Decisions
I arrived in Cesky Krumlov mid afternoon after a long bus ride from Prague and made my way to the “Krumlov House” hostel that I had booked the day before. Cesky (pronounced “Chesky”) Krumlov is quite a place indeed. A UNESCO hertiage site, the red-roofed cobble stone city is built around an impressive castle complete with grizzly bears in its moat. The city’s charm is indescribable and it reminds me of nowhere else I’ve ever been. I wasn’t surprised in the least to learn that my hostel’s staff was made up of other travelers who had decided to stay a few months longer than planned. Being October, the off-season was setting in and the streets were increasingly quiet which was nice change from Prague. The first night there I met up with an Australian named Trent and we hiked up to a small church on a hill that overlooked the city for sunset. After that we got cleaned up and went out to dinner with a couple of other people from the hostel and the two girls that ran the hostel. We ate at a place that was right on the river which ran just below the castle. It was chilly there, however, so the restaurant gives you blankets to wrap up in while you eat and enjoy the view. The next day I met a Canadian named Judy, which, little did I know at the time I would end up traveling with for about 16 days. That morning we made reservations for our group of 5 at a popular Czech BBQ joint for dinner. By the end of the day the group had ballooned to 9 as we all met more people to invite. After Rachel, Judy and I made the reservations we went to a National Geographic photography exhibit that was showing in the city. As I looked over the pictures ranging from the Society’s first published photos to the present I felt a familiar sense of awe and longing… the same sense that I used to get flipping through stacks of old NG magazines when I was little. All I could think to myself was: “I want this.”
I spent the rest of the day wandering the castle’s gardens and a little of the countryside beyond it before heading back to the hostel and then to dinner. I had given up on Munich and decided to head towards Vienna where I found later that Judy was also heading too so we decided to travel down together. The next morning I met her at another hostel to catch the bus into Austria. In Paris I met two Canadians named Greg and Taylor who originally told me about Cesky Krumlov. In Paris, Greg flew out to Switzerland a few days early and Taylor caught a flight to Hong Kong the same day I left for Belgium. More than a month later and without any contact in between I bumped into Greg at this hostel in Cesky. We live in a very small world.
The bus to Austria was really a van and the driver took us speeding through a mountain pass that looked very much like “the back way”. It literally felt like on of those interactive movie rides where you sit down in front of a screen and the seat moves and shakes you around. Without too much delay we crossed the border and arrived in Linz, Austria just in time to catch our train to Vienna. Vienna ended up being a quick stop as Judy and I walked around the city well into the night and decided to leave for Bratislava the next morning. When I met up with her the next morning she had met another American guy named Rich who was also headed to Bratislava so he joined us as we took the train into Slovakia. Our last day in Bratislava turned out to be quite an adventure. We all debated between taking a bus or a train to Hungary and eventually we flipped a coin and went with the bus, however we missed the one we needed by about 5 minutes. After that we decided to go with the next train out a few hours later. We went from the bus station across town to the train station where we checked our backpacks into the luggage room and used our extra time to check out the castle about a 30 minute walk away. Our plan was to just walk to the castle, explore it a bit and then leave in time to hail a cab to the train station. It went smoothly until it came time to find a cab to the station… since there were none.
Our train (the last one to Budapest that day) would leave in about 20 minutes and we had 30 minutes of walking to do. We moved quickly, trying in vain to spot a cab along the way. As time grew shorter we hopped a city bus and rode it a few stops and jumped off just before it turned down the wrong street. We were still about 5 blocks away and it was coming down to the wire so as soon as we left the bus we ran all out back up the hill to the station, grabbed our bags and dashed to the platform just in time… to realize our train was late and we had 15 extra minutes. You can’t help but laugh at situations like that. Once the train arrived we elbowed our way onboard to find that it was packed. There were people standing in the aisles and all of the compartments were full or so it seemed. We were all sweaty and tired from the run so we asked the conductor about upgrading to first class so we could get seats. He informed us that the 1st class car was actually deemed 2nd class since there were no 1st class tickets actually offered for this train. This information didn’t seem to be widely known as we scored a compartment all to ourselves in the 1st class car and did some much needed relaxing. After about 20 minutes a man arrived at our cabin holding out a badge that said “ticket inspector”… but he was wearing no uniform and didn’t have the usual machine to stamp our tickets. We gave him our tickets, but I was pretty suspicious of the whole situation especially when he told us that this was first class and that he would have to charge us for an upgrade when there was a “2” clearly visible on our door and the uniformed conductor specifically told us otherwise. After we explained that the uniformed person told us to come to this car he told us he would be back in 5 minutes and we never saw him again.
Our train’s engine failed twice and they had to hook another one on which delayed us for a little over an hour. We arrived in Budapest after dark an in the rain. We didn’t have a hostel yet so we stumbled around in the downpour until we found one I had been looking at online the day before. After we laid our things down we went about finding dinner, but we were all getting a bit testy having had our patience taxed so thoroughly throughout the long day. We got some goulash at a cafe and had a drink before Judy went back to the hostel and Rich and I hit a local billiards joint to shoot some pool over a few beers. The next morning we all slept in, cooked a nice breakfast and took it easy. Budapest turned out to be quite a good town to settle down in for a few days. We explored the sights, visited one of the famous thermal bath houses, feasted in a medieval cellar, and I was introduced to Edelweiss, the best beer I’ve had to date.
From Budapest Rich had to get back to Frankfurt to catch his flight back to the states so we said our goodbyes at the train station early the last morning before Judy and I headed south to Zagreb, Croatia where we had decided to rent a car for 4 days. Splitting the cost it was only about $55 each which I thought was a good splurge especially since they gave us a much nicer car than I reserved. From Zagreb we drove south towards Plitvice Lakes National Park, but it was around 8pm by the time we got in. There are no hostels outside of major cities in Croatia, but private accommodation is cheap, plentiful and government regulated… mostly. Usually its just person or family who has sectioned off part of their house to rent out rooms. We averaged about $20 or less a night each for an apartment style room with a kitchen throughout Croatia. After we found our room for the night after driving down from Zagreb we got some sleep and left early to explore the park the next day.
Plitvice Lakes National Park is a series of “Falling Lakes”, lakes that are essentially spilling over and cascading down into more lakes, which are doing the same and so on. To say the park’s beauty is breathtaking would be a gross disservice. The waters are crystal clear and tinted with a brilliant turquoise color that, when set against the colors that Autumn brings, makes it hard to look away. Here, I believe I have to let my pictures do the talking since its quite hard to describe how utterly gorgeous it is.
After spending a full day wandering the park we got another room in the area that night, cooked an awesome dinner, complete with soup, sausage and spaghetti and crashed out. We got an early start the next morning and drove out toward the coast. I was quite surprised at how varied the landscape was and how quickly it changed. We drove through gently rolling mountains that reminded me quite a lot of where I’m from, but 30 minutes later we were winding down craggy mountain roads that led to the country’s ragged rocky shores. We spent all day driving down the awesome coast and stopping at a few small towns along the way. We ended up staying in a little place called Biograd for the night before dropping the car off in Split the next day. After leaving Split we caught a ferry out to the island of Hvar where it was warm and sunny enough for a swim. The beaches were all rock, so we walked along the coast until we saw a good place to get in. Upon doing so my camera (waterproof) fell out of my pocket and down to the bottom. I didn’t have a mask, so I tried to spot it and dive down a few times. On the last attempt I came up to the surface and realized I couldn’t see… my contacts had been washed out of my eyes as I was looking for the camera. Judy walked back to town to find some goggles while I waited at the beach. Not long after she left an old German couple showed up for a swim… with a mask and snorkel. After some broken German, broken English and makeshift sign language the man dove down and came up with my camera. I thanked him and laid in the sun until Judy got back with the goggles. By that time the sun was going down and the air was turning colder so we headed back to the hostel we were staying at and cooked some dinner.
Leaving Hvar we took another ferry to the island of Korcula (Korchula) which, in my opinion was even more impressive than Hvar, which is really saying something. Again I’ll leave the description to the photos. After a couple of nights there we caught our last ferry to Dubrovnik on the mainland. From Dubrovnik Judy had to head back up north to catch her flight back to Holland and then back to Canada, so we parted ways as I headed south into Montenegro. On my own once again, I arrived in Kotor, Montenegro around 11pm and found the same kind of private accommodation as Croatia. I stayed in Kotor that night and the night after just to unwind a bit from so much moving around in Croatia. While I was there I hiked up the old ramparts to the fortress built on the cliffs overlooking the city. It was quite an incredible walk and the view was magnificent. Eager to keep moving south toward Greece I decided to leave Kotor and get into Tirana, Albania for a day or two before finally getting to Athens. I got a bus to the very southern end of Montenegro to the city of Ulcinj. I arrived there mid afternoon and found that the only bus that crosses into Albania doesn’t leave until 6am the next morning. I was approached by a cabbie who offered either a room for the night or direct passage across the border to Shkodra, Albania where I could catch a minibus to Tirana. Considering the prices and the look of Ulcinj I decided to keep moving and took the cab ride. We sped along through old worn roads and rocky passes and I noticed things getting more and more disorderly the closer we got to Albania. I literally knew nothing of Albania save for what I had read in my guidebook (which wasn’t much) and had no idea what to expect going in. We arrived at the Montenegrin checkpoint where the cab driver leaned over, pulled a screwdriver out of the glove box and proceeded to pop the “Taxi” sign off of the top of his car. We moved on to the Albanian checkpoint where I paid the 10 euro “entrance tax” (there’s another 10 when you leave) and got my stamp before we pressed on to Shkodra.
I have to admit I was pretty surprised at what I was greeted with upon entering Albania… the outskirts of Shkodra looked almost 3rd world. Dusty trash-lined streets ran through the worn out city and the traffic was pure chaos. I’m sure its nothing compared to some of the places I will find myself later on, but this was my first brush with this type of environment and I can’t deny experiencing a bit of culture shock. I thanked the cabbie and made my way over to where the minibuses were gathered and negotiated a ride to Tirana. Albania has no official bus system, the transport within the country consists of Furgons (minibuses) who wait around at certain points and leave whenever they have enough people to make the trip profitable. Riding through the countryside towards Tirana we passed old communist block buildings and countless little bunkers that are dotted across the land. Some parts looked alright, but we also passed shanty towns.
Tirana is the capitol city of Albania, but it isn’t much different from the rest of what I saw. The streets are dirty and incredibly dusty, a lot of buildings in disrepair, but despite the state of the city its really quite safe and I find it growing on me. I had a great time wandering through the back alley markets where people sell phones and cameras out of the trunks of their cars and watching the crazy traffic whiz by. Every time I cross the road it feels like I’m playing a game of Frogger. The frequent power blackouts all over the city can be a real pain, but people cope. Its history is fascinating to say the least and I could see myself spending a bit more time exploring the country, but I’m leaving for Greece tomorrow because I’m anxious to be on my way and I guess I should explain why…
It was on the islands of Croatia that I made a bit of a large decision… this trip is officially no longer just Europe. Over the course of these travels I’ve had an itch to keep moving east and stray out of Europe–to just keep going. I’ve said all along that once I get to Greece I would check my money and depending on whether or not I could afford I would keep moving towards Asia. Well I’m at that point and I’ve checked my remaining cash and that is exactly what I’m going to do. I should be in Turkey by November (yes, despite the stupid things my country is doing to upset our relations with them) and my rough guideline from there takes me south through Syria and Jordan before flying out to Dubai and on to India where I’ll head north into Nepal then east through Bangladesh and Myanmar on my way to Thailand, Vietnam, Laos etc. Or I may just fly direct to India or Thailand from Istanbul… I still need to check flights and make some decisions, but I’m definitely headed east. I really regret missing Spain and Italy, two of my top countries to visit in Europe, but I’ll make it back to them at some point. Right now my focus is on other things. I’m on an overnight bus to Athens tomorrow night, I’ll keep you posted. A tidal wave of pictures should arrive shortly…
-Tyler
Day 50
I apologize in advance for this giant block of text that I’m about to put here. I hope it doesn’t look daunting enough to keep you from reading on.
Today is October 1st and Autumn is settling in across Europe. The air is becoming crisper, the leaves have begun to shift and fall and I can see my breath hang in the morning hours. Just as clearly as I feel the change of the season, so too do I feel the change in my life. I have been on the road for one month and twenty days and it has become apparent that this journey is the single best thing that I have ever done. I have learned just as much about myself and what I’m capable of as I have about the places that I have visited and the people that I have met. Not going on the road like this again is no longer an option. If I can’t find a job that lets me travel, then I will use the job I can get to travel.
Its been quite some time since I’ve updated with a post and there is no way I can fit everything that has happened into one, so I will try to give a quick rundown of where I’ve been since leaving Paris. After exiting France to the North I went into Belgium and stopped in Bruges and Antwerp before pushing even further north into Holland where I hit Rotterdam and Amsterdam. And what a town Amsterdam is… there’s no real way to describe it, but I’ll just say that it was quite interesting being in a country more free than my own. After that I moved east to Germany where I made a quick stop in Bremen before getting to Berlin, where I inadvertently started a trek through the thick history of this whole area. The hostel I stayed in was only a few feet from the East Side Gallery, one of the last remaining stretches of the Berlin Wall. The city itself is still very visibly sowing the East and West back together and its skyline is dominated by building cranes. I took a free walking tour around the city which led past a recently completed Holocaust memorial, the parking lot under which Hitler’s bunker still remains, the old Luftwaffe headquarters, Checkpoint Charlie, and many other historical sites. My stay in Berlin was cut short, however, by lack of beds available at hostels in the city so I took a night train into Poland and stopped in Warsaw for a few days before moving on to Krakow. Krakow is a beautiful city and quite a lot of fun, but it was something outside the city that I found most important. It is something everyone should see… indeed, must see for it is one of the most potent reminders in the world of what horrors human beings are capable of. It is a place called Auschwitz.
Few names carry more weight than this and it is rightfully so. Outside of Krakow there are two concentration camps, the original Auschwitz camp and its expansion just a few kilometers away, Birkenau, or Auschwitz II. As you enter the first camp, which is now a museum open to the public for free, you pass two layers of electrified barbed wire fencing and under an iron banner that reads “Arbeit Macht Frei” or “Work Brings Freedom.” Inside you find displays of living conditions and physical evidence of the mass murder that took place here. Piles upon piles of shoes, luggage, human hair which the Nazis sold to the textile industry, glasses, artificial limbs taken from the disabled, children’s clothing… infant’s clothing. You also find the prison block where the first test of using Cyclone B gas to kill large numbers of people took place… and the first specialized gas chamber and crematorium they built after it’s success. Once finished touring the first camp it is imperative that you catch the quick shuttle to Birkenau.
The first thing you notice about Birkenau upon arriving at the gate is it’s horrifying size. It absolutely dwarfs the original Auschwitz in scale. I have seen towns smaller than this camp. Most of it’s buildings were lost in fires during the liberation, but what still remains is more than worth seeing. The living conditions here were even worse and the death toll much, much higher. In Birkenau they built two more gas chambers, but unlike the first one in Auschwitz which could hold about 200 people at a time… these could each hold 2000.
After leaving the camps with heavy thoughts one tends to ask “how could this have happened?” This question, though, is not the right one. The question you must ask yourself after witnessing something like this is “how can genocide still be happening in this day and age?”
My last night in Krakow I caught a nasty cold from my lack of warm clothing in the continually cooler weather. The next day, after procuring some cold medicine I took a (really crappy) night train into the Czech Republic’s capitol city: Prague. While on the train, just before going to bed, the ticket guy in our car warned me and the other Americans that were in my compartment to keep valuables close and the compartment door locked because of gypsies on the train who were known to steal. It comes with the territory I suppose. I arrived in Prague around 7am without incident, but found the train station to be one of the sketchier ones I’ve been through complete with shady characters and a dodgey black-lit bathroom. I had booked my first hostel the day before, but I didn’t have the address or phone number and all of the information desks didn’t open until 9am, so I wandered around the station looking for anything I could use to find the address of the place. I checked my guidebook and noticed that it listed an internet cafe near the old town square that was open so I started walking. I got there around 8:30am and found the address, which happened to be right around the corner from the cafe. Since I was sick and exhausted from hosteling for the past two weeks I had booked a one person private room for a night to relax and get some much needed sleep.
After I checked in the receptionist lead me a block away to a completely different building and up to my own little apartment room… for about $55 a night. Score. I went out and bought a sweater and a new belt since the last notch on my old one is too loose now and spent the rest of the day relaxing, medicating and just recharging my batteries. I got a good night’s sleep and feeling a bit better the next day, I moved on to a hostel across town where I bumped into two american sisters that I had met at my hostel in Krakow. I’ve spent the past few days hanging with them and a group of Aussies checking out a bit of Prague’s night life… which is pretty awesome, I have to say. I love Prague, the city is stunning but I feel I’ve stayed one day too many and its definitely time to be moving on. I leave tomorrow for Cesky Krumlov on the recommendation of two Canadians I met in Paris. From Cesky, I figure I have two options: Continue southeast toward Vienna, Austria… or southwest toward Munich where Oktoberfest is in full swing. The only problem with Munich is finding a place to stay since everything is booked solid for the festival. We shall see.
Another picture post should follow soon.
-Tyler