Slovakian Turnaround
Although almost nobody spoke English there, Ukraine had a warmth and unpredictable humour about it that the comfortably-off EU couldn’t quite match; I was reluctant to leave. I stayed two slothful, warmly basking days, then checked the map, said goodbye, and pointed the Tuono west into Slovakia, the Euro and predictability. So I thought.
As I crossed the border at Uzhhorod (Ужгород), the rain started. Irritable border guards tried to prise me out from under a sheltering roof back into the (waterlogged) queue. I mimed that I didn’t understand and stayed under cover. Eventually the snake of cars, vans and buses crawled past a huge carpark full of stolen vehicles, through the puddles and into the shiny new EU customs zone. The glossy building was also showcasing an oversupply of customs officers sitting eating sandwiches in a snug canteen as the waiting migrants turned to shivering human jelly outside. EU efficiency my arse. Just to annoy them I pretended I couldn't start the bike under the raised barrier, much to their satisfying irritation.
Once into Slovakia, the weather didn’t improve. Rivers ran across the road, complete with their own oil slicks. An abusive bus driver shouted at me to move my bike and drenched body out of the shelter of a bus stop. I cursed everything and everybody, including my phone which had filled up with water and stopped showing me my location and potential route. I cursed my decision to leave Ukraine most of all.
Squeezed in under a road bridge, I wrung out my gloves, and flipped a virtual coin. South, into Hungary, or continue west towards Bratislava and the Adriatic. Bratislava won, and curiously, as I headed west, the sun broke through, the roads dried, birds started singing and I felt a certain sympathy with Shackleton when he sighted South Georgia and salvation.
Within half an hour the sun was fully out and I had lucked onto the best, most challenging and enjoyable road of my trip so far — the 75 from Lučenec to Patince. It was sublime.
160km of massive Carpathian canyons, twisties, sweepers, cliffs, river crossings, forests — all laid with tarmac to die for, and an up-for-it Audi A3 showing me the way. The Audi driver obviously knew the road like the back of his horse, and kept to at least 140kph, everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.
I tailed him for about 80km, but then his local knowledge (and bravery) prevailed and I slipped back. The grin on my face nearly split my helmet. I stopped for a sandwich (still soggy) by the side of a tinkling stream, and relaxed into a gentle pootle as I continued — lucky, as just down the road a group of police were busy pulling over all Mr Audi’s friends on a particularly go-faster stretch of 75 gnadgery. As I rolled west, the canyons eased open, the fields turned to glorious yellow mustard and I blessed the gods that had let me chance on this wonderful part of the world.
Then, as though my cup wasn’t full enough, a guy on a Yamaha MT-01 flipped out of a side road and gave me a wave. It was back on. Our average rose to 150kph, but on side roads parallel with the main drag, with no police — or any traffic for that matter.
Eventually, he slowed and stopped for a fag break. I pulled up next to him. “What a f***king amazing road,” I shouted in English. “Yes,” he replied, grinning. He told me his name was Bacul, and he had his own custom shop called BLC Racing in a village called Patince just down the road. He said his wife Oli was waiting there for him, so why didn’t I follow him. I did, and when we got the the village, he asked where I was staying. My usual “I don’t know” answer prompted a short conversation in Slovakian, then Bacul suggested I come and stay at his place. I think he had missed out the “a”. It was more like a palace.
I had my own massive bedroom, and Bacul wheeled my bike into the underground car park for some unexpectedly cosseting shelter. Oli served us all a welcome drink, then mentioned that tonight there was a traditional festival where villagers would have a barbecue on the banks of the nearby Danube then launch candle-lit paper boats onto the dusky waters, one for each villager. Would I like to come along?
I hesitated for almost half a nanosecond. We rolled up to the launch zone, where a bonfire, as well as a load of tipsy villagers, was already sparking into life. We drank loads more beer, ate a negligible amount of barbecued pork and bread, lit candles and set them afloat under a crystal moon, and I was invited by a particularly friendly local woman to come back to her place to try some homemade wine. Above us the moon twinkled and the wind whispered as huge river cruisers full of paid-up, locked-up tourists slunk by in the gloomy shadows, watching our fire and the paper boats we launched in celebration of the simple joy of life.
One of the drinkers, Lepeth, was sufficiently drunk and unsteady on his feet that I mentioned jokingly he might fit in well in Australia. A chorus of people immediately suggested they start a fund then and there to make sure he left for Australia as soon as possible; I don’t think it was the first time he had been drunk in company.
A slightly more sober participant whispered to me that the friendly woman with the homemade wine was married, but the party went on regardless as the darkness fell and the sound of shotgun blasts rang out from Hungary, away across the other side of the river.
Next morning Oli made us all the best breakfast ever, Bacul gave me a t-shirt with his own special logo on it, and told me he had almost finished checking and sorting my bike’s oil level, chain tension and tyre pressures before I was up. He also showed me some of the custom bikes he had built, and some of the prizes he had deservedly won for them. His massive dobermanns licked me chummily as I climbed onto the Tuono.
As I rode out of Patince in the sunshine, bike fettled, belly full, and only the promise of that special homemade wine unfulfilled, I reflected that even if a day starts poorly, it sometimes turns out pretty well. I think I took the right route that day.
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