Prince Charles stayed here

A new day. The sun is shining. A passing dolmus takes us to the next town from where a second dolmus will drop us in Mardin. Nearly every dolmus in Turkey is a Ford Transit. This is good business for Ford. We're surprised that not many have roof racks - and it's always a squeeze to get our rucksacks in behind the backseat. The driver usually just gives everything the old heave ho but it does the trick. There's a lack of air-conditioning and no-one seems keen to open a window. It reminds me of the Grands Taxis in Morocco which have the window handles removed because people believe the fresh air will make them travel sick. The journey seems slow and we climb for a bit through dusty hills until the road levels and suddenly we find ourselves looking southwards down across a huge plateau into Syria. There really isn't a bump - just flat as a map. The road is very straight and eventually the driver turns his head to read the newspaper of the front-seat passenger beside him for a while.
Mardin's old city is perched on a hill and covered in old houses looking out across the Mesopotamian plain. On the crown is a fortress still used by the military. Spreading out between the old houses and below the old town are the usual boring concrete buildings. Everything is sandy brown. We stumble around the backstreets and come across old mosques and a restored caravanserai which is now a five star hotel. We peek inside and one of the receptionists politely shows us around. She tells us that Prince Charles stayed here. Lucky bugger. The building has been well restored. We notice that there are women working here in Mardin and there are more women around on the streets and in the large covered bazaar where we wander.
We find a cafe serving drinks to non-fasters. There are four students tucked away upstairs on the terrace smoking and drinking coke. A TV crew appears - well a man with a camera, a man with a microphone and a third man who finally approaches us after chatting to the students. They want to ask a few questions for a programme on Mardin. The students, all female, have refused because they don't want their families to know how hard they are studying. The interviewer, in a pink shirt and trendy haircut, doesn't speak much english so the assistant has to prompt him with the questions which he then puts to us. His accent is faintly 'Allo 'Allo and he fluffs his lines so many times that we can't keep straight faces. He's laughing too. Goodness what inane comments we respond with but we are confident that we will be edited out.
Just outside of Mardin we visit a Syrian Orthodox monastery, which was the seat of the church until the Archbishop was encouraged to leave. The building is still in use though and an interesting reminder of how christianity spread to this part of the world before Islam or the Turks arrived. The only downside of visiting Mardin is the lack of budget accomodation and after two luxurious nights (!) we move on to Diyabakir - the "capital" of Kurdish Turkey.

Turning the corner

Lake Van is Turkey's largest lake - a huge expanse of wet in a huge expanse of dry. In the distance on the far side we can see the mountain of Suphan looming high. Our bus curves around the edge and passes a turn-off for Iran - we are now heading west and have turned the corner. We get off at a roadside cafe and pier. There's a group of men sat playing cards in the shade. "Akdamar?" the biggest man asks. Where else - there is nothing else here and I'm not going to argue with him. "A boat leaves with ten people." He nods over at the cafe. "There are two. Now you are four." We lug our rucksacks over the road to the shady cafe. We ask about camping and are shown a ledge about four feet wide set at the back of the garden area. We then take tea at a able next to the other punters who are waiting.
Akdamar is a tiny island just off the south shore of the lake on which there sits a newly-restored Armenian church covered in detailed bas-reliefs of biblical scenes. Like many of the sights in this part of Turkey it is far from anything else and we have decided to stay overnight. It's worth it, just. We eventually pay a bit more and take a boat with another couple (the first couple gave up waiting and drove off). The church is very well preserved - and was probably in use until the Armenians were driven out. The views around are fabulous and it's very peaceful. Back at the cafe the camping is crowded - another couple have pitched first on the tiny terrace. Pam and Joe are two Americans teaching English in Istanbul. We talk a while and eat together. Despite being about twenty metres from the main road we sleep well.
In the morning we shove off - flagging down a bus heading for the immortal Batman. The journey is, as always, full of great views and the obligatory army checkpoint. For the first time we are asked to open up our rucksacks for inspection. One look at our mobile library and we are waved on. We climb a high pass of 2000m before starting a long long descent. Batman is a disappointment - no silly costumes. We are only passing through anyway. The bus man takes us to the dolmus we need for Hasankeyf and we hang around with a lot of other people with nothing to do until a driver appears and we depart in a rush. After a slow trawl around a couple of streets - the driver really looks like he has lost his dog or something - we hit the main road.
Hasankeyf is a village on the banks of the Tigris. The river has formed a wide canyon and in the cliffsides are abandoned caves. Behind and above the village is a whole abandoned city of caves. The earth is red. Not much greenery around at this time of year. We check out the "motel" next to the steel bridge. It leans awkwardly over the river. It's awful and the shared facilities are smelly. The balcony of the room is covered in pigeon shit. So we wander down the street to the "camping" - which looks like someone's kitchen garden full of cats. In fact it is. So we head back to the "motel" and haggle. We think we have a fair price until we try to shower later that evening. There's no water. Roaring past outside is the legendary Tigris and the hotel has no water. The hotel also has no staff. There is no-one to complain to. Miraculously sometime later there is water. It feels like the set for Barton Fink.
In the afternoon we wander up to the caves. Neither of us are prepared for the scale of the ruins. Up a narrow gorge we pass the trinket shops and climb worn out old steps to the top of the hill above the village. There are caves everywhere and some even have doors and numbers on them. Paths lead up the cliffs opposite and down the cliffs on the other side and on top there is a warren of abandoned homes. You can wander freely and we find ourselves looking down through holes in roofs or into dark unlit space. The grass is high and golden yellow and from the top there are great views over the river and the remains of an old stone bridge built by the Seljuks. We lose each other but eventually meet up again to catch the sunset. Sunset? Time for food - and the gatekeeper is getting irritable by our late descent. The government plans to build a damn on the Tigris near here and the village and cave city will then be flooded. Unfortunately, the need for energy is greater than the need to conserve more ruins.

Nh, nh, nh, nh, nh, nh, nh, nh, nh, nh, nh, nh, nh Batman!

Merhaba!

So it's 5am and the bus pulls into the emptiest and crummiest-looking otogar (bus station) we've seen. We're on the edge of a city asleep. In the cafe the flies outnumber the passengers sleeping at the tables or smoking and drinking glasses of tea. Loud pop music blares from the TV up on the wall. Dirty and scruffy waiters shout nonsense at each other. Through the grimy windows we look down on the dry plain and low hills surrounding Erzurum. The sun slowly lightens the day. There's a saying that goes "A dog always look black at night". But Erzurum looks black even at dawn. We wait until seven and then shoulder our rucksacks and follow the broken pavements and dusty empty roads past concrete housing blocks and shuttered shops. A flicker of life appears as we near the centre. We check our map and head up Tyre Shop Street towards our chosen hotel. A man outside hails us in. The lounge in the entrance is full of breakfasting businessmen. Is there a double room? There is - but it needs to be cleaned. Do we want breakfast while we wait? Cup of tea? Erzurum seems less black all of a sudden.

We are on our way to the Kackar mountains and Erzurum is one of the closest cities in the North East of Turkey. We check our map of the country - we seemed to have skipped across a huge swathe in very little time. The city looks grimy and poor and every roof is corrugated. We are at an altitude of about 1850 metres and behind the city is a big hill with a ski-resort. It looks dry and dusty like everything else around here. Billboards and shop signs proclaim the presence of the electrical goods company Arcelik - fancy having that on your fridge door? We track down the minibus station for onward travel and buy unleaded petrol for our camping stove. We then visit the sights. The castle looks like a couple of old stone walls - we don't bother to climb the small hill. There's an old Seljuk mederse (religious school) with two stunted minarets looking like chimneys. Inside are local women selling dull-looking embroidered tablecloths. Prayers are ending at the Big Mosque and a gang of old men appear with shoes in hand, blinking in the bright light. They look a bit dry and dusty too. I stick my head inside the mosque but it looks shabby and functional - we may have seen the finest in our first days in Turkey. There is a better mosque complex further down the high street next to the park. One building is a museum - we are not tempted. Instead we take a seat at one of the tables in the park - nothing more than a fountain, a row of high hedges, some trees and a lot of fellas drinking tea and Chewing The Fat. We are feeling flat. What are we doing here? Drinking tea like everyone else. There isn't much else to do. And then we hear some live music from the other side of a hedge - two men playing guitars and singing sad melodious songs. It is wonderful and Erzurum doesn't seem so black after all. Some time later we spot a supermarket, no, two supermarkets. I feel giddy with excitement. We need food for camping, but my reaction is still disturbing. Can Carrefour be the highlight of Erzurum?

The bus journey northwards into the mountains is wonderful - the scenery shifting gradually. First, the plains filled with haystacks and farmers gathering the last remnants left in the fields. Then we wind alongside the low brown river that snakes through a wide rock-filled riverbed. The road is being widened and we skate across dusty washboard surfaces and detour across the narrowing valley onto a dirt road. Soon we are climbing above a large natural reservoir of pea-green water and then down into a dry desert gorge. The high cliffs of rock overshadow us - the strata bend and fold like giant's fingerprints. Eventually we reach Yusufeli and a man magically appears at our shoulder, just like the clothes shop owner in Mr Benn, and asks "Barhal?" How does he know? We say yes and after a long wait for other punters our dolmus (minibus) climbs the dirt road up the valley and to the summer villages high in the Kackar mountain range.

It comes as a surprise to find everyone speaking Hebrew at the hostel. This is Turkey? All the other walkers staying in Barhal appear to be Israelis. Thankfully they are more mature than others we have met on our travels - and they are not in huge groups. We chat away and discover another Englishman, Charlie. We have a very interesting night talking with Neomi and Uri - they seem to come from an Israeli Hebden Bridge, liberal, secular and funny (I mean them). We discuss everything you can imagine - from the Royal family to Judaism to Yuri's trip with his mother back to northern Romania where she grew up. It is warm and green in Barhal and the river rushes down the valley. All the Israelis love the water - they don't have enough at home. Below our hostel on the hillside is a huge 10th century Georgian church, sadly closed up and neglected.

We set off on a trek across the mountains to another village via a mountain lake. Charlie joins us for the first night. We climb about 1500 metres up past fertile plots and yaylalar (summer pastures) and huddles of summer houses. There are many abandoned and left to the elements. The tradition of moving the animals onto high ground and living in the mountains for the short summers appears to be dying out. It looks like hard work but paradoxically a tiny paradise to us passersby. We spend a happy evening stargazing and the next day leave Charlie by the lake and climb an unimaginable path up to a high ridge. Our guidebook describes the onward route but we find ourselves looking down a badly eroded and very steep mountainside. After an hour or so of cautious footwork we give up and return to the lake - this route was not for us. Our trekking plans are all awry but we head off a couple of days later up a different valley to Olgunlar, another summer village. We stay at Osman's pension and meet more very nice Israelis. Osman and his wife feed us fresh trout that may just have been plucked from the river outside. Life is simple and good. We head off late the next morning for a short walk up to a camping spot at the head of one valley. We climb up to a shelf overlooking the main valley, out of sight and with lovely views. The pasta and mushroom sauce tastes better than we imagined. The perfect weather threatens to change with a strong wind and Scotch mist the next morning, but the sun soon burns it off and we pick out a goat track up to a high ridge. Over the ridge the path contours along a steep slope and the goat track soon becomes more goat than track. Uh oh. Tantalisingly, we can see where we want to go but the way seems a little too tricky for us. Once again we reluctanctly retreat, cursing our guidebook in frustration. But after a while, when we are resettled in our old camping spot we feel happy and satisfied with where we are. We love the mountains even when we aren't going anywhere. The next day we cross to the other side of the main valley and climb to another pass just to see what is there. We find ourselves looking north to the Black Sea, but everything below us is coated in a quilt of cloud. On the way back to Osman's I felt sad to be leaving.

Our 6am dolmus takes us back to Yusufeli where we pick up a connection to Kars, close to the Armenian border. Once again we have a scenic drive through winding gorges and then up and out onto undulating high plains. As far as the eye can see there are vast herds of cattle grazing the freshly mowed fields. We pass small hamlets of low houses and byres with earth roofs and piles of peat stacked up alongside. It could be a Hebridean island. We also meet our first army checkpoint and everyone has to hand over their id cards for inspection. We arrive in Kars at the end of the afternoon, and it looks as dreary as we feel. The Otel Kent is exactly as described in our guidebook, including the smelly shared facilities. We have failed to find clean hotels in this part of Turkey and I'm afraid to have drawn the sexist conclusion that this is simply because women are rarely allowed to do any work outside the home. This means men are cleaning the hotels. Or not cleaning the hotels. Ramadan has begun and we have to wait for the muezzin's signal before the restaurant will serve up the food we have ordered. We munch our food with a crowd of hungry men. I think we might have seen two women since we've arrived. Itfar is a frenzied affair and the restaurant soon empties and masculine life returns to the streets.

Little did we realise that the morning call to prayer would actually be earlier during Ramadan - but everyone needs enough time to Stuff Their Face before sunrise. I manage to find a teashop serving non-fasters like myself, but nearly walk out when I confuse the price of a glass of tea. 25 million??? The man quotes the old currency even though it changed in 2005 - like nearly everyone else. Thankfully, Gayle explains what he means. We take a minibus with a young German woman, an American and two Spanish women to the ancient capital of Armenia, Ani. It is right on the closed border with Armenia and we drive along what looks suspiciously like a runway on the approach. The neglected ruins of Ani stand on a walled hill overlooking a river gorge. There is a collection of churches, a convent and a mosque all built with the same warm red stone. The rest of the site is covered in straw-coloured grasses with the odd cow munching away. The city had been a stage on the old Silk Route before the Mongols came along and razed it and it was abandoned. One of the churches built in the 10th century only fell down when struck by lightning fifty years ago. We wander slowly around and there's an air of remoteness about the place. Except over the gorge the Armenians are quarrying - spoiling the view. The two countries have yet to resolve their differences - the principal one being Turkey's refusal to acknowledge the deaths of about 1.5 million Armenians who were being driven out of Turkey in around 1915. The Russians had invaded this part of the Ottoman empire in the 1880's, taking Van and Erzurum, in a move to "protect" the christian Armenians. The Turks saw the Armenians as collaborators. It is still illegal in Turkey to talk of the genocide of Armenians by Turkey. Ooops.

Our next stop is Dogubayazit, or Dog Biscuit as one visitor calls it. The bus journey here is wonderful, yet again. We drive around Mount Ararat, the extinct volcano allegedly where Noah's Ark came to rest. Half the town appears to be given over to army barracks and residences and we count thirty tanks parked up. There is a border crossing into Iran here, but the army are here to keep out/down the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK). The south-east of Turkey has been blighted in recent years by the fighting but there is hope that the prime minister is committed to change for the better for the Kurds. It is quite obvious that this is the poor part of the country and there is a need for investment and economic development here. We'll see. For the moment though everything seems fairly normal. At our hotel we meet an Englishman, another John, cycling to Australia. He is about to enter Iran with a German couple who are also cycling. We must have spent a whole morning chatting away with him, but he seems happy to be waylaid as he is having a rest day. It is John (http://www.cyclingtoaustralia.blogspot.com/) who gives us the idea of using Blogspot and convinces us how easy it is to use. In the afternoon we visit the local sight - a partially-restored Seljuk palace built in the hills. It's very impressive with wonderful views and the pashas' toilet smels nearly as bad as some we have come across.

Our hopping about continues - to Van, a new city next to the large lake of the same name in the south east corner of Turkey. Here we have a cleanish place to stay and spend almost a day sorting photos and catching up on e-mails and doing not much else. One evening we take a bus down to the ruined castle which sits on a hill overlooking the lake. It's fairly unimpressive - we have seen too many crumbling forts - but we stay for sunset and then descend. As we leave the grounds a group of seven men call us over. They are sat on a blanket and tucking into a tray of lamb stew with bread and pickles and coca-cola. Come and eat, they say and we don't hesitate. Within seconds we are dribbling gravy down our chins and munching on pickled chillies whilst having a broken conversation with the one man who speaks a bit of English. They all work at the hospital and are breaking their fast together in a rather frenetic and hurried manner. They all finish eating before us and simultaneously light cigarettes with a great sigh of relief. We thank them profusely and head off for the long walk back to our hotel. Thankfully they pick us up on their way past and save us the slog back in the dark.

We are now heading west and back towards the centre of Turkey. Our route takes us through the city of Batman. Yes, Batman. Can't wait to see what the locals are wearing.............

Carpet Sale Now On!

from John:

Merhaba!

"Hello, can I help you?" We had just arrived in Erdirne after a tortuous border crossing from Bulgaria. After almost three hours in thirty degree heat passing through exit and entry formalities (immigration, customs, duty free, toilet break, immigration, customs) our bus had dropped us on the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere with four others with the promise that another bus would come along and take us to Erdirne. Amazingly one did. And it dropped us exactly where we wanted to go. But now we were wandering up and down Cheap Hotel Street (there's one in every town) trying to decide whether to stay at the comfortable but more pricey hotel we had looked at or the cheaper rough and ready one (with bathroom cubicle stood Tardis-like in the corner of the room). A man approached us with this greeting. As hardened travellers we tend to ignore anyone who approaches us because in 95% of these cases the person has alterior motives. But the man was well-dressed and spoke English and we gave him the benefit of the doubt. We explained our dilemma and he told us that he was home from working in Germany but he knew of another cheap hotel and described to us where it was. And we said thank you and he left us. All very low-key but the incident has been repeated many times since our arrival here in Turkey. I love it.

We liked Erdirne - a small city with a handful of sights and not many foreign tourists, which invariably means that the locals are not too jaded or cynical with you. It's famous for an annual oil-wrestling festival which we missed, possibly........ On our first night a new supermarket had sponsored a band to perform in the central park - a Turkish Cat Stevens - and the place was packed with families munching bread rings and singing along to the songs. It was windy and we were glad of the cooling breeze. The next day we visited three mosques - the most significant being built by a famous Ottoman architect, Mimar Sinan, who believed it was his best work. It was a wonderful and peaceful building set in green gardens, with lots of impressive tilework and other detail. The main building was large and unusually bright thanks to row upon row of windows. We ate lunch in a tiny cafe with six tables and were looked on as novelty punters, lots of attention and smiles all round. We tucked into lamb and aubergine stew with a bowl of thick yoghurt and a baker's van of bread. This meal has been repeated on many occasions since but I'll never tire of it.

From Erdirne it's a short trip to Istanbul - and our first experience of wonderful Turkish buses: air-conditioned, spotlessly clean and cake and coffee served, mmm. Istanbul bus station has four levels and is the size of Chorlton. Thankfully it's on the metro line which connects with a modern tram so relatively easy to navigate into the heart of the old city where we stayed. Our guidebook tells us that the population is 16 million and the city famously straddles the Bosphorous, linking European Turkey wýth Asian Turkey. It is inevitably touristy but equally exciting and as it has spread over several hills there are great views everywhere. The seas are full of boats - ferries, tankers and cruise ships - and the shorelines are busy with commuters crossing back and forth. It did not feel too crowded or busy as we wandered around - many Istanbullus go to the coast for their hols - but there was still a bustle about the bazaars and a long queue for fish butties on the seafront. We spent a few days here, but saved the famous sights for our return in November when we hope to meet up with my mum and dad. Istanbul has a reputation of hard-selling carpet salesmen, but we only brushed with a couple, so we probably don't meet the right criteria as possible punters. Thank goodness.

One evening we were approached by a policeman with a machıne-gun strapped across his protective jacket. "Can I help you? Are you lost?" Poor guy was bored guarding a government building and we ended up chatting for a while, showing him our map of Turkey and where we planned to visit. It was fine until the subject switched to football. As we talked the snub nose of his gun kept jabbing me uncomfortably in the ribs. "United or City?" he asked. City, I replied. "Good. I can't stand Manchester United. I hate Rooney!" Me too, I said with some relief. I had visions of him gunning down United fans as they walked past.......

Our journey onwards south took us by ferry to the Asia side and then by bus to Iznik, known for it's blue tiles that adorn so many Ottoman mosques. It's a small town on a lake and is surrounded by fruit orchards. Our friendly hotel manager greeted us with tea and a quick run-down of the sights. He also suggested a walk out to the surrounding villages which we did on a couple of days. In the fierce sun we trudged, listing all the fruits we could see growing: peaches, apples, pears, grapes, figs, plums, cherries, olives (are they fruit??). At one village we bought cold drinks and engaged in mime with two old fellas who came out to chat to us. They fetched us grapes to eat and when an ice-cream delivery truck pulled up the driver gave us choc-ices. It was all spontaneous and gave us a great feeling. We walked down to the lakeside for sunset one weekend evening and the shore was full of picnicking Turks sat on actual carpets with samovars of tea bubbling away. Despite Turkish coffee being so famous (ly awful) it appears that Turks actually drink more tea than the English............and they grow it all themselves.

Originally our journey was to roughly follow the old Silk Route - a name for several historical trade routes from China across Central Asia to Europe. In the city of Bursa, home to the Ottoman dynasty, we came across a han, an urban caravanserai dedicated to the silk trade. Built in the 1400's its courtyard is now used by several teashops and a small mosque, but in the upper corridors are shops selling silk clothing. Bursa is a modern busy place with a few monuments - the tomb of Osman being the most significant. Osman was the founder of the Ottoman dynasty in the 14th century. The Ottomans were so named so that they would never ever be confused wıth the Osmonds. Bursa is also the centre of peach production and now is the time to eat them. They are bigger than cricket balls, sweet and juıcy and ever so cheap, so we have sampled a fair few. They are competing with Romania's cherries and Morocco's oranges as our favourite Fruit of the Journey.

We continued southward to a stop at Egirdir lake - a quiet town where we could swim in the clean waters and enjoy some fresh air. Our pension was run by a family of women, quite rare, who went out of their way to be helpful. Well, they bought a new backgammon set. From here we headed on to Fethiye with some intrepidation. The Turkish coast is awash with tourists in high season, although many people in Fethiye were asking why there were so few British this year....... We had been looking forward to our holiday with Isabell, Fiona, Dave and the children at a villa just inland at Uzumlu and it turned out to be just ideal for us. We really enjoyed being with them and playing with Alice, Megan and Tom in the pool. The weather has been very hot, so the opportunity to swim in a pool each day, read and eat well was gratefully seized. Each evening we could stargaze and look out for shooting stars and satellites overhead. We befriended the local butcher on our regular forays into the village for food and ice-lollies. You could see him smiling and rubbing his stomach in contentment each time we approached. And Isabell and Gayle on an evening stroll were invited into a garden by some women preparing savoury pancakes. On another day we took a boat trip along some of the rocky bays from Fethiye. The water was crystal clear and inviting to all but to yours truly, a reluctant swimmer when he can't put his feet to the floor.......... The fortnight passed too quickly for us and the goodbyes were terribly hard for us. It took a while for the melancholy to lift.

Our onward journey overnight brought us eastwards into the heart of Anatolia. We had a stop in a village below the ruins of Hattusa, the ancient capital of the Hittites. These people are mentioned in the Old Testament, but nothing more was known about them until an archeologist ın the last century unearthed what are believed to be the official archives, carved on tablets. These have been translated and recount the life and times of the Hittites including all the football results (Hittites 3 Assyrians 1 sounds like a storming match, marred only by trouble after the game) plus the oldest known peace treaty, which was drawn up with the Egyptians. Needless to say there's not much left of a 5,000 year-old city - but we spent a pleasant day wandering around the site which spreads out over a few hills.

Amasya, our next destination, is a small town set in a narrow valley along a river. Above on the cliffs of the hillside are a clutch of tombs cut out of the rock face. These were about as impressive as they sound (not much, eh?), but the town itself had a lively streetlife with much promenading along the riverside and wonderful Carte D'or ice-cream. When in Rome.........we promenaded and ate ice-cream. (Traditional Turkish ice-cream has an added ingredient to make it chewy and melt-resistant, but it's pretty awful. One day I saw a block of the stuff being chopped up with a meat cleaver - it took some effort.) A woman sitting next to Gayle started chatting under pressure from her mother-in-law who obviously wanted to know where we were from, were we married, what were our jobs - the standard questions. When Gayle asked why she chose not to wear a headscarf she explained that as a school teacher she is not allowed to wear one in school. But it was still the summer holidays! We failed to find cheap accomodation in Amasya. We spotted what looked like a cheap hotel, not in our guidebook, but turned around at the entrance when three Russian prostitutes emerged. Sometimes we criticise our Lonely Planet guidebook, but it often does the job required.

Our journey continued with a third nightbus over the rolling plains of Eastern Anatolia - at least this is how I imagine the landscape having never actually seen it!! There were some last-minute shenanigans at the bus station, unusual for Turkey. The man at the bus office changed our ticket for another bus company and seats on the back row. We acted outraged. Tea was offered. He tried to explain it was a better bus but after a bit of huffing and puffing and making a phone call he got us two seats in front of the back row. It killed some time. Tea was offered again. Eventually he shuttled us and two others in his beat-up car to a petrol station on the edge of town where we were eventually bundled aboard the passing bus. To Erzurum. Now, where's that??

Bulging in Bulgaria

From John:

Dobar dan!
Where were we? Romania? And tomorrow we will take a bus from Plovdiv to Erdine in Turkey. Almost out of Europe. The past month has flown by in a shoe-melting month of heat. We have dashed through Bulgaria - but this is a relative term. For some three weeks in Bulgaria is a long holiday and for others it's a long time full stop. For us it has been three weeks of very good food and sweltering heat with quite a bit of sight-seeing and one nice walk in the mountains.

In eager anticipation of meeting friends and making use of the time before they arrived, we left Brasov and took a night train to Bucovina in north east Romania. Our plan was to spend four days visiting some of the painted monasteries in the area. We found a room in a pension with a nice garden and a pool in a small town from where we reckoned we could walk or day-trip to the monasteries. The daytime temperatures were creeping up to the 35C mark on a regular basis, to the point where we were taking siestas in the middle of the day. Our very first afternoon Gayle met a Russian woman and a Bulgarian couple staying at the pension. The man, obviously desperate to get a break from his missus, offered to take us in his car to the nearest monastery. We piled into his Dacia (essentially an old Renault 12 built in Romania), and with Abba blaring from the tape deck, hurtled down the country lanes. Mamma Mia, the man could not drive. When we careered towards a haystack on a cart I thought it was our Waterloo. At one bend in the road we crossed the dotted white line and slid into the corner, which had Gayle contemplating sending out an S.O.S. The Name of the Game was basically to hang on. We soon arrived at the monastery and fell out of the car, and I minced my way to the entrance like a Dancing Queen. Okay, okay, I'm flogging the Abba gags. The monasteries are Orthodox Christian, and were built and painted at a time when the good time boys the Ottoman Turks were marauding northwards. Apparently the poor plebs who had to defend the villages were not allowed inside the churches, and so the exterior walls were decorated with scenes from the Bible, but with a topical flavour: at Voronets, the gory paintings of the saints being killed (plenty of these) depicted the baddies wearing turbans. Must have been Turks.
"Half an hour!" our volunteer driver had shouted as we entered the monastery. Ludmilla the Russian objected to this Japanese-style visit, but he was insistent and came to get us when our time was up. "Right, next one!" He then drove us to another monastery. "Half an hour!" Ludmilla muttered and grumbled, but for me it was plenty of time to look around. We then shot back to the pension broadcasting the best of Abba and in 90 minutes had completed two days of our itinerary. Never to miss an opportunity to do nothing, we did it. Our excuse of course was the extreme heat and the temptation of a quiet garden with a pool.

We returned to Brasov on a slow but wonderful train ride through picturesque landscape. The area was settled by Hungarians and the rural scene was almost perfect. Back in Brasov we discovered that one friend, Val, could not meet us, but that Lance was on his way. We had a small problem - good cheap accommodation was hard to come by, and our preferred place was booked up. It was run by a nice couple, and we rang the husband who spoke English to see if we could book for our friend. It turned out that they lived just along from our back-up hotel, and Ladislau suggested we call round in the evening to check with his wife. We did. Theresa was very friendly and offered us coffee and tea, and apologised that they were booked up but they were having a barbecue and would we like to stay to eat with them? Ladislau emerged from the garden shed with the barbecue and promptly lit it. It turned out to be a wonderful evening for us. In addition to the huge amounts of meat and red wine which we were offered and very politely consumed, we also had a good chat. We wanted to ask them about Romania and they wanted to ask about our journey along the Silk Road. Ladislau was half German half Hungarian and spoke good English. Theresa was Hungarian and spoke no English but did a good mime. It was like being with old friends. I could fill another page with our conversation, but it might bore you. To our question about life after Communism Ladislau quoted his father: "Before, everyone had a bit of money but there was nothing to buy. Now, you can buy anything, but only a few have got the money."

A couple of days later we were back in the Fagaras mountains walking with Lance. It was his first time walking with a full backpack and we all sweated buckets on the climb up to the ridge. It was a glorious sunny day, with a cooling wind on the top, and in the afternoon we found a decent spot to pitch with a spring not too far away. Over a a tasty tea of tortellini, pesto and parmesan we studied the map and route description of the ridge and plotted our next day's walk. What fools. We awoke to thick mist and then heavy rain. Visibility was down to 5 metres and we decided to wait it out. We waited all day. Disaster struck - the toilet roll we were all sharing got soaked. The emergency spare was a little bit small for a five day trek. The next day it was still cloudy but dry and we continued on our way. One tricky stretch involved an exposed traverse along an eroded path. I went first and Lance followed behind Gayle. He was very good at encouragment - sometimes I was too frightened to speak. Thankfully it was so cloudy we couldn't see the drop below us. Late afternoon saw us drop off the ridge (not literally) and out of the cloud to a tempting spot for pitching our tents. We awoke next day with the cloud still low and so after a bit of humming and hawing decided to walk out. The walk was long and up and over a couple of spur ridges, finally descending past a grotty cabana and down to the end of the road, where there was a restaurant. Here we tried to phone for a taxi to avoid a long slog along the road, but the waiter asked a family who were leaving in a pick-up truck to give us a lift, which they did. Wonderful. On our train back to Brasov we had the best views of the mountains - the clouds had disappeared completely, as always.............

We spent a couple of nights in Bucharest, which is probably two too many, although we all enjoyed The Museum of the Peasant - which turned out to be far better than it sounds! The highlights were a traditional wooden house, church and windmill. Our plan had been to stay at an original caravanserai (trading post/inn) which still stands in the centre of the city, but we persuaded Lance to stay near the train station which was more boring but far more convenient. As it turned out the caravanserai was being renovated - destined to become a five-star hotel. We also visited the People's Palace - an enormous white elephant of a building begun by the despot Ceaucescu. This monument to his ego was built with no expense spared and after the revolution the politicians decided to complete the project. It remains unfinished but is used as a parliament. And it still consumes vast amounts of money which could be better spent elsewhere. Donald Trump apparently offered 4bn US dollars and they stupidly turned it down. It is the world's second largest admistrative building in the world, after the Pentagon, and quite ugly really............

We bade Lance farewell and took a train across the border to Veliko Tarnovo in Bulgaria. The short journey began badly when I discovered that my seat number did not exist on the train! It took forever to get to and cross the border and we disembarked into a world of Cyrillic. Apart from this there was no immediately appreciable difference with Romania. But that was until we went to eat. As dedicated self-caterers we have had a holiday in Bulgaria and enjoyed excellent cheap food (salads! hooray!) and drink, probably fattening up a bit along the way. The choc-ices don't help either. And it has been soooo hot. We have been lucky with the sunshine on this journey but even we have blanched in Bulgaria at the temperatures. We have passed fields and fields of sunflowers with heads bowed - all hiding their faces from the fierce sun.

Our route has taken us through small traditional towns and to Orthodox monasteries which are visited as places of pilgrimage by the locals. (You must have heard of the ikon of three-handed Virgin? No? The religious paintings (ikons) are revered and kissed and the three-handed Virgin at Troyan monastery seemed to be particularly popular and well-known in Bulgaria. Anyway.......) The best monastery is at Rila - a large complex set high in a valley of pine trees just south of Sofia. We enjoyed the capital - it was not overbearing and we were treated to an international folk-dancing competition for two nights running in the central park (nothing on at the cinema!). Okay, not really our cup of tea, but the dreary proceedings were considerably enlivened by knife-throwing Georgian cossacks and the Venezuelans brought a huge band with them too.

In the middle of the country we stayed in a village called Koprovititsa
(bit of a tongue-twister and not sure of the spelling!). This was a touristy little place full of traditional wooden houses and it turned out to be the only unspoilt tourist spot we found. The other places we visited seemed to be over-developed. In Veliko Tarnovo every fourth shop was an estate agents, and in Bansko, a ski resort, a massive building programme was in full flow as developers look to cash in on British and German interest in holiday homes. It was quite sad really and made us think of the Spanish coast. On reflection, we think Romania was much nicer mainly because it seems to have avoided this trend, but for how long.............

Bansko is in the Pirin mountains and from here we escaped the heat and trekked for a couple of nights - it was all we could manage, but was well worth it. We climbed a couple of peaks and found lovely lakes to camp beside. And from there we came on a scenic bus journey to Plovdiv, a big city with an old centre full of tree-lined streets and a Roman amphitheatre. We will enjoy one more Bulgarian meal before departing for the land of kebabs............

ciao for now

When in Romania

Buna ziua!
Just after we arrived in Romania from Hungary I wrote to a friend that it was a bit like going from Didsbury to Wythenshawe (or from Oxton to Birkenhead for those on the Wirral). Despite the shabby towns, trains and environment and sometimes shabby inhabitants, all no doubt reflecting a poorer country but perhaps something else too, we have found that Romania has grown on us - like mould perhaps. Ironically, after just over a week here, I went to see quite a grim film shot in Glasgow called Red Road. (Gayle wisely preferred to stay and read in the botannical gardens.) When I left the cinema and walked through the city everything in comparison seemed to be in glorious 3-D technicolour with surround sound and scratch 'n' sniff thrown in for free. In fact, it really did me the world of good, because we were both wondering whether Romania was going to be just an expensive and unsatisfactory time-filler on our route. Now I know Glasgow can be incredibly drab and ugly, but when we talk to foreigners about Britain, we always say Scotland is the most beautiful part. We also know that sometimes it takes a while to explore a country and find the best parts. And so it has turned out to be. After a couple of treks in the mountains, and a couple more relaxed and pretty towns, we now find that half of June has passed and there is still lots more that Romania offers........

We arrived in Oradea, a non-touristy city full of Art Nouveau buildings in the centre. We were heading for one of them, the Black Vulture Hotel, a run-down backpacker's favourite, but found that it had been renovated and is now a four star hotel. Never mind. Instead we found another run down Art Nouveau hotel and took a huge room with a private bathroom and a bath with a plug. Joy unconfined. Even better, a buffet-style restaurant where we could point at what we wanted and paid for it by its weight. Perfect for those who haven't grasped the Romanian language. This is in fact very close to Latin. Unfortunately this was not an option for me at school and Gayle chose Geography instead, but we have mastered some essential phrases such as "Where can I buy cous-cous?" and "Does that come with vegetables?". We quickly learned from the big grumpy receptionist with a fake bun in her hair that, like Hungary, the older people speak German to us, but thankfully, the youngsters have learned English at school, and despite denying all knowledge of the language when asked directly "Do you speak English?", they can in fact understand us and answer most of our questions fluently.

We spent a couple of days getting to grips with the lack of tourist information and trying to find essential things like how to get to the bus station in the pouring rain. When there aren't thunderstorms in Romania it's baking hot in June. We also had some fun finding a supermarket where we could buy food for trekking. As dedicated self-caterers, we find that Romania is much like Italy - full of small grocery shops and a central market with fresh local produce, but when you want dehydrated meals, powdered milk and Jaffa cakes you've got to get to the edge of town supermarket. With our backpacks fully stocked we took a bus into the Apuseni mountains. It was Saturday, the bus station was a dusty deserted place, but a bus appeared right on time, driven by a friendly Ryan Giggs (for it was he - obviously got a summer job.) It took us to a market town with another dusty and deserted bus station where we learnt that there was no connection to our starting point. What to do? Well, when in Romania, do as the Romanians do - stand on the side of the road and hitch. We joined an old man and a mum with her child at a road junction and before we could stick our thumb out we were spotted by a farmer in a battered Dacia jeep pulling a trailer with two cows. "Stana de Vale? Get on in!" (or something like this), and along with the old man we squeezed in. The farmer hung his sausages over the handbrake and put his beer in the boot to make space, and we were off..........very slowly. It soon became apparent that we might be asphyxiated before we even reached our mountain destination as the exhaust fumes entered the cab from under the dashboard and our windows didn't open. We had a disjointed conversation with the farmer who seemed very jolly and kept saying Newcastle to us, and waved a horse brass off his dashboard at us. Over the next hour we climbed up a forest road into the misty mountains and passed herds of cows and families driving them up the road. It rained heavily and was still raining when we stepped down from the jeep, dizzy and gasping for air, at the saddest-looking andmost deserted campsite I've ever seen.

We checked our map, waited for the rain to stop and instead of staying set off along a track to find a better pitch. It rained again as we climbed through beech and pine forest but stopped when we reached the tree line. We pitched our tent on a flat grassy patch above a river, but not far from a sheepfold. This turned out to be a mistake because when the shepherds returned with their flock, they let their dogs loose. It didn't take them long to discover us, and after half an hour of barking, we decided to pack up and climb higher. This turned out to be a good move, and we ended up on a peaceful grassy saddle with views of our intended walk. The next three days was spent walking a horseshoe ridge covered in grass and juniper bushes, sheep dung and a million flies with nothing else to do but follow us. The views over the surrounding area were wonderful and we only had one heavy thunderstorm where we found shelter under a pine tree. The paths are waymarked here, but a couple of times we found no way through neglected forest, or lost the track on large grassy clearings. Each time, close to giving up, we finally located the path. Apart from shepherds, we also met locals cutting trees and herding cows and grazing horses. One afternoon we walked past some untended cart horses as big as houses, who feigned indifference to us, but then appeared on the track behind us when we stopped for a break. I think I might have broken into a trot at that point to put some distance between us and them, and had to climb over a "gate" of fallen trees that was obviously there to stop the horses wandering. This was the only fence we saw anywhere, except for the picket fences around the houses in the valley-bottoms. Our walk ended with a climb up to Vladeasa, an 1800m peak, and the next day we had a long walk out back to the train line. This was shortened when we hitched a ride off a local policeman who breathed alcohol and drove too fast, but who took us to the next town where there were more train connections back to Oradea.

After a hotel room laundry session and a long soak in the bath, we left Oradea and headed west to Cluj, Romania's second city. After a tiresome sweaty search for what turned out to be expensive accomodation we had a discussion about cities and their worth. We are rarely thrilled by a church or a museum, and only occassionally is there a film we may want to watch. (It was here I saw Red Road as part of the Transylvanian Film Festival. There was a buzz around the place, as a young Romanian director had just won the Palme D'Or at Cannes.) Without reaching a conclusion about the matter, we moved on to a small Saxon city called Sigisoara, in Transylvania. This part of Romania was settled by Germans around the 13th century and was annexed by Hungary in the 19th century. There are three names for every place (German, Hungarian and Romanian). Most of the towns have traditionally been run by Germans (all very neat and tidy as you can imagine), with Romanians being virtual serfs up to Transylvania joining Romania after the First World War. There are still many ethnic Hungarians living here, but apparently a large number of Germans left in the 90's to go to Germany.

We were persuaded by a polite young dude called Jan to stay in a room in his house at Sigisoara, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site in conjunction with a clutch of fortified churches in the area, built as a defence against the marauding Turks. Despite our declaration that we would not visit any more churches or castles, we found ourselves on a daytrip to Biertan, an old village, to visit a church fortified like a castle. We took a slow cattle-truck of a train to a stop in the middle of nowhere, got off and hiked along the road. After passing through one village we hitched a lift off two moustachioed men in an old VW camper van, with beer bottles rolling around in the back. They spoke no English, we spoke no Romanian. There was no conversation. When they dropped us at Biertan they declined the money one would normally offer for a ride. After refreshing ourselves with 2 litres of pop from the local shop, we climbed up the hill to the Lutheran church surrounded by three walls. Its bell tower was designed as a watch tower and the grounds were big enough for the whole village to seek shelter in, should any furniture-sellers from down south cold-call.
The village was a quiet place, virtually unchanged from medieval times (except for the cars, tractor, telephone box and satelite dishes etc. etc.) We watched as a collection of VW 4X4s drove into town on a promotional Off-Road race - wealthy Romanians from Bucharest - all very entertaining to us and the locals. We doubted any of them would have given us a lift. With this in mind, we set off on our return walk, through a wide valley full of corn fields. Along the way we passed families taking lunch and a rest in whatever shade they could find. One woman asked us for water. We reckon they would have been working the fields from very early in the morning - by 10 in the morning the sun is fierce and relentless. We passed people hoeing, men ploughing with a horse, scything huge fields of hay and stacking it onto carts - all of it back-breaking work. We stopped for another 2 litres of pop at the next village before catching another worn-out slow train.

The next day we strolled Sigisoara and stopped for beer at a little cafe tucked away down a side street. Not long after three posh English sat down at the next table. We earwigged a bit and then Gayle enjoined them in conversation. It turned out the ambassador of Moldova and his wife were on a weekend trip with his sister. They were very friendly and the ambassador quite funny. At first he just said he worked at the embassy, but when Gayle asked what he did, he admitted he was ambassador. "So not a lot then", was Gayle's immediate reply. He seemed a bit Graham Greeneish - his previous posting was Luxembourg, so he obviously couldn't take his job too seriously.

Next stop Sibiu, another nice Saxon city, overlooked by the mountains of Fagaras and Cindrel , part of the Carpathian chain. The city centre is small enough to walk around, with little traffic, and cobblestoned streets that lead down into the old town. This all looked a bit faded and crumbly next to the bright clean centre, and was full of second-hand clothes shops and "NON STOP" off-licences. We stayed here in a small pension with a bar in its patio, frequented by quiet elderly drinkers who would call in for a beer anytime between 9 am and 9pm. After a couple of days of culture (Sibiu is the European City of Culture 2007), and the obligatory supermarket trip, we headed for a trek into the Fagaras mountains.

We started with a slow train and a fast taxi ride to a village from where we walked into a forested valley. We walked past an old road sign that said NO FOREIGNERS. It rained heavily and we sought shelter in a sentry box outside some deserted buildings - I imagine some abandoned chemical weapons-testing facility or something of the sort. The rain eased off a little and we carried on along a forest track,meeting no-one but spotting four black and yellow salamanders. It was too wet to photograph them. After a long uphill slog we emerged from the forest to a clearing and a forester's cabin, with a view of a distant cirque and the mountain ridge in the distance above us. The cabin was closed and deserted, but everywhere around us signs of fires and litter. We came to a river that we had to wade, and feeling tired and still some way from the mountain ridge we decided to camp. Only then did it stop raining. It felt a little too quiet and spooky and we both thought of bears, but said nothing. In the morning we waded the river and climbed steeply for two hours, finally reaching the mountain ridge at 2100m. The ridge was grassy, and paths trailed off at all the compass points - not a road or a house to be seen. And not a single person. We walked until 2pm when a thunderstorm forced us to pitch our tent, near to a spring, on the ridge. After two hours the skies cleared and we got out to enjoy the views - ahead of us big scary mountains with snow on the upper slopes, below us deep narrow forested valleys. We stayed there for the night and the next day set off in glorious sunshine heading towards Moldeveanu, Romania's highest peak. The walking was wonderful, and fairly easy. We met a couple walking in the opposite direction. They had walked up from a cabana and said they were going to Moldeveanu. But they'd been going in the wrong direction for 2 and a half hours. We showed them on our map - they didn't have one. They immediately turned round and retreated. We passed them just before a tricky narrow arete that had me in a sweat. A chamois bounded down off the top and into the valley 500m below in seconds. The clouds gathered ominously and we quickened our step. We reached a pass with the path down to the cabana. Other walkers were heading down. We decided to carry on to the next pass, but the presence of sheep and sheepdogs put me off, and instead we camped on the top in between both passes. It rained in an Old Testament manner. The lightning lit up the tent and the we felt the thunder vibrate the mountains around us - so loud we could not talk. We lay on our Thermarest mats and ate our lunch. And then I started with an electric shock. The air was blue with electricity and expletives. Gayle smelt burning and leapt out of the tent to see what was on fire. My Thermarest deflated - a lightning bolt had run up my leg and left through my hand, putting three holes in it as it passed through. Miraculously that was the only damage. More foolishly, we stayed where we were, too confused and a little frightened to expose ourselves to the elements, but unknowingly still vulnerable where we were. (Gayle checked this later - lightning CAN strike twice in the same place.) We slept and after three hours of rain and thunder, it was good enough for us to pack up and descend to the valley below the pass. We had lost the heart to stay in the mountains with such a daily risk. After two hours of steep descent we reached some walkers heading to the Mountain Rescue hut, near to the cabana. We were invited in for tea and the man in charge said it was okay for us to stay. We ate our food and talked with the others staying there, a German translating for us. Our map was passed around and examined as if it was some sort of modern marvel. After the torment of earlier, it felt a little dreamlike and wonderful. The skies had cleared, the mountains were at peace, we went to sleep late, and it took us a while to get off. In the morning the barometer was at rock bottom, and we decided to descend to the train line. It rained and we felt vindicated of our decision to retreat. The tarmac road at the end of the forest disappeared through flat endless fields and we plodded along trying to hitch lifts off local daytrippers. Fortunately we got two lifts, and the second one, from an elderly couple saw us deposited at a train station with 10 minutes to spare before one of the rare trains.

We ate well and rested in Sibiu before moving along to Brasov, probably the most visited provincial town in the country. It's a big city with an old heart, and here we have pootled about whilst trying to arrange to meet two friends. Val, who has our car, is visiting Bucharest with work and we plan to meet her here on her free weekend. We asked Lance if he fancied walking some mountains, and we plan to return to the Fagaras with him next week. He's bringing a lightning rod with him.

One morning we climbed one of the wooded hills overlooking Brasov, up an old path. There is a cable car to the top, but we thought we needed to stretch our legs. At one point, looking up through a space in the trees, we saw a baby bear. There were three other tourists above us on the path and they started to retreat. We then saw Mummy Bear crashing through the trees, but thankfully not towards us. She was leading her cub away from us. Needless to say we have no photos of this episode - it all happened too quickly and we were just too excited. Bears!!! Eventually we all carried on up the path, with me jumping at every snapped twig or rustle of leaves in the undergrowth. The bears are known to wander into the town in the winter to scavenge for food, so in this patch they are obviously used to humans, but they are not tame. Wow, Bears!!!!!

Now this is far too long, so I'll sign off,
La revedere,

The Spars of Hungary

from John:

(Due to personal reasons, i.e. I have been very lazy, this posting is now two weeks out of date - but what's two weeks between friends and family?)

Jo napot!
Greetings from Debrecen, Hungary's second but dullest city. This is our stepping point to cross the border into Romania, and we have decided for a change only to stop the one night. Our hotel is a big old run-down communist-era hotel run by very nice people. It's totally empty. The town's saving grace is a Kashmiri Indian restaurant - so we'll be dining out tonight. Hurrah!

We arrived in Hungary just over three weeks ago. Our train journey from Sarajevo started badly - with the conductor explaining to us in German why we had to get off the train in Croatia, before we crossed the border into Hungary. He was very nice about it, but we spoke no Bosnian(/Croatian/Serbian) and he spoke no English, and I was indignant in the knowledge that I held a ticket for the journey all the way to Pécs in Hungary. The conductor smiled and with a "No problem" look, left me fuming in my seat. Gayle meanwhile had a look in the other compartments and found a young Hungarian woman who was able to explain in English that there were track repairs, and so there would be a short transfer by bus. The young woman was called Nora, and she had studied architecture for two years in Edinburgh, and spoke good English. In fact, she didn't shut up for the rest of the journey. She was friendly and helpful and a little excitable, but left us stony-faced when she made a subtle reference to "the Jews" who charge for entry to the big synagogue in Budapest. We got off at Pecs in a rainstorm feeling quite depressed.

It was Saturday afternoon and the town was deserted - the rain had driven everyone indoors. Our cheap hotel in the centre was closed up - but with the aid of my O level German we spotted a sign next door for "Rooms" (in fact we saw "Zimmer Frei" all over Hungary). It turned out to be a great find - a room with private kitchen and bathroom in a lovely old house with a patio (although the dogs put me off using the latter). Did I mention the dogs? A little terrier like Tintin's Snowy, a dreadlocked small Hungarian sheepdog, so shaggy you didn't know if it was coming or going, and something the size of a small pony. The owner was very nice and thankfully her daughter spoke English and we stayed five nights. Pecs is full of museums and galleries and lovely fairy cake buildings and the centre was green, quiet and pedestrianised which made it even better for wandering around. Our days here were spent working on our Hungarian phrases - hard work because even small words seemed to have about four syllables. ("Which platform does the train leave from?" when translated takes about five minutes to ask in Hungarian.) However, Gayle had only to learn "Do you speak English?", which everyone under thirty seemed to, and she was away. As determined self-caterers we were also delighted to find a plentiful supply of supermarkets, including Spar, and even Tesco's - the latter being an out of town affair, too far even for us to wander to in search of Jaffa cakes. We were also delighted to find that the Tourist Office was very helpful and a useful point of enquiry.

Whilst wandering around Pecs we came across an old 'arthouse' cinema - we searched their programme for anything in English and saw they had a season of Indian films. We went in and checked whether a film had English subtitles, and then went back at tea time to watch "1942 - A Love Story". As it turned out, it was as bad as it sounds. We double-checked the subtitles were in English and then tried to buy our tickets. This took about 15 minutes as the young man had to type in all the details - film title, director, category of film etc. into his computer to produce the tickets. Fortunately for him, there only four punters, us and two students who sat next to us in the little cinema. It was all kind of homely, with some reclaimed armchairs along the front row. We all sat and munched sandwiches and cake during the three hour song and dance epic about the insurgency to defeat the imperial British. It began with a Romeo and Juliet storyline and ended with a polite request to stand for the (Indian) National Anthem. Brian Glover starred as the brutal and savage British General. I don't think the phrase "War on Terror" was used (the film was made in 1994), but there were some remarkably topical coincidences, in between the cheesy bits. The Indian Himalayas were the real star - serving as the picturesque backdrop to the comedy, romance, action, dancing and horror - oh, it had it all!!

From Pecs we travelled straight to Budapest, which warranted half the pages in our guidebook. We camped in an expensive and dump of a campground, which thankfully was very quiet. One night we had two separate visits from the resident hedgehog. Or were there two? Made me jump in the dark, either way. The weather has been very hot, with occasional brief rainstorms clearing the air and we tried to not overdo it in the Big City. But the public transport system was efficient and easy to get around and the streets seemed remarkably uncrowded in the centre. We met up with Isabell and Bill here and stayed in a spacious appartment overlooking the Danube. There was a handy Spar in the basement of the building. What more did we need?

Budapest offers plenty of sights and we sampled a few - the Holocaust Memorial Centre unsurprisingly being the most memorable. In a detailed and fascinating exhibition it describes the lives of Jews and Roma in Hungary before and during the war, and the frighteningly efficient removal of 440,00 to Aushwitz in the space of 3 months in 1944. The combination of personal stories and the enormity of the statistics is horrifying. It made clear that the Germans could not have achieved this crime without the assistance of thousands of Hungarian officials and transport workers. In fact, Hungary's post First World War history has remarkable similarities with Germany's. The peace treaty removed huge areas of their territory and in 1919 there was a Communist takeover (Bela Lugosi was Minister of Culture), followed quickly by a right-wing backlash and a de facto dictatorship, which led to the Hungarians joining the Axis powers. There are some Jews still living in Hungary, and Budapest has the second largest synagogue in the world, but its the Roma who still live here in large numbers and appear to have become second-class citizens, lacking education, missing out on employment, living in poverty, victimised and ostracisied, a depressing vicious circle. The Roma are thought to have originated in India, and there were several occasions when we did a double-take, thinking we had seen an Indian family on the streets of Budapest (for a large European city, it is remarkably uncosmopolitan). Isabell and Bill's visit seemed to pass very quickly, and we think we tired them out with a busy schedule.

After they returned to Blighty, we headed west to Lake Balaton, the largest fresh water lake in Europe and with possibly the largest mosquitoes too (think Black & Decker drill with wings). We camped here and met two very friendly Americans, Lyn and Jeannie, travelling the world in 6 months, with whom we passed a couple of pleasant evenings. Here we also visited the thermal baths of Heviz. Hungary is famous for its spas - thanks to a geological fault and those pesky Turks there are hot baths and swimming pools everywhere - you really have to look where you're going. Heviz is a huge natural open air pool where you can float around on rubber rings or just hang off rails and let the hot mineral waters do their stuff. Apparently people come from all over to seek cures to various ailments - but I confess they did nothing for my piles. We spent a few more lazy days by the lake before coming east to Eger.

Eger is famed for Bull's Blood red wine and (but probably only in Hungary) a defiant resistance against those aggressive furniture salesmen from Turkey in 1552. The story is the stuff of legends: 2,000 locals stuck in the fortress and fighting off 50,000 infidels, women pouring pitchers of boiling oil over the walls, the men fighting with all their courage and skill. And they won, improbably. The Ottoman Turks retreated but came back forty years later and tonked them. And now the Kebab is King. There are some gaps in this history of Eger, but judging from the guff produced by the local Tourist Board I guess you would not be that interested.........

We were lucky to find a nice appartment to stay in the old centre with its fairy cake buildings. On the Pentecost holiday we headed into the forested hills along with half of Hungary for a walk. We followed waymarkers up through thick woods and left the crowds behind, to reach the highest summit in the range, about 950m. After a tough sweaty climb we were rewarded with fantastic views of, er, more trees. We met someone with a map and took digital photos of it, so we could navigate another way down - quite a bizarre way to walk. The next day was spent relaxing at the thermal baths and swimming pools along with, I am convinced of this, half of Hungary - again.

On reflection we have found Hungary rather dull - despite the best efforts of our guidebook authors to convince us that there is plenty to see - Budapest is definitely the highlight for me. However, it has also been one of the easiest countries to visit because the public transport has been excellent and it's easy to get information about things. Once again, we have been helped by a well-educated population, many of whom speak English. Phew. Oh, and such marvellous weather!

Viszontlatasra for now!