Today’s lesson: Minimize stopping time or you miss the party.
Ending Point: N46°16 E22°36
Distance Traveled: 341.9 miles
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After a good night’s sleep at the campground, we woke up ready for a full day thanks to the tolling of the town’s bells right at 6:00 AM. While Chase packed up the tent and arranged the car, Charla made her now world-famous scrambled eggs on the camp stove. Pandaland approved! (Yes, now they are even more famous! Or was it the Nutella bread on the side?) We crossed the border into Slovakia with ease, leaving us time for a photo shoot with the country’s welcome sign and to purchase the necessary vignette for our vehicles; the former was much more exciting than the latter. Despite a couple of stops in search of postcards, we came up empty-handed and pushed on to the Hungarian border. Not too far from the border, we had a Panda convoy mishap and watched as the yellow Panda headed down the wrong highway. We pulled over with the leading team to search for them—more or less staying still until they could circle around to find us. We made signs for passersby on the road and even tried hitchhiking to Mongolia. We couldn’t find anyone to pick the six of us up, however, and so we were thrilled to see the yellow Panda come around. From there, we headed into Hungary, where the border crossing followed a similar pattern of photos and vignettes. Just inside the border, we found ourselves driving alongside row after row of sunflowers. Who knew Hungary was famous for its sunflowers? As appropriate for the name, a few of our teammates were hungry, and we found a local café for lunch. While it was nice to take a rest from time in the car, the long lunch unfortunately put us much behind our schedule. We pushed on, though, as we took the lead and finally made the Romanian border. We’ve been talking for a while about when we will feel a change—about when we will start to feel like we are at the end of Europe. It happened today. The Romanian border was easy for the EU Ralliers, but we were held up for a while as they checked our documents and stamped appropriately. As the border foreshadowed, entering Romania was pretty hectic. We first went through the city of Oradea, where we’re really surprised we didn’t lose the other two cars in traffic. Then, we set off on by far the worst road we’ve been on yet. There were sheep that came out of nowhere. At one point, the road functioned as a cow path. Then, we got into the mountains. The scenery was breathtaking, as were the sizes of the potholes in which we nearly lost a couple of Fiats. The crazy road made for slow traveling time. We had hoped to make it to a Pit Stop party in Sibiu, but we settled in Halmagel after finding a Pensiunea Minerva that was coincidentally hosting the R.A.T. (the Romanian Adventure Trophy, an off-road navigation rally) We got a good deal as a different kind of Rally group and settled in for the night with a local dinner of meats, cheese, tomatoes, potatoes, and bread. Today’s lesson: Minimize stopping time or you miss the party. Starting Point: N49°37 E20°42
Ending Point: N46°16 E22°36 Distance Traveled: 341.9 miles
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After checking all our preparations for the Rally one or two more times, we decided a delicious lunch was in order. The owner of the campground had recommended Chipwick for the most award-winning fish & chips in Worthing, so we headed back to that little town. Yesterday we had thought our fish & chips were amazing, but today we realized why Chipwick was award-winning! Absolutely delicious! We knew we were leaving the English seaside after today, and this was definitely the best last meal for us to eat. We were moving camp closer to tomorrow’s Mongol Rally starting line, and we had found a campground not too far away. Well, maybe not a campground per sé, but a pub that allowed camping. What could go wrong? We were even in touch with Dillion and Lisa from Team Innocents Abroad, and we’d get to meet our first Rally team before we even got to the starting line! When we arrived in Boreham Street, we found out why the village got its name: the village literally consists of one street about one kilometer long. We parked and set ourselves up behind the Bull’s Head Pub, and before long Team Innocents Abroad also pulled in to set up camp. After exploring the little village, there was time for dinner and some local Harvey’s beer made right there in Sussex. The bartender tried to convince us to stay one more night because tomorrow was the Boreham Street & Wartling Annual Fair, but unfortunately we knew we had bigger plans for the next morning!
The coach dropped us off around 12:30 AM at Heathrow at terminals 1-3, where it is also possible to take a train to terminals 4 and 5. Unfortunately, the train doesn’t run late at night/early in the morning, so we were stuck in that part of the airport for a few hours. Many folks had already found their places among lines of chairs. Clearly, none of these people had explored the terminal before setting up, as a short walk led us to the plush British Airways first class check-in waiting area, where we spent the night The hours passed quickly, and soon we were boarding our Alitalia flight to Roma in the mass of a most confusing queue/herd of people. The British attempted to queue neatly, but the Italian passengers made sure that didn’t happen. After a short flight to Roma that took us on a scenic journey over the Alps, we boarded an even shorter flight to Trieste that took us over the Adriatic Sea. Landing in Trieste, we discovered a herd of interestingly dressed people, who we later heard were en route to a music festival in Croatia. [Again, note to selves: Research festivals nearby.]
A drive along the coast brought us into the gorgeous city of Trieste, whose architecture is a mixed salad of Italian and Austro-Hungarian Imperial seaside styles. We admired the sea and the city while eating pizza after Charla checked in at the Trieste Joyce School. In true Italian fashion, our night ended with a walk around Piazza dell’Unità d’Italia and some gelato. Still trying figure out what time of day it was, though sufficiently helped by the first darkness we had experienced in weeks, we slept in rather later than normal. After a slow start and some personal admin, we made our way to Victoria Coach Station, where we caught the bus to Bristol to see a friend of Charla’s that she met on a crazy night on Lonely Beach on Koh Chang a few years ago. After sitting in London traffic for ages, we crawled out of the city, and the journey took us through some beautiful farm country. While Charla was counting sheep in her dreams, Chase was admiring the landscape filled with them. [We later learned this traffic was not just a Friday night occurrence but that many of the buses were headed in our direction to reach the Glastonbury festival not too far from our destination. Note to selves: Investigate festivals nearby our travels and go to them!] Upon arriving in Bristol over an hour late, we walked around the station to see what we thought might be Samantha’s vehicle just drive off. Since we missed her, we popped into the White Hart, contacted her, and waited to see her again. In true Koh Chang spirit, as soon as we met up with Samantha, we went straight to another pub for some amazing food and drink. Though not the Ting Tong Bar, we loved the Kensington Arms for its cozy atmosphere and wonderful local, organic food. Charla went for the classic fish and chips while Chase ordered the bacon-wrapped monkfish. Delighted with our meals, we went on a bit of a walk around town, ending up on Whiteladies Street at the W.G. Grace Pub, where Chase practiced his skills at balancing a 50p piece on a lemon floating in a bowl of water. The game may sound silly, but it’s quite a challenge (and the proceeds went to charity). Our night ended with a stroll back to Samantha’s flat.
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