Day 54: I feel sLOVEnia!!

(Him: Charlie)

"I feel SLOVENIA" is the latest tourism promotion slogan, and that’s exactly what I would say if I had to sum up Slovenia in one sentence! From serene Alps valleys to spectacular natural wonders, from nostalgic castles to charming coastal towns, from laid-back sun-bathing to extreme sports, this tiny little country has everything a tourist could ask for. We love Slovenia so much that we ended up spending disproportionally longer time and higher budget here, but it’s worth it. In fact, I would say every place we went in Slovenia is a highlight!

"Bluer-than-blue" Soca River and majestic Julian Alps

I’ve never seen river water so clean and so clear. Thanks to lime stones on river bed, the turquoise river becomes one of the best scenery we’ve seen this trip. The majestic Julian Alps are a haven for extreme sports that guarantee adrenaline rushes. We chosen to go with rafting on the lovely Soca River, outdoor climbing, and of course, canyoning for the first time! 

Fairytale-like castles and dragons

Legend has it that the founder of Ljubljana, Jason, conquered a dragon to found the ancient Ljubljana. Today, dragon is a symbol of Ljubljana, and can be found everywhere, including the Slovenia license plates! Slovenians (and their ancestors) like to build castles atop cliffs, which directly injected the fuel to the booming tourism industry! Job well done!

My favourite castle of the ones I’ve seen is the Predjama Castle, which has a network of natural Karst caves underneath the castle! I've been wanting to visit this castle for a long time. And now... another item crossed on the bucket list!

Picture-perfect Bled Lake

What can I say! This place seems it was created just for photos!

Charming Venetian-style Coastal Town
The coastal Slovenia is a change of scenery for us. Thanks to the Roman Empire and Venetian Republic legacy, the style of the towns here are entirely different than any other countries we've been so far.


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Perfect Life of a Slovenian
During our three days in the charming Soca Valley, we met Matic, the owner of Adrenaline Check Eco-Camp. He's about my age, probably a few years older, but he's got one of the most envious lives.


Born and raised in Slovenia, Matic studied tourism in college, and further advanced his tourism experience in Canada and USA for a couple of years. Since 5 years ago, he co-founded the eco-camp, just in time for the boom of eco-tourism in this region of Slovenia. Not only Matic gets a cool job of leading extreme sports in the valley and greeting international tourists, he also has his whole family by his side almost 24/7. In the summer, his whole family stays at the eco-camp, so Matic can spend time with them as much as they can. Matic's two kids (3-yr-old and 5-yr-old) also get to grow up in the beautiful natural environment and the gigantic eco-camp. When winter comes, they would travel to Sri Lanka and operate their newly established surfing hostel.

Who doesn't like Matic's life? Perfect job with maximum family time! This life may seem a bit too wild for us the city folks, but I really admire his determination for spending time with family and his optimistic view in life. Although he's got lots of ideas for the eco-camp and other touristic business, he did admit he won't be doing this forever. So what will he do then? "Wherever life takes me", he said.


Isn't this what life is about? Seizing every opportunity that life throws at us, but more importantly, stay positive and flexible. As long as we have our family and friends supporting us, what more do we need?

Day 45: My first hitch-hiking experience – Bugac, Hungary

(Him: Charlie)

Background:

I would bet you $10 you haven’t heard of Bugac. I would even bet $5 many Hungarians do know where this place is either. This is how remote our destination is on this day-trip – Kiskunsag National Park, where we had a sneak peek of traditional Hungarian cowboys on the Great Hungarian Plain.

We knew public transit is not the ideal way to get there, but since it’s possible, we went ahead anyway. The route involved bus from Budapest to a small town (Kiskunfelegyahaza), then bus to an even smaller town (Bugac). And then the entrance to the national park is about 5 km west east of Bugac. On the way there, thanks to a local, we got off at an intersection that’s closest to the national park, and then successfully found the park entrance after 30min of walking. We were told that we would wait for the bus at the same intersection on the way back. And so we did…

The visit to the park was great and the cowboys with their horses were awesome, but then time came the return trip. It’s 3pm and the scorching sun ruthlessly burned our skin. AND being at the Great Hungarian Plain, there was hardly any shade to hide!! Just before when the bus was supposed to show up, we made to intersection with our bodies drenched in sweat. 5 min passed by, 10 min passed by… 20 min passed by, but we were still standing in the sun waiting for the bus. We had no idea what happened, but we must have missed the bus somehow. So our options were a) keep waiting in the sun, and the bus will show up within 1-2 hours, b) walk to Bugac, find a real bus stop and confirm schedule, and c) hitch-hike to Bugac and wait for the bus. Without much hesitation, we chose to hitch-hike.

Raising my arm and thumb was a struggle

I’ve never hitch hiked before, and it was quite a struggle for me before I even raised my hand. For some reasons, I consider hitch hiking quite embarrassing, so I thought I would take my time to “choose” a car that appears more “friendly”. But as many cars passed by and the sun became increasingly unbearable, I thought “Fuck it! I will take the next one up”. So there went my the arm and thumb up for the first time.

The first car that passed by was a small sedan with 2 men in it. They gave me a quick glance and continued on. “That’s not a good sign! Am I making a fool of myself?” I started to doubt. Feeling a bit dejected, but a part of me really wanted to keep trying, for getting out of here and for successful hitch hiking. So I continued on…

The second car was also an old clunky Russian Lada, probably as old as me. The two ladies inside saw me, made eye contact, slowed down and stopped! One lady poked her head out the window and I showed her on our note pad where we wanted to go. I could see their eyes filled with curiosity “what the hell are these two Chinese people doing here in the middle of nowhere?” Well, they could have their curiosity, but my worried turned to ecstasy as she started to unlock the back seat. I waved Joanna over and we jumped it!! It was a very old car with less than basic interior and, of course, no A/C. We continued to sweat like crazy but we were smiling. We tried to make conservation, but it was futile, as we couldn’t even say “thank you” in Hungarian. I hope they at least appreciated our smile and body language.

We were so relieved when we saw the town, and the bus stop with a cover. Although the ride took only 5-10 min, and we would have survived if we didn’t hitch-hike (although we may suffer a sunstroke), but nothing beats completing my first hitch hiking with a success!!

(Cowboy and horses on Great Hungarian Plain) 

Day 44: Step back in time, and have fun! – Szentendre, Hungary

(Him: Charlie)

“Two Thumps Up!” – JL

“One of the best ones we have seen so far!” – CC

Just when I started to feel numb about old buildings, castles and churches, serendipity came to my rescue! It was supposed to be a trip to another “pretty” town, but a museum in Szentendre saved our day – hence the remarks above.

This is the Szabadteri Neprajzi Muzeum, the largest and best open air village museum in Hungary. Showcasing villages from Hungary’s five distinct regions, the museum takes visitors back in time to experience the rural life. Each village has complete settings with real-life size dwelling houses, barns, churches, workshops, etc.

For us, experiencing the rustic life in a very basic form is intriguing. I am particularly impressed with the interesting tools people used in the past – water mills, wind mills, and even tread mills. These ingenuities have long been relics in this electric and carbon fuel era.

And as if the museum itself was not entertaining enough, how about hands-on soap making, home-made honey tasting, sheep herding, and learning some folk dancing?

All in all, Jo and I had a blast at the museum. What a surprise! Highly recommended!

(who can guess these are fire fighting engines!)

Day 43: Culture, a life line of Hungary – Budapest, Hungary

(Him: Charlie)

Budapest is a beautiful city. It’s also a very lively city as well. Jo and I compared Budapest with Prague and we feel that Budapest is a better city. Not only because Budapest has a more spread out old town (the Prague old town is only concentrated in one area, and does not seem to have not much outside of it), but it also is more metropolitan with tons of cultural events and modern life.

One of the things I noticed in Hungary is how proud Hungarians feel about their art heritage, and how well they preserve it. In Budapest, as well as other Hungarian cities, many squares, roads, landmark buildings are named after poets, composers, musicians, writers, architects, etc. If we take out the art from Hungary, a huge part of the Hungarian culture would be lost.

What would be biggest component of the Canadian culture? What about the Chinese culture?

(Thermal spring near Eger, Hungary)

Day 37: We found the Eastern Europe we had imagined – Kosice, Slovakia

(Him: Charlie)

We may be biased, but we had our own imagination of what Eastern Europe should look like. For the first time in this trip, we've found it. The last few countries that we visited are great, but they are also, shall we say, quite “Western Europe”. However, this is not the case in Slovakia, which is a bit more conservative and reserved.

Perhaps for the friendly people, perhaps for the beautiful sceneries, perhaps for the tourists, or the combination of various factors, we found Slovakia to be satisfying and very enjoyable! It is hard to articulate, but we just feel that Slovakia better resembles the Eastern Europe that we had imagined.

Day 35: Trekking the High Tatras, Poprad, Slovakia

(Him: Charlie)

As our bus passed through the Czech-Slovakia border, there was an almost instant change to the landscape. What was vineyard on the Czech side are now rugged mountains on the Slovakian side, in a matter of a couple hours. Maybe Czech and Slovakia are meant to be two separate countries?

Slovakia is famous for its mountains, with High Tatras being the most well-known region. The High Tatras is part of Alps. Even though it is the smallest mountain range amongst Alps mountains (at around 2600m at peak), apparently, it dwarfs many others in terms of natural beauty (I need to verify this on another trip). And this is precise the reason why we are here.

We spent 3 days trekking on the High Tatras. Unfortunately, since it’s still early in the trekking season, some of the trails at high elevations were closed. However, the flip side is that the trails were lightly visited and we got some really quality time to admire the pristine mountain lakes, glaciers, majestic mountain peaks, and gorgeous valleys. The hike was quite strenuous, but still manageable. In total, we hiked about 14-15 hours up and down various routes. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I’ll let the pictures speak for the High Tatras.

We stayed at a mountain hut (Zamkovsky) for accommodation on one of the days. Despite being isolated from towns and access roads, the hut was surprisingly cozy and the food was excellent. We had a chat with a boy working at the hut (he’s probably a university student). What caught our attention was that everything they sell at the hut has to be carried here by porters. I automatically thought that the hut may have hired labourers working as porters, just like porters on the Inca Trail. But I was so wrong... Little did I know that, by porters, the boy meant everyone working at the hut! Every morning when they go to work, they’d carry the supplies with them – water, beers, bread, you name it! Everyone does their bit.

I was humbled. I even felt guilty for thinking intensive labour works are done by “others”. From that moment on, we became more appreciative to everything that was offered by the hut.

(See the porter?)

Day 32: Retreat in tranquility - Mikulov, Czech Republic

(Him: Charlie)

There is no better way than celebrating one month on the road in Mikulov, Czech!

Instead of taking on more old towns and history, we chose to get off the beaten track and spend a few days in Mikulov, a small town sitting on the Austrian-Czech border. With a population of less than 8,000, Mikulov is sleepy at times, but certainly not lack-luster, because it’s at the heart of Czech’s wine country!

Czech is traditionally a beer drinking country. There are countless varieties of beers in Czech and people drink it just like water. In fact, beers in Czech are cheaper than almost all beverages, including soft drinks, and Czech has the highest per capita beer consumption in the world. Perhaps for that reason, Czech wines have never been very popular. However, after significant improvement in the last two decades, Czech wines, especially white wines have garnered international attentions.

The place we stayed at was Fontana Pension. Pensions are a popular type of accommodations in this part of the world. They are like B&B minus breakfast. When hostels are not available, we have to rely on pensions as budget accommodations. Our host, Michael, at Fontana Pension is a very warm and welcoming person. He does not speak much English, but he liked to talk to us. Every time he spoke to us, he would spit out English words slowly, but instead of silence in between words, the fillers were all Czech words in lightning speed. It’s hilarious how we had to pick up what he tried to say among gibberish! Our conversations ranged from hockey (he’s very proud of Czech’s national hero Tomas Kaberle), to dissing Slovakian wines, to our Euro-Asia trip. Michael is like a grown-up kid. His smiles and his genuine personality made us very relaxing and really feel at home.

For city people like us, the Moravian region (Mikulov and surrounding region) is serenity. On our bike ride to explore the wine country, the trail was flanked by endless crop fields and vineyards. With the sun putting a golden touch on everything, with wind brushing lightly on our faces, and with birds chirping in the background, tranquility is only word I can think of to describe the moment.

Day 29: Perfect Prague, Czech Republic

(Him: Charlie)

Picture perfect Prague is such a charming city! Nostalgic buildings, bridges, street classical music, everything is a living proof of this beautiful and romantic city. The city is so picturesque that couples from afar come here to take wedding photos.

During the 4-day stay in Prague, we explored the charming old town, strolled along river banks, hiked up the magnificent castle, but the highlight in Prague has got to be sitting in a classical concert in the majestic hall of the National Museum.

As much as we enjoyed this lovely city, we feel that there is something missing. Jo said she likes the city, but the excitement does not seem to go beyond the attractions (unless of course you are looking for pub crawls here). To me, Prague exceeds my expectation on every count, including a not so positive aspect – it’s very touristy. At any given time at the old town market square, there are hordes of tourists admiring the historic buildings. Tour buses line the side streets, while their customers squeeze Prague into cameras. The area around the old town and castle saturates with souvenir shops, money exchange, over-priced restaurants, you name it…

So what’s wrong with a place being touristy? After all, we are tourists as well. Well, we prefer to think that we are a breed of tourists and differentiate ourselves as “backpackers”. However, the problem in Prague is that, because tourism in Prague is so well established, it almost “insulates” the tourists from the "real" life in Prague, as everything a tourist would ever need has been prepared specifically for tourists. Backpackers see exactly what other packaged tourists see, no more and no less.

Here’s a definition of “Backpacking” on Wikipedia, which I agree.

“Of importance in backpacking is a sense of authenticity. Backpacking is perceived as being more than a vacation, but a means of education. Backpackers want to experience the "real" destination rather than the packaged version often associated with mass tourism, which has led to the assertion that backpackers are anti-tourist. There is also the feeling of "sneaking backstage" and witnessing real life with more involvement with local people.”

If we go by this definition, Prague is not very fulfilling. In order to experience authenticity, a backpacker would have to try quite hard to see the non-touristy side of Prague. But for us, for 4 days, we are pretty happy to give in as packaged tourists.