2013: The three kinds of 'oh, cr*p'

11am Tuesday 10th September, getting breakfast in the Old Town, central Bucharest, Romania

After the last post, I crossed into Croatia after catching the overnight ferry across the Adriatic to Dubrovinik. I then worked my way east to Istanbul before heading north to Bucharest where I am now having a rather delightful breakfast.

So, countries visited so far:

France

Germany

Switzerland

Italy

Croatia

Montenegro

Kosovo

Albania

Macedonia

Bulgaria (x2)

Turkey

Romania

I’ll pop some photos up online when I’m back, once I’ve sorted through them all. There are some online already via Instagram, which you can see in the Tumblr posts by clicking on the title at the top of this page. But for now rather than bang on about the details of the 3400 miles and 12 countries covered so far, and in a bid to keep things vaguely interesting, I thought a brief, themed summary might be a better way to provide an update of events.

…Welcome to the three kinds of ‘oh, sh*t’.

There are, have been, broadly speaking, three types of ‘oh cr*p' so far, all of which are involuntary reactions to various situations. These can be broken down thus:

'Oh, cr*p’. The best kind. Usually scenery or visual related. Kotor Bay and crossing Montenegro fall in to this type, as does the panorama of the valley below the mountain pass where you cross in to Kosovo which, frankly, makes anything the Alps can offer look pretty mundane. There’s been the Amalfi Coast and Matera in Italy, Lake Ohrid in Macedonia, the fortress at the top of Berat in Albania and the Blue Mosque in Istanbul too. Sleeping on the open deck of the ferry across the Adriatic falls into this class, especially when there’s a cloudless sky that night. All of these are usually/best coupled with twisty roads that you can thrash the bike around on. Amusing related moments so far include seeing a man cycling in Montenegro with a whole toilet strapped to his bike and, sometime later, a Montenegrin man riding a Segway in a pair of speedos. Interesting.

‘Oh, CR*P’. The ‘hang on a minute, I’ve got a plan’ kind; challenging but rewarding. Like when a road southern Albania ceases to exist and becomes a mixture of gravel, stones, ruts and dirt tracks…..for four hours. I’ve always wanted to learn to ride my bike off-road, but I’m not sure if I’d planned to do it in 35 degrees of heat in the arse-end of nowhere in Albania, which is still very much a developing country.

Coasting into a rural petrol station running on fumes to find they don’t take Euro and the card machine doesn’t work is another kind, but then it all works out OK when ‘George’, your jovial local Bulgarian builder/Kenneth Branagh lookalike and his rather attractive daughter Valerie, not only kindly exchange your Euros for Lev but also insist on taking you for a drink, undeterred by the fact that they don’t speak English and you sure as hell don’t speak Bulgarian. A sightly awkward, but not insurmountable situation. George also seemed to be very keen on drinking vodka, despite that fact that he was driving. Unfortunately I had to turn down the offer of a stay at their house, as I needed to make Bucharest ASAP*.

‘Oh, CR********PPP!’. The ‘nope, really not liking this’ kind. Being on a bike you are probably exposed to an extra set of risks (as well as opportunities, as above) that you otherwise wouldn’t face when travelling on foot or by car, particularly when travelling solo. Albanian roads at night (no markings, lighting and, in places, road, plus bat shit mental driving) are a potent mix that definitely fall into this category. Being told by the Montenegrin border police en route to Kosovo that it’s a good idea to have a pistol because of the local mafia is another one…..** Getting lost in the middle of no-where at night when you’ve already done 12 hours in the saddle is a not uncommon but mild version of this type of situation.

*George insisted on taking my mobile number. I have no idea how he plans to use it given the language barrier, but will await his call with great interest.

**On the Kosovo side of the border I asked if there had been any trouble recently. “Noooooooo”, he said, “it’s just like Belfast….”

So I’m now headed north, but not before procuring a replacement pair of goggles (thinking of the rain) and gloves (…and the cold) for those that I’ve managed to lose off the back of the bike. I need to be in Teignmouth, Devon for Jamie Halliday’s wedding for around lunch time Saturday. I have cigars (Dominican, picked up in Turkey) for the occasion, so there is an added incentive to make it on time.