It took me ages to clean everything up. I had wondered where the greasy stains had come from on the trousers I had just been casually throwing into the back box when not needed !!
Said goodbye to Adam and the children ( he gave me his address in case I ever return to Warsaw) and set off for Warsaw.
Thge ride was hot and I kept stopping in what I thought were fairly large towns to see if I could get onto the internet anywhere, but was met with definate "no's" whenever I asked about internet access at libraries.
Saw an interesting cafe at the side of the road. Someone had bought an old plane and converted it into a cafe area.
The roads in Poland between majoir cities are very dangerous. They are single carraigeways but with quite wide hard shoulders. Tractors and slow vehicles use these hard shoulders to allow cars and lorries to pass them easily. This translates however into people assuming you will be aware of their prescence, and moving over automatically. You really have to keep your concentration up for people overtaking in both directions! Also speeds are changing a lot because there are speed cameras at virtually every junction where the traffic has to slow down to 70km/hr. This just tendsd to make traffic back up and then there is a stream of cars overtaking. As in the UK some drivers seem quite mad and have no appreciation of bikers.
Arrived in Warsaw for about midday, parked, changed into cooler clothes and set off to explore and find internet. Got lots of help from well meaning people, but still could not find an internet cafe. Eventually came across one in the underground metro system. The machine was very slow so only updated one day in the blog.
Went to look for the Ghetto area where the Jews were collected together for shipment to concentration camps and the Warsaw Uprising occurred in 1944. There is one street that has been left untouched to give people an appreciation of what it was like in 1944. The Nazi's destroyed the whole Ghetto area after the Warsaw Uprising whilst the Russian army watched from the other side of the river. This is a very sore point to this day and much is made of this point in the museum and exhibitions. Thge atmosphere of this street is very strong. They have put up photos of people from the time in the upstairs windows.
Decide to stay in Warsaw so I could spend time at the National Museum where they have all ther details of the Warsaw Uprising etc. Went to a hostel called Nathan's Villas. very nice and reasonable for 60Zlty (15 pounds) had a bed in a four bed dorm but nobody else staying in the room at present (someone did arrive at 1:30 in the morning). Bathroom and facilities excellent, also free access to internet !!!!
Out for something to eat. Found a small Saigon takeway/restaurant and chose chicken in coconut. Talked to the two women behind the bar as to whether the meal was cooked with coconut or just served inb a coconut! Did not really get a clear view on this but decided to press on anyway. When the meal came it was about 10 pieces of juicy chicken deep fried in a batter plus rice, salad and what looked like sweet and sour sauce but wasn't. I could find no evidence anywhere of coconutso I got thew two ladies back and tried again to understand where the coconut was in the meal. They reassured me I had got what I ordered and there was some coconut somewhere. You couldn't see it, you couldn't taste it but it was there somehere!!
Back to hostel and raining heavily now so feels like a good decision not to camp again!
TOR
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