HUBBERS DOT COM BLOG

Followed Lonely Planet advice and bused to Sulwaki to take one of the FIVE buses a day to Lithuania only to find out there are no buses to Lithuania from Sulwaki. Am very hurt that the LP lied to us.

Rented a couple of bikes and rode out to Hitler’s main war time hideout the infamous Wolfsschanze or Wolfs Lair. Today it’s just a collection of dilapidated concrete bunkers but it’s still an interesting place to have a look at.

Got drunk with two old Poleski guys who ended up a little worse for wear. One even fell off his chair but spring back up so fast it looked like he had landed on a springboard. Very funny and if you’d blinked you’d have missed it. My Polish is a little rusty (or even nonexistent) but am sure we got the ‘I love you Kiwi’s and even though we just met you you are my best friends’ speech.

Arrived at Hel unrested after an overnight train where the train guards woke us every two hours to yell at us for no discernible reason. Did a quick tour of Hel and decided it deserved the name so booked tickets for the Gdansk ferry.

Gdansk is cool.

Some Polish girl who met Runty for five minutes insisted on giving him her phone number for when he gets back to London. Now I have to listen to him debate theories with himself on why he is such a legend with the Polish girls. The current favorite is that he looks like a famous Polish TV personality. The debate is ongoing though and shows no sign of abating.

Finished the day with a highly recommended boat cruise. It sucked. The commentary was in Polish and we didn’t have time to get off at the end to see what we wanted to see.

Took an excellent bike tour of Krakow which included a visit to the factory owned by Oscar Schindler the Nazi made famous by Steven Speilbergs movie Schindlers List. This is easilly the best way to see the main sites of Krakow in a day. The highlight was when the guide recounted the story of a “valley girl” from California who asked if the Krakow castle moat used to have sharks in it. Priceless.

Ended the day on the overnight train to the Polish beach resort of Hel.

If ever you needed proof that there is no god then Auschwitz and Birkenau are it. The Nazis murdered 1.5 million men women and children here, most in the gas chambers as soon as they arrived. A truly chilling place to visit. If you have trouble imagining the scale of this abomination, picture this, when the Russians liberated the camp they fond two tonnes of human hair destined for the German textile industry. The other thing that really made me think was that some of the photos of the murdered people had flowers on them. For New Zealanders Auschwitz is a horrific historical event. For the Polish, Jewish and others who visit many lost family and friends. Often whole families. The gas chambers at Birkenau are covered with flowers and candles.

Also managed to squeeze in a visit to the Wieliczka Salt Mine. Who knew salt was mined out of the ground like coal? I certainly didn’t. The mine contains numerous works of beautiful art carved from black rock salt including a chapel that measures 54 meters by 17 meters and is 12 meters high. They even have concerts in the mine and if you want to you can get married in there. The tour took two hours and we walked over two kilometers and we still only saw one percent of the mine. We ended the the tour with a meal at a restaurant 100 meters under ground.

Berlin to Krakow doesn’t look that far on a map but for some reason it takes 10 hours.

Language wise Poland might prove a little challenging. I’ll give you some examples. It appears that ‘w’ is a word although it is probably pronounced vee or var. And ‘Wrzeszcz’ is an actual pronounceable place name and not a noise you make when you get a decent electric shock. Luckily some Polish words that are essential for backpacking are a little easier to interpret – like ‘alkohole’.

 

Once settled in Krakow we had an excellent time on what could only be called the worst pub crawl of all time. It went to only one pub, the ’9 Bar’. A pub we were later (two days later) warned not to go to because the local mob drink there and an Irish tourist recently had acid thrown in his face there. Met loads of locals and only have very good things to say about the superb quality of Polish Smoo.

Took the Insiders Berlin Tour. Saw a good whack of the central Berlin highlights including The Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate and the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby from. Well worth it.

Other highlights of Berlin included:

The Judisches Museum (Jewish Museum) which was as interesting for its architecture as it was for its subject matter.

The Pergamom which is the German Equivalent of the British Museum and basically contains all the antiquities the naughty Germans could nick during their colonial period. The prize of this collection has to be the Ishtar Gates one of the entrances to the ancient city of Babylon, near what is left of Bagdad.

The rotating restaurant in the Berlin version of the Sky Tower offers fantastic views and photo opportunities of the city. That is if your Canon digital camera doesn’t shit itself. This is the second digital Canon I have had that has died on me for no good reason. The replacement is a Sony.

On our last night we did the Berlin Pub Crawl. A spectacular evening where we managed to drink an entire bottle of complimentary vodka after we were the only ones to join the crawl from our 800 bed hostel. Somehow Runty managed to get lost and I had to find my own way home pissed as a newt. Messy.

Flew from Luton to Berlin. Nearly flew from bloody Stanstead but thankfully realised before things got out of hand. Somehow blame for this early near-debacle has been laid at my doorstep which I fail to understand since I wasn’t even awake at the time.

Perhaps I should take a moment to describe my travel buddy, Runty. Runty or Greg New as the courts know him is a 32 year old beer loving, sports mad, travel junkie from NZ who labours under the illusion that Hamilton is not only tolerable but is actually a happening and exciting place to live. Thankfully he isn’t this deluded in other parts of his life. No doubt there will be much more on him later.

On the 23rd of August I leave for my latest world tour. The general plan is to work hard this year until August and then traveling home via Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Belorussia, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria (there might be a bit of a flight here) India, Nepal, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and then NZ. There may some other countries thrown in or more than likely there will be some missed out – depending on factors on the ground.

About six weeks ago I was watching a UK reality television show called Big Brother and was trying to decide who would win. It was a hard one but in the end I put £50 on a nicotine craving, cackling Portuguese post-op transsexual at 24 to 1.

Today I won £1,150 :)