The Wild East

"MT was continually being prodded by ‘fingers’"

The day started off damp and dull (a typical English summer day). The Train to Nottingham was half an hour late (a typical English train, and everything was normal). Got to Loughborough about 1pm, where it was now pouring with rain. East Midlands Airport is very small but moderately smart though Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester don’t have to fear it yet.

Taylor had difficulty clearing passport control, but I think this is normal. His left knee set the buzzer off. In the departure lounge there were a group of 12 young men in good spirits, late teens/early 20s and already sinking the 3rd beer of the afternoon. They all had identical blue T-shirts and shorts on, each with a different word on (‘testicle’, ‘pissed’, ‘beer’ etc.). We made guesses on what flight they would be traveling on...Prague?
Just then ‘Pissed’ gave a groan of disappointment. The flight to Palma was delayed even further (another 3 hours!), and more beers would have to be consumed.
The Go flight took off at 1745. Mark particularly enjoyed the “go, go, go, go” jingle. Got to Prague (Sun 27)at 9pm and got a bus into the centre. In the centre it seemed even more expensive than last time, with even more tourists around, usually drunk British men thinking they had a chance with the Czech girls.

Wednesday 10 July.
Strolled around Prague covering much of the same ground as in 2000. The train left for Warsaw at 18.30 and was almost empty. Outside Prague the Czech republic is considerably less well-off. I had a virtually sleepless night, but MT slept like a baby. Got to Warsaw at 8am and was on the Vilnius bus by 9. The bus was functional rather than comfortable, and about 10-15 years old.

Polish roads are notoriously bad, narrow and very busy. There are no bypasses around Warsaw so it took an hour to get out of the city. Then it’s a case of survival of the fittest: There are no motorways in Poland. Only two lane roads clogged with traffic exist.
Polish drivers want to overtake everything. In particular lorry drivers like overtaking other lorries. It seems the overtaker has priority over all other road users. The overtaking vehicle straddles the centre line, and cars coming the other way have to drive onto the very edge of the road/grass verge.
When lorry overtakes lorry there is a lot of screeching of brakes and prayers. That morning alone we drove past 3 car wrecks, a jackknifed lorry, and a lorry on its side.

MT was continually being prodded by ‘Fingers’ a moustashed, middle-aged Pole. On one occasion a hand was hovering over my head flexing fingers, which I assumed to be MT's until I saw both his arms were folded.
At 2pm we stopped in a little village, name unknown. Everyone piled into one tiny shop and ate their runny cheese and bread by the side of the road with lorries thundering past every few mins. At 4pm we get to the Lithuanian border when the bus pushes to the front of the queue, and clear customs. During the 20mins we are stopped the smokers pile out, absolutely desperate for a cigarette, especially Fingers. A wind has got up, there is a storm brewing. A terrific thunderstorm starts as we get into Lithuania. This is my first time inside the Fomer USSR, and Taylor’s second. Economically things are OK in Lithuania, not great but slowly improving, about the same as Poland.

Nothing of much interest occurred until we got to Vilnius at 9.15
Disaster.
We had missed the bus to Tallinn, which had left at 8.45.We had put our watches forward 1 hour, as Lonely Planet informed us...then MT noticed in the nick of time that Lithuania was on the same time as Poland. LP were wrong, and it wouldn’t be for the first time this trip.
A mad dash occurs at the bus station when trying to buy tickets for Tallinn. There was also a black cockney man in the queue “ ‘ave yer got anyfink to Warsaw, mate?” he enquired to the girl behind the desk who looked at him with puzzlement at his accent and appearance.
The Buses in the Baltics are all very smart, air conditioned, and are run by Eurolines. The buses are probably up to German standards of comfort. Got to the Latvia border at 1am. At 5am we got to Estonia. In my haste to get off the bus I somehow evaded the border guard who came on (it was a double decker, and there were 2 sets of stairs).
I knew something was wrong when I was the only one to still have my passport.

When the border guard came back on and spotted me I was in trouble. I was marched off and escorted to passport control. Luckily only a telling-off was administered. The rest of the bus had to wait though, and they all gave me angry glares when I got back on. Including Mark.
Finally we arrived in Tallinn at 7am. The nightmare journey was over. I estimate that MT had about 12 hours sleep over 2 nights. I had about 2 hours over both nights. We went to the hostel that MT had been to when he went to Estonia in Oct 01. We intended to have a short lie down…..suddenly I awoke at 4 o’clock.

The weather had cleared and a hot sun was beating down. We began to explore Tallinn. Tallinn is only a few hours on the ferry from Helsinki, Finland. As it was a Friday afternoon the Finns had been arriving in droves. They hadn’t wasted any drinking time either.
In Tallinn there are lots of young, beautiful girls selling postcards. They wear red T-shirts saying: “Lost in Tallinn? Let me help you!!” “Buy the best postcards in town here”.
There was one drunk bare-chested Finn who was pointing at them “Look, they are all postcard girls”. His friend was too inebriated to do anything apart from leering at the young girls tits. We didn’t buy a postcard though. They were a real rip-off.

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