Bosnia and back, the write-up

Well as some of you might remember, Philbut, Walkabout Andy and I all went on a 2 week bike trip round eastern Europe (with 3 other mates). Here is the full write-up of our adventures, hope you find it as exciting and amusing as we did!

Distance: 3500 miles covered in total
Itinary: UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Croatia again, Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland, France, Luxemburg, Belgium, France, UK.
Protagonists: Me (SV650N), Philbut (ZZR600), Walkaboutandy (SV650S), PJ (GPZ900), Stu (Moto Guzzi 1100) and Matt (Ducati 600SS)

Day 1



We left a rainy Oxford about 3 hours late after Philbut did some last minute shoring up of his ammo crate panniers and after the Oxford station cash machine had eaten Stu's card meaning that he had no money for the whole of the trip already! 500 metres down the road and I discover that the toggles on my pannier waterproofs are not strong enough to stop them blowing off. Miraculously, at 70 mph PJ who was riding behind me managed to catch one as it blew off! The other one was retrieved from the side of the road and so progress was resumed with them firmly tied on. After an uneventful but wet hour we arrived at Bill's Bike Barn where Matt's Dad bill was hosting a classic bike meet. He has a large barn crammed full of very intresting classic bikes!



After a few real ales and a dirty burger we camped down on the floor of Bill's house for our first night of the trip.

Day 2

We finally got up and headed off to Folkstone to meet Walkaboutandy from this forum who was to join us for the trip. 30 minutes down the M4 and the heavens opened again and we got totally drenched! no matter, because this was the whole reason we were leaving England wasn't it?! So we plodded on with hope in our heart and water in my boots (supposedly waterproof ). The sight that greeted us at the Eurostar terminal car park was hilarious, check out Andy's bodge job of carrying luggage!



It consisted of a waterproof suitcase bolted onto a spare pillion seat! With much raised eyebrows and sideways glances we all agreed to let him join the trip on the proviso that he ride behind everybody else incase that suitcase flew off and clotheslined someone . In typical efficient Eurotunnal style we were on the train in about 30 mins (having been swabbed for explosives at customs) and travelling under the channel.



After emerging in France we headed up the E40 to my parents house in Belgium. That is one long straight boring motorway I can tell you! We arrived safely at about 22:00 to find my parents had left us a crate of beer and pizza .


Left to right: Walkaboutandy, Stu, Philbut, Matt, PJ in front, and and Phil W (who only did a bit of the trip).

A very tiring first leg, about 300 miles or so. All bikes performed well so far, but my wrists and **** hurt a bit.

Hey Warthog did you drag that paddock stand with you all over Europe?

Day 3

We left my parents house bright and early (11ish ) and headed into Germany. After the obligatory boring motorway blasts we hit some really nice roads into the hills and forests of Germany. This is just a photo snatched whilst stopped somewhere in Germany:



We were aiming for Erschwege, where a friend of PJ's called Ulrich lived. He was an extremely friendly guy who is the town doctor and also the master hunter! His wife cooked us an excellent meal consisting of venison from a deer Ulrich had shot recently and we dined in his amazing house which was filled with Animals he had shot from on safari years ago.



We were then taken to a local pub where we enjoyed free German beer until late into the evening when we then crashed out on the floor of his house. Some really nice roads in Germany, and really really friendly person!



Day 4

We headed off to Prague next. On the way we stopped at the MZ factory as a pilgrimmage to the classic bikes they were making until very recently when it is about to close.



Noone was around, so we roared back off up the hills enjoying some more nice roads and heading to Dresden. After more rain and some splitting up of our group we crossed over the border into the Czech Republic. Suddenly the roads were immaculate! I was very surprised. But it turns out that they were only immacualte because that specific one had just bee resurfaced (probably to give a good impression to German tourists). As we continued onwards, the roads turned bad, with some large sections of missing road with nothing more that a small sign and a swerving oncoming truck as warning! We got rained on and split up again and eventually made it to our hostel in Prague. Here, Stuart had a lie down whilst waiting for the rest to catch up:



We decided to head out that night and found an amazing rock bar called Hells Bells which was througha metal door down a tiny alleyway. We then drank 60p a pint beer and made friends with various insane Czech locals (pictured here is Josef who seemed to be dateing is gf/sister as far as we could make out. Whatever the story, she was extremely embarassed to be photographed!)




Czech beer really is great, it is so pure and cheap you can drink loads and not have a very bad hangover!

Day 5

We had booked two nights in Prague, so we actually had a full day to look around on this day. Prague is very pretty as expected, and a great place to visit. This is the Charles bridge IIRC



Won't spend too much time going over Prague as this is a bike forum not a city-break forum, but it suffices to say we stayed with some friends of PJ's in their apartment overlooking Prague and drank Berechovka until the early hours! Lovely

[dizzyblonde]

And I thought Matt had a serious problem collecting bikes...lol He just said he wishes he had a barn........where is this miraculous place you speak about?

Day 6

We arose this morning to bid farewell to Phil W who had joined us for the small first part of the trip. Just as we collect our bikes from the parking lot, we noticed that his bike (GTR1000) had a split rear disc! And the battery was flat. So after a long deliberation we decided he could ride back to blightey with the rear caliper removed and requiring bump starts all the way (we were just anxious for the rest of us to get going )

I think he made it!

So we headed out after that into eastern Czech Republic. Aside from Prague, Czech looks very very flat with rolling corn fields everywhere.



About 30 minutes outside of Prague we looked up Kutna Hora, the site of a famous ossuary. A priest at this church had been commanded to go out on a pilgrimmage to the holy lands by the pope. He collected a case of holy earth and brought it back to be sprinkled in the cemetary of his church. From then on, everyone wanted to be buried there, and with the addition of the plague, the cemetary swelled to about 30,000 bodies! this got a bit silly so they reduced the size and made this amazing ossuary out of the removed bones. Really amazing:



We were due to get into Slovakia but we got lost again around Eastern Czech thanks to a myriad of raods being cloased for improvements. We eventually had to abandone the idea of getting into Slovakia and settled down to find a campsite around Brno. We founf one and asked for their rates. "For you bikers, it is 25 Euros each!" . Why?! Well it turned out it was the Czech motoGP on that night so there were bikers everywhere and campsites were charging 5 times the price! Damned unlucky for us, so we found a place to camp in some guys garden who just bought a barrel of beer to serve and charged us 5 Euros each. Much better!



Day 7

Becuase we never made it to Slovakia, our next date was with Hungary, so we motored through Slovakia on the motorway instead! really sad to not have seen anything of it, so I can't really say what it was like. The weather had been much nicer by then, but sure enough, the moment we entered Hungary the heavens opened again and so we came off the motorway, and hurredly rode the bikes under the nearest shelter we could find to get our waterproofs on. Which turned out to be riding up a platform onto an old station



Quite a step to get off the bikes! With waterproofs on, and lightning streaking accross the open sky we headed south to Lake Balaton. the weather turned extremely humid and warm suddenly, so off came the waterproofs and we were suddenly sweating like a paedophiles in a playground. The scenery in Hungary was lovely, loads of castles on hills and palaces. We needed some random Hungarian money, so we followed a sign to a supermarket where there was a cash machine. Guess what we found:



Yep, Tescos has made it's way to Hungary as well. Oh well. We each took out a random note from the machine and headed down to Lake Balaton and finally and found ourselves a campsite. Peeling off sticky leathers it was clearly time to go for a swim!




Lake Balaton was very nice, and we were really impressed by Hungary. In Czech we had a less friendly welcome, mainly cos it was all touristy and we were scene as walking cashpoints, but in Hungary everyone was dead friendly. It really isn't as backwards as you might think, and I thoroughly recommend a visit.

Day 8

Everything had been going so well until today. We were riding in the south of HUngary, still really enjoyinh it, when PJ came off on a roundabout in the middle of nowhere. We aren't really sure what happened, but basically whilst riding totally sedately, he breifly lost grip on the front end whilst exciting a slightly oily roundabout and this caused his bike (fully laden with welded metal ammo crates and with loose head bearings) to weave about too much so he eventually lost it and slid down the road at 30 mph.

Here is where he lost it (with accompanying marks):



Damage consisted of a broken indicator, bent clipon, scratched bar end and fairing, bashed pannier, and one broken strut.



Bit of Hungarian white line as a memento!




PJ himself was largely ok. Slid under his bike but the panniers held it off him, so he just had scraped jacket and scraped German paratrooper boot and a sore shoulder from impact.





We taped the indy together, clipon was ok and pannier held, and PJ was able to ride on! This is yet more proof that wearing proper gear is vital, as if he hadn't been wearing it, he would have been ground a lot worse under the bike. It was boiling hot and we were all moaning but boy was he glad we had kept it all on. He hadn't had a crash for 5+ years, sometimes they just come out of the blue. Thankfully we could continue on to the Serbian border!

.... where we failed to gain entry to Serbia! Well, I tell a lie, we got through the border ok, but then our insurance didn't cover Serbia, so we stopped at the border to buy some (it costs £15 apparently). Does it heck! The two "Osiguranje" places there were charging 85 and 90 euros each for insurance! Seeing as we were only passing through Serbia on the way to Bosnia, we decided to turn around and leave the scary place with its guns and guards. How Serbia expects anyone to drive through it is beyond me.

Anyway, this meant a further delay and another stay in Hungary. We found another little lake to camp at which turned out to be like a club 18-30 butlins for Hungarians! Music was loud and pumping and carried on til 6am . We had a few Soproni's and eventually tried out our best Hungarian on some locals. This swiftly led to arm wrestling 4 farmers lads that had clearly been toting hay bales all their lives! I'm afraid we didn't fare too well!



PJ's hurting shoulder went away after 3 days, but he says his arms still hurts from arm wrestling .

Day 9

To get round Serbia we decided to head to Eastern Croatia. The border crossing there was much less eventfull adn as UK insurance covers Croatia, we got in no problems. One mile down the road there was a police car. 2 miles down the road there was a police car with radar gun. then two more police. We crawled along at the speed limit as there were unmarked, camoflaged police everywhere! We eventually stopped in a small village to check the maps. All around us were old houses, still lived in, but with bullet holes and shrapnel damage all over them. Then a large man with a shaven head and goatee beard emerged from one of the houses. "You must come and have a drink with me" he said. "Park your bikes behind my house, come on, now." We looked at each other. We had to get on to Bosnia so we couldn't really delay. After assuring him that we really couldn't stop, he counter-assured us that we really REALLY should stop round his. So we parked the bikes behind his house and followed him to his chamber of extermination / nice outhouse he had built himself.



We sat down in his out house and he gave us liquor. "Croatian liquor, you must drink!". "no no no" we assured him, we have to ride bikes, it is the middle of the day, we can't drink. He counter-assured us that it was TRADITION to have a welcoming drink and that the police don't mind. So we had a drink. Then what? "Beer! Wine?!" he said. "No no no no no please no" we said, "we really can't". So he settled for coke. We then sat around chatting about his life, and how the Serbs had invaded Croatia. They had one gun between three of them and they were captured and were prisoners of war for a few months. His brother had had his head blown off by a tank whilst sitting in the front seat of the car. They said you just can't forgive people after something like that had happened.



As we talked, my eyes wandered to the huge Croatian flag hung over the window. On the left was a drawing of his brother. I asked who the picture on the right was of. "That is our hero, Croation military general! He is now in the Hague. Politics, you know.". I have subsequently found out it was Ante Gotovina, you can read about it here: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/11/europe/hague.php

We finally said we really had to go, to Tuzla, to which he replied "no don't go there!". We were startled, "why not?". "Dangerous! Horrible! Muslims! Mudjahadeen, with big beards, don't like our way of life" he said. He then offered to ring his mate, the head of the Bosnian Special Forces who lived there. Before we could object, he had his mobile out and was speaking in Croatian to this guy, saying we were coming and could he find us and help keep us safe. He then rang two friends in Dubrovnic to say we were coming and also to find us and help us. It was all really rather scary. We finally took one final photo:



and escaped. Upon reflection, all he did was offer us drink and shelter and friends to help but it was pretty scary for some reason! He was very aggressive in his friendliness.

Anyway, the road to Bosnia awaited and that will have to wait til later as I am getting tired typing this all out!

Sounds awesome so far Warthog, can't wait to read/see the rest. Great to see pictures along with the right up.

Remember that bone church from LWR, looked pretty cool.

Glad your back in one piece also

Enjoying the story so far. I've back-packed eastern europe twice and often thought about going back for a third time on two wheels. The drivers out there seem a little on the mental side though!

Top Job Nick.....

Great pics and story.

We want more. Now.