OnTheRoad

Eastern Europe seems frightningly expensive compared to SE Asia. For the price of a Bratislava dorm bed I could be in three, possibly four start accomodation in most parts of SE Asia. Sigh. Anyway, it is nice to see something different. If I don't see a wat/pagoda/stupa for a long time, it'll be too soon :D

New Zealand is such a new country, we really don't have much history. Even the Maori history only stretches back a tiny fragment of the time that people have settled both Asia and Europe. Asia was completely different; it feels somehow more what I expect when I see fairy tale castles hanging from cliffs above cities here.

So I've visited Bratislava, but didn't get around to posting anything. I'd put up the pictures I took, but this useless internet cafe won't let me plug in my laptop, or install photo editing tools or do anything much. I had to circumvent some of their security just to access this site, 'cause the secure stuff (for login and whatnot) runs on a non-standard port for https and they didn't want that. C'est la vie.

Anyway, back to the point. Bratislava is quite nice; Lonely Planet makes it sound grim, but I liked the place well enough. It's odd though, you climb up to the castle and you get a few different perspectives. You look to the south, you can see wind turbine farms, very modern looking. You look east across the river and you see huge, soviet error concrete apartment blocks, row after row, all identical. Then you look down onto the old town, slate rooftops, churches, squares and see the (presumably idealised) version of what used to be here. You really can see the history :)

Jumped on a short train trip up to Trencin yesterday afternoon. Cute town, much quieter feel to it than Bratislava. Finding the information centre prooved to be quite a task, one that remained unaccomplished until this morning. First up, the LP map shows it located in the middle of a roundabout. A roundabout full of trees. I figured out this was wrong without having to go and explore the jungle... Luckly I spotted a map board nearby and found the information centre on it. After getting there, I saw that there was construction (closer to deconstruction) work going on in front of it, and there was an orange arrow on the Information Centre sign pointing to the right. I followed the arrow, but found nothing. I came back later, repeated the process, found nothing again. Finally, after seeking help from the checkin at my pension, I discovered that it's still open and that the orange arrow is merely an elaborate deception so that they don't have to do any work. You just walk a convoluted path through another building and you can still get to it!

So, today I want to check out the castle on the hill. I've got a pile of flyers with stuff to go and look at, but I've got to get some work done today. This internet cafe which won't let me plug my laptop in really is a pain in the arse though, if I can't find net I'm going to have to leave Trencin, otherwise I plan to hang here until the weekend.