Prague, Bratislava and Budapest

July 31, 2007
By Dan

I love Prague. Such a beautiful city that seems to drip with history and culture. It pretty much escaped the ravages of WW2 as it was handed to Hitler on a plate, and was unscathed when ‘liberated’ by the Russians.
The Medieval old town square is a web of narrow cobbled streets and leaning buildings, Charles Bridge still stands in all its opulent, if weather-beaten glory, and the epic castle dominates the skyline. The cathedral within the castle is one of the best I’ve seen – a gothic wonder of masonry, majesty and stained glass.
Quality beer, cheap absinthe, stunning architecture – what a city. The only slight was the blatant crack heads and junkies in the city centre parks. You had to step over the needles.

That night (Thurs, July 26, 07) we met up with an English lad called Rich – Justin had a friend who knew him or something- and he took us out drinking. A top bloke, he’s been living in Prague for three years and took us to a well-priced beer garden with a bunch of his mates.
As seasoned travellers, determined to experience all manner of diverse cultures, we had little choice but to experiment with absinthe.

There are many different ways to drink it, but in that particular beer garden they recommended dowsing half a tea-spoon of sugar in a shot glass of absinthe, then removing it and setting light to the sugar. The absinthe acts as an accelerant and once the sugar is bubbling in the spoon you stir it into the shot and drop an ice cube in to cool the mixture down.

Making the potion was half the fun and the results were good. It tasted far better than the absinthe I’ve tried in France, England and Germany, and was only £4 a pop.
It had various effects on the group. OJ accidentally knocked back the ice cube that was in his shot glass, almost choking himself and seeming distinctly uncomfortable afterwards. Megan loved it, demanded more, became very excitable and then threw up. Istvan suddenly became very lively and began speaking confidently in Magyar interspersed with his favourite English phrases – ‘no problem’, ‘big problem’, ‘please’ and ‘fuck’.
Justin ended up asleep in the bar, sitting bolt upright with his underwear exposed through a tear in the crotch of his jeans. We decided the best option was to take photos of him.

From Prague OJ, Justin, German Mike and I headed to a chapel in the east of the country that has some impressive bone sculptures. A wealthy family bought the ossuary, graveyard and chapel in Sedlec a couple of hundred years ago and began to get creative with the skeletal remains of the 40,000 people buried there in the preceding 1,000 years.
What possessed them I don’t know, but the results were interesting and on some levels deeply disturbing. They had the family crest made out of bones, with a skeletal bird picking at the eye of a human skull. Human chandeliers hung from the ceiling and four, ten-foot high pyramids of…yes, human bones.
What strange perversion. Perhaps the family were Satanists or some kind of twisted worshippers of the dead. The area, formerly known as Bohemia, certainly had its fair share of alchemists and weirdos.


We raced back to Budapest to film a traditional Hungarian meal at Zsofi’s parent’s place. But Istvan blew a tyre on the way, setting us back a couple of hours and forcing us to miss out on lunch in Bratislava. I suspect that will be a theme of the next four months.

We had a departure party on Saturday at a popular Budapest haunt called West Balkan.
They kindly gave us a 5,000 florin (€20) bar tab each, let us put up sponsor’s signs all over the place and give a press conference to a bunch of local TV and radio stations.

The ‘press conference’ was pretty excruciating – we foolishly didn’t start the thing till gone ten, and everyone had made a decent stab at the bar tab by then.
We paraded onto the stage in front of the cameras and a moderator then interviewed Zsofi in Hungarian while we stood looking sheepish in sponsored polo shirts.

Once that was out of the way everyone kicked back and partied, culminating in a great performance by Brains, a local reggae / drum n bass act that Zsofi managed to get to play for free. They were awesome (www.myspace.com/brains Or www.brains.hu).

We had all the Trabbis parked in the club so most of us ended up collapsing in them and waking up at the Balkan feeling terrible in the morning.

Then OJ and I, feeling a little the worse for wear, returned to Bratislava to get the footage we needed with Istvan. It’s a nice old place, with a similar feel to Budapest – sitting on the Danube and filled with Hapsburg architecture. If you drive along the public footpaths you can gain easy access to a beach that has been set up by the river. Security weren’t that impressed with my manoeuvre, but they let us film on the beech for ten minutes.

We've done Zwickau, Dresden, Prague, Bratislava, and Budapest. Now we’re trying to meet up with a kids charity in Romania before heading to Dracula’s castle and then Bucharest.

mrdanmurdoch@gmail.com
ends

Trabant Trek Sets Off

Trabant Trek sets off
By Dan



We are now officially Trekking.
Arrived in Zwickau just before midnight Tuesday (24th July 2007) and met our German contact Mike, who will be travelling with us for a few weeks. He’s from Zwickau and, after a few drinks, he showed us to a windswept field where we pitched our budget supermarket tent. After just a night it is showing serious signs of wear and tear which suggest it won’t stand up to a five-month trip.
Waking up and packing up this morning after the first of many nights of camping, we headed off on Trabant Trek - a great feeling after months of planning.

We went with Mike to his mechanics to change the spark plugs and check out a strange noise coming from Fez (the newly named Blue Trabbi). It makes a coughing sound when it’s idling and farted at traffic lights a couple of days ago. As Carles said: “Fez is like a baby – when she farts you must change her nappy, when Fez farts you must change her spark plugs.”
Strange Catalan wisdom.
We couldn’t cure the noise, which is a concern, but hope to get back to Budapest where The Bear can take a look.



Next stop was the Trabant museum, which kindly let us in for a Euro each and allowed us to film for nothing. It was packed with Trabbis and interesting documentary footage, along with a decent explanation of why the Trabbi was made of plastic.

In the Fifties, when the Trabbi was designed, most other car manufacturers were using pressed steel for their panelling. But in East Germany there was a steel shortage – the Soviets were using what they produced for the military, and there was an embargo on importing steel from the West.
So East German scientists set about looking for a replacement material. What they did have was plenty of waste cotton from the textile industry. After a lot of research the clever Krauts worked out how to make rigid but malleable panels out of compressed cotton mixed with polymer resin. The result was Duraplast, made up of 50 layers of cotton and 52% resin - it’s lightweight and doesn’t rust.



The car’s engine hardly evolved from the Fifties right through to the end of the Eighties. The two-stoke, 600cc was pretty much the standard – top speed 80kmph (about 50mph), going from 17bhp in the early cars up to about 26 bhp later on, simple but unreliable.

In Soviet-dominated East Germany spare parts were hard to come by. Most Trabbi owners had a garage full of bits and there was a currency in trading them. The cars were designed to last eight to ten years, but meticulous and innovative owners ensured the average one ran for closer to 30.

The Trabbi became something of a symbol of East German success, a sign that the communist country could compete with the West, and enthusiasts vigorously opposed any attempt to interfere with the classic shape of the car.
In 1973 the millionth Trabant rolled of the production line in Zwickau, largely unchanged form the 1958 original.

It wasn’t until 1990 that the Trabbi finally got a new engine, a 1.1litre four-stroke based on the Volkswagen Polo.

I couldn’t help but think we should have got one of these later versions rather than the eighties models we picked up. They’re significantly faster and more reliable, but would have cost more.



Later in the day we tried to film the original Trabbi factory, which still has the original Trabant “S” logo remains on the building, but got shouted away by security.

We made the short drive in convoy to Dresden where we were put up for free by the kind people at Lily’s Homestay. It’s a great place with dozens of themed rooms – one of the third floor rooms even had a Trabant in it which they had gutted and cut in half to take up the stairs, then reassembled to form a bed. We loved it.

That night we went into town, where we found Marlena behind the counter of a kebab shop knocking out Gyros. Not quite sure how it happened but she seemed to be enjoying herself.
We sat and listened to some Spanish guitar in the street, then returned to collapse.

mrdanmurdoch@gmail.com

Lovejoy Arrives

by Dan
Lovey got here on Friday (20 July). He's added fresh impetus and even more hair to the trip.
We went out to celebrate with a bar crawl culminating at Margit Island – a kind of mini-Ibiza in the Danube.
Things did not go entirely to plan.
When crawling from one Budapest boozer to another, Megan, Justin and I became separated from OJ and Lovey – who were meant to be giving us a lift. They power-walked ahead, leaving us wandering the city for an hour without a phone or radio.

When we finally caught up with the pair I gave them both a playful slap to show my displeasure.
From nowhere a gorilla-like bouncer appeared and felled me with one swing of his giant, tree trunk arm. He looked like an in-bred Eastern European wrestler and I have no doubt he could have snapped me into pieces.
Tony P tried to intervene but the raging Neanderthal knocked the drinks out of his hands, sending broken glass and booze crashing onto me. Then, for good measure, the giant boffed me on the top of the head with his clunking ogre fist.
I attempted to diffuse the situation by cowering on the floor, adopting the voice of a seven-year-old girl and begging him not to hit me.
Thankfully Lovey and OJ, who is a giant yank of Slavic descent, bore no grudge and stepped in to explain the situation. They cradled me to show their affection and, although the gibbon wasn't impressed, he eventually retreated.


Last night we returned to the scene of the crime for a second stab at debauchery and had a merry time at the hostel with Viktor.
After a few beers Marlena and I decided to jump into the Danube. Turns out its filthy, enormous and flows incredibly quickly. I will not be jumping in again. Probably my first near-death experience of the trip, if you don't count driving the Trabbis.
Two nights of going out with reckless abandon have taken their toll but some folk are up for more. I'll probably go to bed to cradle my throbbing brain.

We have a list of things we still need – it's long. We've yet to sort out a load of camping stuff, so we're looking into buying a circus tent, which is fitting considering the band of freaks that's going.

Some of us are planning to head to Prague tomorrow while others continue with the list. It's an eight-hour drive and the Trabbi's first serious test.

Ends
mrdanmurdoch@gmail.com

Painting the cars

The cars are painted.
A renowned Hungarian graffiti artist named Nikon was supposed to do it. He agreed to work for free if we provided the paint, which was kindly donated by Angelo and Jordi from Montana Colours in Barcelona.

But the little rat changed his tune - ignoring our calls, not getting back to us and basically acting like a twat for four days.
We were given 40 cans for free but when we finally got through to Nikon he decided he was a superstar and wouldn’t do it unless we paid him a further 70 cans – worth about €350.
The bell-end made us chase him around for nothing.
“He’s a dick” was Carlos’s succinct analysis.
We’ve launched a hate campaign online where we’re barraging graffiti forums with lewd mock-ups of Nikon fellating squirrels.



Luckily Johnny, a German bike courier living at the house we’re staying in, is a handy artist and agreed to bring his crew in.
So he, along with his mates Nandi and Luca, did a few sketches and went at the cars. We plied them with beer and they worked into the early hours on the street, listening to hip-hop and smoking.



We’re pleased with the results – I particularly like the rising sun, but Tony P prefers the psychedelic one, ‘I think it looks like little devils burning in hell’. Each to their own.
We’ve yet to agree on names, but the clapped out Mercedes support car is almost certainly a G¸nter.

Now the paint job’s done we can get on with applying for our China visas, which require images of the cars.

All three of the cars are a little sporadic. There’s already been plenty of dead batteries and jump starts and getting into one is always a bit of a lottery.

Picking up the Trabbis

Budapest, July 11, 2007 - picking up the rest of the fleet

We woke up at Zsofi's apartment, a little the worse for wear after an exuberant evening, and immediately dared the midday sun to pick up two of the Trabbis and the Mercedes that will be acting as our 'support vehicle'.
Despite my physical condition I was filled with hope at the prospect of seeing the cars we'll be spending the rest of the year in.
On arrival things seemed bad –
The lock was jammed on one Trabbi, so Carlos had to break in through the boot. He smashed off the parcel shelf and slid his scrawny Spanish ass over the backseat, only to find the little tyke had a flat battery.
There was no trouble getting into the other Trabbie, although it too had a dead battery, and once we jumped it and tried to drive off we found the rear wheel had completely seized and we could only drag it along the road.

There was a brief interlude where it seemed things had truly fallen apart. Dehydrated and sweating in the heat, we cursed and considered the possibility that Trabant Trek might amount to little more than a four foot skid mark made by that jammed rear tyre. Apparently a man known only as the Bear has been working on the cars withour mechanic, Gabor, and he claims the wheel seizure is no biggy – the car has just been sitting still too long. "These are Trabants, these things happen."
We had little choice but to leave the Trabbi for the Bear.
After a brief pit stop at the petrol station for fuel, a little air, and a very professional window wash, we took our trophies home.

On further inspection by team mechanic Tony P, the prognosis was heightened to 'good'. It seems the Merc has a fairly new engine, and new wiring, and the Trabbi runs fine. TP fixed the broken door and later that night we found a couple of headrests in a pile of discarded junk.
"This car will get us to Cambodia, I have no doubt" was TP's analysis. Time will tell.
It was also the wee man's birthday, 23 he claims, though that statistic doesn't bear close scrutiny.

We went to Zsofi's folk's house for a party. I made a fool of myself during a brief altercation with a mosquito net, but other than that we came through the event unscathed.
Tomorrow OJ arrives to join the fun.
ends
mrdanmurdoch@gmail.com

Trabant Trek HQ

TTHQ- Budapest, July 10th, 2007.
By Dan

This is the team at Trabant Trek Head Quarters, known locally as TTHQ – a secret underground bunker based in a hollowed out oak tree somewhere outside Budapest.


We're here at the invitation of the delightful Angyal sisters, Zoe and Melody, who unwittingly opened the door to Carlos more than a month ago, and have played host to a Trabbi invasion ever since.
The five assembled trekkers, myself, Carlos, Megan, Tony and Zsofi, are following a strict work regime – emailing, researching, eating, doing sit-ups, screaming and drinking.

Boys are stationed downstairs in the dungeon, an unfinished apartment with the grimy ambience of a squat party. We sleep on mattresses pushed together on the floor between various articles of upended furniture.

The ladies are nesting in the loft, normally used as a storeroom, they've bedded down among dusty vases, broken teles and old rollerblades.

From our luxurious base we're plotting global dominance, assembling troops and contacts ahead of our departure – currently scheduled for July 17. Or 18. Or 19.
Nobody's really sure, but we need to be back in Budapest for a launch party on the 26th.
Do you need any sense of organisation to travel the world?
I'll let you know.
Reinforcements in the form of the two Johns should be arriving later this week.

ends
mrdanmurdoch@gmail.com