connection delayed

about traveling to #tokyo by public transports

[merulast]

Short Update.

I'm back home. I'm well but exhausted. I got an mallufacted russian visa that broke me. Maybe more Details about that later.

[merulast]

Some Stats

So far I traveled about 5000 kilometers. The highest point was 2300 meters high in the Georgian mountains. This is about 40% of the total ~12.000 kilometers that I have to travel before reaching south Korea.

Yeah. Things!

[merulast]

To Tokyo by public transport, Day 12

Time for one day off. No really. My feet hurt. The last Days always had one or two stressful Moments. And there is no Train from Astrochan to Aqtau today anyway.

Or. Isn't there?

Right the first thing I found after leaving the hotel to randomly strolling around was this:

Even worse. 10 Minutes later I found the driver by accident. He was making Advertisement for his bus by walking around and shouting the route. Even thought I do not understand Russian I still understood him. And, he gave me his card.

So in case you where looking for an direct and uncomplicated route from Astrachan to Atyrau ... There is it. To bad I allready bought my train ticket. Really :/ But maybe its helpfull to someone else.

Anyway. What else? Basically, since I could not walk too far I was just strolling around in the Mall next to the Hotel. So I picdump some things I found here. Enjoy and see you next time in Kazakhstan.

I really REALLY liked the last one. It had everything that you could wish for and was pretty solid. Plus, the staff was almost amazed that someone from outside of russia came to visit _theyr_ store. Aww !

And last but not least: Some lego.

[merulast]

To Tokyo by public transport, Day 11 - Desert Bus

Another day. After an wonderful night I took another taxi up to the central bus station. You could just take the tram as well but ... I was too afraid to miss something.

Getting an ticket for this bus ride was not easy. In the end the page tutu.ru was able to do the job and accept western payment methods. I was not really sure if I had an valid ticket (25€). But lets find out!

The Station

The central Bus Station Nord is an old Soviet building with some makeover, plenty of shops inside and around of it, and an ugly security layer that got added in the last years. So if you want to go to the bus stations itself you need to do the whole Airport security thing. With this Russia tries to secure the inner regional borders.

I had no issues with that. In front of the Station many people will ask you to carry packages for them in a bus. Needless to say that I was not crazy enough to try that.

The bus then arrived 30 minutes early. The usual small Bus thing. This time an Volvo. The driving would later turn out as 'okay' since we never had any cliffs beside us and aaloot of free sign ahead.

An funny thing about the security was, that just 5 minutes after leaving the secured area, we just had a stop on the Mal behind the station to pick up some other people. Well....

(the scheduled stations: city, city, city, city, desert cafe, city)

Desert Journey

The whole journey was pleasant but long. After leaving the south Russian region you will see the Islamic focused side of Russia with many big buildings in the cities as well as various people here and there. I mean, I was never close to this big buildings. But my worldwide experience was that this prestige Buildings are empty most of the time. I wish I could had spend more time in Grosny.

But soon after Grosny the landscape goes down to desert alike states. And its getting ... kind of boring. At least internet works most of the time which is again amazing compared to german standards.

The Bus is scheduled to take 8,5h for the whole things. It turned out to be 11 hours. And I don't think that we lost some time on any point. Even the inner Russian border was smooth.

Arrival

We arrived at about 22 o'clock and the first thing then was that my Hotel, the Orion Hotel, denied to take me in. For some absurd reason that I understood as, that they never had an E-Visa ever before.

So. Where to get an hotel on 22:30? I decided to check into the next hotel that I saw, the Cosmos Hotel. I'm here right now. And its okay. Very expensive for Russian standards but a 4 Star place.

In the end, I spend 120€ (ticket + 2 nights) - The next Train to Atyrau will come by tomorrow.

120€ in plastic: lego 21333. btw here in russia its more then 200€ even with 50% discount.

[merulast]

To Tokyo by public transport, Day 10 - The end

This post is going to be an very tough one. Please understand that I will try to make it as short as possible.

Trans Kavkaz

This post is written from the subjective position of an west european person. Many might not understand. But for me it was the pure horror to travel with Trans Kavkaz. Personal thing. Might not apply to you.

Trans Kavkaz offers bus rides from Tbilisi to Vladikavkaz. They are an russian company and charge 2000 rubel aka 20€ for a ride. You can book via whatsapp. They are friendly and kind.

About the driving. He does 90 in a 50 Zone. Also in towns with dogs, children and or cows.

He turns over whatever gets in front of him. Whenever. Where ever.

Even on the mountain roads when there is an 50 meter cliff just centimeters besides of you. He wont hesitate to go 90 in a 40 zone and turn over

And yes of course you cannot see if there is something on the other lane. There pits all the time. He just 'trusts' that there will be no truck to kill us all

Once there WAS a truck. We just moved back to the right, pushing the car to our right off the lane. It was pure luck that there had been 1 meter of gravel before the cliff. Otherwise that guy would had been dead.

I will never. NEVER drive with this company again. I will never even drive this road again knowing, people like him are out there. I would never ever cross this area in general again. I feel happy for everyone that feels like this is nothing special. For the others in the bus it was nothing special.

Hell!

The Border

I hopped out the bus. Kissed the ground a few times. Was able not to puke. Showed my Passport and E-Visa. They had some questions, that s why I had to come to the back office for someone that could translate. In fact they just wanted to know where I want to go and why. China and Tourist was okay as response.

Vladikavkaz

In Vladikavkaz I got kicked out of the bus since my special threatment on the boarder had caused some delay in the schedule and he had to make up for it.

The city itself is an 100% Soviet Style city and is wonder full and clean. I had no trouble getting an Russian sim card near the central bus Station (in a Mal to the south) and if the first Taxi would not have put me to the wrong KFC I would also had no issue with getting to my hostel that I booked online.

I would really liked to spend more time here. I even saw gaming Shops where you could play PC games.

If only. Well. There was not this bad feeling. Not only the near dead bus ride I just had. But also the bigger issues. It's so sad. I still don't understand the 'why' behind all this actions. I wish I could enjoy this part of my journey without this huge shadow lingering around.

Rock Hostel

I simply selected the Rock hostel because with 7€ a night it was the most cheap option to book from outside of Russia. I somehow expected it to be an ugly thing like the Train-Hotel in Georgia. Maybe worse. With probably fleas and stuff. You know. For that price and seeing hotels being worse.

But no. ROCK Hostel ROCKS!

Its location? Close to the tourist sections. Its price? Unbeatable!

The whole thing is inside an old industry building with 5 meter high walls. They use this extra space to introduce 3 level Beds. 3 Levels! I Love this shit. I love the whole, very clean industrial style of the Building. The general room has an kitchen with everything. The bathrooms and toilets are clean and they offer water and snacks right into the hostel.

For me it was 12 out of 10. It shows how much you could do with such an place. Thank you so much.

(I loved this!)

And last but not least: They have an washing machine and a dryer just for free use. I was able to finally wash my stuff. This alone deserves pure love.

Summary

Very intense Day. I spend 7€ for the whole thing. How? Because Transhellkaz forgot to take my money. And to be honest: When kicked out if was so deep in shock. I simply forgot. Sorry for being not sorry about being not sorry.

For this money you could just buy any Lego mini figure. Any. Or an booster pack. Have fun.

[merulast]

To Tokyo by public transport, Day 9 - Batumi

Next day we reached Batumi and wow. SO many skyscrapers! I hate spoilers so I never had looked up Batumi. But this was insane and intense. Frankfurt is a shit against Batumi o.o

Offboarding

To my big surprise we made it pretty much in time. Not bad for a ship that started about 10 hours late. But since they do this trip every week you could expect them to have a good plan.

Sooner or later the Border Patrol will enter the ship. Not by Plane, Helicopter or Boat, but simply after we reached the docks. Some paperwork later you can go down the ship, walk though another checkup and leave the inner Harbour area.

To the left (south) you can reach the inner city. To the Nord the Train Station. I decided to walk this "distance" and hell. Think twice if you really would like to WALK that distance. Really! Burned all over I had allot of regrats.

When I started in Passau it was 2°C ... in bulgaria it was 20°C and in Batumi it was almost over 30. Without sunscreen or trees on that side of the road you end up like an boiled egg.

Schedules

The Train station was an pretty empty Building with just some counters. To my surprise I was able to get Lari out of the ATM. Seems like the V-Pay works in georgia, too? Or maybe just on this sole ATM? Good question. At least there was no V-Pay sticker on it. So I don't know? However.

The schedule on rome2rio was not accurate. Only the late train is in existence. You NEED to buy an ticket. Without a fixed seat you cannot go on board. They will fix it. And the train was nearby sold out, so I had to take the 2th class ticket. 40€ for that.

(poster on the Trainstation. Only 17km from Batumi!)

I invested the 'more time' to get back into the inner city and catch up Russian Money. Finally I was able to get some. Finally.

I had no time to visit more of Batumi but this 'money change' street. But pfew it was chaotic. Well, its not the best place to visit anyway.

Long long long ...

The whole Train was west European standard. Same model. Same seats. Same everything and pretty clean.

And yet. It was awfull. Don't know why but for the first time I was not able to enjoy an part of this journey at all. I just felt very exhausted.

In Tbilisi, 22 o'clock, I wanted no more risk and booked on the official Train-Company Hotel right in the train station. Another 34€ ...

wasted. The room was. Below average. The walls were paper thin. The pair on the other side had a lot of fun till 1 o'clock and all rooms share one big balcony separated by some fence where you easily could look into others rooms.

I had not really any time to take a look at Tbilisi. Too bad. But on an journey like this, you cant see them all.

End of the Day

65€ for this. Were back on solid soil so lets get over with how to waste this kind of money. I mean, it was already somehow expensive. But I'm sure there is room for more. 5007112 for example!

Lego wall knobs for fing 65€!

[merulast]

25 Einträge!

[merulast]

To Tokyo by public transport, Day 8

(from wikipedia)

As you might have noticed I just started to post down what I wrote back then. Im sorry that it's kind of outdated but. Well. It was just a bit busy on the last days. But more on that later!

So what about Sunday, Day 8? To be honest. There is not much to tell. You do what you do on a Ship that is not meant for tourists.

You read. You spend time on the prison deck. You watch dvd in case that you like smoke because the dvd player is in the smoking room. You drink booze with others on the first half of the day just because its a great way to learn each other know. You hide in the cabin forever. You watch the sea. Sometimes maybe spot an Dolphin Back.

There is really not that much to tell. Sometimes you come to close to Turkey so that you have a phone connection for some minutes.

I just can say, that the whole ship crew was very kind and professional. They do that almost the whole year. So you can feel save and rest assured.

[merulast]

To Tokyo by public transport, Day 7

It was about 8 o'clock when I woke up. Time to eat. Feeding time, that what I guessed, would be the biggest event every day. To my surprise we still had not left Burgas. In fact, there where still Trucks boarding. The picture of the others on board started to clean up. Alot of truckers, and some 'tourists' how you could call the others. Even an family with an 3 years old boy boarded over night. It took them until lunchtime to leave. The food was again okay and plenty. In fact, you would call it great if it was just not that tasteless. Somehow tasteless. Too bad. But I guess they have to cook it in a way that everyone can and want to consume it. But just putting some salt and pepper on it is not the same. Again there had been flesh. Again bird. Whenever we had a meal it would be bird and many people started to question what kind of bird it is. In the end we decided to call it 'Seagull'. Just because it would make a lot of sense.

Leaving the harbour somehow had not that much emotional impact on me. Most people tried to use as much 'still online' time as possible to call out to the family. I did the same. But it was not like an big yaaay we start!!! Moment. More an 'oh wow, so late'. In the end I think I'm the only person that needs to arrive somewhat in time on the other side.

The trains from Batumi start 14 or 17ish o'clock. If we arrive 6 to 12 hours late that could be somewhat unfortunate for me. But, yeah. We will see.

Some truckers soon started to eat and drink in the dining room and I love the fact, that they do it just right under an old Soviet Poster about not drinking Booze. That's my kind of humor. Conrad, that ooold german grandfather started to chat a lot with me. So much, that people started to ask if we would be related. Its crazy that he, with 87years old, is still driving around with his camper. Alone. But it don't have to be alone!

I'm pretty sure he offered every cute lady on board to join him for a bit. And somehow he was not that well with everyone refusing his offer.

Most of the 'tourists' here want to travel around in Georgia for some weeks. Some even came by train and using the same route as I did. Surprising. I was not expecting this but this means that Budapest-Bukarest-Varna-Burgas was really an good and natural choice. Nice to know.

Only the french people seems to plan an loong trip over to Mongolia. They are the only people planing in Months, not just weeks.

And yeah. What else to say? Weather comes. Weather goes. After some more Seagull in the Evening the wind got so strong, that I felt pretty seasick and drunk. So I just went to bed before I would end up enjoying the Seagull for an second time.

Were moving. Keep on moving.

Everything is moving! @.@

[merulast]

Overland to Tokyo Day 6

After an long and sleepless night feeling homesick, the day started as shitty as it could. The credit card was gone. I could not even believe that. Searched my whole stuff 3 times. Then even called at home. I just could remember that It took me an hard time to place the card on an secured place. One that is not together with other important things. Tuned out I found the most save place in the world: At home. On my desk. Great. Great….

It's about the moneys

This is not the 2000s anymore. Back then german debit cards worked on solid 60% of the would out of the box. Even on chinese ATMs. But that changed because the Maestro Network had been shut down and germans missed the train to create an solid alternative. 50% of the banks are now in the V-Pay network. The other half uses .. nothing at all? I mean they could just had fused with one of the other big networks of the world. But noo. Lets make our OWN payment network with blackjack and hookers. V-Pay works in aall EU nations plus Turkey and some others. Great. Not great.

So if you want to leave the EU, like I would do on this day. It's just a piece of plastic junk. Worthless. You need an credit card. I got myself an credit card for this reason. But I left it at home… Okay. Lets take an deep breath. Calculate how much I've got with me and how long I have to live from that. I need in in Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan for sure. In china I could open an Alipay account and maybe transfer something over. But let expect it to not work. In Korea and Japan I expect my Google Wallet to work.

After long thoughts I decided to continue. Well knowing, that if I turn around now, I would probably never start over again.

Bus bus bus

I packed all my stuff. Gave mental middle fingers to many of the other people living in the hostel and headed to the Bus Central again. It's solid 40 minutes to walk. But full packed, its more than this. The good thing on the Bus station are the people on the counters. You tell them a city to go. They tell you a time and how much. Done. Burgas. Here we come! The Ticked was about 6€ and the tiny bus, that had not even my ticket checked, was old, rusty and ew. But did the job perfectly fine.

And again. So far nobody failed me. (too much) All the routes that I found on the internet exists and work on an solid base. Quality aside. For example nothing ever had Wifi - even thought they tell so on the internet. I don't even care for the excuses anyway. And the 'bus' entertainment had never been switched on once. You spend the time by watching the green landscape anyway.

Burgas

Did I said that Varna was pretty clean and wonderful? Well Burgas is licked! Hooly shit! The entire inner City is in a state where I wish that german towns would be like that all the time. Its amazing!

The Train Station and the Bus center are 20 meters apart from each other and both are hot af. The inner city starts just over the street like somebody actually spend time think things over! All the people there seemed to have an wonderful time and. Wow. Burgas. The hidden Gem. Too bad that I would have not too much time to spend it here.

After relaxing for one hour or two, having an meal and soaking some more money from my soon worthless piece of plastic, I started heading to the harbour. The company has GPS coordinates on his homepage, as well on all e-mails replies. They locate exactly to the position of the ship! It was already waiting.

BUT.

They do not point to the office where you have to pay and get the ticket itself. That office is about 400 meters more on the south. You cannot miss it. Its basically the only building that is not an harbour hall and has some furniture in front of it.

You can guess it. Yes. I walked the way twice. With all my stuff. I hate having stuff. Walking to far starts to become an repeating pattern. In my perfect world I would travel with nothing but my mobile phone and my two hurting feet alone.

The progress is too difficult to gasp. You find the left door (the very left one!) Wait in front of it as the sign tells you. They want the passport. Then they send you up to the first floor to pay for the ticked. No cards. Only Euro. Don't forget to show them your passport again. It could be that someone else loves to spend 200€ on you and that would be crazy! So they check it again. Then you walk back down, and get the ticket. The staff was very friendly, but stressed. No wonder. They have to take care about 1-2 meters of paperwork just besides you.

To my surprise I was allowed to to board right away, since I had no vehicle on me at all. I decided to do so. And even thought all the people expect from you that you know what to do and where to go, I was able to make it without much issues. In the end you are up and on board. Write you name into the list, ignore 'we are number one!' singings in your head, and go to the room. I took an default 4 bed's room. It's bigger than the 4 Beds on the train, and you have your own Bathroom with shower. So you could say its way above the quality of all the hostels. And, this time, I was lucky with the other people. They are bikers from France and nice guys :)

You even can hatch supper if you check in before 6pm. It was .. alot. Wow. The meals here are no joke. They might be not top notch quality. But they are solid and big. Pretty big.

Following the Schedule the ship should leave some when in the night, when everyone is on board. Deep in the night our last person joined the sleeping room. Babbeling something in german. And I remember that one of the french guys (Michele) was making pretty cartoonish stunts with the ladder, when he wanted to climb up to his bed ^^

So!

The whole day was 206€. Finally a sum that can give you something nice from lego. Eh? How about the 10274 Ghostbusters Ecto 1 ? Its around this price and hey. This car should worth as much as 3 nights on a ship including food and drinks!

[merulast]

Overland to Tokyo Day 5 - I do Beach!

(source: internet!)

After an wild night I have to say something negative. This hostel in Varna City, that is really beautiful and cultural rich, was dogpoop. Even if I ignore the cultural differences between me and others. Like not saying hello to room-mates or anything else. Or to occupy the only shared room by screaming at others "here no internet! no mobile no book! only eat!" - I take this as an cultural difference of this Italian lady ... - it was simply not well. The shower was in an 1 square meter room together with toilet and everything else. The smells .. The tiny razor like ladder rungs on the beds. It was simply not nice. Anyway!

So I headed out for my free day as soon as I could and learned how bus centrals works. Might sound silly, but in Germany there is no thing as an central bus Station where you could buy an ticket from any company that will stop on this place. And so I just bought an ticket to Kranewo. The bus came. I hopped in. Easy as that!

At least in Varna this Bus Central even had its own Homepage where you can check the up to date schedules. Very nice!

Long long Memory lane

(not so up to date deal offering in Kravea)

Back in my time Albena had been locked down from the other cities around of it. Like Kravena - an smal town that had not even reached the Beach. Now its entire south is filled with tourist shit. And since Im off season - everything was closed and looked a big shady. But im sure as soon the fat germans return in some weeks it will be clean and licked again!

So I started walking down the shore heading to the north where Albena lies. An artificial tourist town from the Soviet time, build to rip out money from westerns. The entire town is 'closed' this days. But walking down the beach as sole single human in sign was very relaxing. And of course the smell and the waves had remained the same.

After reaching Hotel Gergana, where we used to stay, and having a phone call to my parents I decided to walk down to the end of Albena. I know there is a Taxi company and they would bring me back to Varna.

Midways then I saw this guy:

Obviously he was training his horses for the tourist season. But belive me or not, I looked somewhat familiar to me. As if it was the same person like back then. And that funny dude just stopped in front of me to casually ask "big ride, or small ride?" as if NOT everything had been closed down.

What to say? The big one of course. lol.

So he gave me the big ride. And every time we met some workers he were shouting 'Guys! Guys! Look what I found! A tourist!' He had a blaze and I just ignored the judgy looks of the workers. Because I'am a princess now!

I love bullshit like that - some moneys well spend!

After one hour and another of walking I met the end of the down to realize that even the Taxi Company was off season. Great. I somehow managed it to find an other one, the Golden Sand Taxi company 10km to the south. Shout out to them to pick me up and bring me to Varna. Really - Thank you! Even thought, according to the laughter in the background, they also had a blaze about the thing that tourist are lost in Albena. But, jokes on me ^^

Yeah

I was not really 'on my way to tokyo' this day. But you cannot just travel all the time. You need to rest, too. Too bad that this hostel was so ... meh. But anyway. After an second night full of snorting people I'm back on the road again.

[merulast]

No im Not ded. I will Post soon. But traveling every day is just super tiering. This evening I'll reach Astrachan. Having one day off will help me alot

[merulast]

I arrived on the ship. Since I will be offline till monday, dont expect any News for now. But I should have plenty of time to write Something in the meanwhile.

[merulast]

Overland to Tokyo Day 4 - Bucharest

So finally we arrived with just being 2 hours late. For me this was not too big of an Issue since I planed the whole thing with about 4-6 hours. For Alex this meant that he missed his connection to .. where ever. Poor guy. But he seemed well prepared and I'm sure he is doing fine by now.

The Bucharest Nord Trainstation

The Bucharest Station was like an biig marked Hall that had probably everything and much more than you need. Since trains tend to come more early or more late then scheduled it seemed that almost a thousand of people were just hanging around. And sure. Why not?

The area of the station itself was .. not so nice. I mean, I liked it more then in Bukarest, but still. Somehow it was not my taste. So I decided to just hop into a cap and drive into the Area of 'Hotel Horoscope' where the next Bus would start.

Hanging around

(Goverment Building as seen from the Hotel)

This area was obviously polished and ... it was really nice. You have the Palace here, big Churches there. Big Mall's where I ate something. An Metro Station, and last but not least tourist stuff. Even thought I saw no tourists there. Just normal people heading from a to b, or School Teenagers obviously not heading to B but spending the Day in the mall.

You know. I had been on the road for 4 Days now. And even thought I LOVE doing so. I never spend too much time in a city so far. In Bucharest I only spend some hours. But it was an enjoyable time. The Park in front of the goverment place starts running huge waterplays around 10 o'clock

And if you just turn around, you can see the river - side that has a huge, really nice promenade on his side with dozens of small cafes that invite you to enjoy the nice area for a while.

Back to the Road

From Bucharest to Varna I booked an Busride by Pegasus BG directly over rome2rio. I love doing that, because r2r allows payment in all flavors that you could imagine. And even thought I booked the ticket on this very morning in front of the station I had no trouble getting one. They could had been sold out and then I would had to use the Train again. But they had not. Everything was fine. The Bus came on time and .. it was nice!

(FANCY)

How to call an gamer ready LED Bus like that?

The popup party bus?

The PCI Party Express Bus?

The Tekkno bus?

Wanna know? The last one. Because all radio stations that the kind driver was listening to, had been playing 90s europe Tekkno all the time. That was reaaally ... weird. But also nice. 25€ well spend!

By the way, they send two busses because on the tour back, they would had more people. The 'Bus' of course is not really an Bus, but just an bigger Van. To be honest the seats might be a bit narrow for big asses. From what I heard. From a Friend <.< ... >.>

Anyway. We crossed Romania for about an Hour and I just can say how beautiful and peaceful everything looked to me. The boarder hat no surprises so far. Going out, they don't even bothered checking on our passports. Going into Bulgaria, they had at least checked them.

We had ONE break in Ruse. If you want to go to the toiled there you better should have an 1 lev coin. If not? Well. Piss yourself. Selling one lev coins on this station would make you rich!

Bulgaria

In the past Romania and Bulgaria had not been the biggest friends... And the road between them is still a bit simple. No highway connection. And I can see why, because most of the time we really had been the only car on the road. For me, from germany, the densitity besides the road was crazy low. Look at this:

Bedtime

On 19:00 we arrived on Varna BUS Station, yes, not Railstation, and it was on point the time when we should arrive. From there I walked down to my Hostel and checked in for two nights. 26€ for that. The hostel it very nice and in a cool location. But snorting people and screaming kids are always an Risk.

Not as if you buy some lego for the bout 70€ that I spend this day. Like the 70828 Popup Party Bus, that once had cost the same price!

[merulast]

Overland to Tokyo Day 3

Hello everyone. After just four hours of sleep I arrived at Budapest yesterday. Even thought the Flixbus did arrive in the end. You still feel like people feel after they arrived in the city.

The next stupid thing was, that the ATM took my "no" as "yes" and transformed 100€ into money that I now had to spend. Without me demanding anything for money. Needless to say that I payd 17€ just as booking fee. Now thats a way to start!

(stockphoto that I totally own)

I took a cap to the area round the Train station. The Keleti Station itself is amazing and got an modern basement layer that connects smoothly to everything around of it. Also the underground. The people are friendly and so far there was no trouble ahead.

In the end I wasted another 18k for lock up my bags. Thats insane expensive but. Too tiered to bargain... Keleti should have an public shower. But that one was out of order. Urgs.

(one of the Budapest Keleti entrace Halls. Fancy!)

So I started to kill alooot of time. The smal coffee shops near the station are an nice place to do so. I also walked around till my injured left food told me, that If I continue, I would not fit into the shoe anymore.

I decided to get rid of the remaining Money by changing it back. In Keleti was an Terminal. But before I could speak to them, an young guy asked me if I would like to buy euro. And well. I did. He had by far the best rate in the entire city and since I grew up with euro I was able to be pretty sure, its real money. And if not - I would had to waste it anyway. So I got 40€ of my euros back. Thank you, unknown money laundry man! Too bad he also had no shower to offer :/

Back on track

(Klumpi in action!)

SO. 4 more Hours till the Train would arrive. I booked my ticket online on the MÀV homepage for bout 35€ with the result that I had not known a Track number. So where to get this number? Well. You can camp in front of the HUGE display and wait till your connection popps up. But I wanted to nap on the right track. Another thing is, that the tracks have ticket-terminals that also allow you to display when trains arrive and depart. And they have an (hidden?) touch feature that allows you to scroll down. It was Track 1. I was even able to see that the train will arrive 2 hours later.

So I went to that track. Yes. It came 2 hours early. But you cannot get into it right now, because they need to change the segments from [locomotive][sitting wagons][sleeping ones] into an order with the locomotive beeing the last one. This took time. So long I tried to find my Wagon by number. Let say, that the sleeping wagons DO have different numbering. You can (or cannot) find it in the windows. It has the size of an Post-it. I decided to take an lower bed in a 4 ppl apartment and seeing how narrow the 6ppl ones are .. Pfew. You did well, past me. You did well!

On board!

I hope you printed the tickets. Sure they have an QR Code and you can see them in the MAV App. But that means nothing. They want, they demand to collect the ticket as a paper. It is generally an good Idea to always print the tickets. Just because an mobile could fail you. Or get stolen.

There are plenty of different Night-Trains from Budapest to Bucharest every day. At least 3. I took this one because I liked the time schedule most, and to my surprise it was a bit cheaper.

NOW I should find out WHY.

This was not the Night Train from Vienna (Wien) to Bucharest. That one with the dining Wagon. The Showers and new Toilets. That one from all the youtube videos.

No this one was an different one. The older ones ;) So no food Wagon. No water dispensers. No new Toilets. No usb. No Wifi. Not even power plugs and not even light. Yes. Not even light. The 40 years old pulp on the ceiling was illuminating nothing but itself.

Ever had to reject border-policemen asking for more light? No? This is a one in a lifetime chance to get away with it - lol.

But there was Air-Conditioning. It was loud like an main road in the rush hour and you could NOT switch it off. Remarkably there was almost now air coming out of it.

BUT whatever. The first thing all of us did was taking an 3h nap. Looks like really everyone that a rough night before. Then I met Alex. An nice Englishman that lived in Budapest. Since the 3th person, from Poland, was not able to communicate with us, we decided that on night we would open the window, and sleep head on to the opened door. Hopefully having enough air.

We did not. Because it started to rain and blow so hard, that you had to close the window. The tracks got significant worse in Romania. May times the whole train got hit SO hard by something on the ground, that you wake up and believe that this will be the end.

And it was so fucking noisy. Ive seen a v-tuber that complained that suddenly THIS train he took (in Kaszachstan) was very loud and he don't knew why. Okay. Now I understand him.

Still love sleeping trains. In ear headphones ftw. Oh an, the mobile network never went down for longer than minutes. Unbeliveable. In germany you are offline after what? 10 Minutes on track? Gotta love this.

Still alive

(Still had no cake)

Anyway. I'm on schedule. I'm alive. An little bit exhausted but still not fed up with being on the tracks. Lets hope ill find a shower soon <.<

Oh and, I spend 50€ yesterday (ticket plus foods) this money also could get you an Lego Stitch 43249.

(cute but stupidly expensive)

[merulast]

Overland to Tokyo Day 2

The second day was more or less like an jump and run game. I crossed germany by not doing less then seven transport Changes.

(Kaizo Mario - sort of!)

And even thought all of that changes took art inside of the Deutsche Bahn, I arrived on the very beginning of the time window that I had for this task.

But first thing first. Nuernberg Main Station. Avoid this place. As you know I life close to Frankfurt. And the Frankfurt Main station is quoted as that one with the worst drug abuse in the country. Yeah. But they also have about 40 police guys watching over it all day.

Nuernberg has not. And I was shocked how it had became the last 15 years. It never had been nice there, but this is insane. About 20 homeless people. Many Drug users that yell for money. Not even 10 Minutes without 2 people scream at each other at an maximum volume. And not a single, A SINGLE cop in sign. I have no fucking idea whats going on at this place. But how could you like that

Connection Delayed

Imagine you arrived not just on time but in 18 o'clock. Four hours early because for everyones surprise there had been no train delays on this day. And then you puddle on the train station for 4 hours. Soaring in boredom. Just asking for a warm Bed, well knowing there wont one. Just a bus. But not even the bus came.

Did I got an warning? That the bus would be late? No. The FlixbusApp still said that is everything is okay. At least till about 22:30 when suddenly the 'more details' button poppep up. Great. Why THEN? The panel on the bus station knew about this fact since 20 o'clock. Did you just dont wanted anyone to do something usefull with that time?

But worse: The time changed! Sometimes 105 Minutes, sometimes 90. So you could not just come "later". You had to stand on this station. In the rain. And 2°C. Tiered. And Wait.

Thank you very much for this 2/10 night. Oh and yes my seat. I paid 5€ for it. Was taken by one of the drivers so he could sleep laying over the entire first row. This means that 3 ppl, including me, just wasted money for nothing.

I mean yeah. They had been late. So what? But it was a perfect score of awfulness for me. The kickoff!

Whatever. I was able to sleep for about 4,5h in my seat. Enough to write this lines before I hopp over to the night-train to Bucharest.

(Passau, beautifull city with bout 4 kilometers of pedestrian zone!)

[merulast]

Day 2 preview

Gotta be an loooong night out in the cold!