Poland

Sunday May 24, 2009

We were woken by one of the builders very early. I was hung over. the builder made us coffee and gave us bread, meat and noodles. They were very kind. We left and headed for Poland.

I hadn't got much sleep, as the builders had left a radio on blaring out music all night and I felt pretty terrible. Daniela could sleep through a rock concert. We made it to Poland, but I was exhausted, I suggested we stop in a pub for a break, I had a slight alterior motive to also watch the Monaco GP, but the only pubs were truck stops, as were on a busy highway. So we carried on.

Daniela had another puncture, so I replaced the inner tube. We reached the town of Suwalki, but the tourist information office had closed. We had no map, so just carried on down the main highway. I wanted to stop early, as I felt terrible. We asked at a farm, the lady was nice and filled our water bottles, but suggested we try her friends farm, as her fields were full of cow poo.

We asked at the friends house up the road, they were having a party. They said it was OK to camp. Then the son came over and gave us a beer each and said we could sleep in their shed. We cleared out some stuff and moved into the shed. Then the mother came over and insisted we stay inside the house. We ended up joining the party. Daniela was close to home now and her Czech doubled as Polish. I tried to speak some German to one son, then was able to speak english to the other.

They were exceptionally generous with the beer and food, and we also had a shower. Then they offered to wash our smelly clothes (people open windows when I come inside). They were so kind, it was great. My highlight was drinking some milk straight from their cows. they were a wonderful family and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

 

I love Lithuania

Saturday May 23, 2009

We rose early, planning to put in a big day. I have now given up trying to track our km progress, as I have no bike computer and we are on the small roads. This is how I intended the trip to be, no watch, no km counting, just riding. In Scandinavia this was not possible, every day we spent there was one too many, it was prohibatively expensive to soak in the scenery, as even a loaf of bread would set me back around 2 - 3.50 pounds.

We plodded on to Kazlu Ruda, a small town. We bought some food, then it began to rain. We looked for the library, but couldn't find it, we were a little miserable, well until we asked an old lady for directions and she beckoned us inside for lunch - result! I eat a vegetable omlet, a real treat, and potatoes, cake, coffee and some speciality Lithuanian milk product. This was all delicious apart from the gone off milk which I passed over to Daniela.

The lady was 77, she said that before the war she used to speak English and German. She could still remeber some German and she was keen to talk to us, to practice her languages. My German is pretty bad, so Daniela did most of the speaking. The lady was a retired artist and she showed us some of her work. We spoke about Lithuania in general, and it seems that many of the young people have left the country to work in other EU countries, leaving all the grandparents alone in Lithuania.

She then took us to the library, and we said our thankyou's and goodbyes. We pedalled on to Antanavas against a headwind, where I asked directions again. We continued only to find we had been sent the wrong way, I didn't want to go all the way back, nor take our chances on the fast road, so we attempted to travel cross country. We crossed a dam, then trudged along a footpath and over a field, before reaching a track, which would eventually take us back onto course.

At around 7 we decided to stop, before the town of Marijampole. We asked a lady gardening, she said she didn't own the field, but maybe we could camp inside of a fenced in building site. We passed this up, and asked at a farm house, but no one spoke English. As we again passed the lady gardening her husband insisted we camp at the building site. We spoke briefly, then as he went to leave asked where we were from, I said England, and that Daniela was from Czech. At this he came back to chat some more, this time in Czech. It emerged he imported rare bired and animals from Czech into Lithuania and the building site would house the birds.

He showed us tens of pictures of rare animals and told us of the profit margin on each. I think he loved the thrill of the transactions and making a profit at least as much as he loved the animals. He was definately passionate about his business, and I admired his courage to build such a grand project. It emerged that his day job was as a dnetal technician, and importing animals was only his hobby!

He was a very kind man and drove off, retutrning with a beer each for myself and Daniela. We moved inside of the building, where he said we could sleep. There were 2 builders inside, getting drunk on 9.5% beer and strong wine. I tried some of their beer, it was not great, but I guess it did the job. The man and his wife chatted for a long time, before returning to their home in the town. I opened up another beer I had bought yesterday and shared it with the builders.

The builders then preseneted a bucket of hot water and soap, which we could use to wash. wow!! After not showering for 9 days this sounded good, but Daniela used it all as I drank beer with the builders.

I woke in the night needig the toilet, I went downstairs, I tried to get outside but the doors were locked, and the builders were asleep. I had drunk quite a lot of beer and coffee and there was no way I would be able to wait till the morning. I ended up peeing out of the upstairs window.