Software Business in the Middle East

This is another post about the trip of Tim, Nino and Erik from Sweden to China by bicycle.

All posts about the trip might be found on this link.

Translation from Swedish in free style. The original post is here. Pictures related to this post are stored on this link.

The map of the passed distance described in this post might be found here.

The original post is written from the country where people now prefer to drink beer and enjoy life instead of living with Kalashnikov in their hands on the land full of mines. Former Yugoslavia was broken up to several states, and the cyclists are now in one of them – Serbia.

Days 27-29. Budapest.

Walking around in Budapest, its famous street Váci utca and a lot of other places.

Day 30. Budapest – Tass. 50 km.

The guys started the trip again at around 11 am. It took some time before they found the right way, but finally they started to pedal with full speed. In the evening, looking for the sleeping place, they found the island of forest in the middle of a field, where they stayed overnight.

Day 31. Tass – Kalocsa. 50km.

They decided to wake up earlier to ride longer distance. But it was raining in the morning, so the guys started their ride about one hour later then planned. It would be the standard travel day among arable lands, farms and tractors, but just before Kalosca Tim got squeak sound in his bike, so the guys spent some time fixing the issue. Then, after another 100 meters riding they got the brilliant idea to end up the day ride and spend the classic Sunday afternoon in Kalosca. So they did starting from the dinner at the local restaurant Gyllene Gaffeln.

Day 32. Kalocsa – Sombor. 100 km.

The day was just excellent. The morning started from a good ride motivated by good weather. The breakfast went not far away from a petrol station. The guys just started boiling water to cook noodles using their Multi-fuel Kitchen, when they suddenly got a visitor. A man smoking a cigarette (!) came to them from the petrol station complaining that fire is prohibited close to the petrol station and they would move their kitchen to some other place.

After the breakfast the guys continued the ride pedalling through the endless farms and vineyards, and then through the city Baja coming closer and closer to the boarder with Serbia.

After passport control and new stamps in their passports, the cyclists went out of Europe Union. Together with EU, the asphalt on the road was over too.

In the first shop, the star status of the guys sky-rocketed The shop visitors tried communicate to the guys with simple words “Hello” and “How are you”, asked for autographs

The trio went further. After a while they felt they were very welcome in a city Sombor where they got the first dog attack. An old mongrel dog seemed to be sleeping, but she couldn’t let three testy-looking Pedigree portions just go away. The dog tried attacking the guys started from Erik who was riding first. She tried biting bags set on the back of Erik’s bike. Then the dog switched the attention to Nino who pedalled next. Nino tried to cheat the dog riding with tricky maneuvers. Finally, the dog got Tim. Tim started to panic a little searching his pockets to get his anti-dog spray, but he couldn’t find it. Anyway, the dog was left behind, although she followed guys for about another kilometre.

The night camp was set behind the city pool, where the guys had a kilo or two hamburgers with coffee for dinner.

Day 33. Sombor - Novi Sad. 100 km.

There was frost on the grass in the morning – very typical Swedish morning as guys were back at home. The ride started after the breakfast in one the countless coffee-shops in the city.

A cat ran across the road just before the guys. The cat got scared from the bikes and ran on another side of the road.

Unfortunately, there was a truck coming from opposite direction, so the cat came directly between truck’s tyres – and run out on another side of the road without even be hurt. Lucky cat!

The road led to Novi Sad where cyclists arrived at about 4pm. They stayed in a hostel in downtown. The guys met a man Miroslav, who told them the story of people life during the war under NATO bombing and inflation. The inflation was just terrible – you might order a beer for one billion dinar, and then, after the news on radio about the latest rates, you might order another beer already for 40 billion dinar.

Anyway, the journey goes on. The next target is Sofia where the guys plan to be in about a week.

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This is another post about the trip from Sweden to China by bicycle. All posts about the trip might be found on this link.

Translation from Swedish in free style. The original post is here. Pictures related to this post are stored on this link.

The map of the passed distance described in this post might be found here.

During the last week the cyclists got two new stamps in their passports – one on the boarder between Poland – Slovakia, and then on the boarder Slovakia – Hungary.

Day 18. Krakow.

At 8 am guys went to the bus station to go to Oswiecim that is sadly known for its Auschwitz concentration camp. The place is ruthful and you become depressed at what you see there.

Day 19. Krakow.

The cyclists changed their hostel and immediately came to the company for other people from many different countries. The environment was really friendly, so they had nice evening chatting with other hostel’s guests in the hall. The most impressive was one aged couple who became a real prove that age is not the reason to stay at home.

Day 20. Krakow – Wieliczka. 20 km.

Guys left their hostel and went to Wieliczka to visit their famous Salt Mine that is under protection of UNESCO. The descent is about 378 stairs down and 135 meters long. The view was beautiful. They spent couple hours downstairs , but this time was really not enough to have a look even at 2% of the entire Mine.

Day 21. Wieliczka – Rabka. 50 km.

They waked up from pleasant sound of rain drops falling on the tent and started the race toward Tatra Mountains. The road had a lot of rises, and finally guys came up to extra 400 meters above the sea level. In the evening they stayed overnight at a family in city Rabka in their house with wood stove. The family showed hospitality to the guys who enjoyed the whole stream of nice stuff like bread with homemade marmalade, tea and plum liquor.

Day 22. Rabka – Orovski (Slovakia). 80 km.

The cyclists passed pretty many hills until they arrived at the border between Poland and Slovakia, from where they could see the mountain tops covered by snow on the horizon for the first time during this trip. Last Polish money was spent at the gas station to buy some chocolate.

That was the first stamp in their passports since they sat at their bicycles back in Sweden.

The first dozen kilometers the road was very good – just downhill and flat road. They came finally to monastery built on top of the hill, similar to the castle of the evil knight Kato from Mio, my Mio. They tried to enter the monastery to find the place to stay overnight, but it was unfortunately closed for a day. So the guys went to the local church to ask where to find a bed. Nobody could understand who they were and what they wanted, but somehow they managed to arrange three beds at some grandma’s flat.

Day 23. Orovski (Slovakia) – Donovaly. 50 km.

The day when guys thought they started to lose their minds. Cycling for dozens kilometers, they couldn’t quite understand what’s wrong with a water stream that went towards them. All their feelings were saying that they were going downhill – they could see it, and it was pretty easy to push pedals. It was very discomfortable to see the signs that their feelings’re wrong, so they made a small test. The guys put the bikes on the road allowing them to roll freely, and of course they found that the water stream was right – they simply got optical illusion. Finally they were riding constantly uphill for about 30 kilimeters.

The most unpleasant daily ride finished on the top of the hill in the city Donovaly. The cyclists stayed overnight at one of the men’s house after having half a kilo of Chili Con Carne for the dinner.

Day 24. Donovaly – Dregelypalank. 140 km.

The day started from riding 30 km towards city Zvolen. After a break the guys decided to keep riding until Budapest, the capital city of Hungary. They calculated the distance between Zvolen and Budapest would be around 100 km, so they started riding.

After passing Hungarian boarder and thinking they got only 20 km left, the cyclists suddenly saw a road sing “Budapest – 85 km”. So the guys went directly to the nearest pub (RK: Well, I would also need a couple of beer after such “mistake” )

Day 25. Dregelypalank – Budapest. 90 km.

It became clear last evening that guys messed up with mathematics and currency exchange, thinking for some reasons that Hungary is very cheap country. As result, they spent all their cash in the pub. They withdrew more cash in the nearest ATM machine and started the final ride towards Budapest.

Day 26. Budapest.

After sleeping really well, the guys went to explore the city. They had a walk over streets and bridges until they reached a castle on the top of the hill where they had photo session number 3882. They tasted Hungarian bread. Hungarian bread with hot sausages. Hungarian bread with jam. And Hungarian Whopper too.

That’s it for now. The ride goes further to the East from Budapest to Romania. The trip goes on!

All posts about the trip from Sweden to China by bicycle can be found here.

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RSS Subscription for this blog

This is another post about the trip from Sweden to China by bicycle. All posts about the trip might be found on this link.

Translation from Swedish in free style. The original post might be found here. Pictures related to this post are stored on this link.

The map of the passed distance described in this post might be found here.

Day 12. Torun – Wloclawek. 60 km.

After the breakfast with bread, sausage, cheese and yogurt, the cyclists went further. The weather was excellent so they were riding under the bright autumn sun. The day was ordinary, just riding.

Day 13. Wloclawek – Leczyca. 80 km.

Pedalling the entire day, the cyclists set a camping near the hotel Senator in Leczyca – on the hotels lawn. The excellent tradition Polish dish with pork and potato was served for the dinner.

Day 14. Leczyca – Pabianice. 70 km.

The good start from the morning stopping only at the coffee-shop in town Zgierz to have coffee and another cheeseburger.

This stop was before the city Lodz where the traffic was terrible with a lot of retro-trucks on the roads. The guys stayed in the city as it was merely impossible to ride further in such terrible traffic (RK: I am afraid that really heavy traffic is awaiting somewhere later in Iran or Pakistan).

In the evening each of them got a bottle of wine in Lidl and a box of kex (RK: they seem to be really serious men ) and spent night around the mandatory bonfire.

Day 15. Pabianice – Radomsko. 80 km.

Tired from the morning, the cyclists started the ride towards a beautiful village to have a breakfast. The ride went by rough terrain and mountains appeared time to time on the horizon. The lunch went in a restaurant with lousy service and unpleasant waiters. In the evening, after the rain, the bonfire had the same sad and poor look and feel as the waiters in the restaurant.

Day 16. Radomsko – Pradla. 60 km.

In one of the shops Nino forgot his Gore-Tex gloves that was later taken by “entrepreneurial” driver from a bakery. The gloves came back to Nino thanks to one lady who pointed to the guy who had taken them. That guy was pretty unhappy to return the gloves back.

In another shop the cyclists met with a teacher who spoke pretty good English. The teacher invited them to the restaurant in another part of the city, where they ordered 6 portions of Bigos - the Polish national dish that consists of cabbage and meat. The chat with the teacher was really good – they talked about everything from Lada cars in Poland to UEFA Euro 2012 that would be hosted in Poland and Ukraina.

Day 17. Pradla – Krakow. 80 km.

The alarm-clock was set at 8 am since the next day guys planned to ride for 80 km on the pretty rough road that went up and down. The breakfast was eaten on the road side next to the shop. The ice-cold yogurt was almost of the same temperature as air – close to zer0 degree Celsius. That was the coldest morning since the beginning of the trip.

30 km from Krakow the hills were over and the road went down. IKEA was one of the first places the guys saw when they entered the city, so they just dropped they bikes at the entrance and run inside guided by the most beautiful smell of meet balls (RK: this is Swedish national food. Here in Dubai we used to visit IKEA just to have this dish) since the time when Vlad Tepes got his first canine tooth (RK: interesting idiomatic phrase, just curious if the guys invented it themselves or it’s commonly used in Sweden?).

After the lunch the guys got a room in Premium hostel that was not bad at all and started to decorate their room in red by hanging around their sleeping bags to dry them out. The Swedish flag was also hung on the wall. Then they showered as three river crayfishes in August.

The first thing to visit was Stare Miastro, the Old Town in Krakow – the historical and cultural centre as well as tourist place. Currently the plans are to relax for a couple of days and have a walk in the city looking around.

The trip goes as planned so far. The weather’s good although the rain waked the guys up several times in the morning. All three feel good, probably also because they decided to change the trip route and visit also countries of Arabian Peninsula. From Turkey they will go to Syria, Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (RK: Here I hope to meet the guys :-)). The final destination – Peking - is still the same.

The next post will be from Budapest where one of the cyclist’s sister lives. It will happen in a few days when they pass Tatra Mountains, or “The High Tatras” as people in Poland like to call them.

All posts about the trip from Sweden to China by bicycle can be found here.

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