Arto's Blog

Last weekend I celebrated my 29th birthday hiking and camping out in the wild. The picture is from the top of Mt. Pietrosul, the highest peak of the Calimani mountains. At 2102 meters above sea level it's not very high, but the views were still great. And I had great company plus chocolate pudding for the birthday breakfast. :)

After a couple of days in Targu Mures and the Calimani mountains I rode 50 km south to the town of Sighisoara. It was a pittoresque town, no surprise as it's included in the Unesco World Heritage list, but one afternoon and morning was enough for me to see it. Today I continued further east to Odorheiu Secuiesc or perhaps I should rather say Szekelyudvarhely, which is the Hungarian name. Most of the inhabitants here are ethnic Hungarians and that's by far the most common language heard on the streets too. Unfortunately I've already forgot some of the words I learned in Hungary, and I find it difficult to set my mind to "Hungarian mode" as I've tried to pick up at least a few words of Romanian during the last three weeks.

An interesting detail told me by Erika, my host in Targu Mures (who was also Hungarian), was that you can often distinguish Romanian and Hungarian houses by the color of the gates. Blue gates are Romanian, green ones Hungarian and others could be either. Red seems to be a common color too, I saw a lot of red and green gates today when riding through villages.

My bike also had a special day today, as the odometer went over the 30000 km mark. Roughly half of the parts have been changed at least once since I bought it but it has still seen a lot of road for a bike. On this trip I'm at 4540 km and will add about 90 tomorrow riding to Lacu Rosu, yet another mountain lake which should be a beautiful place.

As a technical note, my site has been moved to a new server which uses a more recent version of php. This finally resolves an annoying bug with the admin interface of the blog software. If you notice that something has been broken due to the upgrade, please drop me a line.

Last Tuesday I was cycling in Northern Transsylvania and planning to camp or stay in a pension somewhere by lake Colibita, a beautiful mountain lake next to the Calimani mountains. The road was following the lake shore but from a few dozen to a couple of hundred meters away from it. I took a smaller road which seemed to lead towards the shore through a small patch of forest, hoping to find a place to camp or at least take a swim.

I indeed found the shore, but also about one hundred sheep, a few dogs and two shepherds there. They were quite surprised to see such an unusual visitor. I greeted them and we exchanged a few words in Romanian using the very limited vocabulary I had learned from my phrasebook during the trip. Then I asked if I could camp somewhere nearby. After pondering for a few moments they pointed at two houses saying that a third shepherd had a free room and I could sleep there.

In a moment I found myself in a small but beautifully decorated guest room. It had a separate entrance from the house and looked like it might be a room to rent for agroturistic holidays. I'm not sure if that was the case (I didn't see any signs indicating that), but at least this time they wouldn't accept any money when I offered to pay for the room.

The shepherds went back to take the sheep in a fenced area for the night. I had some bread, cheese and fruit for dinner and walked out to the lakeshore which made the dogs go wild for a while. The shepherds were still within eyesight so I wasn't too scared of the dogs but I abandoned my plans for swimming. After a while the owner of the room came and asked me to turn off the small lamp - the house didn't have electricity and the lamp was being powered by the tractor battery! I switched to my own headlamp, put my own bedsheet on top of the bed and was just about to start writing my travel diary as the owner came back and invited me to have a drink.

It was a bit more than one drink. I joined the dinner of the shepherds which consisted of several cups of home made palinka (a kind of aperitif) followed by soup, meat, vegetables and wine. I tried to share some of the food I had but they wouldn't even want to taste salmiakki. ;) This was one of the occasions where I really wanted to be able to speak the local language, but even without many common words we managed to communicate a little bit. In the morning I was still treated to a similar breakfast (well, with a bit less palinka) before I was let on the road again. I left an origami swan, which seemed to be a funny thing to them, as a small memory and got their address so that I can send at least a postcard later.

This was not the only case of Romanian hospitality I've encountered during my trip. Near Gherla I met two local cyclists and we rode about 30 kilometers together. One of them, Alin, invited me to stay for the night at his home with his grandparents and I also there I was offered delicious meals and food to go on the trip. In the Apuseni mountains I met Michael from Germany and Tibi from Romania (but who was living in Germany), had a dinner with them and later also met Tibi's wife in Bistrita. I came to Romania with few contacts and little knowledge of the country but I seem to meet wonderfully friendly people all the time.

Now I'm in Targu Mures, staying with Erika, a Hospitality Club member. She loves mountains and tomorrow we're going for a weekend trip to Calimani mountains together with three other friends of her. I'll see if I'll meet more foxes or other animals there. :)

I like traveling without advance reservations. While on the road I often don't know in the morning where I'll spend the following night. Usually it's easy to find a hostel, a guesthouse or a nice place to camp. However, sometimes everything doesn't go exactly as planned and that can add some extra spice to the trip.

Scene 1: Hospitality of an alcoholist

Last Tuesday I was looking for a hotel or guesthouse in a small town called Jozefow. According to my map there should have been one, but a quick tour in the city center didn't reveal any. I stopped at the main square by the pharmacy and asked two men if they knew the way.

One of the men was willing to help. He first seemed to have an idea of where the hotel might be, but then muttered something which maybe meant that it's closed or that he didn't know after all. Then he asked me to follow saying that he has a sofa and I could sleep there. Well, why not, I thought, even a place to set up the tent would be enough. It was obvious that the man had had a couple of drinks but it didn't look too bad.

Ten minutes later I was in his flat. If I'd make a list of the worst flats I've seen, that would have probably scored the top. Yes, there was a room with the sofa, plus a table, a chair, a TV and even a tiny bathroom. Besides that, the furnishing consisted of a few dirty plates and cups, beer bottles and cigarette stubs which were all over the place. The short corridor between the bathroom and the room was flooded — it later turned out that flushing the toilet would spill part of the water on the floor. At that point I would have rather escaped, but it was too late. All my bags were in the flat, my bike locked in the cellar storage room and it was already dark outside.

My host's name was Krysztof and he was more drunk than he earlier appeared to be. He offered me a beer and was clearly happy when I had working matches (his own were wet) and could help to light his cigarette. I accepted the beer but successfully refused remains of some unidentifiable foodstuff from the bottom of a jar. Krysztof did not want my bananas or oranges. He clearly wanted to have a conversation with me, but due to the language barrier we didn't get much further than saying our names and where I come from.

I thought it would work out best if he had some sleep so quite early I indicated that I was tired. Krysztof produced a surprisingly clean camping mattress from behind his bed and insisted that I'd use that instead of my own. I took it but replaced the offered moist blanket with my own bedsheet. I placed the mattress strategically so that he had an unobstructed path to the bathroom, my handlebar bag with valuables and bicycle helmet were next to me under the table so that he couldn't fall on them and started thinking about scenarios which could occur next morning. Fortunately Krysztof also soon crashed on the sofa.

I even managed to get several hours of sleep before around six Krysztof woke up and decided he needed more beer. There wasn't any left in the flat. I suggested the shop and he came to the conclusion that it's best that I leave at the same time. I was more than happy with that solution, so quicker than ever I had all my stuff out, my bike out from the cellar and I was on the road again. Krysztof headed towards the shop and I gave him 10 zlotys (2.5 euros) beer money. After all, although I didn't particularly enjoy the night, he tried his best to be friendly and offer his hospitality. Maybe my visit was a highlight for him and made a good story later in the local pub, or maybe it was quickly forgotten — I'll never know.

Scene 2: Camping at a meat factory

Two days later I was in a bit larger town called Wolbrom in the same situation as in Jozefow. I had planned to go a youth hostel which was marked on my map but couldn't easily find it and it was getting late. This time I chose a group of young guys and girls to ask for help. They had no idea about the hostel but knew about a new hotel nearby. However, they said that the hotel would be expensive and offered a safe place for my tent. Sure, I thought I'd give it a go and opted for the camping.

The guy leading the discussion turned out to be the son of a meat factory owner. Incidentally, also his name was Krysztof, but I knew it was going to be a different experience this time. The place to camp was in a guarded area on the yard of the factory. There was a large lawn which was perfect for the tent and even a toilet and washroom I could use. I quickly set up the tent and went back to the city center with my new friends.

That was a fun night. First we went to a kebab joint to get the biggest kebab I've ever had — one of the girls worked at the place and decided to make a special one for the crazy Finnish cyclist. Then a few drinks in a local bar, interesting discussions (Krysztof spoke good English) followed by a visit at his brother's place.

Next morning I was led through the factory to take a shower and treated to a sumptuous breakfast in Krysztof's father's office. Other employees were certainly curious about who on earth had first put up the tent in the front yard and then was accompanied to the executive section of the offices. :) During the morning I also met Krysztof's father, mother and his second brother, and got a kilo of different sausages as the farewell present. We'll keep in touch via email.

My trip has advanced until Liepaja, Latvia. After Tartu I continued towards south-west, spent one night in Sangaste castle and crossed the border in Valga. There were some very nice places and very bad gravel roads in the Gauja national park on my way to Riga. Mostly the roads were perfectly okay, though.

In Riga airport I met my old cycling friends Mikko and Sami and we've been riding together since then. We spent the midsummer in a camping area in Mersrags. It was actually quite similar to the Finnish midsummer, with a big bonfire built of old boats. Then we continued along the coast to cape Kolka.

The best part was the beach to the south from Kolka. We spent one whole sunny day riding on the beach, occasionally stopping for a picnic or swimming. It was actually much easier than the road would have been, and the scenery certainly beat the roadside 10-0.

We also had our first stays with Hospitality Club members in Jurmala and Ventspils. Greetings and thanks to valmundos and walx! Currently we are in Liepaja, Latvia, and will continue towards Klaipeda in Lithuania, the Curonian Spit and Kaliningrad.

The possibility to leave comments in the blog has been at least temporarily disabled due to excessive comment spam. I'll try to find a better solution later, but meanwhile you're welcome to send feedback simply by email to ajt@iki.fi.

Hi, I'm coming to Helsinki for a couple of days, could you host me?. Since last September I've received such emails about once a month. Hospitality Club and other hospitality exchange networks make it perfectly acceptable social behaviour to ask questions like that from people you've never met. While that might sound strange at first, it's great fun for both the hosts and the guests. So the right answer to the question is yes. ;)

In a way, it's like bringing an ancient tradition to Internet age. People didn't use to lock their doors and offered food and shelter for strangers who happened to pass by. The development of transport and accommodation services has made it easier than ever to travel, but at the same time has in the worst case reduced contacts with local inhabitants to transactions in a souvenir shop. It's no surprise that people are forming communities where these barriers are broken again. The Internet makes it easier than ever.

As the networks grow, also larger meetings are organized. Last week from Thursday to Sunday there was a Hospitality Club event in Helsinki with more than 130 participants. I met again some truly wonderful people and had good time. Everyone else seemed to do as well, so the event was a success. You can take a peek at the event website if you like.

However, no matter the size of the club, the real core of it is still small encounters between just a few people. That will be one of the new elements during my upcoming trip. I will be visiting some friends I've hosted in Helsinki, and others whom I will meet the first time when arriving at their front door. I'm looking forward to that.