Around the world, and back.

2nd highest, hitchable pass in the world.
Around the world, and back.

Dear casa Robino
When we started to write this letter, we were sitting at a tropical island, drinking cheap Thai whiskey with ice we stole from 7-eleven. We had a tent pitched on a beautiful white sandy beach and every morning we awoke to the feeling of the hot blazing, Thai sun. We left Amsterdam to find the sun, and we finally made it!

After leaving the freezing cold of Amsterdam we started our journey south towards Malta, with the sun and Google Weather as our guides. As we headed towards Lyon and casa Bonita, we met so many people along our way all very kind and sometimes a bit odd. Some of the most memorable was being a group of Romanian coke fiends that drove us to a drug deal in Luxemburg at 180KMH on an icy motorway whilst the rain poured.. All the while listening to pumping traditional Romanian music. As the driver chatted away using only his knees to steer. How could we forget passing a joint around with this guys, whilst waiting in a parking lot for the “parcel” to arrive. Amidst all the excitement of our recent encounter and the 5kg of Nuttela, Nimmy managed to misplace our map, and our only logical guide.

Many times along the way we felt truly blessed with good fortune to meet so many outstanding, kind, humans. One of these being Dino the Italian truck driver and his sidekick Billy the playboy dog, who fed us salmon baguettes and shared his wisdom of Italy. He arranged for us to be taken to our final destination, Lyon.

Casa Bonita, “the water Nazis!”
If it’s dumpster diving in casa robino, it’s showering in fear of an outburst from Julian at casa Bonita.
Our 2-day rest place became a one-week Christmas fiesta in Lyon. We befriended a couple of Romanian philosophers and Nimmy finally had the chance to celebrate the birth of Christ. Despite the lack of any holiday traditions (other than the excessive amounts of alcohol that Emily purchased in a sudden bout of Christmas spirit.) there was still definitely a sense of Christmas in the air. With all the festivities going to our head, once again we began pondering our possibilities of our journey south. With the temperatures in Malta dropping, and the chance of chasing the rainbow to Greece, we once again found ourselves reconsidering our final destination. With our inability to make committed decisions we suggested that we head towards Turkey, keeping with our typical, elastic, plans.

Leaving casa Bonita we prepared ourselves with the challenge of hitching through Italy, where we would stop to rest with Nimmy’s family in Padova, next to Venice. Not wanting to overstay, we hoped to find a couch to crash on but we were completely overwhelmed with the generous hospitality of Nimmy’s family, who paid for our tired heads to rest in nothing more than the “luxury” of a quaint Italian Bed & Breakfast! We indulged for three days on Italian food and soft cotton sheets. We celebrated new years in what the padovians proudly claim as the largest square in Europe! (Citations needed). With many grateful thanks to the kindness of Nimmys family we left Italy with a very enlightened perception of hitching in the country. At this point we found it to be, believe it or not, the easiest country to get a lift that we’ve encountered so far (and even now when typing this again, it is only second to New Zealand). Feeling rested we were ready to begin the next leg of our journey through the eastern bloc.

We were excited about the next leg of our journey as we had heard so many positive stories of hitching through Eastern Europe. We thought this to be true when we were confronted with our first sign of competition of two other hitch-hikers in Ljubliuana. Though soon we found that due to the lack of human existence, let alone humans with automobiles, getting a lift in Eastern Europe is not as easy as we had hoped. Our journey from this point onwards became extremely disjointed, with many long waits in cold, cold and lonely gas stations. Though things were looking up when we were lucky enough to take a ride with some truly authentic Croatian gangsters. We spent one of our nights at what we thought to be the most well equipped gas station in Eastern Europe, with an outdoor heater and the switch at the tip of our fingers, some warm tea in our thermos and some biscuits from Italy. After freezing for 7 hours we decided to take a rest in our own private and heated suite, which was in fact the baby change-room in the toilet block. We slept until early morning when we were woken abruptly by an angry cleaning lady that we had locked out. We managed to make a quick escape, grab a lift and very slowly move through the desolate lands that was once Yugoslavia. With only 15km to the Serbian border we were yet to find out that this would be the place where we would stumble across our toughest challenge so far.

Due to the fact that we spent most of our last few days standing and waiting outside in the cold, Emily had been gradually turning a lovely shade of purple during this time. After another long wait, in another lonely gas station, Emily asked Nimmy why her hands were white and her veins were black… So with Nimmy’s “professional training” he manages to identify Emily’s new colour as Hypothermia. Things quite quickly deteriorate after this, Emily was now no longer able to stand or communicate with anyone, and with no other way out of the gas station then to hitch, we found ourselves in a slight conundrum. So when a german couple offered to take us to the next town, to the closest hot Nimmy jumped for joy and Emily groaned her gratitude

“Small Town, Croatia”.
We arrived around 10pm, after a quick e-mail exchange and a warm good-bye, from our two friendly and very curious Christians. We were welcomed by the owner of a small bar who also was the owner of the hotel. He invited us in for some hot chocolate, and after this drove us to his hotel, the only one in town. After asking where we were from, Nimmy was confronted with the line “Oh your from Israel?! You know the past owners of the hotel, they were Jewish!” As we were both in a bit of a daze, Nimmy didn’t even notice the pictures hanging in the lobby, huge black and white posters displaying the old “Weiner Hotel” and the original owners. Being a big happy Jewish family in their past existence.
So now that Nimmy had overcome his horrifying experience, we decided that it was all worth it for the hot shower and the feeling of blood running in Emily’s fingers and toes. We dined on piles of biscuits and watched late-night Croatian T.V.
Today we can say that this all was a very enlightening experience.

The next morning we set off again in an attempt to hitch to Serbia, we stood and waited for a long time again, and again Emily was turning purple so we decided on good health and headed back into town, to buy a train ticket to Beograd.

Belgrade: Nothing much seems to happen in Belgrade.
Nimmy got some good photos of a Jewish cemetery, and Emily nearly got drugged in a nightclub. After a few days of eating and regaining health, and as the Temperature continued to decline, we decided to take the train to Istanbul. We travelled through Bulgaria, stopping in Sophia for one day. Apart from the eerie morning fog, we decided that we liked Sophia very much, especially it’s Gypsy market.

We reached Istanbul early morning and by 5pm we were pissed off. For having landed in tourist-central. It was a bit of a shock. We were happy to escape and discover some of the amazing places in Istanbul. Though our stay in Turkey was shortened all due to our trusty-friend, Google Weather, whom predicted tepid weather in southern Turkey. And being like moths to a flame, and as Em was trying to head back towards Australia, that morning on a last-minute decision, Nimmy took a leap of faith and joined Emily on her way back home.

We bought two tickets to Bangkok, where we knew the sun was always blazing. After carrying this tent through eleven countries, once we reached a nice quiet beach, we decided it was time to pitch that damned tent! And for one month, we just sat and relaxed. With only the sun to numb our brains. After receiving a map from a drunken Canadian on crazy koh-san road we headed towards the big X that marked the “Eden Bar” a special place on a hidden beach, which housed a psychedelic asylum. We pitched our tent right next to the bar, over-looking a beautiful ocean bay. The bartenders told us to pile our tent with all of the cushions from the bar and in return, we neatly packed our tent away each morning. We stayed a week, experiencing many different things and after being trapped in what was beginning to become our peril by a crazy monsoon, the moment the rains stopped we ran to the first boat off the island, as all the other morphing people crawled out of the jungle and we said good-bye to the “Eden Bar” and all it’s strange inhabitants. We left to meet up with one of Nimmys closest friends, we set-up camp on the beach for another very peaceful and rejuvenating week.

At this point Emily and Nimmy had begun to realize and accept some facts and we decided it was time for Nimmy to join Emily in Australia. Up until this point we had absolutely no idea how much of a challenge such a simple and sweet thing, could be. We began to quickly find out about VISAs and all the problems that were attached. So Nimmy being Nimmy, he tried to put some light on what was looking to be a gloomy future. We sat on the sand and watched the sun go down and Nimmy drew a peace sign, with our names inside and we decided to smile at the thought of all our freedom, despite all the restrictions the world chose for us. We bought tickets to New Zealand (with a 3week stop, and decided to deal with visas while we were there.

So at the time we began to write this again, we were sitting on the balcony in our guesthouse in a tiny mountain village not to dissimilar from Amsterdam, in the middle of the Philippines. We had only seven days left, until our real lives began, finding jobs, and dealing with government fucking shit. Bla Bla.
So Nimmy was cooking porridge and making Emily some tea, and Emily sat there with pen in one hand and joint in the other, Emily felt that both Nimmy and her had found a little bit of peace, for some time. Nimmy also proposed in the Philippines.
Emily said yes, nimmy was happy, wedding cakes rock, so was Emily, wedding cakes rock.

4months later, still writing the letter.

So after managing to detour Australia right until we reached its neighbor New Zealand, where we were to spend the next few months working and applying for an Australian visa, which we did apply for eventually after 2 months and after two brief visits that Emily made back to Australia at the end of three months Australian immigration slung us back into world, where we would now go in search for somewhere that would take us.

Thailand, again. Was our meeting place. Having being rejected from Australia, finding any stable place to stay in for a long term was a real and immediate problem. Whilst going to live in Israel for a while was an option for a married couple, getting married in Israel isn’t, due to ingenious religious laws.
So with all this wonderful beurocracy ahead, we applied for a “stress free visa” and we flew to what seemed the most appropriate place…….

India.

Which is where we are right now! In a little village called Pushkar. And yes the last few months have been very relaxing. In about a month from now we will be in someone’s car on the way to the casa,
right back to where we started.

Comments

robino's picture

I remember the moment Nimmy

I remember the moment Nimmy said to me, sometime November 2010: "I think I wanna go one of these days".

I looked at him and frowned: "But you have no clue what you want and where you would like to go to. Stay. Something is coming your way. Give it time."

And I repeated Charlie's words: "Wait for the time to reveal itself and the road to open."

A week later Emily arrived. Being a friend of a friend of a friend (Alison!), we rescued her from a hostel. And Emily was on the same path of Nimmy. She knew how she arrived at the casa but had no clue how /when to leave again. And what life was to offer her.

A few days after they really met in the cave. And the rest is the story shared above.

I am in Lyon right now by the way. Staying with Laura and Rene, the other couple that met in the cave, just as Charlie and Lily. I think it is becoming a tradition that couples who met in the cave, get married. Well, at least you're the third now.

I was just sharing with them the story you wrote Emily, which at times is really hilarious and gave us a good laugh. I am happy to finally receive this account of what happened ever since I saw you walking out of the street, me waving from the window.

And I am very much looking forward seeing you two again!