tea and vomit

When you travel alone, if you don't interact with the people and scenery around you, you're left to hide away and explore the dark corners of in your own head. When you're a team, having someone to continually bounce off of, the locals turn into an exotic wall paper you admire occasionally as you joke about people and situations thousands of kilometres away back at home. But returning to a foreign city with a friend after doing the hard work by yourself, the place takes on a beautifully textured experience that allows you to be a tourist in a place that is distantly familiar. While I've loved the flexibility and freedom that travelling alone provides, there's something special about having a good friend to turn to and say: "I'm glad you're here". This was Vienna last week.

Showing Luke around Vienna was a lot of fun. Problem is, after a day of looking at the gorgeous buildings, we quickly fell into my old routine of chilling at MQ, Naschmarkets and cafe hoping. On the first night, we stayed with Daniel, a guy who plays hardball in the European Union's youth sector. We met up with Martina, the couchsurfer that kidnapped me (and eventually Rodney), up to the Tyrolean mountains a couple of weeks back. After staying with her, we jumped on a boat and headed down the Danube to Bratislava where we picked up the keys to Radovan's (another CS peep from last year), flat and stayed there for 2 nights. On the first night we chilled out in front of some European cable TV. The following day we walked all over the town, checking out the main castle and catching a bus out to Devin Hrad. Afterwards we dined on excessive amounts of Slovak cuisine, and then hit the Buddha Bar for beer and Becherovka. This triggered some sort of visceral memory within my body of the night out I had in Prague with Martine, and once we returned to the flat, I revisited portions of my Slovak dinner. Thankfully none of which landed in the toaster this time.

Once Bratislava was out of the way, we caught a train to Budapest and are staying with Vera, a Hungarian I stayed with last year. When we arrived, she had made a soup and dip for us to revitalise on and then we went for a wander around the neighbourhood. While walking near the Oktogon, we bumped into Rodney, who we knew was going to be here, but hadn't teed up a time or place to meet. This worked well for all concerned and we all walked down Andrassy and checked out Hero Square. Rodney peeled off and the rest of us went to Szimpla for a beer. The next day we climbed the hill I had ridden up probably 30 times while I was here last year and checked out the castle, sneaking a look over the other side at the San Francisco like districts in Buda. For dinner, we cooked a small feast at Vera's place and invited Rodney over for a bit of eggplant paprikash. After dinner, Vera went to bed and us boys went to Kuplung, the small bar around the corner and proceeded to get arse-holified. The next day was a write off and I spent most of the day trying to become active, only to get sick with movement. After another session of driving the porcelain bus, I felt much better and gave a couple of Budapest mates a call to work out a time to meet up. Mizik at 7. Julianna at 8. We brought the party to Szimpla, ate food and drank tea, catching up on the last 8 months of adventures. Further plans for World Domination were made.

happiness come from the achievement of goals

When you're going to take over the world, you need to have the best help you can get.

Mr Toop arrived a couple of days ago bringing much needed wind to my sails. No Farmers Union Iced Coffee though. So far I've shown him Vienna (my adopted city), Berndorf (the village that adopted me), and tomorrow we head east along the Danube to soak in some post-soviet hospitality. We will be bouncing around Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia and Czech for the next couple of weeks. If you're in the blast radius, I encourage you to join us.

bootcamp

Komárno Fort
Up there in the top ten coolest things I've seen my entire trip. But first a little history: The fort has its roots back in the 13th Century, but was made into a proper fortress with walls and turrets in 1572, with moats and bigger walls coming in sometime between 1650 and 1660 to guard against the Turks. Fast forward to the second half of the 20th century and you find the place occupied by the Soviets, with all the mod cons like light fittings, machine guns and a swimming pool full of pickles. When the Velvet Revolution came in 89, the commies left and the Czechoslovakian army moved in and set up shop. When they got bored of guarding nothing, they took all the lights, guns and pickles and left the place in 1991. Since then, it has only been opened to the public once a year and twice for a couple of small, open-air music concerts, but the place has pretty much been kept under lock and key the last 15 years. A combination of decent security (der, it's a fort), and city officials with that "go-getting ex-Soviet gunna" attitude has kept the site pretty much as it was left back in 1991. One of the buildings on the outside of the walls has been polished up and is now being used by the local uni, but all the stuff within the fort is vanilla.

Somehow, whether it be by an error of security or a change in admittance policy, I found myself on the more interesting side of the front gates at Komárno Fort. They were wide open and I just rode on in with Frankenbike and was given no friction. The place is so big and quiet with literally hundreds of little rooms, hidden stairways and catacombs to explore. It's the sort of place Wizard dreams of going to after he buys a new Maglight. As I had already planned to meet Joli for a tour of the old city walls, I only had an hour or so to explore, but that hour was well used and I took a whole bunch of photos. Needless to say finding this place has got me out of a stink of a mood I've been in for the last week and has made this part of the trip a little shinier. And yes I had my phone with me just incase there was a repeat of St Vitus in Prague. Before I leave Komárno on Saturday, I'll go back to th fort with the video camera and make an angsty metal music video there. Now where's my wig, leather jaket and tight black pants?

Other stuff floating through my head:

• Can I have one of these installed the back of a Skoda 110R, or does the engine get in the way?
• Hungarians traditionally don't clink their beer glasses together when saying "Egészségedre" (cheers), in remembrance of their top generals being executed by the Austrian army 150 years ago.
• When an animated movie with celebrity voices like Toy Story or Shark Tale comes to a place like Germany or Russia where films are dubbed into the local language, do equally famous locals re voice it or do they just get a couple of fat guys in a studio to do the whole thing?
  
• How are the Mt Panorama kids planning to commemorate Brocky this weekend? Like this over shadowing this, Brock just couldn't compete with Steve Irwin, so his death missed the attention it deserved. A fitting tribute would be an XU1 Torana doing a few doughies on Conrod, then performing a lap of honor with his coffin sitting between a couple of cartons in the boot, held closed by occy straps (the boot, not the coffin).
• In Austria, the usage of "von" before a family's surname was outlawed in 1918, meaning that The Sound of Music has lied to me.. Again.

fish champion winner

I've spent the last few days in Győr, hanging out in a house of seven guys and some of their friends. I've got to watch a bit of MTV, VH1 and Viva and I must say that the new Robbie Williams is a like the new Dj Shadow (WTF? Is he serious?). On Monday night we had a nachos night, with about 10 people partaking in the feast. On Tuesday, I rode to Pannonhalma, only to miss out on seeing the inside by about 15 minutes. Oh well.. It was a nice ride and I got to walk around the monastery grounds and see the old parts of the building. The views were pretty cool, especially with the late afternoon sun and hiding around the back I found a new sporting area with fancy red bouncy AstroTurf. Later that evening we all went out and danced until about 4 to mostly bad Eurotrash music. The highlight for me was when some Hungarian 80s and 90s music played, and everyone in the room linked arms and started singing much in the same way Khe Sanh would have been sung at the Central Districts Football Club after winning against those snooty Roosters. One very weird thing happened though. A guy dancing in the crowd in another group of people came up to me and asked me in English if I was Dan. I said yes, and he got huge smile and asked me if i remembered him. I didn't, but my involuntary polite response of "yeah sure I do.. um... mate" slipped out and I never got to the part of how I know him. He then introduces me to his group of friends, with me shaking their hands and looking over my shoulder giving one of the Christines a "What the fuck?" look. Random. I still can't remember if I played table football with this guy on Sunday night or if I met him at Sziget and took his photo or chatted to him.

The ride from Győr, Hungary to Komárno, Slovakia

Sometimes you can follow a river. Sometimes you can follow your heart. But most of the time it's best to follow a map and directions from locals. What a balls up.. Lets just say I swore a lot to myself today, occasionally pulling out a few of my new Hungarian words (Korva, Bosznak), to express how pissed off I was at myself. Here's the deal. Peter suggested I follow Highway 1 (the less busy of the roads that pass through Komárom/Komárno), but after my experience with other Euro highways, they don't allow bicycle traffic on them and finding an alternate bike route can be a difficult, if not impossible task. So I decided to follow the small river which ran past the front of the place I was staying at in Győr and follow it until I reached a bridge somewhere further along. After riding about two and half hours (60% in gravel), I reached a small town called Vének and realise I'm starting to head back west. I check the map and see that Vének is on the wrong side of the river and that to cross it, I have to return to pretty much where started from, cross a bridge and then follow Highway 1 (just as Peter suggested). I swore at myself for about 10 minutes and flirted with the idea of riding back into Vének to see if there was a footbridge to cross to get onto Highway 1. After deciding that this was a waste of time because it wasn't on the map, I headed back to Győr via a much quicker path, found my way back to the main bridge, rode past the place that I had stayed at and followed the dedicated bike track running parallel to Highway 1 out of town. I'M A DICK. I had lost almost 3 hours from my ride and I had added another 40km to my trip. Anyway, on the way back out of Győr (about 15km), I was still pretty pissed at dan murphy, when half way through an internal telling off of myself I rode past a sign pointing out a pedestrian and bicycle bridge to Vének. Double shit. Not only did I not listen to a local's suggestions, I also didn't listen to myself. I did however, listen to a whole bunch of Ianto Ware's music. I hope he finishes his studies soon and writes some more, because it's well suited to riding the back roads of Eastern Europe and I've got a whole bunch more riding to go.

I rolled into Komárom around 19:20, about two hours after I said that I would be there. I try and give my host a call but I have no luck with the public phone or skype. It was dark and I only saw a couple of signs pointing out the way to find the bridge border crossing into Slovakia and Komárno. I eventually find my way there and park my bike where the border patrol guards point. One comes up to me and points at the trailer saying something in Hungarian. I shrug and he repeats the question in German: "Kinders?". I answer "No sorry... Haven't met the right girl yet." Stupid Australian humour lost in translation. So I hand over my passport and he spots I'm Australian. He grumbles and shouts across the border station something in Hungarian and then "kangaroo!". I start to laugh, and everyone has smiles on their faces. One of the other guards gives me a hard pat on the back, and says with a big smile "Rex Hunt. Fish champion winner" while he mimed fishing with a rod. I got a couple of stamps (with one on the plastic covering of my passport holder, which the guard rubs off and laughs but doesn't replace), I get a thumbs up and a "Yibbida yibbida" from the fish guy and as I walked away with my bike I focused my thoughts on how to contact my host. This thought process was quickly interrupted by saying "Dan?", and my host Joli emerging from the shadows in front of me, holding out a hand to be shaken. She had tried to contact me via email earlier, but had given up and had gone for coffee with a friend. She had locked her bike up earlier this evening to the railing of the bridge near the border and was now returning to retrieve it. After spotting me and my bike coming through the checkpoint, she took a punt and guessed it was me. Joli is a 51yo child psychologist and has hosted 5 people previously, most of whom were making the same bike journey I'm doing.

Tomorrow I get to visit Eurotown, where part of central Komárno has been converted so that each building represents a different country. Should be a lark.

Sledgehammer

I'm now in Győr, Hungary.

The 90km ride from Bratislava was an easy one, as there is a bike path almost the entire way down the Danube. For about 30kms out of Bratislava, there were plenty of cyclists and in line skaters all wearing their fitness clothing, ipods and fashion water bottles. What I was impressed with was the two cycling paths and and the little snack outlets every 5km or so. The crowds thinned as I got to the island. The ride itself was quick thanks to the dedicated path but was at times a little dull. DJ Vadim came to the rescue via my MP3 player and the kilometres disappeared under my wheels quickly. However, the village on the island is cute, the dam looks cool and the weather was fine. In the bit between the dam and the border crossing, there were these super annoying gates which I almost killed me and my trailer a few times. When I got to the border, I didn't have the same problems as I did with the last border crossing, but the guards still thought an Australian riding through these parts was a bit of a novelty. Frankenbike has been going well, but has developed some funny noises that seem to come and go as they please. The worst noise is coming from one of my brand spanking new pedals, which sounds like a bunch of nuts and bolts being chewed by a dog. It feels like it will fall off and I probably need to get it replaced soon. I wonder if my warranty is good here in Hungary or if I have to shell out for another set?

Győr is one of those pretty little Danube towns with a couple of bridges, a few churches and some tasty 'neo-brutal' ex-soviet flats. There's also a university here, so the place is full of students. And if you're not a student, you probably work in the Audi TT factory just out of town. I'm staying in a student flat which is currently empty thanks to the local elections making everyone return to their home towns. It is usually occupied by seven guys, and all it seems to be missing is a bong in the lounge room. But the guy who is here, Peter, and his neighbour Gabriel (ha! Peter Gabriel), didn't go home for the elections and have been entertaining me for the last couple of days. I've learnt some Hungarian words, but most of them are rude. We've gone out for a few drinks with their mates, with their friend Bela being the best table football player (male or female), I've met in a while. People back in Australia should be happy to know that Heartbreak High is one of the most popular shows on TV here and still plays on a regular basis.

Today I ride to Pannonhalma, which is a town with an old monastery about 20km out of Győr. The monastery is positioned on one of the few hills in these parts, has a fairly impressive looking library and a pretty good views of all the flat bits of land around it.

greeny blue

Bratislava.

Only an hour away from Vienna, it is like catching a train from Adelaide to Gawler, but arriving in a place where there is a distinct differently culture, the people talk funny, there's more shitty old cars and the city centre has nice old buildings while the surrounding suburbs look a bit like slums. Hmmm... Perhaps that's not the best comparison. However, It was a little weird travelling such a small distance and being in a different country though, with a passport stamp and armed guards, while still seeing the wind turbines of Lower Austria.

Bratislava is a nice little city, where some interesting stuff has happened, but there isn't much here for the superficial tourist. As with any small place, as long as you have a local's perspective or insight, there is fun to be found. Adelaide is the same: "those balls and that tram to some beach. Then we got on a bus to a big rock". Brat's city centre is classic Euro tourism, but as soon as you leave the 2 square kilometres of cobblestones and Baroque architecture, the town is pretty much like any other city I've been in, albeit with a slight post-soviet touch here and there.

The best thing about a small city is that thanks to its compact nature, the back streets and hidden culdesacs just around the centre usually hold plenty of interesting things to be discovered. On the way to the castle, which I found my way to by accident, I discovered a cool old church close to the castle that looked like it hadn't been used for years. Around the walls of the castle are recent housing developments, with their balconies coming within close proximity to the tourist path. I can imagine the tourist brochure now: "Walk around the castle, see how real Slovaks live". There were also some places where the lights that had once lit the castle at night had very recently been relieved of duty. The castle itself isn't that amazing to look at, the Lonely Planet describes it as an upside down bed, but it does have half a dozen cool little museums to hide in while it's raining. I stumbled onto the Folk Music Museum, where I found out about Bratislava's musical history. The caretaker and I discussed the pros and cons of 80s music and whether or not she had got into Elan, the super band of the former Czechoslovakia. She said they were shit and preferred the more risque sounds Modern Talking from Germany. She then replaced the classic music seeping gently from the speakers with said German 80s band and cranked the volume. Gold. A nice view from the window too, with a warming sheep skin rug to sit on. After the rain had eased, I made my way down the hill where I passed a small church which I had seen earlier. I could hear Slovak hymns being sung from within, so I peered inside. I'm not a religious person, and I don't believe in a god, but entering this musty place with the beautiful voices singing something I could not understand had an immediate calming effect on me. The church itself was of the Orthodox variety, with a small onion dome and humble decor, and I got the impression for these people faith meant something more than just building the biggest thing they could scrape up the money for.

Yesterday, I ventured out to Devin Castle, which is on a hill near a bend in the Danube about 10km from the centre of Bratislava. There was the first annual Red Bull Kary (go-cart race), which is sort of like Slovakia's version of the Milk Carton Regatta, but with more money and less kids ingesting Patawalonga water. I get the imoression that Eastern Europe is Red Bull's playground. With its laxs public liability laws and cheap prices, the advertising peeps for the energy drink are able to fly planes through the middle of cities, strap guys to plastic wings and take over 900 year old castles in a single bound. The castle itself is in a nice spot, but some of the best parts were roped off for the VIP area, so I missed out on seeing those views. However, on the way back to the bus, I ventured into a cellardoor showroom for some home made wine, and ended up chatting to a guy who collected Swiss Army bikes and offered tours of the surrounding areas. He had posters of his hero, who rode 15,000km on a 50 year old bike and said that it was his dream to ride the same route across the Middle East and into Russia. I might be going back to Vienna, pick up my bike and ride the Iron Curtain tour the wine guy was talking about.

*Did you know that Red Bull is an Austrian company? yeah, me neither.