to go straight to Mohammad’s office now, rather than the bun fight for attention at the front “visa window”.

This success is followed by a 3-cornered telephone conversation with our Housing Officer, a British Army Officer in BMM. It is a far longer story, but out of context in the middle of our 2nd heated (v heated) telephone conversation, he offers to show me the villa allocated to my successor in Kuwait. I have only been asking to see it for 4 weeks. (I have a responsibility to have up and running all the facilities that my replacement will need on arrival and to show him around and hand over the job. We have time to gather our papers and meet to go off to this villa. We enter and go straight into yet another heated discussion. 35+minutes and we are not progressing beyond raking over dead ground. I am desperately short of time and here I am time-wasting. The upshot is that on a final prompt to progress to worthwhile discuusion , ie the future handover of my accommodation and take-over of my successor's (Phil) , this Officer flips. I am assaulted, a less fit person he would likely had killed ......

Evening lost to hospital scans, specialist advice and friends/colleagues advice. Luckily no broken bones – just bruising, sprains and cuts. Following day lost to the repurcussions and initiation of formal enquiry by miltary police from the UK. We operate under UK law not Kuwait law. I am determined that this b*** who has left me in a neck brace and wasted 2days of my life will not ruin our adventure of driving back to the UK. The worst result is that having finalised my clothes packing I have now lost half (1) of my trousers for travelling and ¼ of my shirts – exhibits 1 and 2 for the prosecution. Am I to spend a day naked at the wheel as we travel home?

You thought we were busy – today moved into Radisson Blu hotel for our final 6 days in Kuwait. Still organising air freight. What remains does not fit into the Pajero – a re-think needed. My replacement Phil arrives at 0630 tomorrow, I have 6 days to handover the job, accommodation as required and show him Kuwait and enough friends to get started. Time lost has put several things back, so brinkmanship is heavily in play.

22 Oct 09

0530 start to pick-up Phil at the airport. None of our stuff done today – showing Phil around.

23 Oct 09

Show Phil some more. Dinner at friends

Help from friends allows a slow dis-engagment from showing Phil around and allows us to finalise our own departure.

24 Oct 09

Our final desert BBQ to say goodbye to friends – with Phil, his first of many.

27 Oct 09

Final pack of the Pajero – up to the roof almost. How’s that, there are only 2 of us but we only just fit in. Roof rack full. Heavy with 2 extra petrol cans and twice that quantity of water. Handling quite different and a bit twitchy around 60 kph; seems to come through this and is stable at higher speeds up to 120 our limit for travelling and the legal limit in these parts.

A final BBQ at Maggie and Graham’s then a warm farewell. No afternoon 40 winks achieved, so exhausted before we begin after that last few weeks effort and trauma.

We are nearly an hour late on departure and still disorganised within the Pajero, but we are away ...