day 10, monday 9^th august 99

Unbelievably, it hasn't rained overnight and still isn't raining this morning. On the other hand, it's already very hot and the mosquitoes are out to play. I count, er, lots, on the fly screen of my tent as I apply vast amounts of insect repellent.

We get ourselves together and go for breakfast, but only get coffee and fruit juice. We do get to watch Croatian coach and lorry drivers knocking back beer and something that looks suspiciously like vodka before they set out for their day!

I do some washing and spread it out to dry which (even though it's hot) it spectacularly refuses to do. Getting into the spirit of things, marvin also washes some clothes, and is deeply upset when one of his socks commits suicide by going straight down the (rather large) plug-hole in the sink.

After the bad news about Mike of team Pegleg dropping Diane (Jim's partner) as his sidecar passenger, Jim and I ceremonially burn our Team Pegleg hats. They burn quite well...

We pack and leave, after paying an exorbitant amount for the privilege of being eaten alive by the mosquitoes, sleeping uncomfortably and eating awful food.

Croatian roads are tedious and the speed limits slow. We make for the border with only one incident. As we enter a town, there are two large signs clearly marked 'no cameras'. We stop for a moment to discuss the route and several people get their cameras out. We hastily tell them to put them away, but Liam says "I'm sure that sign meant no speed cameras". As this seems absurd to us (there have been no speed cameras visible anywhere in Croatia so far) we argue the toss, until he notices that the wall we're all standing next to has hundreds of bullet holes in it. The camera gets put away and we leave pretty damn quickly.

Crossing into Hungary is a little complicated. They want to see the registration document for each bike, but speak no English and so we get rather confused. I show my insurance certificate and he seems happy with this - I presume he doesn't read English either. After only a half-hour or so delay, we're off.

Hungary is full of totty! It's quite extra-ordinary. Croatia has had no totty at all - maybe they've all moved to Hungary. A darker side of this soon materialises. We're on a big trucking route and as we enter our first Hungarian city there are blatant prostitutes hanging about on most street corners, in lay-bys etc. This is a most peculiar sight to our Western senses.

We push on. Hungarian roads are pretty damn good if you stay on the main ones. We do one long back road, entertainingly twisty, which turns out to have loads of gravel and sand all over what is an already slippery surface. The group spreads out over some miles. Jim and I are riding behind Jeremy, who does several miles with one of his indicators on. No matter how hard we try, we can't signal to him to cancel it and in the end give up. He is too busy concentrating on the road and the route.

The rest of this day's miles are on fast sweeping roads. Again, every so often, there are working girls in the various stopping points. As we wait for a traffic light, the group having more or less re-assembled, Andy jumps off his bike and shouts something to Jim and then Jeremy. Neither quite get what he's saying. It turns out he thinks he's heard his mobile phone ringing and shamefully we ride off and leave him alone.

It turns out that Kevin has crashed on a bend. He's not hurt but he's savaged his top fairing and headlights. He is told that the Hungarian police won't let him continue until he's fixed the lights. Andy gaffer tapes the top fairing together and then he sets off to find us in Szeged, Liam and Kevin trailing behind.

The town is lovely and crawling with attractive young women! It turns out that this is a University city and that there's an open air concert of some sort going on that very night. Hurrah for University cities! We cross the river and book into a rather nice (and really inexpensive) hotel for the night. Use of the mobile phones has allowed us to find out what's been going on and to feel thoroughly embarrassed. We make sure that enough rooms are booked for all.

One shower each and then to the bar to wait for the last three. Andy arrives and has a rather justified rant at us all, blaming Kevin's crash and our not stopping on testosterone and generally machismo related silliness. He feels better for this. Liam and Kevin phone to say they'll be some time and get instructions on how to find the hotel. We set off into the town looking for food and trying to keep our eyeballs in our heads as we ogle like mad.

We wander round for an age, looking at more totty than is in any way reasonable and getting turned down by several restaurants that can't provide spaces for 8 people on one table. Eventually, we end up in a very good restaurant where we consume good beer and excellent food at an alarming rate. The whole meal, 3 generous courses, with lots of beer and wine, comes to under a fiver each!

We go back to the hotel, nicely pissed now, and return to our rooms. Andy the Pugh, marvin, Crispin and I share one room. It's terribly hot in the hotel room, even with the window and balcony door open. After sweating heavily for a while, marvin decides to phone Iceland and get some cool air delivered over the phone. In a desperate attempt to become cooler, he also sticks his head into the mini-bar fridge.

Mileage: 266