140 km to a room at the Nightclub Cyznny Czyiamn near Knurow, Poland. Passed through Vetkovice, Brzeva, and Ostrava in Czechoslovakia and Rybnik and Zory in Poland.

An incredibly bizarre day. Sunny and stifling hot. I decided to go into Ostrava, an industrial city of 350,000, for the sole purpose of finding a map of Poland. I did not want to do this because I've found that eastern European industrial cities are not exactly conducive to pleasant bicycling. But nonetheless, I had no maps at all of Poland and I was uncertain whether I would be able to find one once I got there.

Having become over-confident on the excellent Czech roads, I decided to take the main road into Ostrava. This was a real mistake, as the road had extremely heavy traffic and no shoulder. Moreover, the road was a series of up and down climbs through farmland--one of the most difficult cycling scenarios, both physically and psychologically.

Once I arrived in the outskirts of Ostrava, I became immediately lost. Fortunately, I met my first English speaking Czech, who directed me to the city center. There I found a bookstore which was overflowing with maps (at extremely cheap prices--50 cents for maps that sold for $10 in Germany) but had none of Poland. As I was standing outside the shop, pondering my next move, a young Czech on a bike asked me (in English) if he could help. His name was Roman and, after I explained my predicament, he offered to guide me to other shops that might have the map. So we spent the next hours biking all over Ostrava and stopping at every possible map store. We found thousands of maps of places like Libya and Eithiopia, but nary a map of Poland. Although Ostrava is only 8 km from the Polish border, no one could provide an explanation for this fact.

Roman and I then went to a cafe, had a beer, and talked for a couple of hours. He is a student in iron technology at Brno University and was home on vacation in Ostrava. He told me that the average wage in Czechoslovakia was 20 Korun (75 cents) per hour and that a highly skilled worker could earn 40 Korun. He said that the changes since 1989 had been both good and bad--i.e. there were more products to buy, but unemployment had sky-rocketed. He said that nobody, including the police, knew what the rules were, and that everyone felt a degree of uncertainty as a result. Roman complained that the media was very confusing and that strings were being pulled by an elite, so he did not know what to believe. He said he wasn't interested in politics, since he was too interested in girls--politics could wait. He said that he greatly admired Havel and was disappointed that he had resigned. He was flabbergasted by what I was doing, and asked me many questions about my trip. After our beers (which made me very high) he rode with me through town and to within a couple of kilometers of the border where we exchanged photos and addresses and said goodbye.

It was now past 5:00 and I was concerned about what to do next. According to my guidebook it is illegal to take more than 100 Korun out of the country, and since I still had 900 I stuffed 800 of them into my seatpost. As always, I was apprehensive about the border crossing, and this just made me more uneasy. The guidebook also said that Poland requires you to list all the money that you have, so I was expecting a delay.

When I crossed the grossly polluted Olse River into Poland I was simply waved through by the border guard, who did not even glance at my passport. So much for accurate guidebooks.

I noticed differences in Poland as soon as I had crossed the border. First of all, the roads were narrow and in poor condition, with much heavier traffic than on the Czech side. Secondly, houses were scattered all over the country in a haphazard pattern, rather than concentrated in villages. Apparently this was because Poland, unlike East Germany and Czechoslovakia, was never collectivized. The entire 50 kilometers I rode in Poland was either urban or semi-urban, with no large forested or cultivated areas. I was always within sight of houses or apartments.

After eating a delicious kielbasa from a kiosk near the border I biked through the cities of Wodzislaw and Rybnik. I was surprised at how western and modern these towns were, particularly in comparison with their Czech and German counterparts. Unexpectedly, many of the people I had contact with in these cities had a rudimentary understanding of English or French. I had my first conversation in French with a man in Rybnik who gave me directions.

My intended destination was the youth hostel in Rybnik, but when I got there I saw several signs for a campground (Poland, unlike Czechoslovakia and Germany, has colorful billboards and signs all along the road). I started following these signs, but after 20 km I still had not come across it. It was growing dark and I was becoming a bit apprehensive, as there was nowhere to free camp in these areas. Finally I asked a group of people and was directed to this nightclub/bungalow site. I was not sure what the place was when I arrived, and when a man who would fit in with the Hitler Youth rushed out and demanded my passport I refused to give it to him. Eventually he summoned another man who spoke English and I rented a room in one of the bungalows for 50,000 Zlotys ($3.80).

The man who spoke to me in English was named Horamir and he was the waiter for this night club/restaurant. He convinced me to have dinner in their restaurant. I turned out to be the only customer for a delicious, candle-lit dinner. Horamir served me wearing a white tux. I felt more than a little bit out of place. For his kindness, Horamir earned a 20,000 Zloty tip. Nobody can call me cheap! Earlier in the day I had given a waitress a tip that was more than the cost of the meal. She had brought out three plates of food to show me what was on the menu.

So, here I am, 50 km into Poland and I still do not have a map. But I do know I am on the right road as I saw a sign for Osweicum. I am only 50 km from Auschwitz.

58 km to Osweicim (Auschwitz).

Another day of stifling heat and horrific road conditions. The narrow, pot-holed filled roads were inundated with reckless drivers, necessitating that I drive for extended periods on whatever sidewalks or gravel footpaths I could find.

I met my first English speaking cyclist today. His name was John Battye and he is a 60 year old former history professor from Victoria, B.C. White haired and articulate, he looked distinguished even in his bicycle outfit. John said he knew I was an American or a Canadian when he saw me from a distance because I had my bicycle helmet strapped to the back of my bike. He had been on the road since June 4 and was cycling from the Nordkapp to the tip of Greece. His route had paralleled mine through much of Scandinavia, and he was intending to continue south through Romania and Bulgaria (my original route). He was carrying a lighter load than me (i.e. no front packs) as he was not camping out, but he did carry 5 extra pairs of tires, which I thought was a bit of an overkill.

John and I stopped at Zory for breakfast, which turned out to be bread and coke as we could find nowhere to eat. We exited this town a little sooner than we had planned because of the malevolent stares of a couple of Poles sitting on the next bench.

I wasn't sure how long I wanted to ride with John, but I suggested that he accompany me to Auschwitz. He said that he had promised his wife that he would not visit any of the concentration camps, so that nixed that idea. We rode together for about 20 km, which took a couple of hours due to the difficult riding conditions. At that point the Auschwitz road connected with the southbound route to Slovakia, and we exchanged addresses and said goodbye.

As I neared the camp at Auschwitz I entered a grotesque industrial area with heavy truck traffic. The camp was well signposted and I easily found it. I was disappointed by the immediate impact because, unlike the appropriate starkness of Sachsenhausen, the Poles had turned it into a tourist attraction. The parking lot was filled with tour buses, and the tourists were scrambling all over the various services provided (i.e. post card shops (with photos of the crematoriums!), hot dog stands, money exchangers and assorted street hawkers peddling their wares). I found this to be offensive, to say the least. Moreover, the camp itself was, on the exterior, green and park-like in appearance. This was in stark contrast to the bleak industrial area that surrounded the camp. Once inside the museum and the camp buildings the impact, despite the crowds, was more profound. The thousands of prisoner photographs (which listed name, home town, date of entry into Auschwitz, and date of death) that covered the walls of the old barracks was very moving, as was the thousand square foot room filled to a depth of one meter in human hair. I watched the film provided and looked at all of the exhibits and noticed that the Poles had de-emphasized the disproportionate impact of the Holocaust on the Jews. The Jews were simply included as one of a list of ethic and national groups that was subjected to extermination. The photographs in each of the buildings were dedicated to nationalities (i.e. there were Dutch, French, Russian, Polish etc. buildings).

During my tour I discovered that there were several Auschwitz camps, and that the main camp was a work camp (slave labor for I.G. Farben) rather than an extermination center. The death camp, I discovered, was located at Birkenau, three km distant. So I got on my bike and rode over to Birkenau. Here the impact on me was far more powerful. The camp, which was 40 km square, had been left exactly as it had been found by the Russian in 1945. This was no park-like setting, but rather a bleak and dreary place which befitted the horrors that transpired here. There were only a handful of tourists, and the hugeness of the camp (40 square kilometers) allowed me to walk silently and alone through this place where the greatest evil in the history of the world had occurred. More than 2,000,000 people were murdered at this place, and as I walked by the remains of the unloading dock and the gas chambers I wondered what went through their minds in those last few moments of life. As I walked further and further into the compound (there were no other people in this area) I came upon a scum-covered pond. This pond, according to my guidebook, was where the ashes from the crematoriums were dumped. I was looking at the largest cemetery in the world; it was not sign-posted and I was its only visitor.

After several hours at Birkenau, I cycled back to the main camp at Auschwitz and booked a room at the Auschwitz Hotel (for 160,000 Zlotys). The hotel was part of the complex but was not within the barbed wire. It was probably used for administration and accommodation for guards and officers.

My impression of Poland so far is not good. The people appear loud and almost aggressively anti-social. They have a peculiar habit of bumping into you and not acknowledging it. They practically knock you over on the crowded streets and just keep walking. I'd read about this curious custom in my guidebook and yet was not prepared for it when it happened to me--and it did happen a couple of times. When standing in line, you had best get within a millimeter of the person in front of you, or someone will cram themselves into the open space. The streets of the villages are lined with peddlers hawking their wares. The roads are dangerous and the drivers aggressive. The pollution of both air and water is terrible. Alcoholism appears rampant, as at least one drunk person is almost always in view. At least half the merchandise in the tiny grocery stores consist of alcohol (vodka and beer). However, my negative impressions might be skewed as I am traveling on main roads (still without a map) through the most densely populated industrial area of Poland.

72 km to a campsite near Makow Poch. Cycled through Oswiecim, Kety, Kobernice, Miedzybrdzie and Sucha Baskidzka (although it is hard to tell in Poland where one city ends and the next begins because the entire region is semi-urban).

A tough, hot day of cycling. This country is the absolute pits for cyclists. I am thankful that I did not try to go to Warsaw. I found myself shouting "Fuck Poland!" several times today as I was put in innumerable dangerous situations by the narrow roads and the ceaseless, aggressive truck, bus and car traffic. Except for a 20 km stretch before Sucha Baskidzka (on which traffic was light) the entire ride was life threatening.

This area of Poland is very densely populated. The houses and tiny shops stretch endlessly, and I don't think I was ever out of sight of either. There is (obviously) no concept of zoning as everything appears to have been built haphazardly. There is a great deal of construction going on, particularly concrete block residential units (which look like western single family residents, but probably will house 4 families). It seems that everyone (and their Russian uncles) is a garage sale entrepreneur (sans garage). There are thousands of tiny shops everywhere, and you have no idea what they are selling until you go inside. Generally they have a few items (soap, cosmetics, soft drinks, candy, Piva (beer), flowers, clothing, fruit etc.), and the shop might have any combination of the above. With all these shops one might assume that there would be a wide choice, but this is not the case. In fact the choice is quite limited. I've noticed a few more American products than in Czechoslovakia (i.e. candy bars, cigarettes) but not many. Actually, the main US products in Eastern Europe seem to be Coke, Pepsi, candy bars, T-shirts, music and grafitti (for some reason, most grafitti is in English).

I've noticed, as I had in the other eastern bloc countries, that the sex segregation in work is extreme. All clerks are women, all construction workers, police, bosses etc. are men. So much for our old stereotypes.

Many Poles drive tiny cars that have no name on them, just the numbers 126B and 650. I presume that these are Fiats made in Poland.

Drunkenness is a significant problem here anytime of the day and night. Three times today I had to swerve to avoid drunks who had staggered onto the road--all of these incidents occurred before noon. This rampant drunkenness has affected my ability to get food. Almost every snack bar or kiosk which offers food, also sells piva, and so is often surrounded by groups of drunken Poles. I have no great desire to stop and weave my way through these crowds--I get more than my share of yelling from these people when I cycle by.

This is clearly a macho society where the men have become essentially emasculated by the social conditions. This does not make for a harmonious society. I heard angry shouting almost everywhere I went. The shameless gawking I receive has also been wearing me down.

I was pleasantly surprised when I found a campsite that was not listed on my map (yes, I finally purchased a map at Auschwitz). I put my tent up to a vehicle with a Scottish sticker on it, and later when they returned, had a nice conversation with the three generation family that was camping there. The father was a Pole who had immigrated to Great Britain several decades ago. He said he had been making annual visits to Poland for the past several years, and that the changes had been dramatic. He said that the prices were three times as high as they were in 1989, and that one could take a family of 10 to a restaurant in 1989 for less than $2 (actually, in terms of Polish Zloty the inflation rate since 1989 has been over 100,000%). He also said that in 1989 there was virtually nothing to buy, and that the thousands of tiny shops had all appeared since that time.