David's Journal

My last post was made in Prague, which had won my heart well and truly by the time I left. Highlights include Anoushka Shankar on Sitar with the symphony orchestra, a string quartet playing classical music in a church with amazing acoustics, getting caught in a freak hail storm while exploring a wooded area near Prague Castle and a beautiful sunset viewed from the battlements of an old fort. Its my favourite city so far.

From there I took the train to Vienna where I stayed in the party hostel quite by accident. Turned out to be a good thing - in addition to really cheap beer I got to meet a lot of people and experience the social side of backpacking. Vienna is nice, museums and castles and churches everywhere. One castle has huge sprawling grounds which I took some time exploring.

Right down from the hostel is a basketball/soccer court in a cage so when I was doing my washing I borrowed a basketball and took my soccer ball down for some mucking around. There were a couple of young guys there mucking around too, I just shot some hoops for a while. So another guy came with his baby son and the four of us ended up playing a game of soccer in which me and the dad fairly decisively win against the young flashy punks.

After all this me and the guy who was on my team (Zoran) started chatting - hes Serbian and a very nice guy, we talked about where I'm going. He invited me back to his place later for coffee. So I went and met his whole family (wife, kids, father, mother and sister) and drank wine and ate delicious Serbian food. He called his uncle and hooked me up with a place to stay once I got to Dubrovnik. I love soccer.

Then it was time for another train ride, this one starting at six am to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. A tip for travellers: Do not go to the bathroom when you're crossing a border between countries. I was in the bathroom when a very annoyed border guard started banging on the door and shouting stuff in Croatian. I tried to tell him to hold on in a voice that I hoped suggested that I wasn't flushing kilos of drugs down the toilet. I was just on my way out when he managed to unlock the door and burst in. I tried my best to look unsuspicious but he still asked me a lot of questions about who I was and exactly what I was doing in Croatia.

I didn't spend a lot of time in Zagreb and the weather wasn't good, but I did go for a good walk around some of the historic spots. They fire a cannon here every day at noon from a tower which I walked up at dusk, the view was beautiful. Another highlight was the fact that the road to my hostel went directly past a large chocolate factory, so going out in the morning and coming home at night was punctuated by delicious chocolately smells.

If you're going to travel down south in Croatia, do yourself a favour and take the bus. I thought about flying but thankfully didn't because the (eleven hour) bus ride was spectacular. The mountain and coastal scenery just blew me away. I had a fantastic seat admittedly, at the very front at the top level of an enclosed two decker bus.

And now I am in Dubrovnik. Today I hiked up the hill behind the town and was rewarded with spectacular views and an old abandoned fort to explore. It was very cool. For those who don't know Dubrovnik is a largeish town at the far south of Croatia on the Adriatic sea. It is famed for its old city, which is completely enclosed by beautiful city walls that you can walk around. The sea is a beautiful deep blue colour.

I'm staying with Zoran's uncle, who with his family runs a kind of boarding house so basically I'm just a tenant for a while. My room has amazing views which is great but also means I hike down hundreds of steps to the city and all the way back up every day. I'm sure its very good for me.

Because of the beautiful water and rocky coast I bought myself some cheap snorkelling gear. Today I climbed down a cliff where there used to be stairs and broke it in. The water is surprisingly cold but I saw some cool fish and some fairly large schools and the gear worked fine. I'll check out at least one nearby island as well before I leave.

Here I sit in an internet cafe in Prague, the city of...uh, well I haven't been here long so lets just say inexplicable road layout and nice bagels. I left Munich this morning on my first intercountry train ride. Imagine my excitement when a border guard with a gun started wandering through checking our passports. You know how you know everything is fine but there is still a slight hint of danger, like what if you were mistaken for some international terrorist who has a similar name to you and it ends in a gun fight on top of the train as a tunnel looms closer and closer. This sort of thing happens often in my mind, if not actual real life. So after this train ride, which was actually four train rides through the gently rolling green and yellow hills I get to Prague Central Station.

Now at this stage I was a little nervous, because despite my (admittedly not very committed) efforts to organise a place to sleep from Munich I hadn't managed it. And also I decided to give myself the challenge of finding a place relatively at the last minute. I tried to call some places from the train station but the phones defied my ability to use them. Just lots of...beeping and weird noises even though I was following instructions. So I decided to just go to one of the places in my lonely planet book.

I'm pretty good with subways by now, having navigated systems in four continents so I wasn't too phased...until a guy flashed a badge at me and said something I didn't quite catch. I waved him away, thinking that he was selling badges or something but no, he was actually a ticket inspector wanting to check my ticket. Luckily it was all in order and soon after I arrived in downtown Prague. Which adheres to no logical layout system known to man. This is both fun and frustrating, but for me trying to find my way around so I wouldn't have to sleep under a bridge - mostly frustating.

My pack after four months of acquiring stuff weighs in at around 20kg. So at about 7pm I'm wandering around like a sad donkey desperately searching through the labyrinthine streets for the hostel that allegedly exists in the area. Eventually, after much checking of maps I found it, and they even had spare beds which made me very happy. I've met one of my dorm mates so far, an Aussie girl called Jen who recently walked through Spain. So the story has a happy ending, and a lemon pepper chicken bagel at an internet cafe. Mmm.

Score: 77
Location: Large field in the English Gardens, Munich
Team: Sven, Me