Croatia, from which I have just returned, is a beautiful country, and the coast is remarkably so. A waiter asked me in perfect English what I thought of his town, Makarska, and I replied that it was the most naturally beautiful place I had every seen. He replied, "It is God-given, my friend." He was all of twenty years old.
The trip by bus back to Poland, some 1,000 kilometers, was less idyllic. We had to vacate our hotel rooms at 9 a.m. and wait until 9 p.m. for the coach. The temperature was around 44 celsius, so a shady cafe was an expensive essential.
At 9 p.m. as we waited for the two drivers, who drive in eight -hour shifts, a young woman on the coach announced that she would not travel on it because one of the drivers smelled of alcohol. We had observed him at 5 p.m. looking for his upstair rest-room in the basement, mumbling cheerfully but incoherently as he stumbled around. We all got off while she called the police.
At 9 p.m. as we waited for the two drivers, who drive in eight -hour shifts, a young woman on the coach announced that she would not travel on it because one of the drivers smelled of alcohol. We had observed him at 5 p.m. looking for his upstair rest-room in the basement, mumbling cheerfully but incoherently as he stumbled around. We all got off while she called the police.
When they arrived, she told them in Polish that the driver was drunk. They seemed not to understand - strange, because Polish and Serbo-Croat are so similar that we understood most of what the locals said. They asked her, in English, what she wanted them to do. "Alkotest?"
"Yes!"
They tested the first driver, who registered zero on the scale, was accused by the female passenger of being drunk, and asked her not to insult him as he was completely sober.
They then turned to the second driver, with the alcohol-smelling breath, who blew into the breathaliser and promptly fell asleep on his feet. His score was 0.7, so it would take him seven hours to be sufficiently sober to drive.
The police shook him awake and politely asked for his driving licence.
"I haven't got a driving licence. I am not a driver, just an ordinary tourist."
Eventually he found his licence, which they confiscated.
We left the hotel at midnight, three hours late, after some of the best comedy I have seen.
Just inside Poland, the driver bought diesel for the coach, and found he had no money to pay with. Telephone calls to the tour company produced an assurance of payment, and after an hour we travelled on. In all, the journey, with only short breaks to use the lavatory, lasted from midnight on Saturday to 9 a.m. on Monday.
4 comments:
Self deprecating as it is for a Pole like me to say this, such is what the Germans like to call Polnische wirtschaft.
Daniel - Self-deprecation is, I think, a Polish virtue, sometimes almost amounting to a vice. I have lived in Poland for seven years and have never met an arrogant Pole.
Hah!I should have mentioned that the driver in question was not a Pole.
I remember travelling by Spanish coach from Madrid to London in 1982 in similar conditions. "Highlight" was the drivers swapping shifts at 70 mph on the motorway to Bordeaux, the driver standing up while the relief slid beneath him into the driving seat.
Tony - that takes some beating!
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