Start with a Polish Accent

The plaque offered by Pilsudski reading: “Thank you Lady for Vilnius”

Intercity bus: Warsaw – Vilnius, 14 July 2011, 23:30

We came down to earth with a bump and it happened quite soon – Warsaw, the first day of our journey. The bump was much more painful for our bums though.

Off with the Hair!

off with the hair and ready to go

Off with the hair! I had my hair shaved by Marcin for the first time in my life – a kind of rite of passage. Just closed my eyes and entrusted my decent look to my husband. Afterall, trust is the most important in a relationship and in a long-term journey like ours this is all you have. Marcin obviously entrusted his decent look to my hands, but this was far less risky, on one hand, because it was not the first time and secondly Marcin’s decent look can’t be spoilt easily.

Backpacks ready, last hugs and kisses and off we go… Next destination – Vilnius.

Ciao

No way back for backpackers

Our Asia Route

A journey, after all, neither begins in the instant we set out, nor ends when we have reached our door step once again. It starts much earlier and is really never over, because the film of memory continues running on inside of us long after we have come to a physical standstill. Indeed, there exists something like a contagion of travel, and the disease is essentially incurable. – Ryszard Kapuscinski, “Travels with Herodotus”

Here we are, 2 days ahead of our Asian adventure start and 3 days to our 5th wedding anniversary. A year of planning and sacrifices, dreaming of the faraway lands, many doubts and heated discussions and today we got a bus ticket to Vilnius (Lithuania) – our first and only stop before we reach St. Petersburg and Moscow, where Trans-Mongolian train departs with us on board.

Backpacks almost ready waiting in the corner to be carried by one owner for a year around Russian Lake Baikal, on the Mongolian steppes, in the Chinese mountains, among Vietnamese hill-tribes, Cambodian Angkor Temples, on Thai and Malaysian beaches, Nepalese roof of the world, in the land of thousand colours – India, Jordanian Petra and Turkish bazaars. You can’t blame the backpacks to be so eager to hit the road. They do realise wear and tear and an urgent need of a wash will be part of this trip. Yet, this is what a backpack is looking forward to because it’s the backpack’s nature.