Camping near Wierzbiny, 17-07-2001. A bit like the tough is getting into overgear today with the temperature well into the thirties centigrade and the hilly country side offering me some steep badly mantained roads winding uphill and down again - after all...all that goes up has got to eventually go down again. Roads lined by ancient oaks that seem to groan in extasy while I cycle underrneath them, the sounds of wind blowing through huge tree crowns responsible for the eerie sounds that bring me back in the here and now...back from far-away travels inside my own Dutch mind, wandering off to the inner sanctum sanctorum of my being, hardly noticing the ocassional tractor or ramshackle trabant ferrying day workers to fields full with golden colored crops, overtaking me and leaving in big clouds of dust. ... read more

Camping at Lake Goldab, 15-07-2001. Die Wolfsschanze as the Germans called The Wolf's Lair in their harsh language, the place were Mister Hitler The Big Jew Hater was holed up most of the war orquestrating the horrors befalling his own precious Das Deutsche Volk as well as the rest of Europe - Wasn't that little sh*t Austrian himself...makes you wonder what his fasciantion with the Germans was. Maybe he felt born in the wrong body...a bit like a Kathoey in Thailand but then more on the nationality side I guess.... Dozens of bunkers and assorted structures set deep in dark and impressive pine forests and surrounded by massive defence works, thousands of foot soldiers, a private airstrip ect ect...all that to make sure that the destruction of Europe went smoothly and according to plan... Nowadays the ... read more

Near Ketrzen on some illegal camp ground,13-07-2001. A strong wind is coming in from the Baltic Sea while I wait for the ferry across the Vistula Lagoon. Local young kids in woolen pants of indefinite color practice their English and German on me, curiosity having the better of them, no big surprise considering my old rusty iron lady burdened under 35 kilo of survival gear, my dufty old tent and mouldy sleeping bag, my ragged old clothes my eight days old beard and general rugged appearance will probably give them enough blablabla material for days to come...get their friends back in the village jealous of the sight of this crazy dirty unkempt foreigner on his crappy bicycle that looks so old it might well collapse at any given moment. Out at Vistula Lagoon I see enormous ... read more

Gdansk, 11-07-2001. Getting in and out of big cities on a bicycle always is a major hassle, not to speak of the effect the hectic admosphere of big cities has on my poor brain after seven days of natural tranquility. Hoping to protect my alraedy hopelessly chaotic and traumatised Dutch raised brain from further damage I take a small cabin on a camp ground just outside town. My cabin is even furnished with what looks like an antiquated mini refridgerator - the lettering on the side telling me it is Russian manufracture. Whatever, I can drink ice-cold beer again during the evening on the small balcony of my cabin. No more polish Pivo - aka catpiss when drunk lukewarm - which the shopowners keep telling me is best drunk when warm... Armed with my aquarelics and ... read more

Hel Peninsula, 09-07-2001. Hel Peninsula, what a fitting name consider that over 80.000 German troops were trapped here on this 34 km. long and at its most 2 km. broad peninsula covered in dense pine forest, for months in the cold of the Polish winter at the end of the Second World War, being pounded into the sand dunes by Russian atillary, young German soldiers traumatised by long gruelling years of bloody war against a ruthless adversary. Fighting and dying in the name of a Führer who was becoming more irrational by the day....yeah, I am pretty sure for these poor Germans Hel peninsula must have been a real Hell!! I am trying hard to ignore the persistent and obnoxious presence of countless German ghoulds calling to me from the darkness surrounding me while I slowly ... read more