Dispatch from Dresden · 2002-08-12
Greetings from drenched Dresden.
It’s been a real Mini Adventure and it’s nearly over. I’ve just arrived in Dresden, where they seem to be in the middle of a Noah’s-Ark-style flood. It’s been raining on a biblical scale all day, the river Elbe has burst its banks, and I am soaking – and that’s from doing nothing but cowering in shops.
So I suppose that counts as good news if you’re in Edinburgh and it’s been dreary and grey for the last few weeks. Has it?
Since my last message I’ve been to the Polish Mazurian lakes, Vilnius (Lithuania), Riga (Latvia), back to Poland (a few random places in the east and then Krakow), and finally Vienna and Prague. I’m going to head to Weimar (of Republic fame) tomorrow and then back to Blighty by Thursday. I’ve travelled mainly by train and stayed in hostels, sometimes hanging out with other backpackers, often not. I have no idea how much money I’ve spent. Luckily this attitude is not entirely stupid – in eastern Europe things are still pretty cheap. Simple meals cost pennies; one 70km bus journey in Poland set me back UKP1.50. In fact I’ve probably spent less than some of you have thrown away on alcohol and cigarettes in Edinburgh (you know who you are).
Anyway, there is plenty I could write, as you might imagine. So I’ll try to keep it snappy by simply listing the highs and lows. Most of the rest came somewhere in between. Almost all of it was worth the experience.
MAZURIA definitely counted as a high point, though this might just have been the weather: it was absolutely baking for a couple of days and this is where I got my modest suntan (I don’t want to raise your expectations). The place was lovely though – all woods and lakes. It used to be German East Prussia; now it is German only during the summer, judging by the tourists’ number plates.
RIGA was strangely alluring for a city with no hills or interesting landmarks. Perhaps its allure lay in other quarters – but this didn’t extend to its gay scene, which I hit on the Saturday night. It never does.
THE PRIMEVAL FOREST of Bielowieza in eastern Poland was a really good move. This place is so special (the only lowland primeval forest in Europe; UN-listed) that you have to be escorted by a guide to get in. Essentially it was, yes, just a bunch of trees – but there was definitely something different about it. Just seeing an 800-year old oak tree makes for kind of a small occasion.
ZAMOSC, a fairly sizeable town in the south-east of Poland, was a guidebook recommendation. This is an almost perfectly preserved piece of 16th century town-planning, and I must have been the only foreign tourist in the place. I appreciate that this makes me sound somewhat earnest but – believe it or not – it really was something of a thrill.
VIENNESE EFFICIENCY came as a pleasant surprise after two weeks of east-European shabbiness and disorganisation. Not only do the trams run on time in Vienna (they do this everywhere in Europe), but they intersect perfectly with bus and rail stations and timetables. In case you get bored waiting 40 seconds for the next train, Viennese metro stations have jumbo video screens for entertainment. There is a lot of money in this town.
BEING INVISIBLE as a backpacker was a nice surprise. Most of the other backpackers on east European train station platforms turned out to be locals – few people own cars in this part of the world. In any case I don’t think I looked like the stereotypical student interrailer, travelling from hostel to hostel in a endless quest for drunkenness and sexual conquest. (And no, none of these people are worth conquering.)
There have been low points in the trip too, of which that last point is a hint.
KRAKOW AND PRAGUE were both undoubtedly beautiful places – if only you could somehow see through the tourists. These places are absolutely crawling with loud, stupid-looking, English-speaking people. Everywhere. The famous bridge in Prague was heaving with them – it’s surprising it still stands up with that many overweight camera-laden Americans on it.
EAST EUROPEAN MUSICAL TASTE leaves something to be desired – or even yearned for, after 5 hours on a Polish bus bumping along to the accompaniment of the driver’s radio playing endless Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams and other assorted Anglo oldie-schmaltz. Apparently it’s because they didn’t get it under communism and they’re making up for lost time. No excuse, I say.
A NIGHT IN A POLISH ROACH MOTEL was an experience I would rather forget. I got stranded one night in a dusty, forgotten nowhere of a town in eastern Poland and was forced to resort to the only accommodation going: an utter flea-pit of a motel, complete with ironing-board beds, bare light-bulb and miscellaneous insect life, and presided over by a greasy character in a stained shirt who looked surprised and grateful to find he had a customer. I spent a sleepness night being terrorised by mosquitoes and could not get out fast enough in the morning.
SLAVIC CUSTOMER SERVICE, the above instance notwithstanding, was pretty uniformly third-rate. Mostly this meant just an inability to smile, but at the Vilnius railway station information counter I was actually told (with gestures) to push off, after suggesting impertinently that it might be helpful if someone – anyone – at a desk marked ‘tourist information’ could speak a little English. Do they really expect all their foreign visitors to learn Lithuanian? I learned that the best way to deal with this was to ask in succession, ‘Do you speak English?’, ‘Sprechen Sie Deutsch?’, ‘Vous parlez Francais, alors?’. That usually put them in their place. Though not always.
SMALL CHANGE AND PHONE CARDS are the unwanted souvenirs of several countries I visited. If any of you needs a phonecard with two (surprisingly valuable) Lats of credit on it, I can do you a good deal.
You can see that I’m running out of complaints now. These were small quibbles – and anyway they make nice excuses for an anecdote, which is arguably the most important thing.
It’s a cliche that travel broadens the mind, and not even a true cliche. If it makes you a better person then this is mostly in the form of being able to read train timetables better and do quicker currency-conversion mental-arithmatic. There is something fun about it all though: I guess it’s simply the escape from routine and the sense of endless possibilities. Where do you want to go today? Mostly it’s an illusion, but it’s still fun.
Just don’t go to the motel in Sietievycze. And I’m serious about the phonecards.
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