Thats not Pasta Sauce!!!

When travelling on a budget, you tend to take as many shortcuts as you can with food so that you've got more money for the fun stuff. This often involved eating Ham and Cheese sanga's for lunch and Pasta with Dolmio sauce for dinner. There has been occassions though, when this goes horribly wrong!

The first of these occassions was in Piran, where myself and Dan hit the local supermarket and bought the pasta, but couldnt find any sauce. After some looking, we found something called Ajvar Sauce, which had no english written on it. Now, it was red and chunky looking, so to us, it looked like pasta sauce...we were very, very wrong. Even with a gulp of beer at every bight, we couldnt get this stuff down! We found out later, from Dan's family, that Ajvar sauce is in fact a capsicum dip sauce to be used with meat...you live you learn!

When departing from the standard menu above, one of the other regulars on the travellers menu is the Kebab...in fact it gets a little too much of a run. So far Budapest has the number one vote for Kebabs...although that may well be because thats where we were most often drunk?? Dunno.

Speaking of drinking, that has of course played a large part in our trip so far. I think my favourite beer so far has been Budweisser Budvar which is from the south of Czech. Now dont get this confused with the American company which sells beer under the same name - this stuff is infinately better!

For the most part a beer has set us back about a pound (about $2.50 aus) a pint which I am more then happy with, although there has been on occassion cheaper stuff...I think the cheapest was about 40p!

Its about this time I should mention my ever increasing gut...

Prague.

Like Cesky Krumlov, this was a place I was looking forward to for a long time coming to Eastern Europe - probably more so then any other place. I think possibly that expectation was a little too high, and in the end it didnt live up to my expectations.

Thats not to say I didnt have fun though....but...

Did you ever have those nights where you walk around going "oh well we'll find a good bar somewhere around here"? Thats kinda what it felt like for the whole week in Prague. We'd heard so much about the Prague night life, that it really couldnt ever deliver on all that promise.

Possibly the most exciting thing that happened was my finding of a new adventure sport. Forget base jumping and bungee jumping. Try getting your hair cut by someone who doesnt speak a lick of english! A heart pumping thrill ride all the way! I had been putting this off for weeks and weeks, and as a result had developed somewhat of a mop top. I was so worried about ending up with one of those bad Euro haircuts (youve seen them!). I dont want a mullet!! In the end, she did an ok job. She kept chatting away in Czech, and of course I had no clue what she was saying, but give her credit, she knew what she was doing.

If I was feeling at all "home sick" for my time in Edinburgh, it was certainly cured by the visit of Scottish "Premier" League team Hearts, as they headed into town to take on Sparta Prague in UEFA Cup action. For that day, the place could have been Edinburgh, with at least every other person being Scottish. Bagpipes and kilts abounded. I felt sorry for any tourists only in Prague for a day or two "yeah the traditional Czech instrument is a wee bag of pipes".

Dan and Jen, who I caught back up with after Cesky Krumlov, had a considerably better Prague experience, on the night of the Pearl Jam concert. They headed out to try and get last minute tickets to the gig, but werent able. They then headed to a bar to drown their sorrows with some locals only to find that the bands lead guitarist turn up after the gig and have a good drink and a chat with them. They were well pleased!

As far as the sights of Prague went, the Castle is quite impressive, and the square and city itself are also quite good, but I think my favourite day was spent climbing the hill on the castle side of the river and then up the mini eiffel tower which gave awesome views of the city.

We got to meet a couple of youngsters, Sean (a Melbourne lad) and Andrea (from Louisanna) who have since joined our merry group of travelling fools as we've headed further east....

Kutna Hora - The Bone Church

Probably the biggest highlight of the week in Prague was a visit to the Kutna Hora bone church. The chuch, in a town about an hour out of town, became a sacred site about a thousand years ago, when some soil from the holy land was scattered. From then on, people wanted to be burried at the site and body's came from miles around. They however, ran out of room, and bones began to stack up. After a while there were the remains of 40,000 people. In 1870, a woodcarver was commissioned to "decorate" the church with the bones. Among the structures are 4 large pyramids (basically stacks) of bones, while the highlights were a family crest and chandeleer...all made from bone.

It was creepy I'll give you that, but perhaps not as creepy as I thought it would be - what does that say about me??

I think its one of those things that is definately worth a look, but if anyone is going I'll let you know, it gets old a bit quick, and you seem to spend most of your time travelling there and back....

Whats with all the Phil Collins?

Ok, so I have been travelling through Eastern Europe for a few weeks now, and I gotta say, theres things you expect, and things you dont. I expected some bleek nasty buildings, some amazing scenery and lots of history.

What I did not expect was history in the music. It appears that music takes a little while to travel here, with Phil Collins apparantly being the most popular singer in the region. I dont think I have been to a city yet where I havent heard at least one Phil Collins number. What makes it funnier is when its sandwiched between a traditional polka type song, and Shakira's latest number...

Another thing have felt while travelling is...well...stupid. Most people here speak at least two languages, (at least in the main cities) and I have lost count of the amount of people I have met who speak three or four (or more) languages. I think Australia needs to do something a bit more about this, coz frankly we're not given that much encouragement and it does make you feel kinda dumb.

However, to quote Paul Kelly...."I can order sandwiches, in seven different languages...."

Cesky Krumlov

Now here was a place I was looking forward to for some time, and I was worried that my expectations wouldnt be met, but I was wrong.

I arrived in the evening (again without any accomodation sorted) and got the view of the city at night that was simply amazing. It's described as a "mini prague" and while I hadnt seen Prague yet, it was the sort of thing I was expecting from the capital of Czech. The cobble stones, the castle on the hill and the old tower. This felt like a little fairy tale city. This was exactly the sort of place I was looking forward to seeing for the whole trip.

Now, I arrived intending to stay for about a three days, but ended up staying for a week. During the week, people asked me "oh so you have been here a while, there must be so much to do...". Um, no not really.

I think the reason I loved this place so much was that there wasnt a lot to do, except drink, relax and talk to other travellers - something this place had in droves. During the day there were American and Japanese tour groups everywhere, but it quietened down at night.

I ended up staying at the Travellers Hostel, which had a very cool bar frequented by many of the other backpackers in town. It was possibly the best hostel I have stayed at in terms of meeting people. The shower/bathroom facilities werent the best, but as far as a good social hostel I've just never had any better. Dont know why, but for some reason I spent most of the week with two groups of West Aussies, including some Perth Girls.

One of the activities that I ended up doing was rafting down the river which pretty much encircles the town. Now please dont get confused - this was NOT an adventure sport, with the river barely getting more then a foot deep and for 99.99% of the time being as flat as a pancake, but it was a good way to spend an afternoon anyways. And one of those ways you know you are in Eastern Europe...."heres your boat, your paddles, your life jackets....and heres your bottle of absenth." Quality.

After an evening of drinking at the bar at the hostel, a couple of locals asked if we wanted to continue drinking - which of course we did - so they took us down to one of the local bars. Myself and a Melbourne couple were the only tourists in the place, so we kept a close eye on our kidneys!

On another night (or was it the same one....so hard to remember!!) the bar had some live music. Ok so it wasnt traditional Czech or anything (it was bongos and a Didge!) but it was very entertaining all the same.

All in all I would definately recomend the place for at least a couple of days...but its so good you can easily get caught there.

Bratislava

From Budapest, we decided to keep moving north, heading to Slovakia's capital of Bratislava. Here we met up with Dan's friend Jen, who organised our hostel (thanks Jen!).

Now, my folks always told me if I didnt have anything nice to say, dont say anything at all, so forgive me if my entry on Bratislava is rather brief!

Now dont get me wrong, I havent got anything against the place, its just that...well...its kinda dull. Now obvisouly the people you meet while at a location can alter your impressions greatly, but even though we met some nice enough people, we didnt see any reason why you would stay longer then 2 nites. Its probably not a bad spot to go if you know a local, as there arent THAT many tourists around.

So we checked out the sights, the square and the Castle and all that...which filled a good hour or so.

We also couldnt find anywhere half decent to drink...I think some local knowledge would have gone a long way there!

This is how bad the place is - cant even think of one memorable story, good/bad or otherwise.

Budapest.

After the relaxation of Budapest, it was time to get back on the backpacker (suitcaser?) trail, so I headed for Budapest, the capital of Hungary. Dan wanted to do some more hiking so again we went our own way.

Budapest to me was inconsistent. I stayed there for 8 nights, and had a good time, but still didnt feel as though it was one of my favourite places, although I will say the night life was quite good.

As usual I had no accomodation booked for my arrival, however with the train being 2 hours late (making it about a 10 hour train ride) I arrived in town at around 11pm. For the next hour I walked around town, into some dodgey little lane ways trying to find a hostel and eventual found the Aquarium Hostel. The guy working there was very nice, and the facilities were ok but the place just wasnt for me as it had no real social area, and limited facilities.

When Dan arrived a couple of days later we checked out the Red Bus 2. This was slightly better, but again the lack of a common room made it far from ideal for backpackers.

Eventually we ended up at the Station Guest House. Now this place is a fair way out of town - you really need to get a bus - but I think its worth it. When we first rocked up, we were convinced it was a squat. There was graffiti everywhere and some very shady types around. However the longer we stayed, the more we got to love the place, and I would recommend anyone to go stay there. It has a 24 hour bar, free pool table and free internet, and generally a really good crowd.

With the busses too, they are free. Ok, so they arent supposed to be free, but we rode them for a week without paying. You are supposed to buy a book of 10 tix from a newsagent and validate, but we never once saw an inspector.

The night life in Budapest was a huge drawcard, and we met some people at the Station Guesthouse (Poms, Irish and other Aussies) who were all up for a good time.

One of the bars we frequented quite a bit was called Szimpla (also known as Szimpla 2 as there is another with the same name). If it werent for the small sign you wouldnt know it was there, and from the outside it looks like just a doorway to a dodgey squat, but once inside it opens up into a large bar that keeps going back including a large beer garden.

From there we were recomended a club to go to later on one of the nights, but of course Dan and I got lost trying to find it. At this point, four very attractive local girls arrived and suggested that we go to the club they're about to go to instead. Now normally you would do this without hesitation, but earlier that night, a long term resident of the Station Guesthouse was telling us about 3 young Irish lads who had a similar thing happen to them earlier in the summer, and ended up at a bar paying 1300 euros for their total drink bill (this is also warned in the Lonely planet). So what did we do? Well ok we went with them. Suckers! But the place turned out to be quality. The club was an outdoor venue, located on the island in the middle of the Danube, and not 2 minutes walk away was another equally good club.

Piran

After spending a week and a half of the Croatian coast, I figured it was time to move on. Dan had some family in Piran, a small town on the Slovenian coast, and they very kindly let us have the use of an apartment they owned right in the middle of town for a full week.

So I started my trek from Dubrovnik to Piran, which took 3 buses, two trains and just over 20 hours from the time I left to to time I finished. And do you think I got any sleep? Nope! It wasnt all bad though, had some good company for 7 hours, including some random Kiwi's that were on one of the buses from Split to Zadar, but for the most part, it was failed attempts at sleep.

Once I got to Piran though, it was well worth it. While there were tourists around, not many were english speakers - mostly Italian due to the closeness to that border. We actually felt like something of a novelty, which as travelling Aussies is RARE!

It was also good to get to socialise with some locals, with Dans family and their friends being so very hospitable to us.

Probably the best part about the town was that there was very little to do but lay on the beach. Ok, in this case beach is meant in very open terms. There were some concreted areas next to the water, which consistuted a beach there, but they were good all the same!

For two of the days we were there, there was a formula one speedboat event on, which created some excitement, however after a while of seeing boats speed past it loses some of the novelty.

A good day trip to do from Piran, which can also be done from Ljubljana, is the Skocjan caves with some of the most incredible stalegtites and stalegmites you have ever seen. Ok, so now that I have sounded intelligent, let me tell you that yes it was another disaster getting to and from there, as we sat and watched as the bus we shoulda been on leave from Piran, and then waited for over an hour for a bus from the place which never came! Are we jinxed?

While we were in a good sitation in Piran (the towns only hostel costs about 25 euro) I would recommend it for anyone looking for a bit of relaxation in the middle of their journey.