The King is back!

I knew i could still do 150ks with a fully loaded bike. Well, I just got to Budapest after what was a hell of drive first twords the Danube, then along and finally over the hills right into the capital of Hungaria - my fourth country.

check out the new fotos, the old ones you can find here (be aware that it starts with the most actual picture)

But where were we. I think it was



Day5 (15.8.)

After hitting the major Euro Highway - the one that I promised to make so many ks in so little a time was becoming narrower with almost no road shoulder left I could ride on. I had to backtrack uphill and in the end it was 10kms of worthless riding in the rain. Pretty frustrating for starters.

In the end I found the right road tha took me to Pardubice and thurther on to the direction of Brno. it was kind of rainy all day so I made thought it would be good to outwait the rain inside my tent...the minute i put it up the sun came out:)
It was a nice spot after all.

Day6 (16.8)

After getting an early start on the road it had to stop at a gas station to clean my bike and especially the driving chain since it got very dirty during those recent rainy days. Cleaning my chain is an almost meditative thing that takes about 20 minutes and the same amount of Q-Tips. The thing about gas stations in Slovakia is that the seem not only to sell gas and all the other stuff but the also cater for other needs, basically the ones of male drivers. Theres always a young lady waiting to clean your window. Sometimes a rather sad thing to be watching. I would say its somwhere between working as a waiter and, well you can figure it out.
For the night I spottet a nice storage lake that turned out to be very nice but no good for camping so put myself up on the banks of a water sport company that was located at the bottom of the dam. During peak hours the little river became very big.

Day7 (17.8)

Next morning the weather was sunny from the beginning. I made a quick ride into Brno, a rather big town in the east of the CZ. It is worth a minitrip of its own. I just stopped by at the tourist info and bought extra strong sun protection. I coul;d really make some kms that day and finally after fetching 12L of water at a gas station I got myself installed on what used to be the field where the battle of Austerlitz took place in 1805 or so. It was a quite night, only in the morning I was just right to take off while the farmer was humming down the field in his tractor twords my tent...

Day8 (18.8)

First time I had tail winds! That was very much to my liking since I was feeling a bit tired and my legs werent a strong as I had hoped for that day. I took many rests and buttered up at the last Lidl before the broder to Slovakia. It has become ritual of spending the last money at a supermarket near the border crossing. So far I have managed to spend the exact amount of money that is left in the actual currecy Im trying to get rid off.
In Senica 30 km behind the border I asked the nice grils of the tourist info if they had an accomodation "below the usual standart", they had exactly this. A hotel room for me and my bike with a TV and all for just 8 EUR! I really enjoyed the shover after what was four days of camping. Then I took to town to check out what entertaining there was in this town of 15 hundred.

Day9 (19.8)

The bed was so good that it took me until noon to finally get going. But it turned out to be a good decision. My legs where doing fine and crossing what was indicated as the "small Carpathians" was no big deal. Going downhill I reconed a constant "wudupp-wudupp" on my rear tire. Im going to solve that problem in Budapest.
In a little village I got to drink fresh wine (in German it would be called Federweisser). The guy selling it in plastic bottles out of his front lawn was very nice, he even gave me grapes that where absolutely delicious. After lots of kms again I spend my last Slovakian money at a supermarket and rode out of town with lots of water abord rady to camp in the fields.
I found a nice place. It was behind some bushes so no one could see me from the road. I was cooking one of my favourite dish when beeing on the road: Penne Rigate (the real Italian ones from Lidl...) with baked beans and cheese. Then I went to bed and was only disturbed by the sound of a little frog hopping into the yet uncleaned pot outside the tent. I all went well until 2:30 in the morning when I heard a traktor...
It turned out that the farmer liked working at saturday night. Be it that he did'nt had air conditioning and therefore preferred to work at night or that simply liked his new halogen beamers. For me it meant getting packed and into emediate evac mode. At 3am he was about 50m away, thats when I packed the tent and moved to a different location just a couple of hundred meters away. This is a first timer by the way, I'm not going to change any of my habits because of this.

Day10 (20.8.)

To make things really worse last night when slowly driving twords what was supposed to be my save heaven I drank out of a 1,5L bottle of Cola. i fell out of my hands spilling its content all over my driving chain. So next thing in the morning I realised that the gears werent working properly. It was a shitty 10km ride to the first gas station where the usual 20 min meditation followed.
It took me about an hour to do the remaining 25kms to get to the river Danube and to the broder crossing to Hungary. Again it was buying goodies at the supermarket. I decided to go along the river and then cross the mountains to get to Budapest. It was a I-really-wanna-get-there-TODAY kind of a ride. The sun was really hot. I had to constantly slip-slap-slop but at 5pm after 140km I reached the city center of Budapest.
When hitting suburbia I was told that today was National Day and therefore all shops and internet places closed. I really should have widened the focus during the preparation of this journey. You really have to get there first before you can ride the Caucasus...
Anyway, asked a couple of fellow travellers and they told me about that nice Hippie Hostel they where staying at. A phone call and I had the permission to put up my tent in the courtyard. Getting a bed was out of question. It took me another 2 hours and litres of Coke to finally get there but it turned out to be just right.
It will be my last backpacker community experience until Istanbul in October.

Day11 (21.8)

today I try to get a new rear tire that will endure the coming adventures.

check out the new fotos, the old ones you can find here (be aware that it starts with the most actual picture)