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Published: September 28th 2006
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Adventures in Kaunas
My last day in kaunas, the clutch on Sigitas' Renault blew as we were headed through the city. Here's Donatas, hooking the wench on Sigis' car to tow it to the garage. Leaving Lithuania again. Travel in or from Lithuania is always interesting. My trip from Kaunas to Gensac, France was exhausting.
Magilas (Kaunas third baseman) was helping me out with finding a way to get back to France from Lithuania, but unfortunately by the time we began looking, all buses to France were booked. Luckily Magilas found another bus service that was headed to Bordaux, though it was a bit unconventional. It was a minibus service, which is basically a van where the drivers put an ad in the paper saying their destination and advertise a price for a ticket on their bus. It is all informal, no tickets, pay cash.
This particular bus was leaving from Klaipeda, a bit north of Kaunas, and the plan was that the drivers would call Sigitas’ cell phone when they were nearing Kaunas and I would meet them at a designated rendez-vous spot just outside of the city.
They called about 10 pm on Friday, Sigitas and I (and Domas) got in the car and headed to a Lukoil (gasstation) station on the edge of town.
The red minivan was already there when we arrived, with five Lithuanian guys standing around loading the back. We
Planning the Route
We spent about a half an hour arguing about who would be dropped off first. Here's the crew, bent over the map trying to figure it out. greeted them, and quickly I learned that none of them spoke English. After a short exchange, Sigitas informed me that he was not worried and that these guys were professionals (conversely, Sigitas’ last words to me before we got out of the car was ‘if you do not feel safe, just get out of the car’).
We said goodbye, and there I was, just me and the five Lithuanians.
Three of these guys were from north of Klaipeda, where the accent is richer and the language spoken has subtle differences from the rest of the country. This was interesting to me, to find out later on in our voyage that the three Lithuanians in the front had lots of trouble understanding the three guys in the back.
The three guys from the North were truckers, headed to Paris where they would pick up a truckload of goods to transport back to Lithuania. The final passenger we picked up was a younger guy, who was headed to Bordeaux to buy a used car and drive it back to Lithuania where he would then sell it. This younger fellow was studying at University in Kaunas, and this was simply something he was doing on the weekend to make extra money.
I spent most of the ride talking to the younger guy (I can’t remember his name). This was difficult, because my Lithuanian is weak at best. But I got a lot better, and I found that I could atleast communicate the necessary information to say when I needed something, or to explain where I needed to arrive in France. Once we were in France, my French came in handy because none of the guys spoke French, either (all of the ones doing business in France were doing business directly with Lithuanian businessmen based in France).
The drive turned out to be a disaster. The three truckers in the back had brought along with them many, many bottles of vodka, and were taking shots the whole trip. This slowed our trip down quite a bit because it meant we had stop for breaks more frequently (if a guy got sick, or had to go the bathroom, or when the drunk guys in the back got into a fight with the drivers…….those were the most common reasons for stopping). In fact numerous times the driver called his dispatcher back in Lithuania threatening to leave the truckers along the route somewhere (I still do not understand why he did not just threaten the guys by saying ‘stop drinking or you’re out).
The bus ride in total was about 36 hours of straight driving.
We arrived in Paris around 4 AM on Sunday morning, and it was at this point that it became clear that the truckers had no plan for where they were staying the night, or where they needed to go in the morning. We drove around for an hour looking for a hotel, but all rooms were full. There was nobody out to help us with directions, so we were a bit lost as well.
Finally we found the area where the truckers would need to be in the AM, and we found a hotel that had rooms available for the following night, which would be available at noon. At this point it was 5AM and we were left with no other options (remember that these guys were drunk and essentially myself and the other Lithuanian guy were the ones arranging all of this for them) but to book them a room there.
So we got them their room and explained that they could have it in seven hours. Then, we drove off. What else could we do?? I imagine the guys just sat outside the hotel until check-in.
Finally I arrived around 2 pm in Gensac, France. The drivers took me straight to the house where I was staying.
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