A journey through Europe, the Baltic states, Russia, Mongolia, Japan, China, South East Asia, South America and back again to South East Asia in about eighteen months.
03 December 2005
prague
As you can imagine I was quite happy to leave Bratislava. At the train station, I bought a cheeseburger from one of the stalls. In keeping with the general theme of my visit to the city, there wasn't a burger in the bun. Just cheese and cabbage. I realised this while sitting on the train. The stall had pictures of its various offerings. It was a cheeseburger and it's a fairly international type of food. The mind boggles about this place.
I spent the 4 hour journey talking to a pleasant chap called Ivan who originally came from Prague. He left just prior to the invasion of the Russia/Warsaw Pact countries in 1968. They were unhappy with the manner in which the Czech's were becoming too politically liberal. Not communist enough to them. He ended up in Norway where he lives now. His choice of Norway was canny. Stalin made no territorial demands on the country after the war. therefore, there was little chance of him falling under the communist yoke again, as he saw it. He was lucky. After the invasion, the borders were sealed. It was his 60th birthday the day we met. We were greeted at the station by his sister who he was visiting. His sister bought me a tram ticket and she wouldn't accept any money from me. The nephew was instructed to take me to my hotel. He showed me a few sights en route and best of all, the most perfect site to view Prague in its entirety. My faith in humanity was being restored.
The Hotel I choose to stay at was a former convent, then became a centre used by the secret police as a prison. It is located in the old city. I kinda fancied sleeping in a cell. Vaclav Havel was banged up there during the 1989 velvet revolution. I swear it is still run by the secret police. Even the walls are adorned with larged, painted written rules - 100% no smoking, lose pass; 500 czk fine, lose key 2500 czk fine,no visits, silence after 22.00 and so on. The room was probably bugged too. Hope they enjoyed the farting symphony, a favourite of mine, the beer movement. They allow you to use the internet for free but for no more than 15 minutes. Strict rules govern it, no online games, only email, etc. What a palava! All this for 37 euros a night.
The city itself is incredibly pretty. I was quite surprised to see so many tourists. After all, it's December and getting acutely cold. I experimented with the chill by timing how long I can keep my bare hands exposed to the cold before they start to sting; daytime 7 mins and night 3 mins. I reckon once I reach Russia, my hand will permit no more than a few seconds exposure. Anyway, swarms of tourists crawl the streets. Generally en mass in tour groups. Half of China was there. You can forget about getting across the Charles bridge at anything other than snail pace. But I can see the attraction. This was once a very wealthly city and it has all the trappings that come with such wealth. Splendour, wide boulevards, superb buildings. The centre of the city is well policed but then they do not want to bite the hand that feeds them.
My time in Prague was low key but pleasant. Nice strolls, soup with wine, all so quaint. Did the usual thing by visiting two Irish pubs and a number of Czech pubs. The price differentials for beer is 50% between them. Guess which one is the more expensive? One of the Irish pubs is called Rocky O'Reilly's. All of the waitresses have enormous breasts and they struggle to fit inside tight fitting tops. These tops are adorned with hand prints over said breasts! No doubt, the selection process for a job there is pretty straightforward. The nightlife is pretty active, lots of people milling around in the cold and the Czech beer deserves its reputation. There are lots of touts trying to direct you to brothels but they aren't too much in your face. Once you dismiss them, they go away politely. My only brush with criminality was the night before last when a girl came up to me, gyrated her pelvis, started knocking her pelvis against my hip. This little manoeuvre was accompanied by kissing noises and a repetitious chant of 'f*cky, f*cky'.
After the upset with the bank card thing, I arrived in Bratislava after an uneventful journey with a heavy heart. I downgraded my accommodation from a mad Salvador Dali/Cubism hotel to a crumby hostel. Had to be careful with my dough and it was cheap. But it stunk. Badly. It was like the owner had been boiling old root vegtables for weeks. Or was it a dead backpacker?
I had to get out in the air. Went off to the Irish pub and there I encountered the worst service I have possibly ever had. Bratislava style. Yes, I was in a bad mood but there was no need for this d*ckhead to carry on like this. First, he blanked me after I sat at the bar, and carried on with other things then when I asked for a beer, he aggressively banged on the draught tap, then slammed the glass in front of me. Just to really p*ss me off, he gave me the lowest dominations he could find as change. A horrible nasty little c*nt. Anyway, I drank my beer and enquired of him his name. Get this, he said it is 'Jameson'. Oh, so you've named yourself after an Irish whiskey then. I repeated my request. Mario. Ok, and I wrote this on top of the receipt. It had the address of the bar on it. He went beserk. Why do you write it? I told him straight up that he treated me, a customer, with great contempt and I would be writing to his boss to inform him. Surely his boss should know that one of his staff acted in a way unbecoming of an Irish pub. The pubs name is 'Dubliner'. I bid him farewell.
Off I went to the Christmas market for some punch. I was feeling blue. Things were going badly. I seen a hobo and bought him a punch too. Maybe this little act of kindness would help lift my mood. It didn't and I decided to head back to the turnip aroma of my hostel. My benchmark was the train station as I knew the route from there. Stupidly I drank a shed load of vodka at one of the outdoor stalls. I ended up not so much communicating but talking to an old Roma woman. About sixty. Fine specimen. I was befriended by some bloke. Very foolish, a train station attracts the worse of the worse. I realised he was up to something so buoyed up by the vodka I headed back into town to get away from him.
Ended up in some pub come nightclub. A old decrepit little women of at least 70 years age offered me fellatio. She had no teeth for f*ck sake. Another git became my best friend. By this stage I was drunk enough to lose my caution. It was this guy who pick-pocketed my bag. He took my Primo Levi book (not that that f*ck would know), my mobile phone and ipod. I had about the equivalent of 30 euro in my front trouser pocket. He got that too. He must have been working on my camera when a girl came up to remonstrate at him. She noticed what had happened. The staff prompty threw him out. My bag was securely held at the front with the strap over my neck. He was good at his craft, the w*nker.
The girl who came to my defense name is Milana. Same age as me. Quite pretty. She took me under her wing and took me to the hostel via taxi. First we went to the hostel and I had to run in and get some dollars and then go to an exchange place to get Slovak currency. I now realised my ipod was gone but figured I had lost it due to my inebriated state. To demonstrate the level of my drunkeness I didn't even realise she was pregnant. Never mind 7 months pregnant. Nor did I notice the heavy bruising on her forehead. These things only became obvious in the morning. Before anyone gets carried away, she slept in a separate bed in the dorm.
When I woke I knew I had been a right gobshite. I checked my stuff, then I realised the extent of the theft. Then I looked for my cash, travellers cheques. GONE! Holy sh*t! No financial means at all. I kept very calm which surprised me. Off we went to find an American Express place to report the theft and seek reimbursement. The first problem was the office took two hours to find and then when we found it, it was just a travel office so no possibility of getting cash there. Fortunately, they wired cash to a local bank and then I could breathe again. I have more than enough for a while but hopefully I'll get bank cards in Berlin.
I took Milana to lunch I was genuinely grateful to her. She wouldn't tell me about how she got the bruises. Anyway, then she made her pitch. You know, a sad story that involved me lending her money. I told her to f*ck right off. And she did. I ordered the bill and it didn't add up. It was 20% more than its consitutent parts!
More examples of the trickery and criminal intent of these people are; exchanging money - the rate they use is not the advertised rate, I asked for a calculator to check to much disapproving looks, it was completely out. The hostel owner gave me the old 'I haven't got change at the moment, so I'll give you the balance later'.
When I packed my bag to leave, I found I had concealed my travellers cheques in it. Christ almighty! My lambs wool jumper was gone along with two socks and a universal plug. My coconut moisturiser too. Wonder who nicked them ?
I realise I brought this on myself and I have learnt a valuable lesson. But the ability of these Brataslavians to deceive, rob, con and cheat is exceptional. I note that from something I read that when the Czechoslovak army took the city in 1919, they proposed to change its name to 'Wilson's Town'. I have a better idea, call it 'C*nt City'.
Another sleeper train and this time bingo. I booked a two sleeper cabin and the nice ticket inspector came around to warn me about the possibility of theft from Hungarians. I was expecting the Roma to be in the firing line. The cabin has a door that seperates it from the cabin next door. When opened it becomes a larger space (obviously) with four berths. So, I found myself having paid for one bed now having the choice of four. Most satisfying.
The journey from Belgrade to Budapest takes around 8 hours. The train left at 10pm. I reckon I got about 2 hours sleep. Why? Because I rediscovered a childhood joy - sticking my head out the window. It was so good. Never mind that I have had my nose and ears destroyed by frostbite! This pastime was something I picked up when I was about 8 or 9 while travelling to Limerick to visit my relatives in Kilkee. I just loved it and evidently, still do. God help me on the Trans-Siberian express.
So, Budapest at 6am and it's freezing. I made the stupid error of assuming that there was only one international train station. There are are two. So, tired and cold, I made numerous errors in trying to get to the other train station where nearby my hostel is located. I negotiated the underground trains with magificient stupidity. Examples - going the wrong direction, getting off at the wrong station on three ocassions. Anyway, eventually I got there and it was cool that the hostel people allowed me to sleep until 10am. Usually, I would have had to wait for check in which is noon. Some bloke in my dorm was snoring heavily. I wanted to kill him.
Budapest itself is a very beautiful city. The architecture is wonderful and ornate. It's easy to see it's former glory in most places having been spared the ravages of war. But the jury is still out on whether I like the people. They have a strange tendancy to be a certain character one minute and then bang, they completely change to another character. A generalisation, I know. Still I found many examples and to be truthful, I find them somewhat unfathomable. Also, they walk too f*cking slow. I like to pace a little and if they hear me coming, they turn around expecting me to be a weilding an axe. No, you just walk too f*cking slow! Speed up, get a move on, God damn it.
One good thing was getting to see Steroe MC's. But I had to sh*t myself a few times to get to the venue. The hostel owner warned me it is a dangerous area. The reason is it is located in the middle of the city park and it's very poorly lit. There are hardly any people about. The clues are there. If you had to leggit from some murderer then you'd have a long old run to get to civilisation again. Moreover, it had been raining heavily so the continuous patter of drops on the leaves was a little unnerving. Like the sound of a someone standing on a twig in a forest. At one point I was approached by, what appeared to me, to be a gluesniffer as I had been checking him out as I walked past. He said something incomprehensible, I raised my hand to dismiss him and carried on. Oh sh*t. I needn't have worried though as he seemed to have some kind of disability as he walked very unevenly. Like one leg was shorter than the other. Thank God for that, I thought. I made my getaway and it turned into an excellent night. Being a chicken I got a taxi back to the hostel as an another 25 minute walk through a dark park was beyond the tolerance of my nerves.
The following day, I decided to check on Pest. No, that's not a insect but the other part of the city. I was living in Buda which is more lively and Pest is on the other side of the Danube. It is the historical part. Nice things to see. I meandered around until I decided a plate of goulash soup wouldn't go amiss. I love that stuff. Have become quite a soup fan. Obviously it makes sense for the weather. Winter food. Anyway, off to the ATM, insert card, thing closes down. F*ck. I try to explain my problem to the folk inside the bank but it was no use (please see comments regarding Hungarians).
I contacted my bank to ask them to cancel the card but please, please don't cancel my back up card. Second card, what? That's already cancelled. For f*ck sake. I had to quit my sightseeing and make my way back to the hostel.
1. I'll probably buy a property in Serbia some time. They cost about the same as a pack of smokes in Ireland ! Nice place, nice people, pleasant sights if you know what I mean.
2. Trying desperately to get up straight on this blog. Tend to be two or three cities behind most of the time. This isn't good as I have not been diligent enough in recording things so my posts are derived solely from memory. After a few heavy nights, some of the detail gets lost. However, my travels are about experiencing and not necessarily recording.
3. I will edit the previous posts soon so that those among you who like to slack off at work to read my nonsense won't have a problem with your employers firewall. I think you're despictable by the way. for absuing your employers trust. Oh, if anyone puts a swear word (which is absolutely fine then please use a * where you deem apt)
4. I was congratulating myself the other day on having only lost a knife so far. Part of a travel set. And that was in London. Well, I should have shut up as a calamity of loses soon followed. More on that in the relevant post.
While studying the map of Budapest this morning, I noted a large cemetary near the train station. I wanted to make a reservation for the train journey to Bratislava so it made sense to check out things in its vicinty. It took about 40 minutes to walk to the train station as I stopped en route for a sneaky beer. While rummaging through my little black bag, I discovered I had forgotten the interrail ticket. Boll*cks. So I set off to find my secondary objective.
Being a right gobshite and stubborn with it, I took a route based on my interpretation of the map. This resulted in a walk of some 2 km around the whole perimeter of the graveyard. I was getting p*ssed off at each turning, no entrance was to be found. Moreover, I would have jumped the wall. It is only 6 foot or so but it is garnished in barb wire and other obstacles. Fancy that. A graveyard. Anyway, I eventually found the entrance. It is some 300 m from where I started.
It was worth the walk. I like to think of it as been a kind of pilgimage. The reason for the macabre choice for sight seeing is I think that the manner in which a culture honours it dead can say a lot. And in this cemetary, it does. Reverence. I have never seen such beautiful tomb stones. The older ones have statues of the deceased. Worthy of any museum. There is huge variations in style. Some have the deceased depicted with the things they loved. Their family, a painters palate, a musical instrument, a chessboard, a book and so on. It was truly wonderful. I accept that these graves were those of the rich as the ordinary Joe wouldn't be able to commision such things. But at no time did I see some grave stone depicting the person with a bag of dough, a bundle of shares or a portfolio of properties. That struck me. Death is a great leveller.
I happened to hear some classical in the distance so I moved toward it. There I witnessed a very moving and beautifully dignified funeral. It was so serene. The music was Liszt (predictably) and the departed had been cremated. The deceased was in a golden urn. The mourners stood back a few metres from a stone circular platform. In the centre of this circle stood a plinth. One member of the family walked with the urn and placed it on top of the plinth and returned to the others. Then a most magnificent fountain surged up from the edge of the circle and danced in different patterns with the plinth as its target. It was a truly beautiful spectacle. That was the moment that my eyes watered. Then the fountain stopped and the family member went to the plinth to collect the urn. The urn must have had holes in it as water poured out of it when it was taken off the plinth. I could only guess that the ashes were distributed by the fountain into the hallowed area. Just lovely. I later confirmed it.
On my way out I came across another grave that had me rubbing my eyes again. Yes, I'm a big softie! The grave stone was black polished granite with a Roman doric column at its head. Five feet from the ground. The deceased was born in the same year as my brother Robert. 1979. The person of undiscernible gender died in 2002. I reckon my little weep had something to do with Robert. Not that there#s anzthing wrong with him, of course. The key observation was that this doric column was only partial, unfinished but beautifully sculptered. To me it signified the tradegy of an early death. It was a well crafted, thought provoking sculpture.
Made me think of my departed father too. God rest his soul. Then I thought about my own eventual death. I had said I wanted to be buried in Glasnevin cemetary along with the Irish patriots and the other ramble, riff raff, like me. Now I think that in the absense of something like I saw today, I would like to be cremated and stuffed in an urn of some sort. This urn should be stuck in a cannon and then my remains are to be fired out over Dublin bay. Got that, Family?
After the interesting time I had the night before I was beginning to enjoy Belgrade despite my initial concerns. I find them, as a people, to be polite, warm and although it may not appear so, a friendly lot. They just have a different way to my way, if you know what I mean. I like their food, their way of life, their values. I highly recommend a trip there. Summer would probably be very nice. Just leave your assumptions at the immigration desk.
I suppose one of the things that really inspired me was the almost universal beauty of the women there. It is incredible. I had a similar impression of Moscow but Belgrade really is in a higher league. Every street is a cat walk of super models. Literally. My jaw dropped continually and at times I repeated to myself not to look so obviously affected by it. The concentration of beautiful women is exceptional. I'm sure my eye sight improved from all the rapid movement, darting here, then there, focusing on short distances, then long. Wow!
I tried to find a reason for this and the best I could come up with is that this region is at the centre of the tectonic plates of three cultures; Orthodox Christainity, Roman Catholicism and Islam. Although they mostly co-exist and inter-mingle, sometimes they erupt into unspeakable violence with one another. Witness the recent civil war that led to the break-up of Yugoslavia. But the inter-mingling provides the basis to my argument as to why the women are so wonderously beautiful. I mean, I would happily run around with a sword and an axe, dressed in an oily rag, with a bucket on my head if it meant fighting for anyone of these lovelies.
I spent two nights in Belgrade and in many ways they have been the best of my travels so far. I was more purposeful on the final day and got out to see stuff. Whether it was the fortress, the views of the Danube meeting the Sava, the architecture. I enjoyed the city and I will return.....
.....to buy a nice gaff. Undecided whether I want a coastal or city location. Dreaming.
My first overnight sleeper train. I wasn't familar with the way these things are arranged. Six sleeper cabin, four sleeper or two sleeper. The guy behing the glass told me that only two sleepers were available. No matter. 42 euros. Fine. Martin wisely advised me me this could be a good option as maybe there wouldn't be another passenger so I'd have the whole claustrophic cabin to myself.
I got on board and settled. I was sightly happy to note no others had joined me. The ticket guy came around and told me I would be joined by another in Bratislava. Two hours after departure. Ok, that's grand. Ten hour journey so by that time I would be happily in Blanket Street. The guy took my interrail ticket along with my reservation ticket. I happily obliged. Once he left I was filled with an anxiety that the guy was a con artist and I fell for it. Why did I give up my ticket? Surely seeing it was enough for a ticket inspector? I resigned myself to waiting till arrival in Budapest to see whether I had been mugged.
On cue, the other passenger arrived, a stately and well dressed middle aged man. He apologised to me in English for waking me. I said no problem. He climbed to the top bunk and I wasn't aware of his presence for a while. Then woke up and recalled that I was dreaming of talking to other people while eating an egg sandwich. I could taste it! When I woke up I was overcome as this chap was farting like a maxim gun. I grunted to express my irritation. At 5am, I was talking to him in a the gangway while waitimg for the train to pull in at that platform. He was going to Belgrade as he's part of a committee that oversees the health of the river Danube. He's from Bratislava. EU funded. His profession; an enviromentalist. Please, how can one be an envirnomentalist when one stinks out a confined space by farting all night. Surely that's aform of pollution. I recoil just thinking about it.
Found my hotel easily although it did involve an uphill trek. I managed to figure it out but the cyrillic aphlabeth was p*ssing me off. I came across many surly Serbs en route, I was tired, less than tolerant. The hotel was cheap. 22 euro. Ensuite bathroom. The lamp shade was broken, the plug socket was smashed, the TV had no usable buttons (I had to stick my little finger inside the casement to change channels) and it was too loud. I wrapped the speaker area in a towel to muffle the volume. My mobile failed to get a signal too.
All told I wanted to leave the next day. I picked myself up though and went for a beer....
It was snowing heavily and sticking too. I was thinking that I'd need to take it easy with the batter as coming back would be a problem if I was unsure of my footing and slipped over. A transcient thought! Of course, the first port of call was an Irish pub called 'The three carrots'. Funny name for an Irish pub. Met an American bloke, maybe 40-ish, who was extremely cagey about what he was doing in Belgrade. I only recall his surname, Doherty. Anyway when he started telling me that he was a close friend of Bernadette Devlin, I asked him some questions to kind of catch him out. They did. I made some excuses about needing to email my family and off I went, with the hope that he'd be gone when I returned. I estimated it to be an hour.
Went back to the hotel and promptly got lost but I was pleased I did. I came across the parliament and it has two great statues either side of its entrance. Great big ones. One of a bloke struggling with a horse. Fighting him hoof for hoof! And the other statue depicted his victory over the horse and now he was dragging the horse along. Got me thinking about the Serbs. Adversity, then strenght and determination. All looked great though, to me and the setting was to my liking too; snow everywhere. To get back to the pub I had to ask every young person I saw (they are educated, informed and mostly speak English) and like a drunken sap, I couldn't resist shaking their hand after each encounter. I was chuffed with they way they took their glove off before they engaged with my hand. Respectful.
Got back to the boozer and soon I was talking to two Serbs. It started like this. A middle guy turned to me (we were sitting at the bar) when his mate went to the bog and asked 'Is there such a thing as Western wisdom?'. I asked for a qualification, were we talking about culture, politics, arts or what. Needed to suzz him out a little. He seemed all right when I heard his response. I won't labour with the detail but it turned out this guy is a political editor for a Serb TV station and his sidekick, who seemed a right ejjit, was a TV presenter. They work for a station called 'Politica TV'. I was sceptical particularly as his sidekick, at the start of our conversation, said he was in the Serb Mafia and spent some time telling me how tough they are. I said fair enough, you haven't been to Sherriff Street though ! He rarely refrained from his catchphrase of 'nothing special'. In fairness we had a good chat about stuff (laced with little Ciaran style anti-American vitriol) and they exchanged email addresses, etc with me. Moreover, they told me to watch Politica TV at 9pm the following day and I would see 'nothing special' doing his thing.
And lo, it came to pass. 'Nothing special' was the presenter. Obviously I couldn't understand a thing being said but Serbia's very own Jeremy Paxman was on the box. Intrigued I searched his name online to see if I could discover any more information on this bloke. And I found something a little out of the ordinary butI need to research more to be confident of being correct. Here it comes, he's listed as someone being indicted for war crimes !! I reckon he's 37 or so. Built like a tank, tough but intelligent looking. Maybe journalism is his latest incarnation. Who knows?
