Last Furlong

Hitching from Kosice to Warsaw was pretty fun and quite easy. Got one lift from Kosice to Presov and there I met two English guys hitching to the Ukraine border..after a bit of a joke, I went to hitch behind them (which is common courtesy among hitchhikers).. something 3 bloody Slovakian girls didn't know about or didn't want to know about.The 3 girls came and caught a ride, then I went and finally the guys got a ride and overtook me. Then the two roads split and I waited on the road to the Polish border with the 3 slovakian girls, who soon got a ride. After a while, I got a ride up to near the border too and on the way I saw them waiting..haha.

Soon made it to about 5km from the border and some guy took me to a place near Krosno in Poland, from there it was a few rides up to Rzeszow.. walked through Rzeszow which is surprisingly small and hitched there for about an hour before getting a ride 15km.

I remembered that Kruopa (Vita) had left her book of signs in Wien and that I have them, so I used her Radom sign. Within seconds an old dirty van stopped and the driver explained that there was no space in the front, so I went in the back. Bit uncomfortable, the diesel fumes seemed to make me a bit high but it was good fun and he dropped me in the perfect place to get a lift to Warsaw.A few minutes of hitching and a car stopped, some old guy was also hitchiking there and he decided to join me in the car... whilst muttering something about Warszawa. The old guy was seriously hammered, looked like he'd obviously had a good time in Radom. When we got to Warsaw, he seemed to know a lot of the old homeless guys at Central Station which was not too surprising.

Stuck in Kosice

I get stuck at the border for a couple of hours, all the cars are Polish but none of them are stopping as they are full.. this is irritating. It also may have something to do with the fact I look like a really ugly cousin it *hairy guy from adam's family*.. the wind on this border is insane. After a few hours, some guy takes me but he's only going as far as Kosice.. which is actually within walking distance (18km).. although with the lack of sleep, I'm in no mood to walk.

Arriving in Kosice, he drops me off at the beginning of the city.. no idea why!! After a few hours of unsucessful hitching, I decide to get the bus into the centre but choose not to buy a ticket and then jump off the bus when the inspectors came on. However, it turned out they weren't inspectors but were guys in a navy uniform.. I didn't know Slovakia had a navy.. it doesn't have any sea!

I'm completely knackered by now with no food and no money, look and smell like shit and the only thing I posses is some Croatian Kuna and 25 slovak crowns to use the internet once. I have no tent and no sleeping bag, it's not looking good. What I decided to do was get a message to my parents to see if they could Western Union me some money which I would send back from Poland when I got my bank card. Only problem.. no Western Union until Monday, bugger.. well I spent a few hours looking for the cheapest hotel and managed to convince them to wait for payment.. I managed to change the Croatian Kuna which kept me in food for a day. Not too shabby in the end.

Anyway Kosice is quite a nice town, it's a little bit boring though...

Mad day!

I left very early and the hitching went well, the roads were terrible and there wasn't a great deal of traffic, so I really do believe that woman when she said there was no point hitchiking at night. I got a car from Vama to Campulung and then from Campulung to Iacobeni, from there an old guy took me into Vatru Dornei... all these places are wonderful little towns and villages in the Romanian mountains, the air is clean and the rivers flow. Unfortunately, so do the roads.. they've all been washed away during the winter and they're working hard to repair them this summer.

Somehow from Vatru Dornei, I managed to stop a car that went all the way to Dej.. it's quite a long way and takes forever considering the roads but it's a nice journey and I would have enjoyed it a little more had I not been in a rush and had no money. The hitch from Dej to Baia Mare was easy and so was the ride to the Halmeu turn off. I went for a piss, turned around and stopped a car before I had time to fully close my zip, that's how fast it is in Romania - never longer than about 5-10 minutes.

(Apparently 2 girls struggle to hitchike together and 2 guys too.. but singles or couples, you'll be fine)

A lift up the Ukraine border at Halmeu, where I was shitting myself because I know it's basically impossible to enter without any money. I clear the Romanian border, then get to the Ukraine border..

Ukrainian guards: How much money do you have?
Dan: Enough
UA Guards: How much?
Dan: 50 euros
UA Guards: Let's see it
Dan: Erm well it's on my bank card - I point..
UA Guards: That's a telephone card
Dan: Oh sorry, my bank card must be at home..

So the result is that they wanted to send me back to Romania with a no entry stamp in my passport, I explained to them that I would not be allowed back into Romania when I tell them why I was thrown out of Ukraine. They know that's also the case and one sympathetic guy brought me aside, he explains that according to the rules.. I should fuck off.. but they will give me a Transit stamp which allows me to travel 17km in Ukraine to the Hungarian border by Vilok. Where they will ask me no questions and I will be back in the EU.

It's not the best thing because I wanted to hitch to Uzghorod but it's pretty good of them to help me out like that. Not many cars in that part of Ukraine but I managed to hitch a religious guy in a Lada who trapped my hair in his sun roof accidentally... bloody hurt that.

After a while, I arrive at the Hungary border..go through without any problems but I have no idea where the fuck I am and I don't possess any maps because the way I was going, is the route I knew.. well I just approached some people and asked which way is it to Miskolc, they pointed in one direction but said it was about 200km. My hungarian hitching was going bloody well, cars stopped quite quickly and the roads there are superb.

By 10pm, I arrive in Tokaj.. which looks to me to be a very fun town. I then found out, that there having a huge hard rock/metal festival there with lots of good hungarian bands and Motorhead. I asked someone for directions to Miskolc and they're like no, no stay here, we drink beer. So I drank some beer with them and after some time the guy told me he lived right next to the Slovakian border, he's going there by train and then would take me to the Polish border by bike for a little adventure.

They went off to the Motorhead concert, I went and talked to some more people..students from Miskolc who for some reason thought that I owned a motorbike and when my first new friends came back, the guy had met some girl... it was clear he wasn't going to the border in any time soon. Well I went off for a swim down by the river and then had a few more beers with him. The town was seriously insane, full of lots of good people though.. around 9.00 am without sleep, I decide to hitch to Poland because the guy seems to have fallen in love!

I get a lift after seconds from this Hell's Angel guy who is going in the wrong direction, well so was I to be fair. He's a 200kg tatooed animal driving a BMW at about 200km/hr with a group of about 40 bikes circling us going RAAAH AAAAAAH UUUUUUH. He'd also split his pants, wasn't sure if he was aware about that, his CD player certainly had capabilities to play music very loud.

He dropped me just outside Miskolc and I got another car, a slightly more peaceful fella to about 13km from the border. I walked to the border, feeling pretty knackered. Absolutely no traffic there, just rich Poles coming back from holidays with about 8 children in the car. Bloody catholicism, it should be banned.

Campulung Moldovensc

I left Iasi kinda late because we woke up late and then went to Andra's house for some soup and to stroke her Schnauzer (Rudy, who is an insanely friendly dog!).. perfect soup by the way! When I hit the road, there was another guy hitching.. I thought I'd be at a slight advantage to him because I had some teeth but he caught the bus anyway in the end. I picked up a ride to Suceava, a town near the Ukraine border. Without my bank card, the chances of getting into Ukraine at the border were about 0, so I was heading over to the Halmeu border in the west where things are more relaxed.

From Suceava, a car took me to Gura Humorului.. the scenery up here is gorgeous and I highly recommend the area to everyone (except George Bush and Adam Ostrenga.. you are both wankers). A car stopped in Gura Humorului, an elderly couple who spoke only French and Romanian. My french is becoming terrible but I understood that she didn't want me hitching to Baia Mare at night.. so they took me to this cottage where I began to speak with two french girls. The french girls explained that the old woman said I could stay the night for free in the guesthouse that she ran. I was ushered to the kitchen where I was given a huge soup, lots of bread, some meat, some palinka (lethal romanian liquour), some water and some wine. I refused the alcohol as didn't know how it would react with the sensation of having drank the warm vodka... the soup was great!

After that, I was shown my room... which was amazing.. a huge comfortable bed and an enormous bathroom. I was offered all this for free, I would have actually given her some money had I not lost my bank card and not had any.

Iasi - Wup Wup Wup

Iasi is quite a nice town, I had an enjoyable stay.. with some Czech guys from HC who were also being hosted by Andra and Marius. We had a few beers and lots of joking about armpit hair.. men in Romania shave off their armpit hair you see, an idea which is particularly harmful to my mind! We met some Russian girls who were studying Romanian in Iasi and were also from HC and then some friends of Andra and Marius.... then went looking for a bar with a table football.

By the way - they have great Shoarma's in Iasi.. especially that one in the University Campus. The beer there is pretty cheap too.. the most expensive we paid was 2.5lei (it's about 60 cents).. the cheapest was 1.8 lei. Apart from the insane thunder storm, the city is a pretty good looking one... it also helps that the whole particularly beautiful female population don't seem to believe in wearing bras!! Men without armpit hair, girls without bra's.. it's the cultural centre of Moldavia and beats Barlad anyday!

The campus was a bit deserted and the bars kinda strange, insane Wup Wup music and hardcore porn playing at the same time. Whatever floats your boat. Anyway.. we decided to call it a night and head off home when Martin (one of the czech lads) goes for a piss, I smell bread and have a little wander into what looks like a factory. The idea at that time was to see if we could convince them to give us some free bread.. somehow I found this insane pub with about 4 people in, 3 guys insanely drunk, semi-naked and very friendly and one girl who was looking a bit embarassed (we decided that she was from Chisinau for some reason). They spent most of their time dancing to Wup Wup music (that balkan music where it's like Wup Wup Wup) and demonstrating their opinions on the Zidane-Materazzi incident in the world cup final.

We joined them for some beer and then I had the great idea.. let's get a shot of vodka. It was absolutely lethal and warm too - baaaaah, we all nearly died. Fucking disgraceful vodka, I can't remember the name of it though. There was one called Perfect though, and perfect it certainly wasn't.

Thanks to Andra and Marius.. I found the perfect hitching spot out of the city to Suceava.

Barlad be my name

The Bulgarian part of the hitch was less than impressive, I waited 3 hours in hardcore sun next to these guys who were waving loads of cash about - black market money exchangers. The guy was a little bit irritating, kept on offering his driving services for an insane 80 euros.. I was inclined to headbutt him.. the cheeky sod!

My sun cream was at the very bottom of my bag and I'd been too lazy to reach for it.. the results were not particularly inspiring!! Anyway after 3 hours, one guy took me about 10km and after about 30 minutes a bus stopped and agreed to take me to Silistra for free after I explained that I had spent all my Bulgarian money already.. a free 120km bus ride, is not too shabby.

I love the Silistra border crossing, it's very special - I must be one of the only foreigners that uses it but everybody is very kind there. The bus driver dropped me right next to the border and I was through in no time, all the border guards were full of smiles and there were a lot of puppies playing on the border for some reason.

The Silistra-Calarasi border is pretty cool, after you clear Romanian customs, you turn left and then right and within about 800m you reach the River Danube.. every 30 minutes a raft takes you across to the other side for free. From the other side, I hitched a car that was coming off the raft and it took me into Calarasi.

Romanian hitching is legendarily easy, everyone will tell you that drivers ask for money but it's not true.. I've never been asked in all my hitching there, they expect money from locals and of course it's accepted if a guest gives it but no one will ever ask. From Calarasi, I got a lift from a brewer to Slobozia and from there a truck to Galati.. this truck driver had spent a lot of years driving to Iraq and spoke fluent Arabic, Turkish and Russian, he let me ring Andra (my host in Iasi) to tell her what was happening and then wouldn't let me hitchike a car, so he flagged all the trucks down himself and found me a ride to Tecuci.

Tecuci is a bit of a shit hole but I almost managed to get a ride from this Moldovan chap with a stunning girlfriend who was going to the border, however his boss who was Chinese.. said no. Fucking businessman. I did succesfully get a ride from a trucker going to Barlad, Barlad is about 140km from Iasi and when I arrived there, there was no traffic at all. The local gypsys in a bar next to the hitching place were drunk and I was arousing an interest which I didn't like too much. Something happened in the bar.. seemed like a bit of a riot and an elderly woman started to throw everyone out with a stick.

I decided to enter the factory that the truck had drove to, to see if I could sleep there. I talked with the security and they said I could sit with them in the room until the morning. Around 2am, they changed shifts and they failed to tell them about me, this was unbelievable! The new guys come in and they're like.. who the fuck are you? I try to explain that I'm sleeping there for the night and there like no no, taxi, taxi, taxi, centre. I'm like... no, no, sleep, sleep, here (in a german accent for some reason) and oh shit, I have to leave.

I see a mini bus going the other direction from Iasi-Galati.. so I thought it would be a wise decision to go to a bank machine and get some money incase one goes the other way. I got the money out, put my bank card in my pocket and then felt something hit my foot. I got a bit bored of waiting to see if a mini bus would come and went for some kip in a field (just sleeping on my backpack, as I failed to bring a sleeping bag or tent.. pah, who needs them..only girls), the field actually turned out to be loads of ant hills, which is also the reason it was a tickling field.

Wake up in the morning because of the heat and I realise that I've lost my bank card.. I also realise I have a huge hole in my pocket, great it was that thing that hit my foot my the bank machine. Anyway, hitch to Iasi wasn't too difficult and I arrived about 11;30.

Sofia and Rousse

I had a great time in Sofia, as I said before it is one of my favourite cities. My hosts Mitko and Nadia were quality people, Mitko possibly one of the funniest guys I ever met.

"I am from a different country, we don't shout yeah yeah like stupid girls.. we sit proudly and make VAAAAAAAAA"

Anyway.. did a little sightseeing in the city with two other hungarian guests, bought a shit load of dictionaries and continued the standard evening at their place.. which involves lots of cheese and amazing food, some Rakija, some beer, some weed and lots of good music. The next day we spent in the nearby mountains, messing around in the snow and cleaning rubbish from the hiking paths.

Every day in Sofia was filled with lots of fun, I highly recommend everyone to go there and in particular to stay with Mitko and Nadia!!

Hitching out was a hell of a job, it seemed as though I had the perfect instructions to get to a hitching spot on the road to Pleven, Rousse and Varna. I have no idea what happened but I found myself in totally the wrong place by the road to Skopje and Thessaloniki.. I'd been buying bus tickets for the majority of my time in Sofia but had decided to hop on to a bus that was running round the ring road. Sure enough, a ticket control guy came - I was surprised, he was an old guy and not the standard bulldogs that you get in Poland.. I gave him a ticket that had already been used, he checked it and found that it wasn't the same, he asked for money.. I shrugged my shoulders and acted stupid (I kept a good position next to the door and just had to keep him talking until the bus stopped).. sure enough the bus stopped and I ran out of the door. He wasn't too eager to chase, in less than a minute later.. I hitchhiked a police car! I continued to hitch round the ring road which was taking quite a long time and the rain was heavy. Eventually a car took me to the correct place.

One more ride 50-60km up the road and there I had a two hour wait, some old woman was hitchhiking with a baby.. I was later told by the driver that stopped for me that she is always there and when a car stops for her, she gets in and starts screaming at them to give her money. The dude took me to Veliko Tarnovo and after that 3 more rides to Rousse.. just in time for about 20:30.

Now what to say about Rousse?? Well, it's famous for the border zone which is filled with ugly looking prostitutes, the architecture in the suburbs is less than inspiring but the city centre is very nice and the border guards are bastards!!

Apparently.. no walking over the border between Rousse and Giurgiu (romania), the trucks are not allowed to take me, the cars won't stop for the fear of me being an alien, the only way across is by bus or train.. which are twice a day or by taxi.. I enquire about how much the taxi costs, after all it's only 1km, it can't be much... 20 euros! 20 fucking euros? What?! Apparently they pay most of that back to the border guards in taxes.

Well, I'm not paying anything towards this particular border... I'll try from the Silistra/Calarasi border as I know that one well.

Anyway, I'm trying to get back before the weekend and have no time to stop in Bucharest now, so it's a direct hitch to Iasi.. we'll see how it goes.

Nothing's gonna change my clothes

As some people will know - particuarly my hosts, up until now I have been travelling without underwear. I left it in Poland for some reason, so I've been wearing swimming shorts and washing them everyday. Well in Belgrade, I finally opted to invest in some boxers, they're a bit small though!!

Didn't leave immediately to Nis because by the time I got ready to hitch it was getting a bit late. Myself and Knedlik managed to find a new host. A girl called Branka who was avidly supporting Italy against Germany. To be honest, I dislike both teams so had to wait for them both to get knocked out. I'm supporting France!!

Anyway, it was a nice evening but the next day was a difficult hitch from Beograd, I had to walk about 20km up the highway to the toll and there the police were stopping all the cars for themselves and hitchhiking to another town. Bastards! There were 2 other guys hitching and a car stopped for one of them and took me also. A Macedonian/Bulgarian./Serbian guy who smuggles 400+ packets of cigarettes across the border in his car. Quite a friendly fella though and he dropped me off in Nis.

Nis, is quite cool - pretty small but you can see normal people their compared to the usual over-dressed Belgrade bunch. Spent a nice evening down by the river, drinking beer and talking to some Serbian guys from HC.. aswell as this bizarre romanian guy who spoke about 10 languages.

Hitching out of Nis was bloody difficult, in fact I couldn't wait to leave Serbia just because the hitching was a pain in the arse. Waited over 4 hours in the direct sun but was finally rewarded with a lift from a Swiss couple in an old campervan.. they were driving to China overland through Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, pakistan, India and Nepal. Amazingly cool people, we had to wait for 3 hours a the border, the queue was quite big (well about 10km for trucks)... insane cigarette smuggling going on, everybody selotaping them all around their legs and stomachs etc.

The last hour was wating for the border guards to change shifts, god knows what they were doing but it took them forever.

Now I'm in Sofia.. I love this city, it's one of the best in Europe.

Zagreb and Beograd

Core.. crazy few days. In Zagreb, I was staying with 3 hc members (pocket, vrbova4grana and kangia.. ok she-s a dog but she counts too)..who had 4 guests, two girls from finland, one girl from Switzerland and the Swedish supermodel (me!)... I watched the England match on a big screen in Zagreb with the wonderful Dejana (dj), who saw me growling at the game, it was a fucking disaster.
That referee was a total clown. Rooney should have got man of the match and not sent off. The England fans were being very well behaved, seemed to be dancing with the Portuguese fans... not sure what that was about... all a bit pissed.

Anyway, it ended in tears and for me it ended in beers.. I don't know why but I decided to hop on the Tram 1 for a change instead of the one which takes me home... left me in a strange part of the city but I managed to make it back home in time for the wine which this guy Phillip (another cool dude from Sibenik) was happily swigging. I remember very little apart from repeating myself about the bastard referee.

Next day, I woke up with a rough hangover and tried to work out why, then remembered about the World Cup - bollox, a nightmare all over again!

Pocket's landlord was coming, so me and knedlik (the swiss girl) found a new host.. a girl called Tanja. Amazing view of the whole city from her place.. watched some bizarre film about some guy who was going through a mid-life crisis and bajomping half of america, one girl in a polar bear suit. Fuck, it reminds me of the England match.

Next day, it was time to move on. Knedlik had decided to come along with me to see Beograd because it's kind of on the way to Hungary (err not really but Serbia is Serbia and it's fun!). Absolutely mental rain when we were leaving, got immensely soaked but finally got a lift from some guy to Novsik (or something like that..), he dropped us off by a petrol station and after a banana or two.... a german fella took us to a few km's away from the Serbian border. The guy was fairly entertaining, he knew the whole history of Europe and then started to tell me about some club called Big Sister in Prague.. it's what he describes as good value.. 17 euros for all you can drink, all you can eat and a girl for an hour.. ahem. The reason it's cheap is because, as you are in the middle of a bit of humpty dumpty.. a film crew comes in and starts filming you. Insane stuff... so if you want to see what my driver look liked.. http://www.big-sister-club.com/

When I told him about my plans for the Siberian hitch.. his answer was.. Yakutsk? People get stabbed there all the time..so it certainly sounds promising. Then again, this chap had been robbed twice in Ukraine.. he went to visit a girl in her flat and was beaten and robbed by some big dudes and the second time he picked up a well dressed old woman hitchhiking and a few minutes later, a car pulled up behind him and started to raid him with a gun from her bag. Entertaining stuff, it's more or less what happens to single old german men. So Zak0r, if you are reading.. marry Nata while you can!

After a few more rides, we arrived in Beograd. Finding a host without much notice was impossible, we rang loads of numbers but most people were unable to host for one reason or another, lots of empty and dead profiles, lots of people who haven't logged in since they signed up, some people who put the phone down when they heard a foreign voice. So Mr. Veit.. if you think there are really 158,000 members, you are kidding yourself.

We went with one guy.. User:dobri, to one bar and met half of Beograd (non-hc.. but from some student organisation), a bit of a crazy night.. people insanely drunk and the nightlife is still the best in Europe. Convinced one cool guy who was crazy about english football to host us. Ha we met this guy in the street with what looked like a postage stamp on his head, either that or he'd head butted a pavement.. anyway for some reason he was trying to convince us he was a film director and also that he was the king of some ecological group and he was going to party down near the lake the next day. Bizarre guy who looked like a homeless Bill Oddie.. we played around with him for a bit, as he was clearly after only cigarettes or something.

Bill Oddie: Do you know the ecological group.. "some name"
Me: Is it like naturalism? Nudism.. this guy loves a bit of that, always running around naked in the street
Bill Oddie.. hugs me and starts laughing, NO NO my friend.
Some Serbian guy pretending to be English: I am the new James Bond, do you need me for your film..
Bill Oddie... ignores James Bond and starts talking about some club that he works in (highly unbelievable)
Me: I tried to become vegetarian for a while but my girlfriend threw me out because I was farting too much.. you know.. PPPPPPPPP PPPPPPPPPP
Bill Oddie.. ah so you love vegetables..

It was all very strange, the young Serbian guy who was pretending to be from Trinidad and Tobago claimed he'd studied at the University of York Dwight, postage stamp Bill Oddie guy was like.. Oh, yes I have heard of that one.

Ha, I can't wait to do more of that in Istanbul ;-)

Off to Nis in a moment, as I have a host and two or three people who want to meet up. Should be fun, providing the hitch is easy.

Excuse me miss...

Hey, well I stayed an extra night in Wien because of the weather and I couldn't find a host in Slovenia. Dario and Isa were amazing hosts, I have a lot of memories of them.. everything from the rum in the shop, to the enormous ice creams, the bread and borek in the middle of the night from the turkish market.. the radio Austria studios and the grumpy austrian feckers who wouldn't let us move the table on to the pavement in the bar.

The next day, I hitched from the newly discovered hitching spot in Wien (it should be on wikipedia soon) , realised I'd left my Zagreb sign at my hosts, so I used Kruopa's book of signs which she'd left to get to Graz. Caught a ride pretty quickly but was sceptical because I've spent about 12 hrs there once at a petrol station, however the guy dropped me in a much better place.


While I was waiting, the traffic was going slow.. I went to point out to a woman that her petrol cap was open and she wound up the electic windows almost cutting my head off and screamed something about Police. Mental woman! Also had an argument with some austrian hitchhiker because he started hitchhiking in front of me.. what a dick, anyway I got the lift first. being the better looking one haha.

I got a ride to the border and from there got a lift to Maribor by some football fanatic who offered to take me to Maribor v Beograd the next day in Beograd. One more lift from a man with a dog and I was in Ptuj near the border, from there an enormous bosnian guy who resembled a war criminal (and a really bad one at that) picked me up - I was surprised to discover that he sang girly pop songs like a girl. What a nancy, I didn't point that out though ' thought he may kill me.

Now, I'm in Zagreb and hanging out with some cool hosts. I'm a bit stinky though..