After spending so long in the alps it has been a big contrast hitting the flats. Crossed into Hungary with a typically arrogant border guard. Hungary has been my least favourite country for cycling. Its very flat, unimpressive scenery and just not that overall interesting. Lots of sunflower fields....
Budapest on the other hand was fantastic, one fifth of the population of Hungary live there so its weird to see such a big city in such a generally small and rural country. The architecture is so grand and impressive, originally apparently from its earlier Austrian control. Didn't have much luck meeting the right people in the hostel unfortunately but stayed for 4 nights, sourced some supplies (new tyre, stove gas, gloves, etc) I needed before heading into proper eastern Europe.
The ride out of Hungary was similarly unimpressive and I was preparing for a potential showdown at the Romanian border as I had overstayed my Schengen visa time but was pretty confident I was going to bullshit my way through without coughing up any money (I did have some bribe money ready to go). The border was huge and heavily commercial with heaps of trucks so perhaps I went under the radar on my bike, but I got straight through no questions asked. Even a smile from the immigration guard which is a first. I have to admit I was kinda disappointed, I was getting excited for some potential problems and seeing how I was going to get myself out of it......
Stayed in Oradea for one night, Romania is very busy trying to get itself up to speed with Western Europe, many grand old buildings having their facades redecorated after many years of neglect. Actually Romania in general is more developed than I was expected, can even drink the tap water in cities. I'm now in a city called Cluj-Nodac where I'm spending 3 nights. Hostel is great and met great people. Spent the first night with these crazy Dutch guys in this awesome bar that just played heavy rock music all night, we raged on and didn't get out of there until 6am.........completely lost my voice from belting out epic rock all night. Great night
.
resevoir in croatia
hungary
got desperate for camp sites around the main lake in hungary, ended up behind this abandoned restaurant. id gone down the hill into some bush earlier and could feel something on my leg, it was hunfreds of mosquitos. my leg was black from them. luckily they stayed in the bush.
pearl izumi - rubbish
id camped next to this creek thinking nobody would find me, in tje morning tnese dudes rocked up and just hung out 20m from my tent. thought they were gonna do something weird, so I packed up camp as quick as I could to bail, and then one of them gave me a tomato and a cucumber......
endless sunflower fields
budapest, very grand
the mosquitoes here were bad.
horse and mini horse
hungary roads, straight and flat
starting to lose it
both hungary amd romania are totally cool about these stork like birds nesting up on their power poles....nests everywhere
awesome derelict looking buildings in romania
oradea, romania
heaps of renos
this little guy hitched a ride
thanks, google maps
turkeys in the background pretty much attacked me.
Raging club life. complete with mangey dog out the back
this bus ejected half of everyones luggage across the highway
top camp spot
salt mine crew, Laura and Ben. (top photo)
the salt mine near Cluj-Napoca was fantastic. huge big cavity under the earth cut in great geometric angles. felt like the mountain in Total Recall. the pbotos dont do it justice
haunted forest, only danger was the dogs around the houses near the forest
then it rained all night, things got muddy trying to get out....fenders dont help with mud clearance
found a gutter to try and free up wheels. theyd locked up completely from the mud
windows background
foggy morning
top plumbing. if your're on the low side of the road, you gotta divert your stormwater overhead....
the backroads can get pretty loose in romania, id stopped for a drink here and this crew (i think) were basically trying to tell me the road ahead was not so good.
they were right.
No comments:
Post a Comment