Fucking Győr.

A couple of 'road' entries from my journal, 2007:

Friday 14th September

I am sat at the Apostel restaurant in Győr, Hungary. I am eating mushroom soup, and will be having stuffed "Kiev" turkey as a main course. I wasn't planning on splashing out so much, but then again I wasn't expecting to be in a town so without cheaper alternatives. It's a bit too posh if you ask me, but obviously it has to throw a McDonald's in the vicinity, too. Anyway, I plan to sleep rough here tonight. I went looking for a campsite which was supposedly at one end of town by the river, but it wasn't to be found. Not by me anyway. An old lady tried to help me, but the communication barrier was just too wide. Bless her though. I then found a penzion after searching the streets for a hostel or similar cheap accommodation, and found that the price i would have to pay would be 8000 HUF, which worked out to be about 1000 Czech crowns [which was about 40 euros then I believe]. I'm not paying that much when I wasn't even planning on staying in this town. There's not much to do here, it seems, anyway. It seems to rely mostly on rich tourists: a few posh restaurants and wine bars and some floodlit churches. Oh, and a sports centre park by the river for the aging toffs who want to ram a few balls at eachother.
I was hoping to hitch straight to Lake Balaton when I arrived here but the sun had almost set and I didn't want to be stranded by the side of the road in the darkness [I didn't realise then that to be 'stranded' by the side of a road in a field would have been more preferable, especially since I had a tent with me]. There's plenty of parks around I should be able to find reasonable comfort in with my sleeping bag.

- I finally left Prague on Wednesday 12th September and took a bus straight to Bratislava. I spent two nights there, spending a whole day with Ewa, a Slovak friend, exploring the city.
It was while I was in Bratislava that I decided to head South to Lake Balaton to spend some time camping by the lake outdoors.


Saturday 15th September

And what fun sleeping rough turned out to be. That night I finished the soup and turkey and paid, then thought I'd walk around town until I got tired and found somewhere suitable to sleep. The small park I thought of sleeping in initially turned out to be no good, since it was next to the recreational holiday camp and there were young kids (I say kids, I mean young adults) walking past the whole night to and from town. Plus, a pair of young lovers seemed to be making good use of the secluded park, from what I could hear. I eventually found another park close to the train station by the main road which wasn't too brightly lit, so I found the darkest area I could and laid out my sleeping bag and crawled snugly into it. It was starting to get quite cold at this point, but the sleeping bag kept me more than warm enough along with my trousers and woolly hat that I kept on. It took me a while to get to sleep at first, because of the noise of the traffic and the sound of the odd person walking past on the main road. After perhaps 20 minutes of sleeping lightly, I woke up with a man crouching next to me, and his bike leaning against a nearby tree. I'm not sure whether I awoke from him trying to wake me, or whether I coincidentally (or instinctively?) happened to wake up in time. He was attempting to ask me what I was doing there and why I was sleeping on the cold ground. I tried to explain to him that I was warm and dry enough in my Norwegian sleeping bag. "It's OK, I'm on holiday", I said. His English was limited to a very few words and he couldn't speak any German, which I found surprising considering everybody else I had spoken to in this town had spoken German as a second language. I then realised that he was offering to let me sleep in his house. Although I thought it was a nice gesture, I wasn't going to sleep in a complete stranger's house, especially one I could barely communicate with. He eventually left after many more attempts to fathom why I was happy sleeping in the park, shrugged his shoulders, shook my hand and left. Although the incident wasn't particularly strange I found it hard to back to sleep. What if he was to return with the intention of robbing me when I was fast asleep again? It was about 00:30 at this point, so I thought I'd take a walk and see if the first park had become quieter and more suitable for sleeping in. My legs were knackered at this point from walking so much all day and sleeping on the ground. It took a while to get the joints working smoothly again.
I reached the other park again which was at the other side of town over the river. The area was just as busy as before, so after walking around for another hour or so I decided to return to the spot where I had managed to sleep earlier. Maybe the chap had returned to the spot while I was gone hoping I'd found somewhere better to sleep or hoping to steal my belongings. Anyway I fell asleep again, this time for longer, until I actually got quite hot in my sleeping bag. Less people were passing by on the road behind me by this time so I wasn't woken that often. At one point I was woken by a couple sat on the wall behind me at the edge of the park. They were apparently oblivious of me so I just led there watching them wondering when the night would be over. Then, in between myself and the couple who steps into view directly in front of me? The same man, again! He crouches down in front of me with a gesture that seemed to suggest "what are you doing?" I replied with the words "Oh, hello... what?" still half asleep. Perhaps he was being genuinely sympathetic and wanted to help? Perhaps he had gone home thinking "I shouldn't have left that poor young man freezing to death in the park." So he gestures for me to sit on a nearby bench with him. I go ahead with it since any chance of getting back to sleep now seems futile. I put my sleeping bag away and put my shoes on, then follow him to the bench. I begin to get a chill from the sweat I'd accumulated in the sleeping bag. He starts asking me where I'm from and what I'm doing here. I tell him I'm English, I live in Prague and I'm on my way to Lake Balaton to do some camping. I tell him that my tent and other belongings are locked away at the train station and I intend to pick them up in the morning. He asks me if I have any money and I tell him -yes, I don't need any money. He asks "many?" and I tell him I have 1,000 forints. I actually have 10,000 forints but I see no reason to tell him I have it. He asks me to show it to him. It's at this point I start to think he's not looking out for me at all. Why would he want to see my money? He asks me if that is everything I have, and I tell him "of course, I have more in the bank". All I want to let him know is that I don't need or require anything, I just want to get to sleep until the morning. He starts to ask me if i would go to the bank with him to get some more money out, presumably to pay for a room or something. I try to explain to him that even if I did get more money out there is nothing I can do with it since there is no longer anything open at this time of the night. He is blatantly waiting for me to expose some cash so he can nab it and do a runner, I thought. I continue to refuse going to the bank with him and eventually leaves reluctantly with another shrug of his shoulders. Fuck, all I wanted to do was get some free kip [sleep] for the night.
It's now 05:00 in the morning and I'm sat at the train station. It's still dark but the first trains are coming into Győr. Fucking Győr.

Still have my thumbs in the wrong place: in my pockets

So, the trip never happened, or at least there was never any hitch-hiking involved. The morning I set off I was completely not in the mood for the trip, I had certain reasons for wanting to leave Prague, but the wrong ones for taking a trip alone.

My first mistake was taking much too stuff. I took a very heavy tent with me that I never used, which made walking for more than 10 minutes hell. At the last minute before leaving I decided to get a bus directly to Bratislava instead. I spent a couple of nights there, hoping to rejuvenate some optimism. I then set off (by another bus) to the town of Győr in Hungary. From here I was pretty much 100% determined to hitch-hike towards Lake Balaton to the south of me. I had a route planned and everything, all I had to do was find the road that would have led me all the way there. There was one problem: the sun was setting. Should I risk attempting to hitch-hike for the first time in the setting sun, until it goes dark and minimizing my chances of finding a suitable place to sleep? I headed off through the town of Győr towards where I thought the road was. It turned out I was walking in the wrong direction. I stopped in my own footsteps, and began to feel the chill of the evening coming on and the points of stars beginning to form in the sky. Shit.

I ended up staying the night there (sleeping in the park, which is another story I'll write about later), before having a pretty similar trip the next day, this time not involving a bus, but a train.
It was only a few days before I was back in Bratislava and then back in Prague. I was definitely not in the right mind for this trip. I had left Prague a little depressed about a problem with a girl, and I think it was this that forced me blindly back to Prague so soon in the end.

Should I have travelled with a companion? Something tells me this would have helped, when I felt like I was defeated I would have had somedy to pull me along. At the same time though, it was something I wanted to accomplish by myself.
I certainly won't take as much baggage with me, especially if I'm not going to use it.
And should I have left with such an absence of excitement? Something tells me that if I'd done as planned and tried hitch-hiking, my face would have been beaming for hours after getting my first ride.

Another year has passed. I still haven't hitched, but I'm planning some shorter trips in the very near future.

Watch this space.

Cyrillicisms

Since the last post I still believe I'm sticking with the same route. I'm basically going to head towards the Montenegro/Croatian coast, via Slovakia, Hungary, and Serbia. I'll probably spend a good few days there along the coast and chill out and meet some people. I'm hoping that I meet enough locals along the way that will give me ideas about places to visit and things to do there and on the way back. Which is where Couchsurfing will come in handy.

I don't feel like I have anything to do between now and when I make the trip.
I don't see the point in planning it, I suppose all I can do is find as much local information as possible that might help along the way. I noticed in Bulgaria (last time I was there) how much more difficult it is to get around and understand in a country that has a cyrillic alphabet, even though I wouldn't have a clue what anything meant if it wasn't in cyrillic! At least the spoken language is similar sounding to Czech in Serbia and Croatia, I might then be able to pick up a few phrases quite quickly that might make getting around a little easier.

Possible Route

Using Liftershalte I've been checking out possible itineraries for the trip. With this website I can scroll through a map of any area I like and find out about good/bad hitching spots.
The site is not very old as far as I know but already there are quite a few helpful spots along the (possible) route I want to take.

Leaving Prague I will probably head first to Brno, which can be reached along one road over a distance of X kilometres. From there I could head almost directly to Bratislava (where I could possibly meet up with Eva), then head for Budapest and Belgrade, before heading towards the coast in Montenegro.
I don't plan to stay in the cities every time I stop by them, since I want to spend as much time as possible in the countryside. It does make the journey a lot simpler though, especially since any drivers heading for cities are likely to be going a much further distance than any drivers that are not.

Destination Possibilities (still open to edits)

• The sea! (Adriatic)

Couch Collecting

Over the past few days I've been collecting contacts on Couchsurfing from various cities. Hopefully one or two of people can have me crash at their place on my trip for a night and help me experience places with a local as a guide!

The site is amazing. The idea is you search for anybody who has a couch available in the area and you can request to sleep on their couch for a night while you're travelling. Of course you can do the same yourself and host anybody from anywhere to crash for a night on your own couch.

This would be much more in preference to camping out alone all the time or staying at hostels which would 1. cost me money and 2. not give me many opportunities for meeting local people.

Destination Unknown

My original thoughts were to travel aimlessly on this trip, to take whatever routes and actions pleased me at any time. I'm beginning to think that this could be a bad idea and could make the act of hitching a lot more difficult. If I'm stood by the side of the road and I'm not particularly bothered where I am going; for one, whoever picks me up is going to be less interested and secondly, when I arrive at my destination I won't be particularly overjoyed to have reached it.

I have then come to the decision that it would be best to have a destination in mind throughout the trip. That way no matter where I am while I'm on the road (whether I'm travelling in the right direction or not) I'll have somewhere in mind as a target, and all matter of the journey will be relative, ie. whether I have enough money/time/energy to make it to the destination.

Question now is, where?

I have a few places in mind at the moment.

If I do decide to return to Prague after the trip:

• The coast would be nice (Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria)

Or if I decide to make an extended trip from Prague all the way home I could visit:

• France, Austria, Belgium, Holland

I will only be limited by my funds (I will have about 500 pounds to spare) and time (I have until December to return to England, and as long as the weather doesn't turn too bitter I'll be happy to stay on the road).