The mileage on my old Suzuki DR 600 reads 42853 miles (68965 km) when I leave my home near Burghclere
this morning. It's a bit overcast at first and I even get a few drops of rain, but after a few miles the sun comes out and the day turns out perfectly for motorbiking.
A quick ride along the motorways gets me to the M20 exit near Folkestone, where for
the first time ever I cross the English Channel using the new
Channel Tunnel. I have to say that this method is decisively quicker than by boat, though the kind
of "shoehorn" clamp they use to
fix the motorbikes front wheel in place on the floor of the railway carriage is way too big for the narrow front wheel of my Suzi.
On the French side the ride continues along the Belgian border. The countryside is rather flat. There is about one tiny village and three massive military graveyards in every ten miles of road out here - these constant reminders of the stupidity of the Human Race are not entirely uplifting the spirit, but luckily the sun is shining out of a deep blue sky, which helps a lot.
After a glorious first days ride of 370 miles I end up at a campsite in the town of Montmédy. I stroll through the town and admire the ancient buildings. Though only 2000 people live here today, the place once was the capital of this area. And history certainly has left its marks on the place, as Luxembourg, Burgundy, Austria and Spain successively owned the place. The old medieval castle was modernised during the 17th century by the formidable fortress builder Vauban.
The campsite is clean and pleasant. Before leaving home I had bought a tent form the Army & Navy stores in Reading for the princely sum of thirty pounds. Two Dutch fellows are staying at the campsite and immediately recognize the design; I am informed that the nickname the Dutch soldiers gave this type of tent is the "miceshed", because it was originally designed for two men, but in reality is far too cramped for two people. But for me alone it is lightweight, sturdy and can be de-rigged when wet. I have a chat over a beer with the two chaps, one of whom has a scooter. He works out the mileage of my Suzi in kilometres and is rather astonished that someone could be mad enough to ride such an "antique" all across Europe and the Middle East. Well, as we all know, just Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun...
The weather is getting even better, and the countryside of the
Ardennes and the
Black Forest with its magnificent roads and byways are certainly preventing my tyres
from wearing in the middle only. The curves are spectacular, and due to the sparse population on the French side the roads are virtually empty. Thanks to the EEC there
are no border controls at the German border.
Around midday it is getting very warm, even at 3000 ft. in the Black Forest mountains. First I have to ditch my gloves
and the shawl. An hour later the leather has to go. At a filling station near
Ulm a thermometer indicates 34°C. "How long is it already this hot in Germany?" I ask
the lady in the (air-conditioned) filling station.
"Warm? But it has cooled off nicely since that thunderstorm a few days ago."
I am developing grave doubts about my soundness of mind; is heading for the
Syrian Desert in the middle of August really such a good idea when a heatstroke is already a distinct possibility while less then 500 miles out of rainy England?
I stop at the next drugstore and ask for some strong sunblocker lotion. I am given some yellow stuff, which according to the saleswoman "keeps your skin pale at
point zero of a nuclear blast!" Well, that sure sounds like the stuff I need.
Lightly dressed and the skin treated with that yellow puke, I follow the country roads into Bavaria. At 5.30 pm near the town of
Augsburg I ask for a nearby campsite, but the closest one
apparently is at the lake Ammer, some 40 miles away to the south. 50 minutes later I am there and immediately
surrounded by some kids of about 17 years, who are there on 80cc mopeds.
They have come all the way from Augsburg today and are mighty proud about their hard day of biking. What was an insignificant evening diversion for me (the way from Augsburg to this campsite) is a whole
long-haul holiday journey for them. These kids are no longer made like they used to be. We drove a thousand miles in four days on our 50cc's when we were 16.
I pitch my
"miceshed" in the shade and park my "antique" next to their high-tech bikes and have a wheat beer with the equally rather antique owner of the campsite.
That guy is 76 years old and still an ardent motorbiker. He gets a well-worn picture book out and shows me how he learned
to ride BMW bikes in the German army during the Greek campaign; the ancillaries of his bike (swastika, machine guns etc.) would however look a bit odd today on my old Japanese banger.
Close by is the town of Landsberg, where the initiator of the campsite owners classic exploits on two wheels, Herr Hitler, was imprisoned after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Bavarian
government in the 1920's. Unfortunately for mankind the Bavarians decided not to keep him there forever, though the old geezer next to me would probably disagree; "without Adolf I would have been a farmhand all my life and never seen a foreign country. Thanks to the Fuhrer at the age of 19 I'd already seen most of Europe and could tell the finest French champagne brands apart after just one sip".
My landlord back home in England, a certain Mr. Peter Henry Arnold Woodhouse, was with Monty in North Africa and never mentioned champagne playing a role in his wartime exploits, though I suspect that he would get along splendidly with this old Kraut geezer. The follies of men create the fortunes of war.
All in all this was a highly satisfactory start into this journey.
At 6.40 am my wristwatch-alarm wakes me up. The tent is quickly dismantled and at 8 o'clock I am on the road. It's 20 miles to Munich. That town is still sleeping, just like those kids from yesterday are still dreaming in their tents about another excessive 100 miles "long haul" they have plotted into their charts for today.
The main road from Munich to Salzburg is the Autobahn A8, which is rather notorious for its traffic jams. After some navigational struggle in the Bavarian capital I finally find the much smaller B304 trunk road, which runs parallel a few miles away to the North of the Autobahn, right through the heart of Bavaria. The Alps appear on the horizon in the South-East. There are no border controls when entering into Austria, either.
The three basic food groups (fat, sugar and ketchup) are supplied by the local McDonald’s for 150 Schillings. I always thought, that junk food could be nowhere any dearer than in dear, old England, but one never ceases to learn. But the roads here in the Salzkammergut compensate for that: great hairpins and hardly any traffic. Via Bad Ischl, a fab teen hangout in winter, am I thundering through the most eastern parts of the Austrian Alps. All bikers of Austria seem to have congregated here on this fine Sunday. Everyone is raising his left arm when meeting an oncoming fellow biker (which they can easily do as they all of course drive on the wrong side of the road here, a condition I hope these people will one day remedy) and my left arm is getting stiff from greeting back.
I am passing the town of Eisenerz (Iron ore), where man has dug away an entire mountain to get at the metal. The resulting gigantic open pit mine is renowned for its spectacular moto cross and hill racing events and very popular among geologists. The view is amazing, as is the road glued to the hillside itself. If you go through those barriers, you'll begin a 2 minute freefall, before your bike drills a hole into the valley floor. But don't worry, those industrious Austrians will soon dig it out and melt it down again.
Riding my lightweight "antique" is great fun here, I can't even be bothered to stop for a snapshot of the spectacular valley below, so here is one borrowed from the Wiki:
The ratio of bikes to cars reaches 2:1 near Weiz. Two motorbikes for each car that is. And the weather seems to be on my side, too; not a drop of rain, always brilliant sunshine day in, day out.
The flat Burgenland lies ahead and leads the way towards the Hungarian border. These borders are a pain in the back. I begin to divide the world into two types of countries: half day ones and full day ones. The half day ones like Austria can be traversed in one afternoon, the full day ones like Germany take a bit longer. I am fondly thinking back of traversing the United States in '95 - endless days and weeks of border-free travel. But alas, this is not the US...
The border formalities are simple, but on that boring, straight road towards Lake Balaton it is getting late. Only little villages, fully prepared to handle and live off that never ending stream of German and Austrian tourists on their way to the lake are there, ready to rip off the unsuspecting tourists. I don't want to stay in one of those digs, so I ride off the road over a field and rig the miceshed in the shade of a hedge about half a mile away from the main road.
The hedge is proof that Dolbears law is applicable in this parts of the world, too; the infernal noise of the crickets is virtually drowning the remaining noise from the nearby road. The crickets are harmless, but there must be water nearby as some very nasty mosquitoes demonstrate an appaling appetite for my blood and by the time I have rigged the miceshed and tucked myself inside my skin is severely punctured. The next 20 minutes I spend squashing those of the bloodsuckers that have made it inside my tent. Some of them leave a distinctive red blot on the roof of the tent when I flatten them - and I suspect that blood was not theirs in the first place...
I suppose I did not get all of the bloodsuckers last night and the survivors appear to have eaten about half of me during the night. However, by 8 o'clock my remaining half is back on the road, re-paying them by splattering the guts of hundreds of their comrades-in-crime all over the bike and myself at 60 miles per hour.
Soon I reach Lake Balaton, which appears to be entirely in Teutonic hands, Holsten Pils, Bratwurst and Sauerkraut left, right and centre. Traffic jams are in place all around the lake, with one in four cars not being German.
That isn't entirely my cup of tea.
But south of the lake the scene changes immediately; the countryside remains flat, but this is the real Hungary; Markets in the villages, storks nesting on roofs and chimneys, no more tourist traps and everyone is smiling. And it is burning hot again. Thunderstorms rise over the Danube river ahead, but I turn eastwards to Baja and Szeged. Another border crossing lies ahead. I fill the tank just a few miles before reaching the Romanian border and I buy a map of that country, too. A kid on a bicycle looks interested at the (by now rather battered looking) Suzuki. He speaks some German. Stranger, if you come to Eastern Europe, do not bother to try English. Crafty Krauts (CK's) have long re-conquered this part of the world.
The kid tells me, that the border on the main road from Szeged to Arad has been closed by the Romanians. I am told that the Romanian border patrol occasionally does this for no apparent reason. But non-commercial traffic can supposedly cross the border further up to the north, at a village called Battonya. He shows me that route on my map.
What if that kid is telling me nonsense, I ponder? If that street urchin is telling the truth, why does no one else seem to leave the main road for Battonya at that crossroads which is in plain view from here at the petrol station? My map doesn't even show a border point up there in the north. Dozens of cars are passing by, all heading straight for the regular border point, while I consider my options.
I decide to trust my intuition and to believe the kid instead of following the pack. I flick 100 Forint to the little chap who gives me a smile and a "thumbs-up" in return. Then I part with the stream of vehicles rolling eastwards, and leave the great trunk road northwards on a potholed byway towards that tiny village some 30 miles away. The journey leads through an enchanted part of this country, the slowly settling sun bathing every field and village in weird light and colours. Finally the destination is reached, and really, there is a sleepy border point here.
23 Yankee dollars buy me a transit visa, the only currency the customs officers accept (aside of course from Eastern Europe's universal currency, the Deutschmark). It is again fairly late, but after all those days without a shave or shower I notice that people are beginning to hastily check for the presence of their wallets in their pockets whenever I pass them by. A look at my face in the rear mirror of my bike explains a lot; a heavy tan, a couple of days stubble and the dirt of a thousand miles can turn the fairest Englishman into a Highwayman. Undeniably it is high time for some civilised digs.
Customs only takes about 20 minutes, then I am on my way again. Roads change from quite good in Hungary (a big thanks to those tireless workmen of the "Magyar Aszfalt" company) to diabolical in Romania. Arad is a province capital, about 40 miles from the Hungarian border. Crumbling post-communist era architecture and potholed but broad roads. Trams are transporting the public. The town previously in possession of those trams still has its advertisements on them: City of Ludwigshafen, Germany. Roberto's Hotel in the town centre proves to be a distinctive rat-hole inside, given that they charge $25 per night, but I can park the bike inside the rear, walled garden. The water trickles only out of the shower, but I manage to get most of the grime off and even to shave in that sticky, hot room directly under the roof that I have been given. I ask Roberto if he can change me some money. "Deutschmarks?" he asks hopefully. I give him some leftover Hungarian Forints, which in Sterling would not buy me fish and chips. I am certain that he rips me off, but he hands me bundles of Romanian Lei, the local currency. I have to stuff 130000 Lei into my pockets and wallet and begin my stroll through the town. If I'd given him 20 pounds, I'd probably needed a truck to carry away the banknotes.
The people here in Arad all look very serious and determined. Humour does not appear to be a defining feature of the local population. I have a chat with two old fellows, one of which speaks the usual pidgin German. They are decisively proud of their country, for them it is the best place anywhere in the world. I certainly can agree to the country being exceedingly beautiful, but I think I can detect an equally decisive lack of that determination to move onwards which was so very noticeable in Hungary. That may be the reason why since 1990 the National Anthem begins with the line "Awaken thee, Romanian, shake off the deadly slumber"... The two go home, but leave a local newspaper (România Liberă) on the table. I have a look inside; a handful of small-size job ads in Romanian, and a good number of large-size offers from Siemens, Volkswagen and Deutsche Telekom for Romanians speaking German, and if possible, English. Why English, I wonder? The menu in the restaurant is in Romanian. The waiter offers a foreign version - meaning that he can offer a German transcript. I decline and pick the dearest dish on the menu. That stuff turns out to be the best chicken I have ever eaten, accompanied by some small but outstandingly delicious cauliflowers, tomatoes and potatoes. It is not the excellence of the chef, but the stunning quality of the ingredients which outshines the mass produced rubbish on offer in "industrialized" countries. A few bottles of equally fine local lager, and I am ready to fall in love with the country.
Afterwards I pay 65.000 Lei for stuffing myself and getting plastered. I have never worked out, how much that is in Sterling. It's not enough to bother. Certainly a fortune for the locals, but I don't feel guilty.
It was certainly a good idea to have my shower yesterday; the water may have been only trickling, but this morning there is none at all. Roberto shrugs his shoulders: the Gods often give, but just as often they take things away.
I meet Rogier and Despina from Laon in France during the frugal breakfast. Like myself the war in former Yugoslavia has forced them to divert eastward when visiting Despinas family in Northern Greece. They would have taken the plane, but a number of large-size presents for her sisters marriage has forced them to travel by road; The two are not very amused this morning; apparently they missed my little street urchin telling tales about the closed Romanian border and as a result spent over 5 hours waiting at the border before being able to enter Romania. This made it impossible for them to reach the hotel they had pre-booked and so they ended up at Roberto's instead - long after I used up Roberto's daily water allowance and enjoyed the culinary delights of the town.
An hour later I guide my sturdy, antique Suzi further towards the Mediterranean.
This is the flat western area of Romania. The mighty Carpathian mountains lie further to the east. I will have to schedule a visit there one day - they even have wolves and bears up there. The town of Timișoara is next on my way. While the outskirts of the town are the usual commie-concrete slab style architecture, the impressive inner city architecture however looks as if time has stood still here for at least a century. It is from this town that the revolution of 1989 sparked the nation into overthrowing the Ceausescu regime.
From Timișoara I am rolling southwards on roads I would not be too happy about, if I had to travel them on a Harley. But the many villages are clean, with tidy gardens and sidewalks. Some paint would suit most buildings, but Dacia cars are plentiful and life seems to be pleasant enough.
Again I reach the Danube near the town of Orșova. I should have booked a river cruise instead of doing a bike ride. Further east along the river on a road raised on a dyke against flooding I finally reach Calafat. My map (dated 1984) clearly shows a bridge crossing the river to Vidin in Bulgaria. But there is no bridge. Only a sleepy Romanian border point right at a ramp leading into the water.
A cute hunk in a ramshackle uniform is stamping my passport. One may imagine my astonishment, when I find that he speaks only bits of German, but quite passable English. I suppose he must have been spying for MI6 in the good old times, though he looks a bit too young for that. And the fellow is more than pleased to have found someone willing to help him polishing up his language skills. He explains that the bridge is missing only temporarily. Apparently the construction of the bridge is planned since the 1970's. The young fellow explains to me that the fact that Romania and Bulgaria have not yet found the time (I suppose it may rather be a money-problem) to build it is no reason why it shouldn't be on the maps - he claims that this is a sort of future-proofing of the map; my 1984 release apparently is the most current version available.
Until the bridge is ready a ferry service is in operation from that stone ramp ahead. It's my lucky day; in less than three hours the next boat is scheduled. My personal border guide explains to me that the boat only leaves when a sufficient number of vehicles have arrived and that in winter waiting times of more than six hours are not uncommon.
The time until the next ferry is due to bring me and my Suzi over the Danube and into Bulgaria passes quite quickly in this chaps charming company, and we sit in the shade under some trees and chat about life in the UK and in Romania. The border patrol duty in this place is certainly not an overly stressful employment. The more I learn about this fascinating country the more I wish I had more time to explore it.
At 2 o'clock the ferry comes over from the Bulgarian side. The Danube is fairly wide here and it takes about 15 minutes to cross. The ferry-guys accept Yankee dollars or Eastern Europe's universal currency. I pay $5 for the ride. Lots of small-time smuggling goes on, and the contraband (mostly cigarettes) isn't even hidden very well. There is already a huge queue of vehicles waiting from the previous ferry load on the other side. It seems like the siesta time got out of control at the Bulgarian border patrol post. The customs building is a dilapidated ruin of crumbling concrete, smashed windows and the place is distinctively smelly inside. The passport formalities take about one hour. But the customs building looks completely deserted. Nothing happens and the new ferry load patiently waits behind the previous one in the burning sun. Some obviously seasoned travellers come well prepared and start a picnic between the waiting vehicles. Vodka and beer are flowing galore - that's certainly one way to pass the time. I sneak around the building and look inside through one of those smashed windows; five custom officers, unshaven and clad in badly fitting uniforms that must have already been in use when Selim III attacked the town, are gathered around a vintage IBM PC. It is running Microsoft Windows 3.1, to be precise, and these officers are mesmerised by the "Solitaire" game installed on that machine. Someone has to inform the Pentagon, that Billy Gates has been selling his rubbish behind the Iron Curtain. He deserves a medal for that - and now I finally know why communism really fell.
After more than 3 hours the custom chaps have lost enough imaginary dollars in cyberspace to stop thinking about Las Vegas and more of that bunch of loonies outside in the burning sun, who are mad enough to desire entrance visas for this country. A Buick with Connecticut plates is right before me in the queue. A Yank and his Bulgarian boyfriend are in it. We have a chat. He is wondering, whether it is safe to traverse Bulgaria alone on a bike. I tell him, that I have even traversed Dade County alone on my bike. I don't think he gets the point...
The smugglers hand a wad of cash each to the customs officers and can pass without being searched. Two dodgy figures clad in rags approach me right after border control. They want to sell me cigarettes and laisser-passers for imaginary controls. I have seen this type of small town Mafia all over the world. I smile and dig out a nice, shiny ten pounds sterling banknote. They shake their heads, as I expect. No, that kind of money is no good here. Deutschmark? Nay, I shake my head. They get the hint, nothing to be gained from this weird visitor, and buzz off in search for fatter prey.
By the time I am let loose on this country, it is about 8 pm and it's seriously getting dark. Not that I fear to get mugged by another gang of replacement gangsters. But the road is in such abominable condition that it is essential to see the potholes coming to prevent an accident. That is not possible with the feeble headlight of my bike.
So I turn off the main road into a small byway just five miles beyond the border. I can see a farmhouse and hear some barking dogs. A few ramshackle sheds appear ahead of me in the fading twylight. A concrete road with grass growing through it leads to more empty sheds and a corn field, where I quickly rig the miceshed at the edge of the field. By the time I am tucked inside it is absolutely pitch dark outside.
It seems that I have pitched my tent directly above a colony of mice, more precisely on the main entrance to an underworld mice empire. The little buggers squeak a lot, I suppose in protest about my intrusion into their highway system. They try all night to wiggle under my tent attempting to get in and out of their tunnels. The expression "miceshed" for my tent gets an entirely new meaning here. In spite of this racket I sleep like a rock.
I wake up at six in the morning and look out of my tent. The "shed" I saw yesterday evening in the dwindling light opposite my tent is a large concrete building featuring in big letters the writing "Советская Армия". I don't speak Bulgarian nor can I read much Cyrillic, but the meaning of that writing I know by heart: Sovetskaya Armiya. I have pitched my tent on a Russian Army base. Luckily for me these Russians obviously have also played with Microsoft software and as a result have left the place some time ago.
But I won't linger here longer than necessary, de-rig the tent and load my bike before some Spetsnaz sniper starts using me for target practice.
Soon I am back on the road. The third petrol station has road maps on sale. The map (also issued in 1984) uses Latin letters, which I soon note makes the map rather useless; the few existing road signs are all in cyrillic.
If Romanian roads are diabolical, then Bulgarian roads deserve the term "lethal". The potholes look like bomb craters, and the first 70 miles to Montana (which my outdated map calls "Mihaylovgrad" and the road signs are pointing towards "Монтана") are extremely bad. This place appears to be too tough even for the crafty Krauts; I see no German vehicles, in fact I see hardly any traffic at all. The people here still have their Lada and Moskvitch cars rusting in the gardens, but there is no money for petrol or spares. They use horse and cart to get from A to B. Whole families are on the move in this fashion. Ruined electricity lines and pylons are another tell-tale sign of the catastrophic conditions. Where the other countries I passed are preparing for the dawn of the 21st century, this country appears in parts to have set sail on course straight back into the 19th century.
I was in Bulgaria in 1972 when they had just opened the first tourist complex on the Black Sea coast near Nessebar. Everything was working then, tractors in the fields, and cars on the roads. When Russian officers entered a restaurant, then the tourists were complimented out to make room for the military! That's all gone and I suppose these days they would most likely compliment the officers out if some rich tourist entered a restaurant in Nessebar.
I am passing farmers ploughing their fields using horse drawn ploughs. However, they look perfectly happy, smile and even wave when I pass by. Serenity is one commodity available here more than anywhere in Europe.
The next field I pass is parked solid with rotting tractors and broken combine harvesters. People here will probably call the Cold War the Golden Era.
I am heading for Sofia, and like in most Banana Republics I have seen the world over the roads improve considerably towards the capital. As the map is more or less useless I dig my compass out of the panniers. At every crossroad I have to judge the direction by compass, unless I find one of the rare roadsigns. I know by now, how "Sofia" looks in Cyrillic (София). On my map the distance from the border is given as 215 kilometres. I finally reach the city after 205 miles, so I suppose I got lost a bit here and there.
Sofia is total chaos. I arrive in the city from the Northwest and have to leave it towards the South-East. Cobblestoned roads, and every vehicle driver appears to use his own interpretation of the Highway Code. I join in happily and cut off others, jump the few functioning traffic lights and take short-cuts through back gardens and building sites. After 2 hours of mayhem I have made it through to the other side, and that was much more difficult than writing it down in these few lines. I certainly wouldn't want to live in that place.
My Suzi is a sturdy steed and certainly ideal for the tough road conditions in this part of the world. But the initial piece of road south of the city manages to have my rear suspension hitting rock bottom and extends the shock absorption straight up my spine. I have never had that experience before! For next years Paris - Dakar Rally I suggest a diversion eastwards. Half the riders will be out of the race before they ever see the Mediterranean.
The road here is supposed to be the Grand E79 European Trunk Road towards the Greek border. The first sign confirming this and showing me that I am on the right track appears 96 miles south of Sofia!
Then the Greek border. The first road sign indicating that I am approaching Greece appears when the border is practically already in sight - less than two kilometres before reaching the frontier. However, it feels a bit like civilisation has me back.
A long queue of vehicles from all countries of the former Warsaw Pact is waiting. I see Poles and Ukrainians, Romanians, Russians and Slovenians.
A Greek Taxi is passing the queue, the driver waves a few papers to the custom guys, and is on his way. The custom official is peeking into my direction, and I wave with my EEC passport. His face turns on a beaming smile and he personally waves me out of the queue and guides me and my battered bike past the others to a booth marked "EEC citizens only". European Union, you much derided pinnacle of civilisation, I love you! 10 minutes later I am thundering down a breathtakingly smooth, pothole-free, brand-new road towards Thessaloniki. A friendly sign announces that this road would not have been build without extensive funding from the EEC Central Bank in Frankfurt.
Out of a side-street a fat Mercedes Benz with Berlin number plates pulls out onto the road and nearly runs me over. For a day I was on my own, but now the CK's are back.
A quick drop-in at a cash machine, a fuel stop - the litre goes for 200 Drachmas and I know that 460 Drachmas equal one pound sterling.
Past the petrol station a road-sign indicates "Athína 705 km". Well, it is nearly 7 pm now, but I have to be in Athens by tomorrow afternoon, so I continue on towards Thessaloniki in spite of some uncomfortable-looking thunderstorm clouds ahead. I decide to use the motorway for once and cover the 100 miles to Thessaloniki in record time. I am lucky and find a campground with attached hotel and restaurant just 4 miles off the motorway on the coast. 6000 Drachmas for a room with unlimited amounts of hot water - what an unabashed luxury. That is followed by a fine meal and a bottle of local wine while overlooking the Aegean Sea at sunset. What more can one want?
It is still a long way to Athens. 400 miles yesterday, and about 300 left to the Greek capital. I decide to throw a principle overboard for today and use the new motorway (may the Gods bless the Holy Subsidion from Brussels). These motorways have toll-booths, but the Greeks must have a fancy for bikes: while they charge each car 500 Drachmas every 50 miles or so, they just smile at bikers and wave them through without charge. Only female toll-booth-operators do charge me. Motorbiking must be regarded as a Macho sport by them.
If this kind of small-time dishonesty towards your employer is common on a profane job like toll-booth-operator, one might wonder what kind of colossal corruption is common further up the food chain?
By 11 am the heat is hell, even without wearing any leather and biking at 60 miles an hour. The only one apparently not affected by the infernal heat is my Suzi. Except, that is, for a slowly increasing noise from the valve drive/cylinderhead area. But I am short of time, so I decide to ignore the noise or any mechanical problems for now.
2500 miles out of England, and aside from the bike I also begin to show signs of wear; after every 40 miles I have to stop briefly, as my knees tend to get stiff from being bend at a rather unnatural angle to keep the feet on the foot-pegs. And without gloves in the heat keeping the throttle open is beginning to produce blisters and sores on my right hand.
But I manage to get to Athens by about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, only to find out, that I have to advance my watch another hour, as Greece uses Eastern Mediterranean time. It is therefore 4 o'clock. And one thing I have to mention here; ever since Hungary is the land around me covered by a thick summer haze, reducing visibility at the best of times to about 5 miles, sometimes less. That prevents me from taking too many pictures, as they would come out no good. That is, why there have been so few of them up to now.
I have to ride through downtown Athens to Piraeus, and there to look for the Harbour. It's all small roads, through urban areas, but I finally find it: it is monstrously big! How will I find my boat to Israel, if there are 300 ships anchored in this harbour? And all that in half an hour.
But then I remember what happened when I booked the ticket for the boat back in England. The travel agent called me the next day and asked "Do you really want to travel on that boat?" Coming from a travel agent that sounded rather strange. "Yes, why do you ask?" I enquired. "Because it is not a very nice boat" he replied. But I was adamant. So this might be the solution to my problem; just look out for the most dilapidated, ugly rustbucket in the entire harbour.
Under that pretext it just takes me five minutes to find the only vessel that fits the bill; a rust-streaked blue and white piece of junk that the harbour-master wisely tucked away at the farthest corner of the harbour.
There I meet Tom, a policeman from Amsterdam, and his fairing'ed 4-cylinder Suzuki bike. He is on his way to Jerusalem to visit a girl friend of his. During the elaborate check in procedure in the open sun without a single breath of wind going we exchange motorbike traveller news. Tom came via Switzerland and Italy, where he took a ferry to Greece. He is five days out on the road.
He has just bought his ticket and accommodation in a 4-berth cabin. My travel agent strongly recommended that I book a two-berth cabin for my sole use (which I did). After seeing the "cabin" for the first time I know the guy was right; it's about seven by seven feet, distinctively dirty and the shower and toilet are shared between two cabins. Whenever you want to use it you open your door and lock the adjacent door of the neighbouring cabin from the inside. Have a look at this picture of my luxury abode:
But at least the aircon is working splendidly, and after a cold shower (cold of course is a relative term: the water is always lukewarm in these latitudes) I rejoice in a room at 70°F.
I paid £295 for the ticket. This makes it the most expensive of those dozens of different ferry routes I have ever travelled. I did not know, that for £130 I could have gotten a deck only ticket, which the numerous backpackers told me about during check-in.
The wreck belongs to the "Poseidon Line" and is called "Sea Symphony", is 119 metres long and 17 metres wide and has a max. speed of 21 knots and was build in Italy in 1976 and originally named the "Buona Speranza". It started out as a freighter, and only after Poseidon Lines got their grubby hands on it was passenger accommodation added. I suppose that Vaughan Williams would turn in his grave if he'd known that someone could name such a vessel after his symphony. I have nicknamed it "Wasa" when first laying my eyes on that wreck, after a 17th century Swedish ship that sank two hours into its maiden voyage. Later that evening I meet Tom, and he thinks the name is too good for the boat.
The Greek crew charges about £7 for a lousy diner, and £1.20 for a small can of beer.
Tom has been put together with another Dutchman in his cabin. That chap, Paul, has been to Holland for 2 month, but lives in Tel Aviv.
His wife works at the Czech embassy, and he states his occupation as "Houseman", looking after the kids. We buy a bottle of duty free whisky, the consumption of which is prohibited on board. As a predictable result we buy three bottles of coke and have the contents of those bottles "fortified" during frequent visits to our cabins. Paul is giving us his first hand impression of life in Israel - and it sounds all rather weird and interesting.
Exactly at seven minutes past 7 pm the "Wasa" gets under way and leaves the harbour of Piraeus.
Below isn't the usual map with my GPS tracklog (GPS wasn't properly available before May 2, 2000).
Instead I have plotted the original route from my diary entries and my old paper charts.