Eastern Europe End

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Gaggles of geese, piles of orange pumpkins, and old people riding around on simple wooden carriages pulled by skinny horses. All of this on a backdrop of lush green grass and a cloud-dotted sky looking as if it came straight from the ceiling of a famous cathedral. I decided at this point that daytime travel definitely had its advantages.

Our happy little bubble changed when we got to the Ukrainian-Polish border. It took four and a half hours to make the crossing, the longest of the entire trip! The reason was all of the security checks that had to be made due to the endemic smuggling. For the entire 90 minutes it took to get to the border, the three women sat in front of us on the bus had busied themselves opening up cigarette cartons and disguising them in socks, tissue packets, or plastic bags. They then proceeded to stash them all over the bus, under seats, behind curtains and even in the air-conditioning ducts! One lady even frizzed up her hair by back-combing it, made it into a loose bun, and then stashed a packet in there! The bus driver was clearly in on it as he did nothing to stop it. They then turned to us, asked if we spoke Polish, and then tried to get us to hide a carton in our bags - the cheek! It was all very hilarious.

When we arrived at the border the amount of blatant smuggling going on was shocking. Almost every car or motorbike you saw had people busily taking out headlights or door panels, stashing black socks full of cigarettes. The paradox was that it was no more than 100 metres from the border. The authorities had to have known what was going on, but I guessed they turned a blind eye as long as people made an attempt to hide it. I was wrong! When we finally made it across the Ukrainian exit border and into no-man's land, the delays really started. Polish authorities made everyone get off the bus, taking their bags with them, and wait to be searched. It took 45 minutes for anyone to even start attending to us! Meanwhile, we could see a team of officials searching the bus with a fine-toothe comb. They eventually emerged with a plastic bag bulging with confiscated cigarettes. Then it was time to search everyone's bags. Once the majority had gone through (including the three women who had hidden so much on the bus!) we all had to wait an additional hour for those who'd been caught red-handed. The whole time, the three ladies in front of us got on their hands and knees and searched the bus, trying to retrive anything the authorities had missed. I was surprised to see just how mmany cartons the officials had missed. These women were clearly professionals. The whole time Scott and I were thinking that it was exactly like an experience you would have in Africa or India - rediculous delays, rife curruption, no explanations, and everyone just hanging arouind in groups laughing and gossiping about the whole thing. But isn't this Europe? It was all very bizarre!

Once we got on our way again it took just 15 minutes to reach the end destination, the Polish border town. In all, we had spent one hour and 40 minutes driving, and four and a half hours waiting at the border - utter craziness! Yep, it was definitely an Africa travel experience all right!

The curruption continued, however. After hurriedly changing money, we went to the train station to check times for the remainder of the journey to Krakow. We went through the gate and crossed the tracks on a concrete path with a white painted border. As soon as we got to the other side, three policemen who just happened to be there yelled at us in Polish and pointed to a sign in English saying "Crossing the tracks will be fined." What?! There'd been a clear gate, with a clearly marked path, encouraging you to cross the tracks just like in every other station we had been in in Easten Europe. It was a total scam. Not too happy that our first two experiences in Poland had been pure corruption, we just did the dumb foreigner act and asked, "Bilette? Kasa?" They pointed to the ticket office and we just hurried off, hoping they wouldn't follow us to demand money. Luckily they dropped it, obviously seeing we were not just going to pay up easily - phew! The train to Krakow left in just 5 minutes, so we quickly bought two tickets and then rushed, leaping on in the nick of time.

Once in Krakow, things got better. It was immediately so refreshing and liberating to no longer feel illiterate. We could at least read everything, even if we couldn't understand it! Plus, businesses were so easy to recognize. Restaurants looked like restaurants, and photo studios looked like photo studies. It was all so easy! We were also amazed at the number of tourist information offices and they actually had information, very good information. The joy! The amount of people who spoke English was also very impressive, much more so than any country we have visited in Europe this trip. There were English language schools everywhere - they work I guess! Not only that, the people were noticeably helpful and friendly, approaching you to help when you looked lost. They were dressed normally too - no red stilettos and see-through tops with lacy bras here!

We spent three full days in Krakow. Our first day we went to the Wieliczka Salt Mine, a maze of more than 100km of tunnels, pits, and chambers developed over nine centuries of salt extraction. Nowadays, many salt sculptures have been added, mainly of historic Polish people, but there is also one of the seven dwarfs (no Snow White!) The highlight was a huge chapel built 130 metres below the surface so that the miners could pray - they probably needed to! Reportedly, construction took more than 30 years (1895-1927) and you can understand why when you see the ornate bas-reliefs carved into the salt walls and the salt chandeliers.

The second day we decided to stay in Krakow town itself as there was a medieval festival going on. It was going to be a three hour performance showing every aspect of medieval life, from battles and dancing to torture and executions (one way of dealing with the cigarette smugglers I suppose!) Unfortunetely, it poured with rain ALL day from morning until night, so it was cancelled. We instead spent the day doing internet and waiting for the rain to stop. When it was obvious it wasn't going to, we decided to just sight-see in the rain. We went to Wawel Hill with its castle and cathedrale, and walked around Rynek Glowny, the largest Medieval square in Europe. It was very picturesque, with horses and carriages, flower stands, and beautiful buildings, but it just wasn't the same in the rain unfortunately. Later on, we found a laundrette that had a drier - oh joy! Our clothes REALLY needed washing and drying. Having only one set of warm clothes, we wore them to the laundrette, and then stripped off Levi-jeans-ad-style, putting our clothes straight into the washer and hanging out in shorts and t-shirt while they got washed. OK, truth be told, we didn't strip down right in front of the washer, there was a private room, but still, you get the idea! As soon as everything was washed, we put them straight back on and went back into the rain, proceeding to get them instantly soaked again - grrr!

I was both looking forward to and dreading our final day in Krakow as we visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, one of the most infamous Nazi death camps of World War II. It is estimated that about 1.5 million men, women, and children, mainly Jews from across Europe, were murdered here. We opted to do a guided tour so as to gain a better insight into what we were looking at. It began with a short but chilling video, giving us a brief history of Auschwitz and also Birkenau, the neighbouring that was built when Auschwitz reached capacity. It was in this camp that the majority of people were murdered in the four huge gas chambers, now just ruins as the Nazi's tried to hide them when it was clear that the camp would be liberated.

The tour leader began by taking us through the camp's arched gateway, the sick sign above read "Work gives freedom" in German. This gave newly arrived prisoners hope that they may be set free eventually if they worked hard. With the brutal living and working coinditions, however, most soon realized that the only way out was through death. To deter people from escaping, if anyone was missing at the end of the day, ten random people were chosen for death by hanging, starvation, or all number of other methods.

The tour of Auschwitz took us through many of the former housing unit, now turned into a museum of photos and artifacts. In one building, each room had a display of different articles which were looted from the newly arrived prisoners. It was chilling to realize that every pair of shoes, every hair brush, and every pair of glasses once belonged to someone who almost certainly met a terrifying end soon after arriving in Auschwitz. One display had piles upon piles of suitcases, all clearly marked with names and dates of birth. The Nazi's had deceived people into believing they were being relocated, ready to start a new life, thus encouraging them to bring their most prized possessions. Upon arrival, the suitcases were immediately seized and looted. Yet another room contained piles of human hair. Gruesomly, once people had been merdered in the gas chambers, the Nazi's shaved off the hair to use for weaving. How low can you stoop?

For the second half of the trip we were shuttled over to Birkenau, three kilometers away. Here we could see the train tracks where prisoners underwent the "selection" process immediately upon their arrival. In a matter of 20 seconds, it was decided if someone should live or die. Only the strongest were selected to live, with the other estimated 75% being instantly sent to the gas chambers. As children could not work, this was the fate of the vast majority. The only children who were generally "saved" were the twins as they were needed for medical experiemnts. When the Soviet soldiers who liberated the camp at the end of the war asked them their names, they didn't know them. Most just showed their ID number which was tattooed on their leg.

There were so many cruel, barbaric and in-humane things we heard about that, when the bus broke down on the way back to Krakow leaving us standing on the side of the road waiting for a replacement, no-one dared complain. Really, after everything we had heard, it wasn't that bad!

After the terrible border crossing into Poland, we were wondering how it would be leaving Poland. Well, it was the polar opposite (no pun intended!). We wouldn't have known that we had even crossed if it were not for a small sign saying we were entering the Czech Republic.

We headed for Czech's crowning glory, Prague. It turned out to be really nice, nicer than I remembered when I visited about 10 years ago. Almost all streets were cobbled and all buildings were old and cute. We started by trying to check into a hostel. The receptionist said, "Let me see which rooms are free" to which Scott cheerily joked, "Free! OK, we'll take it!" The guy behind reception had absolutely no sense of humour and started getting flustered, "Free?! I didn't say anything was free!" He wasn't kidding either. They wanted an extortionate amount for the rooms, so we checked into a pension across the road which was less then half the price!

Our final destination was Vienna, another extortionate city where we paid 18 euros for a dorm bed each - outrageous! It was really just a jumping off point for our flight to the UK. Roll on home-cooked meals and living in a real home!

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Photos

Central square, Krakow, Poland
This is the biggest medieval square in Europe

Flowers bought for me by Scott
It seems like everyone buys flowers here, every other person walking down the street here and in Ukraine had a bunch of flowers!

The area where execution by shooting took place.
Note the boarded up windows, the Nazi's wanted to keep this place somewhat secret.

Could these cops actually catch anyone in this?!
Vienna, Austria