I am as you desire me…

I just walked away from a bike crash. Thankfully no one else was involved, and I’ve got nothing more than a few gnarly cuts and scrapes. Funnily enough it didn’t even occur as I was bombing along dirt-track roads at 70km/h, but as I was crossing a rickety old wooden bridge. One moment I’m happily going along the parallel wooden slats, next thing I know I’m going head first over the bike as one of the planks jams into the underside of the bike, stopping it dead and leaving me flying forward. The bike’s a bit of a mess, ripped seat, broken wing mirror/brake and an odd rattling as I drove it home, but shouldn’t be too expensive to fix before returning it. Heyho.

In other news, Vietnam is lovely. I spent a couple of nights in Ho Chi Minh city, then moved down through the Mekong Delta, finally making it to the island of Phu Quoc. Photos after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a little over two months since I last wrote anything on here, so I think it’s probably due something of an update. Excuses if the following is a little boring, but since this is functioning as the nearest thing I have to a written diary you’ll have to put up with me warbling on about what I’ve been up to since I last wrote.

So, starting off with Christmas. This was somewhat strange as it was the first time I’ve not spent it with my parents in all of my twenty two years on this planet (what with them off galavanting around East Asia for a couple of months… see their travel blog for more on that). I did however get to spend a lovely few days down in Devon with Alan’s folks and my brother Alastair, whom I had arranged to meet down there. My Grandparents live in a small little village on the edge of the Moor, so it was nice to get out to the country for a while after being in Edinburgh.

After spending three relaxing days having a full Scottish breakfast cooked each morning for us, my brother and I caught the train back to London on Christmas Eve. Christmas day itself was pretty uneventful, but it’s always nice being back in the family home. For our Christmas day feast we forwent (forwent? I didn’t even know that was a word until I asked Nina what the past tense of forgo was) the standard Christmas fare and instead had frozen pizza, then reverted back to our standard pattern of watching bad Christmas TV and generally pigging-out. For boxing day we went to see Vix’s dad, Eric, who lives in South London. Here we saw a bunch more relatives, gave/got presents, had a proper Christmas meal (or at least leftover Turkey) and ended up staying the night with JW, our 21 year old uncle (long story).

I came back up to Edinburgh for Hogmany, and ended up going to a packed party at Laura’s, ignoring the Princes Street street party (thankfully, since it was canceled at the last minute due to wind) before eventually crashing back at mine at some early hour of the morning. The next day I had arranged a New Year’s Day celebration, which largely consisted of inviting a bunch of friends round to watch movies, eat food (thoughtfully prepared the day earlier) and recover their hangovers (mine was suprisingly not that bad, but then I had woken up to a can of cider). I took off another day and eventually returned to work on the third.

Not a whole lot else to report on since then, work is still interesting, which is great. The team I’m on has also been switched around a little, gaining a new boss, as well as swapping around some team members internally.

Having written most of this in Edinburgh I’m now actually in Ho Chi Minh, sitting on the seventh floor of our accomodation, borrowing my parent’s laptop and nicking wifi off a nearby bar. Yay technology. More updates and photos later this week.

I will have been working for three months as of tomorrow. And that means my three month probationary period is now officially over. I have in my possession a very shiny letter “formally confirming my employment with the Company”. As far as I can tell this means two things. Firstly, I can’t just be summarily fired (I now get some warning). This is nice. Secondly, I’m now voluntarily paying 5% of my paycheck towards a pension (meaning less take-home pay). I am somewhat more ambivalent about this. I mean I understand the whole pension thing, and like the idea of putting money aside for later on, but seriously… what if I don’t even make it to retirement age? What if I get knocked off my bike tomorrow? Man, that’d be a bummer. Having said that at least somebody would be getting rich, thanks to a generous life insurance scheme that pays out £75k to a nominated beneficiary. Not much use to me however, but I’m sure it’d pay for a great open-bar at a wake.

I was thinking about all this (well, not the death part) as I was writing an essay for my yoga teacher training course, entitled “Yama and Niyama: How They Affect my Life and Yoga Practice”. Yama and Niyama form two of the eight limbs of yoga as set out in the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali. Yama is translated roughly to “ethical disciplines” and can be understood to encompass the idea of universal rules of morality that apply to an individual’s relationship to the world and society; Niyama are thought of as rules of conduct with regard to individual discipline. Philosophically it’s all very interesting, and many of the concepts are closely related to Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism (unsurprisingly, given the geographical origin of Yoga). Anyway, both Yama and Niyama are further broken down into five concepts, but the one that had me thinking was one of the Yama: Aparigraha, the principle of non-hoarding. A broad interpretation of the concept is that one should limit possessions to what is necessary or important at the specific moment, and rely on God (however you want to interpret this term) to provide in the future. Now naturally I’m quite a hoarder, and the novel idea of my having a pension prompted me to wonder if I was guilty of parigraha (in Sanskrit, which the Yoga Sutras are written in, prefixing a word (in this case paragraha, which is translated as hoarding or collecting) with an “a” denotes the negation of, or avoidance of the behaviour). Another translation for Aparigraha that I found that I quite liked was “non-attachment”, which more broadly captures the idea that it is not the actual hoarding, but the belief that your happiness depends on your ability to hold on to what you think you “own”, be it material possessions, your time, your relationships, your memories, or your beliefs. Not that I’m not also guilty of attachment, but it seems easier to be unattached to material goods, than actually live an ascetic life (though obviously that’s a fine line to be walking). This also fits in well with my understanding of Buddhist thought on the subject.

Well, that’s long enough rambling on about the deep stuff. Today I was mostly sorting out and tidying up bits around the flat. To kick-off the Christmas decorating I’ve now got a shiny star made out of spare CD’s in my bedroom, as well a bunch of photos from Norway blutacked up as the start of a (hopefully much larger) travel photomontage. Speaking of Christmas I’ve now booked my train tickets down to Devon and onto London to see all my Grandparents (my parents basking in the sunshine of Thailand this winter), as well as the return ticket for spending Hogmanay in Edinburgh.

So, I know it’s been absolutely ages since I last posted, but as ever time flies when you’re having fun. Just a quick update for those of you who I haven’t seen around Edinburgh recently. Work is still going great, I’ve been rotated round all three of the teams at work and got to know a good bunch of the people I’ll be working with. Next week is my last on rotation before I get put permanently into one of the teams and the serious work starts. Not too much else to say about work, picking up lots of new skills, taking advantage of the large technical library for a bit of light bedtime reading (with exciting titles such as “Better, Faster, Lighter Java”), and slowly getting to grips with the various systems currently deployed throughout the company.

As for the flat, I’m still settling in. I’m also still getting weird double-takes when I suddenly remember this is actually my flat, and that I’m expecting to stay here for a couple of years. I have a long to-do list of various flat related tasks (gas meter checkup, council tax, etc.), but I’m slowly knocking these off one by one. Nina and I had an amazing flat-warming party some weeks back, and I’m looking forward to having another party in the not-to-distant future. As might be guessed we’ve also got internet and wifi now (so no more sitting outside the university library with a laptop trying to get a wireless signal), not to mention various other less exciting but equally essential items such as a washing machine. The flat’s slowly getting much more homely.

What else? I started my yoga teacher training course on Saturday, and if I make it the whole distance that’ll last two years. I’m also back to attending Jitsu on Saturdays, so I’m feeling a little bruised, but also generally toned-up. As an aside, I’m really enjoying the whole leaving work at the office idea, it’s markedly different to university where Sundays were always slightly spoilt by the mad rush to complete work for Monday handins, or the constant nagging feeling that I should have been working at my dissertation.

So overall everything’s great, obviously aside from not having enough hours in the week for all the things I’d like to do. Still, right now I wouldn’t have it any other way. My apologies however to all those who have emailed me recently, I’ve got a fair backlog in my inbox and I’m going to try and clear up this week.

So, at the end of my first real workday, I was left feeling a little dazed, firstly by how I ended up leaving the office at 7pm; and secondly that I actually enjoyed the work. True, my first real day of work was attending a company summer picnic earlier this Saturday (in the pouring rain, but thankfully under a marquee), but this was my first real nine to five. In truth this wasn’t even to be a nine to five, I had asked at the picnic when to turn up and had been given the very vague answer that a few people turn up at 8am, some at 9am, but most around 10am, but that I could turn up sometime between 10am and 11am. In the end I left the flat at 8:45am, caught the 9:15am train to Dalmeney, and arrived at the office just before 10am, and was soon given a desk, computer and laptop to self-assemble (actually the desk was already assembled, but building your own desk is not entirely unknown at my current employer).

Before I even had time to connect everything up I was drawn into the daily meeting of the team that I had temporarily been assigned to (my informal induction includes time assigned a number of teams). Not really understanding much of the meeting beyond the assignment of work from a large whiteboard covered by 30-plus small task cards stuck on by magnets I was told I would be doing some pair work with one of the other team members. Amazingly I could understand most of what we were doing (adapting JUnit test cases to test for internationalised service providers, for those interested), and was even able to make suggestions here and there, which to be honest was more than I was expecting.

Lunch soon arrived, though as ever I rushed my lunch and ended up hanging around for a while waiting for people to get back to work. On the plus side I did however get a game of pool out of this downtime. After this break once again time flew by, in marked comparison to my only other experience of fulltime work at the Royal Bank of Scotland, where the afternoon hours were interminable. The next time I checked it was already 4pm, and a company wide meeting was called (I’m assured this is actually a very-rare occurrence) where we watched DVD highlights of company’s CFO report, a presentation on recently launched website features, and a finally a talk by the CEO. A Q&A with our local manager followed this. By the end of all this it was already nearly 5pm and after nearly an hour more working I was told I could go home if I felt like it. This somewhat lax working time arrangement feels very strange, and is especially worrying when I realise I could happily spend extra hours at the office fixing and tinkering with things as soon as I have the technical ability.

Anyway, after catching up on news and email (still lacking the internet in my flat at home) I eventually left at 7pm, leaving behind three other staff (including the boss). Pretty much the same happened yesterday, and again today (though I do hope to be out by at least 6:30pm today).

So, after a dangerous lack of posts I am once again trying to recollect all that has happened in the past week or so. As I write this I am on the Berlin-Amsterdam IC142 train, making full use of the provided power sockets to charge my phone and laptop, and having tried to sleep all I could, am now resigned to having to actually write this monster of an update.

As far as I can remember (for I have no internet access to check) so far I have written about my exploits in Budapest on this blog, but not Prague. Funnily enough, at least given its reputation, I can’t say Prague was all that interesting to me. Something about the throngs of tourists ever present in the city centre during daylight hours just didn’t appeal to either Brett or me.

Arriving early in the morning we spent our first day simply walking about and taking in the sights (for we had no money, and it was a Sunday). The next morning I spent finding a bank, after which I met up with Brett and we decided to go to the cinema. Normally I would view going to the cinema when travelling in a foreign country as something of a cardinal sin, but occasionally something about laying back in a cosy chair, passively being entertained seems like a good idea as a respite from two weeks of solid walking about cities (our policy being not to take trams or metros if at all possible). In this case we choose to go and see Miami Vice (the only other non-dubbed option being Garfield 2). I can’t say it was very good, but it passed the time, and at least got us off the streets while it rained outside.

Realising Prague wasn’t going to be the most interesting of cities we decided to go on a daytrip to one of the smaller towns near Prague, Karlovy Vary, famous for its old silver mine and churches, including one that has a number of sculptures composed entirely of an estimated 40,000 bones. We met an American guy who was travelling alone at the train station and walked with him to the churches. While the whole bone-sculpture idea was quite cool, including many Jolly-Roger style skull and cross-bone arrangements, after a while churches are just churches, even with ornamental bone chandeliers. We decided to try the larger cathedral, but arrived to find it was closed on Mondays. At the door displaying the opening times we bumped into two Czech girls in the same predicament who were themselves on holiday (one studying in London at the moment, the other in Prague).

We decided to have a couple of drinks with them while they had dinner, and we chatted about the Czech Republic and the UK, and asked the various things you’d like to ask locals, but normally have the language barrier to contend with. After they had eaten we started walking back to the train station. A quick check of the time showed it wasn’t likely we were going to catch our train back, so a vain attempt at running for the train was made (the train station being 2.5km from the city centre). Missing the train we ended up waiting for a little over an hour for the next train. Asking one of the locals waiting on the platform if this train was headed for Prague, he nodded so we got on. It turned out this was the decidedly non-express service to Prague, taking something like two hours rather than 40 minutes. Compounding this was the fact that in Czech train tickets are charged by distance, so Brett and the American actually had to pay a surcharge to use the slow train (I escaped this fate due to my railpass).

Returning to Prague around 11pm we decided to go see the city and castle at night, and I have to say Prague looks a lot better at night than day. Part of this is of course the reduced number of tourists (the castle was virtually empty at 12pm), but they’ve also done a very good job at lighting up the most impressive buildings while leaving the rest of the city shrouded in darkness.

The next day we decided to get out of Prague for good, going to the town of České Budějovice (home to the Budvar brewery). Leaving our bags at a boarding school used as hostel accommodation outside of term-time we choose to go on a day trip to the nearby town of Ceský Krumlov, reputedly one of the most picturesque towns of Eastern Europe. Arriving in the train station, and once again meeting other backpackers on the walk into town we decided as a group to go rafting on the river that runs through the town. In a single raft we had five of us, with a route that was something like 2km and estimated to take around two hours with a break in the middle. Having already bought some beer for the journey we found that with the rental of the boat came a free bottle of sweet brandy. Together with a bottle of grog an Australian was packing we were well set for a lazy float down the river.

Ignoring the slight rain, the bottle of rum went pretty quickly after we hit upon the idea of taking a shot for each bridge we passed under. As we drank the beer and wine we gave up on the idea of paddling altogether except to save ourselves from hitting the bank. This was all rather unplanned: we hadn’t packed to go rafting, Brett was in his hiking boots, and we had both borrowed pairs of shorts from the Australian. Unsurprisingly everyone in the boat eventually got soaked, starting off with mild splashing, and ending (at least in my case) with my diving in the water to retrieve a lost paddle (not mine I might add).

Stopping at the midway point of our route, we warmed ourselves by a fire, and purchased cool beers from the riverside shack that marked the half-way point (probably not the best idea given the rain and not-so-warm river). It was at this point that we realised we were a fair bit behind schedule, having taken nearly two hours on the first half of the course, leaving us 20 minutes to cover the remaining half. At this point we went all out of the rowing, and managed to make it to the pickup point only 40 minutes late.

On our return we changed back into what dry clothes we had (Brett going barefoot due to soaked hiking boats), and headed to the tourist information to find train times. In something of a repeat of the previous night we found ourselves in the town centre, a fair walk to the train station, and a train arriving in a matter of minutes. We resigned ourselves to staying the night, and proceeded to look for a warm place to stay (being unwilling to fork out twice for two hostels in a day). Eventually we stayed in a bar until closing time, at which point I decided to borrow a pool-table cover as a substitute blanket. We then went dumpster-diving to find some cardboard to lie on. Arriving at the train station with our makeshift beds we settled down for a cold night on the benches. At this point we found that we could have actually made a later train that wasn’t advertised at the tourist information office if we had gone straight to the train station earlier, but this train had now too passed, so we laid the cardboard on the benches and attempted to get some sleep before the next train came. This was actually freezing; wearing little more than sandals, trousers and t-shirt we hadn’t planned for anything like an overnight stay. Eventually after falling asleep and waking a number of times the waiting room opened at 3:45am, half an hour before the first train of the morning. We returned to our paid-for hostel in České Budějovice around 6am, and got a good three hours sleep that night.

The following day was when we went to Brno. Brno, while quite attractive as a city itself is largely memorable for the huge 600g of ribs served to us at a restaurant we had been taken to for our last meal before the train to Krakow. Having spent some time digesting, we returned to Brett’s ex’s flat where our larger bags were. Packing as quick as possible, we eventually got on a tram to the train station. Checking the clock every few minutes as we travelled on the tram, we once again had to make a mad dash for the station, jumping the tracks a number of times to find the right train. We had actually arrived around two minutes late, but thankfully the train was late in leaving. We boarded the train and set off on our journey to Krakow. There was an additional change at 1am that had us wait in a train station in the middle of Czech for a couple of hours, but we bumped into a French guy and girl that we were to spend our time in Krakow.

Anyway, once again time is getting the better of me, and my memories of Krakow will have to wait. I’m now sitting in a stayokay hostel in Amsterdam, and have a flight back to Edinburgh in three hours. I’m looking forward to returning and catching up on so much, not to mention my new job starting new Monday.

Again, haven’t got long enough to write a big long post, I’m checking out in twelve minutes. Instead here’s a bunch of photos since Venice. Click on to see them…
Read the rest of this entry »

Just a quick update to let people where I’m at right now: after two nights in Prague (and a couple of day trips out of the city) we are now in Brno, Czech’s second largest city, having stayed with an ex of Brett’s last night. Tonight we’re catching the night train to Krakow in Poland. Unfortunately I only have five minutes left in this internet cafe, so that’s about all I can say right now; writing a longer update will have to wait. Suffice to say things are still great, and that everybody we bump into raves about Krakow, so I’m well looking forward to it.

Well, once again I sit at a computer trying to recollect all that has happened in the last few days. Simply trying to piece together our travel itinerary is hard enough. And before anyone asks, this is not due to alcohol consumption, but rather the sheer number of train and bus trips I´ve been on in the past few weeks. This, in conjunction with the constant midnight border-crossings and their associated passport checks (not to mention the ticket inspectors) which result in a lack of sleep that tends to merge the memories of my train journeys into something similiar to the hazy morning recollection of a dream.

As this blog was last left I was in Mostar. Unsuprisingly for a city that emerged from a war a little over ten years ago the scars of combat are still very visible, and what was the frontline between the Muslim east and the Croat west is clearly marked by the presence of numerous pockmarked and hollowed-out buildings supported by little more than wooden scaffolding. Still, while not entirely arranged for tourism we had a good two nights in Mostar, helped in a large part by the very cheap food and drink. Tourists were a rarity outside of the trinket market by the famous Mostar bridge, and very little English was spoken by the locals. So bad was the situation the two conversations we had in English during our stay were with an Australian we had overhead in a bar and had approached to ask about the nightlife in Mostar (non-existant after 11pm), and the lady selling ice-cream outside our apartment (who had travelled in America), to whom we returned twice for ice-cream simply to be able to talk to someone.

The other memorable experience was playing outdoor chess in one of the public squares, with numerous local old-timers watching over us and providing advice. Brett won this game, but the running tally (Brett purchased a small magnetic travel set in Dubrovnik when we realised we would need cheaper entertainment) is still 6-5 in my favour.

After our two nights in Mostar we headed towards Budapest, with a daytime stopover in Sarajevo before the night sleeper to Budapest. Sarajevo was naturally more tourist-orientated than Mostar, and had either been much more patched-up, or simply hadn´t seen the level of fighting that Mostar had. Personally I found Mostar a much more interesting city to visit, but it was still sobering to see the landmarks of a war I participated in only through TV: Sniper Alley, the Holiday Inn that foreign journalists had been holed up in as the only functioning hotel throughout the war, and the burned out TV-transmitter pearched atop one of the hills that surround the city.

Naturally Budapest was going to be a very different experience. Finding a hostel after arriving early in the morning, we headed out to find a bank where I could withdraw local currency without using Chip-and-Pin. After trying four of five banks (all with very organised ticketing systems similiar to those used at deli counters at supermarkets) I was reaching the point of despair and decided to try the British Consul for advice.  Notable for its permanent armed guard and anti-car bomb bollards, neither of which I saw at any of the other embassies (though we didn´t see the American embassy), and also the X-ray scan on entrance (have our foreign policies made us that detested?), they were actually suprisingly helpful. After the initial conversation (Me: “I´ve been very stupid”, Her: “You´ve lost your passport?”, Me: “No, thank god, I´ve just buggered up my pin”), I was pointed the way to the one bank that seemed to accept my passport as proof enough to withdraw cash. Notable for it´s lack of high tech technology (no Chip-and-Pin here, the whole transaction being carried out over the phone), I was suddenly with means once again.

After a relatively uneventful night, the next day was Brett´s birthday. In quite possibly the most active day of my trip, we ascended to the Second World War era bunker situated on the top of one of the hills overlooking the Danube. Coincidentally some Red Bull sponsered acrobatic planes were doing their thing, flying under the bridges and navigating an aerial assault course. After reaching the top we descended to the nearby spa, enjoying warm pools of 36 and 37 degrees, steam and dry saunas and a 8 degree plunge pool, as well as an outside lido. We stayed here for a little under two hours, before returning to the hostel to prepare for a caving expedition. We had booked this earlier in the day having found a leaflet in the hostel foyer. Taking two buses to the hills surronding Budapest we were soon suited and helmeted for a two hour trip into caves up to 30m below ground. While I had been in caves before (in both England and China) this was serious caving. Crawling on hands and knees, and occasionally commando style crawling on our fronts we explored a small part of the 19km long cave system that surrounds Budapest. One notable section, nicknamed the sandwhich had us literally stuck between two flat slabs of rock, shimeyning forward centimetres at a time, an experience not for the claustrophobic.

After returning to the boiling outside (the air temperature inside the cave stays at 10 degrees thoughout the year, while outside was something nearer 34 degrees on this day) we returned to the city centre where we had a birthday Turkish meal for Brett, and I introduced him to Dolma. Returning to the hostel to clean the dust and clay off ourselves, we then went out in search of the Budapest nightlife. Initially stopping at an outside bar where we meet a English wedding party drinking in preparation for the big day the following afternoon (the best man being particular worse for wear, and helpfully explaining that the local custom doesn´t allow the best man to keep hold of the rings). Walking further down the river to an outside club in what seemed to be an amusement park (turnstile gates taking the club entrance fee, with bars and fast food joints surronding the two dancing areas) we danced into the small hours of the morning, returning to the hostel around 7am.

Naturally some of the next day was something of a write-off, but this was mitagated by spending our time sleeping in one of the larger parks of Budapest. We also went to the Terror House, and experience I will write of more later. In the evening we caught the overnight train to Prague (thankfully only a single passport and ticket check this time), and we arrived earlier this morning (well, as I continue to type this, yesterday morning). We´ve now checked into either an old Soviet style hotel, out-of-season academic dorms, or converted mental hospital, but I can´t quite tell as yet. Helpfully downstairs has a bar and free internet (hence the long post), and the beer is mercifully cheap at something like 40p for half a litre. I´ll wrap this up here, and return to my room for an early night. Current plans have us once again looking for a bank in the morning, and then starting to think about day trips from Prague, as well as a visit to a friend of Brett´s in Brno.

Apologies for the lack of updates, I`ve been without internet for a little over a week. After Venice I took the overnight train to Zagreb but I was unable to reserve a bed. The train was full of people going to a huge seven day festival somewhere around Budapest, so everywhere was packed out, people sitting in the aisles and by the doors. Fortunately I had reserved a seat, and shared a compartment with an Aussie girl, two French and two Italian guys. No chance of sleep though in the cramped compartment (the two Italians were packing a ten person tent and beer keg for the festival), and certainly not with the four border-control passport checks beween Venice and Zagreb (all in the wee hours of the morning). Anyway, arrived into Zagreb around 5am, had a quick nosey round the town with the Aussie, then had to rush off to catch the 6:50am train to Split. After another three or so hours of train travel shared with a half-Icelandic, half-Scottish architecture student I arrived in Split, where I arranged a coach to Dubrovnik (there being no rail link). This journey was meant to be around five hours, but ended being six and a bit, which happily led to me arriving five minutes before my friend Brett into Dubrovnik.

And so began our epic Dubrovnik experience. Walking from the coach station to the nearest campsite (forty minutes humping backpacks) we arrived at Camp Solutido, a heaving campsite, nicely equipped, and set up camp under the shade of some trees. Heading out looking for the bar district for our first drinks of the holiday (the occasional beer or glass of wine with a meal nowithstanding) we found our way to Dubrovnik´s old town, where we paid an exhorbitant amount for a pint of Guinness in an Irish pub (made up for in the entertainment of watching a very, very drunk English man do a classic reach for a stool and fall over move). Our next bar was a much better local number, with live music and drinkers spilling out into the stepped alleyways that surrond the main drag of the old town. Following a recommendation from the Lonely Planet, we then attempted to locate Latino Club Fuego, a club that in our three nights of attendance didn`t once seem to actually play any Latin music. While trying to get money from an ATM my card was rejected (quite possibly due to my entering an incorrect pin, on which I lay the blame on a non-standard numeric keypad). Anyway, my card now no longer worked at ATMs, so I arranged to get a new pin sent to my old flat in Edinburgh.

Borrowing the club entry fee from Brett we found that thankfully most of the clientel spoke English, even if none were actually from the UK (though a large minority were Irish). Anyway, closing time eventually approached (at the early time of 6am), and having told two Irish girls that we were sitting with that we were off to our campsite they took pity on us and invited us to return to their hotel for drinks.

The next night continued similiarly, though this time the entire club seemed to be filled with Irish. Most of the Irish in Dubrovnik seem to come out on tours rather than be travelling through. After the first night`s mishap with my card, this time it was Brett`s turn. Somehow on the bus returning home Brett either had his wallet nicked, or managed to have it fall out his pocket.

Now with me unable to withdraw money from an ATM, and Brett without any card whatsoever we were in a bit of a pickle. Brett being slightly more prepared for this trip than myself he had stashed away 100 quid of emergency money. We decided to stay in Dubrovnik until my new pin was sent through (at least in part because we wouldn`t have enough money to both payoff the campsite bill (they had our passports) and arrange travel and accomodation at our next stop).

So, for the next few days we lived very cheaply, enjoying the social mix of Irish, Australian, Canadian and Croatian at the campsite and the kindness of strangers (special thanks to all the Irish girls who bought us drinks, and even in one case lunch). Along with a bit of prudent shopping (bread, cheese, funny reconsituted chciken-skin and pig-fat meat sausage, chocolate) we survived till Monday, when I got my new pin. Paying off the campsite bill by card, and getting to the coach station in order to travel to Mostar in Bosnia we found once again that my new pin wouldn`t work at ATMs. A fustrating ten minute mobile converstation to my bank (Abbey) back in the UK I find my new pin won`t work until it has been activated in a UK Abbey cashpoint. I can still get cash out by going to large enough banks with my passport, but this is still something of a bummer. The lesson to be learnt here is either go out with huge sums of cash in hand (security issues aside), two cashcards from different banks, or good old travellers checks (no matter how much hassle they might be to cash).

Despite all the mishaps Dubrovnik was still lovely, the weather bizarre (baking hot sunshine and clear skies intersperced with thunder and lightning, always fun in a tent), and the old city walls amazing. That and the campsite being beside a nice brach made this very bearable.

After another three hour coach journey to Mostar me and Brett are now staying in here in a fancy apartment for two nights (at just 25 euro a night), and onto Sarajevo tomorrow. After that the plan is an overnight train to Budapest, and upwards towards Poland. Immediate impressions of Bosnia are obviously of the bombed out husks of buildings and the pockmarked walls, but we`ve only really been out a couple of hours.

Anyway, this may sound like a somewhat exhaustive account, but there`s still so much more I could write. As ever, photos when I get wifi or a decent PC to download them to.