Day 70-72 - Fethiye, Cappadocia

Day 10 - Fethiye to Antalya
This morning we drive further south for Saklikent Gorge. A natural mountain split in half by an earthquake years ago. You may wish to trek through the massive canyon, tripping and scrambling over the rocks whilst submerged in icy cold water fresh from the hilltops. Afterwards, there is time to have lunch at the river bar and café. Today we also visit a carpet village and learn how carpets are made by hand, what determines their value and the historical and cultural context in which this folk art has blossomed.

Before I continue, in response to a couple of questions, people going to the site I linked earlier will see that the descriptions are different. I have pieced together from a number of new and old Fez sites an actual description of what we did, so the descriptions are more useful here than on the site.

I was feeling considerably better by this stage but not so much that wading up to my bum in ice-cold water really appealed to me as an idea so soon after a flu, so I amused myself watching the others, walking around the nearby mountains and getting chased by a goat. Saklıkent Gorge is definitely amazing, but having seen the Cataract Gorge in Launceston TAS and having seen the Great Ocean Road in Vıctoria, I guess that I was a bit underawed.

Afterwards, we went to a government-licenced carpet factory just out of Saklikent, where we were entertained with Turkish tea, shown a variety of carpets and learned to tell between different types, and then spent a further two or three hours there. As with most of the purchase opportunities on this tour, while I could recognise that prices were lower than I had seen elsewhere in Turkey, they were still way beyond my price range.

It was late when we left and the sun set on the way to Antalya, a tourist city and the birthplace of our tour guide. Due to various circumstances, I was now in single-room accommodation even though I'd paid for twin-share.

Whinge alert: Hotel Sunset in Antalya was dreadful. It is not Fez's usual hotel of choice, it's in an odd location and the rooms are not in acceptable condition. My 1st floor room was full of smoke and the ancient AC unit was broken and jammed full of dust. As an asthmatic, this posed an unacceptable risk. Apparently, all rooms were full that night and none were non-smoking. The tour guide graciously offered to trade with me - his 3rd floor room was better in that it had a modern AC.

Day 11: Antalya to Cappadocia via Konya
Follow the ancient silk trade route, while heading north- east via Konya to Cappadocia. Along the way to Cappadocia we visit the 13th-century caravanseray at Sultanhani. Tonight there is the option of a traditional Turkish folklore evening, with the famous whirling dervishes and belly-dancing.

Day 12: Cappadocia
This morning we marvel at the surreal and bizarre landscape that
is Cappadocia. Enjoy a fully guided tour of this fascinating region.
We will be visiting an underground city, the old Greek village of Mustafa Pasa with its fairy chimneys and Pigeon Valley and Göreme Valley. We return to the hotel late afternoon.

Due to the unseasonal hot weather (about 35°C) and our group, the above was our slightly non-standard tour itinerary. The first day was nearly entirely one long (9 hour) drive from Southwest Turkey to Central Turkey.

Quick note about geography - Cappadocia is a fairly large historical region, mostly located in the Aksaray, Nevsehir and Kayseri regions. Just north of Nevsehir are the small cities of Ürgüp (where most hotels/motels are located), Göreme (where most tourist attractions are) and Avanos.

We briefly got to see Göreme, the main attraction of this area, before going to the Turkish evening at a fairly new establishment. This basically consisted of - unlimited food and drinks, the whirling dervishes of the Mevlani order, who are basically a group of men clad in whıte who bow to each other lots then spin around and around at impossible speeds in harmony wıth each other - amazing to watch - and the dancing, where Attila from our group managed to strut his stuff in style, plus some folklore with a simulated courtship and wedding done entirely via music and dance. We got back to the hotel at around 12:30am tired but happy. It's one of the few times on the tour that we've all had a chance to do something together as a group rather than a series of individuals.

Today we explored the Göreme Valley region, took lots of amazing and entirely weird pictures, explored an underground city built here by Christians in 7th century AD to defend against the Muslims, visited a small pottery shop and factory in Avanos (another blatant shoppıng opportunity conveniently scheduled by the tour), checked out some old Greek Orthodox churches in Göreme literally carved out of the rocks, and saw the fairy chimneys. Very full day.

What's next?
Tomorrow - free day and Turkish bath.
Friday - driving back to Istanbul (10hrs) via Ankara.
Saturday - tour ends.
Tuesday - I leave Istanbul bound for Singapore.

Day 69 - Fethiye

Sunday 26 September 2004, 19:30 Turkey time

I really do like Fethiye as a place. It's got the natural scenery and hasn't completely sold out to tourism with the shopping experience despite the abundance of tourists around the place. The interesting thing is that most of the tourists seem to be from other parts of Turkey rather than international.

I went out on a boat trip (12 Adalar aboard 'Prenses Cansu') today around the islands. I couldn't tell you what exactly I saw, as there was no commentary, but the whole area is absolutely beautiful. Blue water to distance, turquoise water up close (did you know that turquoise is a French word originating from "turkuaz"?) and mountains and islands everywhere.

In the three days I've been away from the group, I have managed to:
- see and enjoy Lake Koycegiz, Turtle Beach and all they have to offer
- consume with the locals and a few fellow backpackers at a traditional stone gathering-house
- explore Kayaköy, the ghost town, and Fethiye
- get in a fair bit of walking
- tour the islands in the Fethiye harbour area
- spend more money on global roaming charges
- recover from (most of) my ailments

On the way into the net cafe to update this I ran into two people from the group - was good to see them again. This point marks both the halfway point on the Fez tour and the halfway point on my time in Turkey, which is slightly longer.

Turkey has a lot of interesting music of its own. If you want to hear the one that's been stuck in my head all day, get Şappur Şuppur by İsmail-YK (YK is short for Yurtseven Kardesler, the name of the singer.) For more info, check out http://english.alternatifim.com. Other music which for better or worse I will probably end up associating with this country when I hear it includes:

Mario Winans/P Diddy - I Don't Wanna Know
Britney Spears - Toxic
Beyonce - Crazy In Love
Panjabi MC - Beware Of The Boys (Mundian To Bach Ke) - heard everywhere here
O-Zone - Dragostea Din Tei (do not download this, not only does it totally suck, but it'll stick in your head for weeks)

Day 67-68 - Touring Turkey

Day 7: Köycegiz Boat Trip
Board a boat and cruise around lake Köycegiz. Pass the Kings' Tombs, swim at Turtle Beach or cover yourself in mud and take a dip in the thermal springs.

Day 8: Köycegiz to Fethiye
Leaving Köycegiz, we drive to the ghost town of Kayaköyü, a Greek village that was given up at the beginning of the 20th Century in accordance with the treaty of Lausanne, which saw an exchange of people between Turkey and Greece.

I bid a farewell to the rest of the tour, and then got ready for my boat trip (Sahin Daily Tour) around Lake Köycegiz. A great 9 hours (with included lunch!) checking out fabulous lake-mountain scenery, a wonderful white, sandy Mediterranean beach with straw hut restaurants and a long line of large old people lying on recliners. The other people - especially a Dutch guy called Gijs (try pronouncing that!), a British couple and the young staff onboard the boat (one of whom should be in dance music videos) - made the journey exciting and fun. The Lycian mud baths were fun to watch, but I wasn't game to go in (I think the sulfur smell made my mind up) - instead enjoying a fabulous Turkish apple tea for a ridiculously low price. Overall, the Sahin boat trip was fantastic and I'd happily recommend it. Even the water bottles were cheap.

On return to Köycegiz I accepted an earlier invitation from several 20-something Canadians I had met earlier who seemed to appreciate my Canada-liking, English-speaking ways. This was an interesting experience in getting to see the real Turkey. While the tourists all crowd into bars and nightclubs playing bad 80s music and techno in the Mediterranean and Aegean resort towns, the locals in the smaller towns sit around in dimly-lit stone buildings dating back to the 18th century and drink raki, the local drink, and talk over the day's events. I wouldn't call them bars because I didn't get the impression that selling alcohol was their main objective. Although we couldn't speak much Turkish, the locals seemed to accept us quite happily, although we ended up mostly talking to each other. We were given small gifts by an elderly man before our departure. After good wishes all around and staggering back to my hotel at 12:30am, both the hotel management and tour guide seemed surprised I was out so late, although I noted plenty of establishments (including at least one playing bad 80s music) were still open.

Today, our one-person tour came to Fethiye, the coastal resort closest to the well-known beach of Ölüdeniz. Karaköy was a really harrowing experience - just think of thousands of houses all clearly visible on a hillside that you can walk through and around, slowly passing into ruin through abandonment. At least the Turkish tourism authorities have seen to it that this process will not continue and the area is undergoing preservation and restoration. I think in general, actually, that the Turkish tourism and antiquities authorities actually do an amazing job looking after the wealth of past treasures they have been bequeathed.

Day 63-66 - Touring Turkey with Fez Travel

The tour is proceeding according to this tour plan from Fez Bus. I have crossposted the entries to use as headings, using better descriptions where available.

Day 3: Istanbul to Gallipoli
An early start as we head down to the Gallipoli peninsula, the site of the ill-fated World War I campaign that shaped young commonwealth nations such as Australia and New Zealand. We take the tour at the Kabatepe Museum and partake in the tour of areas such as Lone Pine and Chunuk Bair Memorials, Anzac Cove, Johnston's Jolly, the Nek and Allied and Turkish trenches. After the tour, you cross the Dardenelles and stay in Çanakkale.

We left Istanbul early in the morning for the long drive via Tekirdag - not the most exciting bit of Turkey, to be honest - to the Gallipoli (Gelibolu) Peninsula. First stop was the Kabatepe museum, where in a fairly small, hushed room, we got the opportunity to view medals, coins, uniforms, bullets, guns, poignant letters and even some partial skeletons. The other sites are all fairly well-known, so I'll focus more on interpretation.

For those who don't know, the British and Anzac (Aust & NZ Army Corps) landed at Anzac Cove on the peninsula on 25 April 1915 in an attempt to capture the Dardanelles, which connect the Black Sea with the Mediterranean and hence were vital from a shipping perspective. To cut a long story short, the initiative failed, mainly because the choice of landing spot appears to have been a mistake. The Anzacs pulled out in late 1915-early 1916, having suffered massive casualties. To this day, Australia celebrates Anzac Day as its national war memorial day, starting with a dawn service in every capital and at Gallipoli itself. It was our first major loss in battle, and gave rise to a national spirit quite separate from our previous connections with Britain for perhaps the first time.

Within a few years of World War I, the Ottoman empire which had led Turkey for 7 centuries crumbled and Turkey, after a war of independence, became a republic in 1923 with war hero and independence leader, General Mustafa Kemal, as its first president. He believed Turkey needed to modernise, secularise and democratise - and achieved much towards this goal without sacrificing Turkey's independence to Western powers. He is revered as a national hero in every corner of Turkey, and has been given the title Ataturk - father of the Turks. He also normalised relations with Turkey's enemies in WWI, partly because of a strongly-held respect for British and Anzac forces he had himself fought, and facilitated the building of peace parks and international memorial sites.

As a "New Australian", it was a very weird experience for me - while I was born elsewhere, it is like growing up with an adopted parent. That culture has become my culture, and I was deeply moved by what I saw. Two of the most striking things for me were the gravesites, especially those believed to be of two 18-year-olds who had died in battle. Back in that day, people forged their ages to get into the fighting, so it's quite likely they were high-school-age kids. The other thing was just looking at some of the now eerily peaceful scenery that these guys had to negotiate during the fighting - it was sobering. As I look back over my photos tonight, I believe I have managed to accurately capture some of what I saw at least.

We finished by getting a ferry to Çanakkale, the city of about 500,000 where Turks talk with a broad Australian accent even though they really can't speak English - I find it amusing and the American tourists, by all web reports, find it irritating.

Day 4: Gallipoli to Kusadasi via Troy & Pergamon
Step back in time today as we head south and visit the ancient city of Troy, the site of the famed Trojan war, and its Trojan Horse. After Troy, we continue along the Aegean Coast for a lunch stop at Bergama. This afternoon sees us on a tour of the ruined Pergamon, a magnificent acropolis with one of the steepest amphitheatres in the world. Its impressive temples, library and medical facilities made it a renowned cultural and political centre in its time. We continue driving south for our night stop at Kusadasi.

Day 5: Ephesus Tour
Absorb yourself in history today with a guided tour of Ephesus. Walk down Marble Road towards the Celcus Library and Grand Theatre and immerse yourself into the mystical atmosphere of the city halls and stadium where chariot and horse races were once held. We also visit the site of the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Also visit the former Greek village of Sirince, famous for it's fruit wines, before a leather goods show. Turkey produces some of the finest leather goods in the world and many are made here before branding in Italy.

While ancient cities of this kind are extremely fascinating, one thing that started to grate on me after a while is that the sheer dilapidation of most of the sites caused by millennia of wear and tear and earthquakes and the sorts of things that happen (and some measure of 19th-century treasure-hunting and looting) means that you basically walk from site to site with a few half-columns, pillars or scattered artefacts on levels of hilly, weed-covered earth, and have to basically use your imagination to try and reconstruct what was actually there based on the historical information. There are actually 9 cities of Troy, with the one of legend believed to be the 6th city standing on that site, and the others above or below it in layers. (The Trojan Horse, by the way, is basically a tourist trap, but is great for photographs.)

The Fez tour, in one respect, actually manages this extremely well - by going from Troy to Pergamon and then to Ephesus, one is going from worst- to best-preserved over the sequence - in Ephesus, many of the everyday parts of the city are still reasonably intact and you feel like you are walking around a city, and can get some idea for how the people of the time lived, even if only through the tour guide's commentary. Pergamon is more mixed in that some bits are excellently preserved (eg the theatre and its entrance, the agora etc) but most is not.

We stayed for two nights in Kusadasi (Kush-a-Dar-suh), a tourist town with a permanent population of about 50,000. The place is absolutely beautiful and great for shopping, although I didn't get to enjoy it much as my time there was marred by my various ailments.

Near Ephesus is a delightful bit of the country where one can wander around hillsides, see the alleged home of the Virgin Mary after Jesus's ascension to heaven and eat pancakes in a traditional Turkish pancake house sitting on cushions in a tent, surrounded by Turkish rugs and watching old women with headscarves rolling out and cooking your pancake to order on the hearth for about A$2. In the time I've been in Turkey, these pancakes (which you do find around the place) together with Turkish tea have become personal favourites.

Afterwards, we went to a leather shop and watched a fashion show, which two more flamboyant members of our group assisted wıth, and then we spent a couple of hours in the shop amusing ourselves and trying to avoid the nice but incredibly patient staff who wished to sell us stuff. I did, however, buy a really nice leather jacket.

Day 6: Kusadasi to Köycegiz
Tour the magnificent white calcium formations of Pamukkale, followed by the ancient city of Hierapolis and a dip in the hot springs, which were used in Roman times for their therapeutic powers.

Hierapolis is an interesting place compared to the other three in that it has been adopted by modernity for its original purpose. One can still see sarcophagi and ruins from the Roman period, as well as its excellently preserved theatre, but the attraction (and some might say tourist trap) is the thermal hot springs. While they were meant to cure everything from skin afflictions to flus to cancers, I wasn't actually game to go in and have a dip along with the thousands of Turkish and European tourists who were, but it was great all the same. The view from the bus from Kusadasi to Koycegiz (Koh-jiz, with a Queens English accent) through the mountains was actually the highlight of my day - I love this sort of nature stuff, with steep gorges and rivers and mountains and greenery, as Daniel can attest from my time in Western Canada. It was unexpected and it was great. Koycegiz is a mountain town of about 8,000 and so far is the friendliest place I've been in through all of Turkey.

This last day with the rest of the tour group was strangely emotional. This tour has two options - one which proceeds as follows, and the other spends the next 3 days (Friday to Sunday in this case) on a gulet cruising the Mediterranean. I was the only one who picked the land option in this particular group - and was given a number of chances to change my mind, but in the end didn't. The deciding factor in the end was my health - I felt I needed to recover, and I do that best by myself. But I probably would have done it anyway - I've always been a bit of a lone adventurer, and the thought of relaxing on a boat for 3 days actually sounded a bit boring to me.

Thoughts on travelling and time distortion issues

Friday 24 September 2004, 20:00 Turkey time

It's interesting how much evolution can occur in a few short days. It's been enough time for me to form one opinion of a country, get really sick with two different ailments (first the food poisoning, then a cold/flu), lose several kilograms, form a contrary opinion of the same country, and even fall out with people then reconcile differences, all while wasting hundreds of dollars on global roaming charges. Five days is, indeed, a long time.

On the subject of time, since I am still sick and hence procrastinating on launching into a full description of the last few days, it is interesting how time warps when you are travelling.

- 10 weeks ago, I was at home listening to MP3s and reading travel sites.
- Two months ago, I was in Hawaii, just arrived from Auckland.
- One month ago, I was in Quebec City.
- Two weeks ago, I was ın Vienna.
- One week ago, I had just arrived in Istanbul from Beograd.

The first three seem like sometime last year! I'm not even sure that I remember what my room looks like. In two weeks and two days time, that won't matter anyway. In twelve weeks of travelling, I will have seen a fairly wide swathe of the world, and more importantly met my original goal of not only seeing a place but developing an understanding of the people and cultures that I meet. I hope that my blog has perhaps, for some people, helped to shatter a few stereotypes - be they positive or negative - about some of the countries I have been in. I am thinking particularly of Serbia as I write this, but when I get around to it, I hope it may also apply to Turkey. This really is a great country with a rich cultural heritage and a great sense of humour, but you really do have to leave Istanbul to find it.

Travelling has given me a sense of independence that I never had even when living by myself and managing my own affairs. I needed something to give me self confidence. Surviving this hectic and at times crazy journey was the affirmation I needed. I am capable of things that I hadn't even considered before, and in seeing how I survive so far outside my comfort zone, I know I can do so much better when back in it again in Perth.

Final thought for the night is on who you travel with. You can either travel by yourself, with friends, with family or with a random tour group. To each their own - I do manage best by myself. Even with friends, I feel that it somehow limits me, even if only psychologically, as I need to take their preferences and limits into account. With a tour group, you always feel under pressure to get on with people, and those people may not feel any need to get on with you, especially if they have made friends elsewhere in the group who are easier to understand, whether because of commonality or circumstance. Even in a group of 11 there are times when one can feel intense loneliness - even more so than when by yourself in a country where noone speaks your language.

I will update properly in the next couple of days. This Turkish language keyboard is pissing me off and on Win98 you need an OS disk to add the option for Ingilizce.

Day 62 - Istanbul ; Thoughts

Sunday 19 September 2004, 21:00 Turkey time

I'm still recovering, but I am now very sure I'll be fine.

The tour started today - I have now met my tour guide, Ayhan (I-haan), and several of the other people travelling with us - including Trent from Melbourne, my roommate, and his friends Brent and Attila the Hungarian. It looks like it's going to be an excellent time. In my travels around Victoria and Tasmania, I got used to tour groups where I had nothing in common with anyone else, so this is a big improvement :)

Today we did the Istanbul city tour, and I got some good photographs. All the downsides happened in the first hour, and the rest was great and more than made up for it. I hope I never have to wrestle another "businessman" such as that one outside the Blue Mosque trying to sell me a picture book of Istanbul for A$27 and pulling my money out of my hands and hanging around me like a fly for over 10 minutes, and I hope I never urgently require a WC right when we are passing by a carpet shop.

The list of destinations was:
- The old Hippodrome, most of which was not visible
- The Blue Mosque
- The Agia Sophia
- The Basilica Cistern
- Topkapi Palace

Rather than trying to review them, I'll just say they were all amazing places, and that you can read about them on any tourist website of Istanbul. The tour guide was excellent and provided us with an insight into the very mixed history of Istanbul, with Roman, Greek Orthodox and Ottoman Muslim traditions, while being very careful to paint the Turkish Ottomans in a (generally) good light. He also covered the basics of Greek Orthodox and Turkish (Sunni) Muslim tradition very well, although I was already familiar with it. We also learned something that never occurred to me before - the "harem" where the concubines lived is the same root word as "haram", the Arabic word for ritually unclean which is the opposite to "halal" (and I'm sure everyone knows that one!)

One tip for any travellers coming through - There is an excellent Hostelling International here located at the Cordial House located just off Piyerloti Caddesi (Look on hihostels.com for more info). A single room costs just A$34 and dorm bed about $15. Even if you're not staying there, it is the safest and cheapest place to buy a map and four postcards (A$3.80). This should be remembered when being harangued by numerous shady individuals trying to sell you postcards - I've learned to treat them like the homeless of Canada and purposefully ignore them without even looking at them. It's a sad way to have to do things, and I often wonder if my travelling has made me a better or worse person, but it's reality and I'm not in Australia, I'm in Turkey and have to deal with the reality here. Most people I've talked to emphasise that these problems are primarily problems within Istanbul and will cease to bedevil me out in the countryside where we go tomorrow.

I mention the HI primarily because my room at the Grand Yavuz for $57 a night is just a tad dodgy. The remote on the TV doesn't work without fiddling the batteries, and the volume and program buttons are missing. The bath has no plugs, and the bathroom door doesn't lock. There's not even a hook to hang up a jacket. The one good thing I can rave about is the breakfast - it's a small buffet, and isn't bad. (I've been spoiled by both relatives and the Hotel Imperial in Ostrava, so my standards are probably too high)

Anyway, I'm off now. See you all later - it may be a bit later, depending on what standard of Internet access exists in rural Turkey. Wish me luck!

Day 60-61 - Leaving Beograd; Istanbul

Saturday 18 September 2004, 19:30 Turkish time (GMT+3; Perth-5)

I've crossed another border, another time zone and, it feels like, another world. How many cities can you be woken up in the morning by an Islamic call to prayer clearly audible through your window and then go off and watch Turkish Idol (Arabic-style singing over techno by charismatic-looking 20-somethings)?

Not much to write about leaving Beograd yesterday. I will miss the city and its people, and there is only a handful of places (Auckland, Vancouver, Vienna) before that that I could really say that about. I will be back one day ... (You've probably got sick of reading that line about various cities by now from me)

The bus no.72 slowly chugged into the airport 1h40m before my flight (it took an hour from Beograd, only 18-20km away). Despite the security cordon being 4 layers thick and full of really large, unfriendly looking people, I had no problems clearing it in under 10 minutes. I've gotten so used to dumping my camera, coins, keys and mobile in a bucket, taking off my jacket and backpack and putting it all through scanners every few days that it comes almost automatically now.

JAT Airlines were really nice, good-quality friendly service and decent airline food - it was similar to LOT Polish Airlines, except the staff spoke perfect English on JAT. On arrival in Turkey, I presented myself as an Australian, competed with the often quite pushy crowds in lines, paid the US$20 entry fee, and Salih from Fez Travel was there to greet me and escort me to the van which would get me to my hotel.

Istanbul is the first city in which I've felt genuinely intimidated by the place. The hotel itself is nice, but the moment you leave it, you have to deal with the locals at very close quarters owing to the very narrow streets in the Sultanahmet district where I'm staying. I've already been practically pushed into one restaurant (Kaçkar) and charged Australian prices for a three-course meal last night - reminded me of certain dodgy Chinese eateries in Perth whose English suddenly fails when you try to do anything outside of the plan. I suffered for that meal too - have been all but inactive today due to mild diarrhoea. (I've had worse, though).

To be honest, I can't wait for the tour to start tomorrow. Firstly, it will be an adventure. Secondly, I will actually feel safe. Thirdly, they can tell me decent places to eat. I've spent most of the day trying to sleep off the health problems.

One side note - after thinking about my general lack of food in Eastern Europe, I'm probably weighing less now than when I left Perth for the first time. The sheer decadence with which Daniel and I hit most Canadian cities left me a bit out of shape, as did staying with rellies in Belfast and Vienna (although I am so not complaining - the food was top-class) and then managing the rather manual, escalator-free atmosphere in Eastern cities (sometimes with 20kg+ of luggage in tow) probably improved my figure a bit.

And finally, it's amazing how much better a home-cooked meal is than something you pay $16 for in a proper restaurant with trained culinary staff. Certainly food for thought - pardon the pun.

Wrap-up - Day 48-60 - Central/Eastern Europe

After having spent time in Krakow, Ostrava, Budapest and Beograd, I'm thinking back on my time spent in this region and trying to make sense of my experience for future reference. Overall, I have really enjoyed my time here, although it's been something of a culture shock.

Practical and general observations
* In Eastern Europe, the euro is not widely recognised despite the fact three of the four cities I stayed in are members of the European Union.
* Food tends to be sold outdoor in small makeshift facilities, but is by and large really cheap. You can find modern supermarkets in all of the above cities without looking too hard.
* Contrasting Krakow and Budapest on one hand, and Ostrava and Beograd on the other,
the former two have a highly developed tourist infrastructure, while the latter two do not. As a tourist you can find information easily even so, but you just have to look harder for it.
* In Krakow and Budapest, English is limited. In Ostrava it is non-existent - get a good quality phrasebook (the Lonely Planet one was insufficient for my needs). In Beograd it is widely understood.
* The sort of people you'd expect to help you - bank staff, tourist advisers and the like - are the least friendly people you'll meet in this part of the world. Some have been downright rude to me. Yet the majority of the population is friendly and welcoming - even if they can't understand you. One interesting note - body language is a little (although not hugely) different here, and it's not customary to greet people you don't already know.
* Crime is a lot less of a problem than the international media makes out. I saw worse districts in Honolulu and parts of Canada than in general exist over here. I've been told Warszawa and Bucuresti are more of a problem in that regard, but I can't comment as I've yet to see them.
* Navigation is a bit of a problem as street signs are fixed onto buildings on that street rather than being pointer signs as one gets in Australia, New Zealand, the US or Canada. There'll often only be one sign (and sometimes none) and you just have to either go on faith or get used to missing streets, looking behind you to find the street sign, then finding ways around them.
* Traffic is by and large nuts, crossings are clearly marked everywhere but are not always observed by drivers. Budapest had the worst traffic of the cities I saw, although Beograd rates an honourable mention for being simply crazy. In Budapest and Beograd, stairway underpasses are often the only way to cross major streets.
* I had no problems taking photographs. Just be sensible and don't take photos of lots of police or of security buildings and you'll be fine. I was warned this would be a real problem in Eastern Europe and found it not to be, so thought I'd put it here. I have taken approximately 325 photos across the four cities.

Pointless observations
* Toilet bowls are really weird here - the hole is right at the front and you sit on this large basin. Public toilets are marked "WC" but often cost money to use - usually about 40-60c Australian. If you can't find the flush, look on the right hand side, there is usually either a pull-chain or lever.
* Shower-bath units are available, but the preference is clearly baths in this part of the world. The showers are a bit odd to work as there is only one set of taps and you have to turn the tap on then pull a lever up to get the water to come through the shower.
* Most of the younger generation here are ridiculously good-looking. Don't stare - it's rude. The septuagenarian generation, meanwhile, especially old ladies selling stuff, tend to look more like characters out of Monty Python.

Useful things to know - Language
* Hello is:
Dzien dobry (jen-DOH-bree) in Polish
Dobry den in Czech
Dobar dan in Serbian
Guten Tag or Hallo in German
(don't need it in Hungary, say "Hi" with an accent)

* Goodbye is:
Do vidzenia (do-vi-JEN-yah) in Polish
Na shledanou (nah-sCHleh-da-noh) in Czech (CH as in Scottish loch)
Do vid'enja (similar to Polish) in Serbian
Auf wiedersehen (ow-VEE-dehr-sayn) in German
Viszontlatasra (vi-sont-LAH-tosh-rah) in Hungarian

* Please is:
Prosze (praw-shah) in Polish
Prosim (praw-SEEM) in Czech (point at things and say this)
Bitte (bit-teh) in German

* Thank you is:
Dziekuje (je-KOO-yeh) in Polish (oo as in foot)
De'kuji (je-KOO-yee) in Czech
Hvala (huh-VAH-lah) in Serbian
Danke schön (Dank-eh shern) in German
Köszönöm (ker-ser-nerm) in Hungarian

Day 58-59 - Budapest, Beograd

Wednesday 15 September 2004, 16:00 CET

I'm now on the train from Budapest to Beograd. It's definitely been an interesting time seeing Budapest - I have probably been too harsh on it in the last few entries, but it is a bit rundown in a way which could not be described as charmingly decadent. It wasn't without its showpieces though - the walk up to the Buda Citadel, the Parliament building, some of the churches, the bridges and the waterfront were really nice. The accommodation in these sorts of situations can make or break a place for a traveller like me - my Halifax experience is a testament to that.

Anyway, off to Beograd now. The normally-20-minute walk to Keleti station with all my luggage in tow in 24° and high humidity is not something I would generally recommend. The Hungarian old couple who got off in Kiskoros seemed to find my water-satched state extremely amusing (even more so than my attempts to speak Hungarian).

So far it's been very boring - flat farmland on one side and...flat farmland on the other.

Wednesday 15 September 2004, 23:45 CET

Dobro vece from Beograd, Srbija (better known as Serbia).

Well, a bit of adventure indeed getting here. As I mentioned earlier, my hotel disappeared off the face of the earth (edit: it turned out it hadn't, just they don't answer their phone. I watched the receptionist studiously ignore the phone when I went there today) and the Budapest guys got me a reservation for Three Black Catz in Beograd. A few Serbian teenagers got on the train at Novi Sad and were practising their English on me, to much amusement all around. Once we arrived in Beograd, I found myself arguing with an incomprehensible taxi driver with a cart on the platform and trying to help a German tourist who couldn't read Cyrillic alphabet both at the same time. I was supposed to meet some German travellers from the Budapest hostel there but after getting out of there, I couldn't find them anywhere.

Interesting point - I've since found out (and guessed correctly at the time) that many tourists get ripped off by these aggressive taxi drivers who either just charge them 5-10 times the going rate, or even drive them as far away as Skopje, Macedonia or Novi Sad as a "shortcut" to Beograd and then demand hefty fees in euro to get people back to where they're supposed to be. If you're coming to Beograd and need a taxi, find out the phone numbers in advance and order one.

I found the hostel after getting lost several times - let's say the official site has some glaring geographical misconceptions on it. "One block" from the train station means across, down one block on a main street (Nemanjina), up an at-times-steep hill for approximately 500m, under an underpass, left into a confusing array of shops which turns into a street (not identified as such unless you know Cyrillic alphabet and look carefully). Once you find No.8, it is in fact an apartment building and the hostel is an apartment on the 6th (top) floor. Only the locals can tell you where it is - there are no signs or directions. (A number of the other things on that site are also wrong.) One aside - in Budapest and Belgrade, it is usual to have to use an underpass (stairs only) to cross a major street as crossings are often not provided.

Once I got there, though, it was a very nice atmosphere. It turns out two of the Three Black Catz are not actually black - although I don't normally like cats, I developed quite an affinity for the ginger one. The hostel is easily the most relaxed one I have stayed in - the only rules were to take off your shoes and to leave the toilet door open after you've finished as it's also the cat litter area. The other people here seem pretty friendly and relaxed, which is always good.

Thursday 16 September 2004, 22:00 CET

Beograd is a city which, despite being rundown, has a charm to its decadence. It has suffered much in its long history and sometimes, rebuilding and cleaning everything just doesn't rate alongside other priorities when money is tight. Even the national airline's magazine describes SCG (Serbia & Montenegro/Srbija i Crna Gora) as one of the poorer parts of Europe. However, the people are unbelievably friendly and unlike many somewhat wealthier Eastern cities, many here speak at least some English. I have felt safe the whole time I've been in Beograd and, taking only basic precautions like not flashing my money around, have had nothing happen to me - and this seems to be the opinion of most Western travellers here. Honestly, too, it's also an excellent city for people-watching. The Serbian people are very proud of their identity and their country - and I can actually understand their pride, they do have a lot to offer. It's sad that they have got such a bad rap from the world media.

After staying around the hostel for a while, I decided I should really explore the place even though I was still sans map. I found the fortress (Kalemegdan) and a really ornate Serbian Orthodox church almost by accident, and spent several hours exploring Kalemegdan for a few hours. I then wandered around the shopping districts for a while - the shopping culture here is very different even to other Eastern European cities.

On arrival at Trg Republike (Republic Square), I overheard a Canadian tourist discussing a "war tour" of Beograd with a taxi driver called Predrag, who for just 100 dinar ($2.50) took us around some of the more notorious sites of Beograd's recent history, on the condition we didn't get out or take photos. I felt a bit uneasy putting my camera in a safe, but Predrag assured us we would get it back at the end. Half an hour later, we had seen Slobodan Milosevic's rather luxurious former residence in Dedinje, the sites of the revolution in October 2000 which ousted Milosevic from power, the place where Zoran Djindjic was killed in 2002, numerous badly-bombed apartment buildings (some just one block from the train station) and a few other harrowing sites. It was almost a relief afterwards to walk in a nice green park just next to one of the buildings where the kids were playing basketball, the birds were hopping around, the lunching workers were eating on the grass and one could almost believe things had always been so normal.

After this, I went back to the hostel. They're currently playing a drinking game, while the not-so-subtle tension between the two people who run this place mushrooms. I've been amusing myself with the cats and with chatting to some of the other guests and to Nikolas, a Serb boy who came over and has been providing his thoughts on recent and not-so-recent events in Serbia and the surrounding region. Not feeling too well at the moment - Beograd's smog problems (the worst I've seen while away from Perth) and the indoor smokers may account for some of that.

Oh, yeah, and there was an impromptu fireworks display from the HVB Bank behind the hostel - was quite an impressive show for about 5 minutes. I'm told it has something to do with corrupt local politicians celebrating their own achievements, but it doesn't take away from the fact it was fun to watch.

Day 56-57 - In transit; Budapest

Monday 13 September 2004, 17:45 CET

This place feels just nuts. I'm in Budapest, and everything I've seen on the way to the hostel is either being replaced, being repaired or being badly in need of it. There's a very decadent feel to many of the buildings. I'm a wreck after walking 30 minutes with my luggage and having to cross the street every minute because alternate lengths of the footpath have been dug up and/or fenced off.

(Update from Istanbul: I've since met a Hungarian traveller who has informed me this used to be a red-light district, which probably explains its state of being, and why they'd be replacing everything.)

Firstly, to today. I was thinking about things I will miss in Vienna - there is an abundance of really cute, well-behaved dogs, sometimes with shaggy fur and those sort of eyes that just look up at you. As those who know me would know, I usually have a problem with dogs up close, so this came as a surprise even to me. Then there's the look and feel of the place - it's one of the few places I've been where you can actually 'feel' the culture; Quebec City was possibly the only other city that fitted this category. The other thing is of course the home comforts, cooking and hospitality I've enjoyed courtesy of Christine, George and Catrin. I've certainly not gone without anything in the last few days.

George (my aunt's boyfriend) gave me a lift to the boat station at Reichsbrucke where I was to depart for Budapest. After the usual paperwork, tickets, passport control etc that I'm now starting to just accept as standard issue for travelling, I was surprised by a friend and reader, Julie, who came out to meet me based solely on information contained within this blog! It was a great, but very short, time spent, and was prematurely terminated by the boarding of the last passenger in the line.

The boat journey itself was probably not as amazing as I expected. It was good however - there isn't much that beats going down the Danube in a ferry, given its fame and reputation, and we saw some great sights, including Bratislava and the ancient cathedral at Esztergom. The staff were incredibly friendly and knowledgeable and provided us with something of a running commentary as we passed a place in both English and German. The food was also good (and if you didn't mind waiting until an hour before docking, it was free too).

However my gripes were - firstly, the boat was quite low and the windows were dirty, so I didn't get to see a great deal unless I went out to one of the open doors and looked outside. Unfortunately, these prime viewing locations were usually being hogged by one of maybe two or three individuals. The smoking section was not detached from the main section, which made some things a bit unpleasant. I also came to learn on this trip that whiny middle-aged Canadian package tourists can be just as obnoxious, annoying and rude as their south of the border counterparts. However, I did enjoy the company of a judge and lawyer from Iceland and his wife, who made for interesting conversation.

On arrival in Budapest, things were a bit chaotic - I had been given a free map, but I had no idea where I actually was. When I figured this out, it turned out to be quite a distance away - not fun when you're towing 22kg of luggage along narrow streets with people coming the other way on occasion. The street the hostel is in was in a terrible shape, and most of the buildings seemed on the brink of ruination.

The hostel itself, however, is amazing. It's the smallest I've stayed in, having only three bedrooms, but the staff are very friendly and with a great sense of humour and I've met interesting people from all over the world, including several bits of Australia I didn't even know existed. (Well, not quite, but you get the idea.) There's an atmosphere here which is hard to describe but it's a very warm, social sort of place. It's in an old building with a Communist-era lift (elevator for you Canadians :) with red manual doors and wooden interior - henceforth called "the Communist lift". I've had great fun playing with it, even if it doesn't entirely work (it goes from first to ground but not from ground to first.)

Tuesday 14 September 2004, 23:40 CET

My activities in Budapest sadly haven't been many. Didn't really get the chance to see much as I was here such a short time, ended up socialising with other hostellers and had to take care of admin stuff. I walked up to the Buda citadel today (quite a tiring one-hour walk) via the Elisabeth Bridge and saw an overview of the whole city. My impression of Budapest is considerably more positive than it was earlier. In some ways it is like Vienna but just doesn't have the charm screaming out at you like the former does, but it is definitely there if you look for it. It isn't as cheap as Krakow and Ostrava were - I've spent $25-$30 without even realising, not counting the ticket to Belgrade and the hostel, and I really have not eaten much at all. Thankfully the tap water here is drinkable.

I'm going to Beograd tomorrow - staying at a hostel that came recommended from the guys here. It sounds really good - it's on the main square and everything. One final tip before I leave - Eurail passes, unless you travel lots and lots, are a waste of money. I was quoted $749 for one and my total train travel has yet to exceed $150. This is considering I went from Poland to Austria and am now travelling the same distance again down into the heart of Serbia.

Update - Budapest

Just a quickie - It seems the first planning hurdle has hit. The hotel in Belgrade which has my credit card number and a reservation may be no longer in business. It is impossible to find out, all I know is that their website (hotelroyal-bg.com) has vanished and their two listed numbers ring out. The people here in Budapest are trying to help me find new accommodation. Anyway, off to the train station to get my ticket. I'll post a more informative update later.

Day 53-55 - Vienna (Wien)

Sunday 12 September 2004, 19:30 CET

I've had an amazing time in Vienna. It's an interesting place - it's truly an international city (with all the good and bad implications of that designation) and is full of historical buildings, green parks and little cobblestone-paved streets to explore. The people are really nice in this corner of the world, and traffic is pretty much as orderly as most parts of Canada I visited. The transport is amazingly efficient and cheap - even on a Sunday I had no problem getting around on the metro (U-Bahn) and buses.

The place to go here is definitely the area bordered by the Ringstrasse - the "Innere Stadt" (Inner City) - and in particular the west and southwest sections of it. In that, you will find the Kunsthistorische (art and history museum), the Hofburg (a massive web of old buildings which formerly served as a palace and fortress), Stefansdom (the massive church at the heart of the city), the Rathaus (City Hall), the Parliament building with the Athena Statue at the front (currently closed for about a year for maintenance), and the list goes on.

From there, you can easily explore the inner suburbs by tram. Plenty of shopping opportunities but also a random scattering of amazing-looking historic buildings and churches. There's also Schönbrunn, a few U-Bahn stations away from the city, which was the main palace used by the Habsburg dynasty from the 1700s onwards. I spent a half-day just at this one place alone - for about €8, you can explore the inner rooms of the Schönbrunn where Maria Theresa and her descendants lived. It's an amazing insight into the lives of the old royal families in Europe - even some of their individual personalities come across somewhat in the rooms they inhabited.

One tip for any travellers to Vienna - at most major train stations, you can buy a "Vienna Card" (Wien-Karte in German) at the ticket office for €16.90. This gives you 72 hours (from validation, not from purchase) of unlimited travel, discounts to museums (including but definitely not limited to the Kunsthistorische, the Albertina which I wanted to visit but didn't, and Schönbrunn) and some other goodies.

For me personally, I've managed to see the places where my mother and grandfather spent their childhoods, put flowers on the family grave, and see what those same places looked like 50-70 years ago (in many cases, not very different). It's weird seeing photos of my mum as a young girl of maybe 3 or 4 in front of buildings I've now actually been to. We also went up into the Vienna Woods (Wienerwald) where the city ends (quite literally - you see a sign with "Wien" stroked out as you enter the area) and the forests and mountains begin. While most roads in Vienna are just like roads anywhere else, the one going up to Kahlenberg was cobblestone-paved - it was a pretty wild drive :) The other weird bit is Grinzing where you get wineries right in the middle of the suburb.

Anyway, off to Budapest tomorrow. It's almost like a measure of degrees where each section of the journey is a step further into the fire - first Canada, then Europe, and now towards the not-so-well-off southeastern parts of Europe and Turkey. the pattern is, of course, broken by a luxury holiday in Singapore at budget rates, immediately prior to my return to Perth. I am getting to the stage where I'm enjoying what I'm doing but am starting to miss my homeland a bit and am keen to get back, but not before having some more adventures. I'll keep you all posted as I go.

Day 50-52 - Kraków, Ostrava

Tuesday 7 September 2004, 14:40 CET

I've had an awesome day in Krakow. To complete last night's entry - After leaving the net cafe last night and having a three-course meal for under A$10, I took in a little of Kraków by night. It's almost magical seeing the old buildings all lit up and hearing the live accordion music and milling crowds around the tiny cafes in the main square (Rynek Glowno).

Today, I went through the east side of the city centre and down to Kazimierz (kah-zee-Myezh), the old Jewish quarter, and Wawel Castle, built 1000 years ago. Apart from the odd person (seemingly tolerated by castle management) trying to sell me gilded antiquities that are most likely illegal, I was pretty much undisturbed in my exploration of the castle walls and for a small fee was able to go down a spiral staircase into the heart of it.

I have to go now - enjoying some quick food before hopping on the train to Ostrava. I have no idea what to expect with European trains, I've heard both good and bad stories.

Tuesday 7 September 2004, 23:30 CET

Wow! I can't believe how good this place is.

I'm at the Hotel Imperial in Ostrava, Czech Republic, watching BBC and CNN in alternating half hours and amusing myself with their radically different coverage of exactly the same stories. This is a real luxury hotel, with porters to take your bags to your room, a beautiful clean double bed, a detached bathroom, and a nice view over the south end of the centre.

To backtrack a bit - Before getting on the 15:40 train, I made sure to get another obwarzanki (hand-baked, ring-shaped bread) before leaving - sort of a final souvenir of Kraków. The station was a bit like an airport and the train itself wasn't too bad - apart from having to lift 15kg of baggage above my head - and was airconditioned. There was six seats in each section, but mine was mostly empty - a Polish girl living in Vienna and a Japanese girl from Kyoto were my travelling companions for this journey.

Ostrava was unexpected at first. I arrived on the platform with only a massive set of stairs for company, and when I got to the top, I realised that the "central station" (hlavni nadrazi) was about as central and convenient as Vancouver's - i.e. not very. I hauled my luggage onto a tram, had an incoherent argument in two languages with the oversized tram driver, who finally conceded and let me on, and the rest was easy.

I'm going to get a well-earned night's rest here, I think. It's nice staying in a place where the locks work, the door handles don't come off in your hand, the curtains don't fall on you while you're sleeping and the bathroom isn't under 2 inches of slowly stagnating water.

Thursday 9 September 2004, 10:40 CET

I am going to miss this place when I leave it, I think. Ostrava has been good to me. Well, I had a good time anyway. I can even speak phrasebook Czech - sort of. I kind of had to, as no-one here understands even the most basic English outside the hotel. My theory, though, is that communication is the most important bit and as long as I can buy things, buy tickets, go places, get home from places and so on, my linguistic incompatibility with the local population isn't actually an issue.

After enjoying the free buffet breakfast at the hotel's restaurant, I spent yesterday basically in two parts - the first exploring Ostrava itself, and the second going to the area my ancestors came from, which was the real reason for my being in this rather unusual location. Ostrava is a beautiful old European city completely unspoiled by tourism. It has about 300,000 people and used to be the industrial hub of the (Austrian) Habsburg empire in late 19th century. Nowadays much of the industry has moved out, allowing the city to clean up a bit and show off its baroque beauty. Masaryk Square and the Old City, the Ostravice river, and the Moravska Ostrava (Mährisch Ostrau) region including the town hall and central bank near the train station had plenty to keep me occupied until mid-afternoon. Amusing diversions included the graffiti-filled underground city, not designed so much for comfort as for getting from one place to another in the minus-40 temperatures this place sometimes gets.

I then managed to buy a bus ticket for just $3 to Ostravice, about 36km from Ostrava beyond the town of Frydek-Mistek. What took me by surprise was how the bus went from just 5 people to unsanitarily overcrowded over just 4 bus stops (most of which were in the shoulder lane on the freeway!) and I nearly missed my stop but for a helpful old couple who shouted something in Czech at the people between me and the door.

Ostravice is a one-highway town with about 80 locals, most of whom, by the looks of it, either practice farming or run B&B's. The view is breathtaking - fields, farms, and thickly forested mountains which form the border with Slovakia just 15km away. My great-grandfather, Karl Freud, built a hotel there - strangely enough, called the Hotel Freud - but my family had moved to Vienna, the hotel was taken by Nazis during the war, and I'd always wanted to see the place. As it turned out, it was only 50m from the bus/train station. Although the exterior was exactly as it was in the old photos, the interior had now been converted to a typical pub/restaurant and wasn't very exciting. Nevertheless, I had this amazing feeling walking around this place that I'd heard of so much that I had ancestral ties to. All the people there only spoke Czech, but I managed to tell them who I was and they did seem excited about a descendant of the founder visiting them.

I wisely realised that I was going to be in a better situation if I walked 5km to the nearest town, Frydlant, as Ostravice wasn't exactly teeming with public transport alternatives and Frydlant was, at least, on the major southwest freeway (56) out of Ostrava. After an hour and a quarter, and realising my map wasn't exactly to scale, I reached the town, and with some effort found the train station. With my extremely poor skills in Czech, I managed to buy a ticket to Ostrava-Str'ed. The ticket officials laughed hysterically when I pronounced the train station correctly as the middle character is notoriously hard to pronounce (like a rolled 'r' AND a 's' as in measure at the same time) and I got my ticket back for A$2.20.

Dinner that night was free as the staff at the hotel had had some kind of function and it was over and they gave me and a pair of Americans the leftovers. I certainly wasn't complaining - prawns, cheese, bits of chicken, small Czech biscuits and even red wine was on offer.

This hotel has been exceptional. The place is clean and safe, the staff are all friendly and helpful, and even the laundry service was top quality and amazingly cheap.

Thursday 9 September 2004, 23:30 CET

Servus from Wien (Vienna)! I'm staying at my aunt Christine's place with my cousin, Catrin, and my aunt's boyfriend George. They've let me use an entire apartment for the time I'm here - the luxury definitely didn't stop in Ostrava - and I've discovered my aunt is an excellent cook.

The train from Ostrava to Wien was a bit more harrowing than the one the other day. After getting my luggage up four flights of stairs and down one, then up onto the train (the steps are narrow and steep), I found out I was in the wrong section of the train - they divide the train in two at the Czech-Austrian border and one bit goes to Bratislava, the other Wien.

Once in the right section, I found out three things - I was in a full carriage, my luggage didn't quite fit, and there was no airconditioning in this carriage. Furthermore, while three were extremely friendly poles, the old gentleman next to me was a crabby septuagenarian Brit who complained about just about everything and everyone. He lives in Canada, yet hates Canada and its people and complains they're too American - and then turns around and complains about people who hold anti-American attitudes. I went off him quickly after finding out he was a Nazi sympathiser. The Poles had resorted to conversing in Polish, and my train went straight past my stop, so I had to navigate through Vienna to get to the right place. Thankfully, although you have to get used to not having much personal space and standing on most trams and trains, Vienna's transit system is easily the best I've seen anywhere since Vancouver, so this wasn't a difficult undertaking.

Anyway, off to explore Vienna tomorrow. Should be fun. :)

Day 49 - Kraków, Poland

Monday 6 September 2004, 16:00 CET

Dzien dobry!

I've survived my first few hours out on the streets in Kraków, and it really is a nice place. This includes buying raspberries at market, buying water and Coke, and going to the home of Wawel chocolates on the main square (Rynek Glowno) and buying a block for old-time's sake.

Here are some prices of things here to stun you all. The local currency is the zloty (pronounced exactly as it looks), each containing 100 groszy, and there's about 2.5-2.7 zloty in an Australian or Canadian dollar. (What's with the Australian dollar against the Euro at the moment?)

Big bucket of raspberries - $1.20

Tomatoes                  - 80c/kg

Internet cafe             - 80c/hour

Bottle of water (1.5L)    - 40c

Small bottle of Coke      - 40c

Block of chocolate        - $1

Krakow seems to me to be a medium-sized, friendly city with a lot of old buildings where knowing Polish would help, but the locals don't mind if you don't as long as you can point to things, have the right change and say "dzien dobry" before and "dziekuje, dobrze" after purchasing. I like the place - hope to come back one day. Now I have to find out about the upcoming Australian election so I can arrange to vote - probably from Istanbul or Singapore.

Day 47-48 - Dublin - In transit - Krakow arrival

Saturday 4 September, 23:00 BST

I'm in Dublin, the home of Guinness. It's an interesting place with its terraced houses, old Catholic churches, chaotic streets and happy-drunk pedestrians. And yes, the average pedestrian on a Saturday night here is pretty much blind drunk.

Everyone's told me how easy Dublin is to get lost in. I don't know about them, but I've found it fairly easy to navigate - then again, I did survive Quebec City, which would be impossible to manage without a map. O'Connell Street is huge (three lanes each way with a big median strip) and you can always find your way back to it. As soon as I got here, I headed off to Temple Bar, the cobblestone-paved streets just south of the River Liffey (which honestly looks more like a canal), and walked around the 1600s-era pubs lining the streets and watched the taxis trying to compete with pedestrians and horses. Dublin generally is a great place for people-watching, and it's a pity that this one trip to Temple Bar is about the limit of my Dublin experience this time around. The main reason for coming here was to connect with the big European flights - I was initially going to go to Manchester - but it's hardly the worst place you could connect in.

I'm sharing the room back at the Dublin hostel with two Swiss boys, an Australian, an Englishman and a Spaniard. The middle mentioned spent most of their time either drinking or sleeping it off - which I guess one could expect. The Guinness place here actually offers a certificate saying the holder has "pulled the perfect pint" at the home of Guinness - apparently there's a technique and they teach you how to do it. The hostel is modern and well-equipped but, once again, without elevators.

Sunday 5 September, 22:30 Central European time (GMT+2; Perth-6)

Dzien dobry (good day) from Kraków! I'm now officially in the non-English-speaking world, having journeyed through New Zealand, US, Canada, Britain and Ireland to get here.

I thought Dublin airport was rather large, but that one was rewritten and thrown out when I went to Frankfurt. Flip! More gates, floors, passenger tunnels, inter-terminal buses and overpriced duty free stores than you could shake a stick at. This is one bit of Germany where you don't need to know any German - every announcement is bilingual, and every staff member at the airport seemed to speak it. I now know how to say Kapstadt (KARP-shtart; Cape Town) and acht (eight) like a real German though. I was there for just over three hours before my flight to Poland. I feel kind of bad for expecting a second-rate airline now - the Polish hospitality and food on the plane was really good, and they did appreciate my efforts to speak their language.

Polish words I now know:

dzien dobry (jen Doh-bree) - Hi
dziekuje (je-Koo-yeh) - Thanks
prosze (Pro-sheh) - Please
pan/pani/panstwo - Mr/Ms/All of youse
toalety (toh-ah-Lay-tee) - Toilets
przepraszam (psheh-Prah-sham or psheh-pra-Tsahm) - Sorry/Excuse me/You're welcome

Arrival in Kraków (Krah-kohv) was a bit more chaotic. The shuttle bus I'd been told about was actually a public bus, and I had no idea where my hostel was, even with the 8-zloty ($3) map I'd bought. I ended up a bit east of it and got a taxi back to it for 9zl. Not bad. :) Krakow looks more organised than Dublin - there are marked pedestrian crossings everywhere - every place you ever have to cross a road, there's a marked zebra crossing.

The hostel's cool, a bit old, but I get my own bedroom with shared facilities for 11 euro a night.

Anyway, do vidzenia (doh-vi-Jen-yah) for now.

Day 44-47 - Belfast

Wednesday 1 September, 14:00 BST

I'm now in Belfast, my birthplace and the place where I spent my first 6 years of life, at the home of my uncle Jim, aunt Jean and cousin Jonathan in nearby Bangor. It looks like I'm going to be well-fed and well-travelled by the end of my time here.

Quick introduction for those unfamiliar with Northern Ireland - Belfast is a city of about 300,000 and is surprisingly small in size - the suburbs only go about 4-6km in any direction - but it is surrounded by a range of small and medium sized towns. It's got a lot of history going back into the triple digits AD, but most of it was built around the time when the Protestant faith was big on erecting giant monuments to their faith in the form of beautiful old (and often quite grandiose) churches you see everywhere, as well as castles, forts and other buildings.

Its modern-day people came from intermarriage between the local Irish people and Scottish and northern English people who migrated centuries ago. In 1690, William of Orange conquered the whole of Ireland for the British, and in 1949, after much fighting there (especially around 1916 or so), what is now known as the Republic of Ireland emerged. Ulster, or Northern Ireland, stayed as part of Britain.

Unfortunately in the 20th century, and particularly since 1968 when the Troubles began, Belfast's become most well-known for sectarian violence and the division between its dominant Protestant and minority Catholic populations (which has more to do with land and history than with religion, as with most world conflicts). Even now that there has been serious talks of peace and the widescale bombing ceased years ago, the tension is still there and there are certain areas in the western suburbs (particularly Falls and Shankill) that you just wouldn't go to, unless you're a camera-laden Chinese tourist looking for "the place of the fight". (Such macabre tours are in fact run by less ethical tour operators)

Around Belfast and even in some of the estates in places like Bangor, there are big murals depicting various historical events (eg 1 July 1916) or making statements like "Free the POWs" and so on. Most of them are pretty tame and are quite incomprehensible to those like me who don't know a great deal about what happened when.

Belfast's near neighbours are Carrickfergus and Newtownabbey to the north, Holywood, Bangor and Newtownards to the east and Lisburn and Dunmurry to the south-west. Each has their own distinct identity despite each being less than 15km from Belfast and connected to it by dual carriageways. Newtownards nowadays has a historic city centre and modern shopping centres and sprawling suburbs - the one I lived in as a child has a big historic abbey next to it. Bangor is Belfast's seaside, basically - it's where people come to get away from the big smoke and it's even got a fun park (Pickie Park) right at the water's edge.

My early observations of Belfast

Given that, due to my age when I left, I am more of a tourist here than a local returning home, a lot of this is as new to me as it would be to any visitor.

1. People here are very friendly by and large.

2. Things look very familiar once you're out of Belfast. Apart from using upside down give-way signs as junction/warning signs instead of the yellow diamond, the roads remind me a little of suburban Adelaide. Each suburb or estate has its own architectural look and almost every house in it looks the same. Each major journey (eg Belfast-Bangor, Bangor-Newtownards etc) has two ways to get there - one using the dual carriageway with suburbs at either side, and the other using windy country roads going through farms and hills. It's funny seeing cows on one side and the chimneys of Belfast on the other.

3. Traffic is chaotic - I'm amazed there are not more accidents. Cars are smaller here so the lanes are smaller too - but due to most homes having negligible space between the front of the house and the road, people actually park in the road, often in the only lane available for driving, so people routinely go to the wrong side of the road to overtake. Pedestrian lights are available but usually ignored as pedestrians basically go when they can.

4. I mentioned about the small cars. When I first arrived in Belfast, we passed a fuel station with prices posted at around 83.9. This looked familiar too until I realised that this was in British pence, about 2.5 times the value of the 83.9 Canadian cents it cost in Halifax. This explains the absence of SUVs. A typical CD here is about $43 Aus, a DVD somewhat more. I've strongly encouraged Jonathan to stock up on CDs if he ever comes to Australia.

Saturday 4 September, 09:00 BST

There isn't much to update with as I've pretty much written it all before. My relatives are cool - I've indeed been eating excellent Northern Irish fare (soda bread, potato bread, bacon, Wiener schnitzel... OK, that comes more from the Viennese origins of our family, but yeah :) and Jonathan and I have been exchanging music and he's been a great tour guide.

On Thursday morning we went to Newtownards and walked around for a bit, before going off to Belfast and seeing my mum's family home. It's belonged to someone else for 20 years since my grandad died, but she must get a few visits from our family as she was quite happy to meet me and talk to me. Afterwards we walked around Belfast and took in the interesting buildings street by street. I wonder how this place looked 100 years ago - probably not a great deal different, except they probably didn't have Westfield Centrecourt back then.

On Friday we went to my dad's old house (my grandparents moved out of it even before we moved to Australia), and then came up the long way through Holywood to Bangor, walked around Bangor, before exploring the area to the east.

I've enjoyed my stay in Northern Ireland. It's not "home" to me in the way many young migrants seem to identify with their home country - but it's still a nice place and I'd like to come back one day.

Day 43 - In transit

Wednesday 1 September 2004, 08:10 BST (GMT+1, Perth-7)

I am now in Heathrow Airport, London, England! What a journey that was.

I'll pick up firstly where I left off last time. The last couple of hours in Halifax were very wet, and I spent most of them running from bank to bank trying to change my remaining Canadian dollars to something I can actually use elsewhere, posting stuff back home and getting myself fed for just $7 at an excellent Filipino buffet restaurant just over the road from the net cafe in Blowers Street. By some miracle I managed to catch the Zinck's Airport Express bus and was back in the airport well before the 2 hours one is normally suggested to arrive at.

Unfortunately this did not help me a great deal, as due to a computer failure somewhere, the queue took nearly 2 hours to process and I was amazed I didn't miss the flight. One woman with a dog took nearly 30 minutes to process! It's sad that my last experience of Air Canada's airport management has been a mildly negative one as (apart from Daniel's being left behind in Toronto for several hours) they have been excellent to us for my entire time with them.

We stopped in St John's, Newfoundland, on the way here, so I can now say, "The last time I was in Newfoundland" (noo-fnd-LAND) even though I didn't get out of the plane. I don't think that counts, but hell, who cares :P

Heathrow is so massive that they actually have a free bus to get you from Terminal 3 where you arrive to Terminal 1 where the UK/Ireland flights leave from.

More later...