Sprint to Cracow
We have now spent almost a week in Poland. In the hope of making up some time for the expected wait later in Kiev for our Kazakh visa, we have been cycling 90 or 100km every day. This is quite a lot, and has left us exhausted at the end of every day and me in no mood for writing. But I will try and do so anyway.
First back a bit, to our wonderfully luxurious rest day in Görlitz. You will not believe how good it feels to stand under the shower or to sleep in a real bed after six days of cycling and camping, and the delicious dinner which we ate just made it all seem too good to be true. Görlitz is also a really nice place, a real undiscovered beauty spot. Very pretty, a bit like Prague in fact, and no tourists besides us. And cheap, and friendly folks. Definitely recommended, if you can work out how to get there.
The morning after came, and it was back to reality. After spending the last of our Euros, it was time to make the short journey over the bridge to Zgorzelec in Poland.
This was most certainly a culture shock; I would never have imagined that such a short distance, across an unrestricted border at that, would bring such a change.
It’s a bit difficult to say what this is, besides a few obvious things. Firstly, the language thing; instantly, we could no longer understand anything that was written or said. Secondly, everything is in a notably worse state of repair – I know I have already written that about the east of Germany, but this time the difference was much greater. The roads are full of holes, buildings are cracked and dirty, and there is dust everywhere. The drivers give much less room to cyclists, and judging by all the squashed animal corpses by the roadside, not much room for anything else either.
Our first contact with people was at a petrol station on the road east from the border, since we needed some fuel for cooking. Enough for about a week and a half for 50 Eurocents.
For some reason the guy working there was very interested to know how from me much a certain headlight bulb in his shop cost in Germany. Clearly I had no idea. Aside from this, he and his sullen-looking colleague seemed to have little interest in helping us, even making taking money off us seem like a tremendous effort.
I had heard that people drink a lot here, and being from another hard-drinking country I was curious as to what this meant. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to back up this claim: I saw countless empty vodka bottles by the roadside, many shops in the remotest parts of the countryside selling nothing but petrol, car parts and alcohol (surely a deadly combination), and at one point even a man in a tractor drinking a bottle of beer. Worst of all, many many sad little memorials by the roadside with names and photos of loved ones killed in car accidents. This may be though as much to do with the terrible roads and the crazy speeds that people drive at, and this is not the only country where this happens – it seems to be very much a catholic thing.
Everywhere that there are houses there is the acrid stinging smell and thick smoke of whatever sort of fuel they burn here. This may now be the EU, but it feels very far away and closer to the experience I have had in Turkey than to Germany or Holland.
All of this makes it sound like I am trying to paint a very negative picture of Poland. This is not my intention at all. I can only go on my first impression as regards to the behaviour of people, and of course it is very easy to focus on superficial differences and lose sight of the fact that in the end things are not so different.
Also, there is progress being made here, and people seem to have a certain sort of pride in the place. When we stopped in the town of Jawor the other day, we were served perhaps the most delicious ice cream I have ever eaten by a guy who spoke perfect English, and who was very enthusiastic to hear about our journey and where we were going next. To the Ukraine, we said. “Oh, I was near the border recently but I couldn’t visit”, he said, “because I didn’t have my passport. Oops, forgot, they’re not in the EU of course!”. Later, in the same town, the guy who served us pizza in a newly-opened, chic but cheap restaurant took me to find a book shop, since I wanted to buy a Polish dictionary. He explained that the whole town centre was being regenerated, and would soon look completely different. Not quite the empty wasteland drained of all talented youngsters lured to the West that I had perhaps expected.
There is a problem which all travellers face, and about which I am sure much has been written. This is the problem of distinguishing the unusual from what is typical. To be more specific, whether what you observe in a new country tells you much about the place, or is instead just a one-off event. If I see something unusual happen in Amsterdam or in Glasgow, I know it is strange because I know the place. A newcomer though has no way of knowing if this is normal or a freak occurrence.
This is what I am always thinking about, and what has been the starting point for trying to work out what I should make of Poland. Is it normal here to drink beer while driving a tractor, or was this just one degenerate idiot?
It seemed to be the case that as we moved east, the level of poverty visibly decreased. Yesterday, in Gliwice, we most improbably came across a vegetarian restaurant. We ate three meals plus dessert between the two of us, so delicious and affordable was it. All this cycling certainly gives you an appetite.
As mentioned above, we have been cycling close to 100km per day. I was quite pleased with this, until a couple of blokes on racing bikes stopped and spoke to us while we were having a break this morning. The one who could speak English boasted that he had been cycling 250km per day, with baggage, in France. This morning they had already clocked up 120km. They proudly explained that they had to get back to work tomorrow, down the mine digging coal. Tough as brick-shithouses these Poles.
After all this, we arrived today in Cracow. Here we will spend a well-earned rest day. It’s a little bit strange to be in a big city once again, and certainly one so touristic as this one; everywhere there are Irish pubs and places with names like “Crazy Bar”, and plenty of foreign faces. I don’t think we have seen one non-Polish person all week before now.
I am happy to say that while it is less easy to find little cafés than in Germany, there are more than enough different sorts of cakes, pastries, and other delicious things to allow something different to be tried every day. I have not learned so many Polish words, but one of the most important would have to be piekarnia – bakery. The Polish seem to have a particular love for toffee and whipped cream, to which I lend my wholehearted support. A nice touch is that you buy cake by weight, allowing you to order little bits of several types or one huge chunk of whatever is your favourite.
As mentioned before, the cycling itself is almost a meditative affair, allowing the mind to wander but without really leaving enough space for any deep thinking. So instead, I find myself focused on the most trivial and bizarre things.
For example, yesterday we passed a football field where a match was being played, right next to a cemetery. I wondered if the ball had ever been accidentally kicked from the one to the other during a funeral, and had landed in the grave. Or, even better, had hit the priest on the head, causing him to fall into the grave, on top of the coffin, knocking him stone dead to the horror of the assembled mourners. I have no way of knowing if this has ever happened, but it is kind of nice to imagine that it could be possible.
And finally something more serious once again. I had no idea until I looked at the map yesterday, but the town next to which we stayed last night is called Oswięcim, otherwise known as Auschwitz. It is possible to visit the former camp and the museum there, but I don’t intend doing so. I know what happened there, and that’s enough for me.
