Three Up & East
Monday, July 5, 1999: "Don’s Ditch…"
By Mark Lyndon Pautz

Route for Day 3:

Eger (N 47°53,364’ E 020°21,954’)

Don’s Ditch (N 47°47,719’ E 019°59,974’)

Gyöngyös (N 47°40,181’ E 019°57,235’)

Hatvan (N 47°40,181’ E 019°40,920’)

Gödöllő (N 47°35,731’ E 019°21,639’)

Budapest (N 47°28,645’ E 019°06,313’)

Danube Bend (N 47°48,233’ E 018°59,898’)

Domos (N 47°45,606’ E 018°56,243’)

Esztergom (N 47°46,937’ E 018°47,527’)

Tat (N 47°44,978’ E 018°37,920’)

Distance covered = 241 km

The three Platinum Card members of the "Dead Beat Club" rose at their customary time. Ten o’clock is quite civilised, no matter in what part of the world one finds oneself. Surprise, surprise - it was stinking hot; we were in for an absolute scorcher today!
Frankly we didn’t give a damn about the sun - we were just relieved to be alive. Huh?? Well, according to the predictions of Nostradamus, July 4, 1999 was supposed to be the final cataclysm…the much fabled "end of the world". We were amazed to find that during the sleeping hours the hotel had not been sucked into the town spa next door, a comet had not wiped out the vineyards up the hill, nukes had not vaporised Istvan Dobo’s statue...and we still had the same sandpaper dry mouths that we had acquired the previous morning. Ahhh well…time to join a different cult I guess!
Breakfast was once again part of the deal in the HUF 12,717 per night hotel, and we lazily caught the elevator down to the ground floor. As this was a holiday resort, the spread was good, and we did the full three courses, including the greasy, heartburn-inducing but tasty Hungarian sausages. The Hungarians also make the best salami in the world. "Pick Salam" is part of the national heritage, and a delicasy that I abused this morning! Debs sneakily produced a salami bread-roll for a snack later on - you can take the traveller out of Economy Class, but you can’t take the Economy Class out of the traveller.
Not a bad hotel if you’re going to Eger:

Hotel Flora ***
Fürdő u. 5
H-3300 Eger
Hungary
Tel. + 36 36 320-211
Fax. + 36 36 320-815
E-mail: reserve@hotelflora.hunguest.hu
Internet: http://www.hunguest.hu

After breakfast we braved the heat and took a walk into the centre of town...

By 11h00 were at the trusty Skoda in the secure parking overlooked by room 242. As we has left the hotel lobby, the humidity had hit us like a wet fish, and within a few hours, we’d all smell like one too! The heat was oppressive, and we felt in no mood for talking. I prepared the GS, moved the bike into some ineffectual shade, and programmed the GPS. Eventually we were ready to leave and I assumed the riding responsibilities. As Debra and I had visited Eger back in December 1992, I had a vague idea of where I wanted to lead my two companions.
Eger is located halfway between Budapest and Tokaji in a region famous for the legend of Egri Bikavér or "Bull’s Blood of Eger". The legend dates from 1552 when the fortress of Eger, fiercely defended by Dobó István (in Hungary it is customary to say the surname first) and his Magyars, was besieged by the numerically superior force of the Turkish Army, led by Ali Pasha. It is said that throughout the battle, the Magyars drank copious quantities of the local wine and that when the Turks saw the beards of their ferocious enemies stained red with wine, they ran in terror, thinking that all Magyars gained their strength by drinking the blood of bulls. Hence the name of this wine was born. Egri Bikavér or "Bull’s Blood of Eger". It was never a pretentious wine, but it was traditionally a robust, Kadarka-based red of firm structure and fiery flavour.
Since the early 1980’s, however, Bull’s Blood has been notoriously variable in both quality and character. Hungary will never earn a reputation for the depth and breadth of its wines until the consistency and modest quality of its second most famous wine is reinstated. Egri Leányka is a gold-coloured, medium-sweet wine from the same region. But enough of me getting on to my wine soapbox - back to the trip! I wanted to ride through these famous wine lands and soak up the ambience, if not the "Blood"!
It was pretty easy to find the area I was looking for and soon we were winding our way between luscious green vineyards, in full summer bud-break. A grin plastered itself to my dial - the GS was made for rides like this. Beautiful but rugged surroundings, unspoiled beauty, narrow country lanes, rolling hills, the smell of nature and agriculture in the nostrils, sunshine, good friends and an open road. Aaahhhh!!
After 15 minutes of picking off the occasional tractor and Lada (why does, this always makes me feel like a "Top Gun" pilot?), I slowed down and signalled to the Skoda that I’d like to pull over. What I wanted from the car was a sturdy plastic bag. Why you may ask. Hmmm, now how do I explain this…well, let me avoid beating around the bush - all I wanted to do was fill it with local soil!! Huh??? OK, OK, I’ll explain. Since my first trip to the French wine lands in early 1996, I have been collecting soil samples from the great wine regions of the world. This strange ritual stems from the 4 years I spent studying for my diploma in wine making, viticulture and oenology with the Cape Wine Academy in South Africa. The soil and microclimate (or "terroire" in French) gives each wine it’s own unique fingerprint and personality. As it’s tough to save "climate" in a glass jar, instead I’ve been trying to pull together a collection of soil samples for future reference. I can visualise it now - row upon row of crystal jars bearing my precious samples, with ornate labels in white, red, gold and black, just like a turn of the century pharmacy. Unfortunately all I have at the moment is a dozen messy plastic bags filled with international dirt!
I left it to Debbie to explain to Don and back-tracked along the route we had just travelled. A couple of kilometres back I had spotted a perfect place (on the crest of a hill) to pull over, walk between the vines, and take a sample. I got there in double quick time and carefully pulled the GS onto its centre stand, checking the firmness of the soil before I did so. It leaned a little to the right, but it was stable. I walked between the two nearest rows of grapes, found a spot with loose soil that had been turned relatively recently, and started filling my bag. A few minutes later I carried my weighty trophy back to the bike, pretending to look nonchalant as a couple of passing drivers looked at me enquiringly. Now where to put the bag? I decided that the seat would be best, and specifically the area just behind the tank. I could then "snuggle up" to it and make sure that it did not return to nature as I took the winding road back to the Skoda.
It was around midday and I was feeling hot and uncomfortable after doing my agricultural thing. I reluctantly pulled on my black helmet (Phew!! Sweat!!) and fired up the GS. Without too much thought I pushed her forward and off of the centre stand, my left hand on the handlebars and my right on the small luggage rack at the rear. I felt it straight away - as she had been leaning slightly to the right when I parked her, the bike succumbed to the laws of nature, and gravity took its grip. No problem, this happens quite often with a 250 kilogram motorcycle. All I had to do was firm my stance, trust the soles of my boots and act as a balancing counter-weight for the "falling" bike. Simple.
SHIT!!! NO GRIP!!! My feet slid in the firm dirt, I lost my balance, I bent my knees…and over we went. Panic! I could smell petrol and the engine was still running. I ran around to the "downhill" side and found the "kill switch" in the sand. I also turned off the ignition and closed both fuel cocks. Adrenaline coursing through my system, I leapt into action…trying to lift the bike. Seat - too flimsy. Tank - on rubber mounts…no good. Handlebars - no, don’t want to put the throttle grip under that kind of pressure for fear of breaking some of the internal plastic. Also don’t want to possibly bend the bars. Luggage rack - mounted on the rear mudguard - too flimsy. Crash bars - too close to the hot engine. Goddamn!! Eventually I took a calculated risk, grabbed the throttle grip, and the luggage rack, and used my legs to try and lift the stranded machine.
Only in situations like this does one become aware of the true impact of a few degrees of incline! The bike was lying slightly down hill, with its right hand cylinder in a depression in the soil, making the angle even more acute and the bike more difficult to raise. Now I’m not a big guy - 1,75 metres tall, 76 kilograms in weight - but it’s amazing what adrenaline can do! Soon she was "rubber side down" again, and I gingerly kept her in equilibrium as I scooted around to the other side to put down the side stand…once again checking whether the soil could bear the weight. A quick visual revealed no crippling damage - the right-hand rear-view mirror was loose, there was some scuffing or the right-hand cylinder head as the crash bar had gone straight into the soil, and there were some scratches on the right-hand rear indicator. I had got off lightly.
Despite it’s "safe" position, my soil sample had returned to nature! Luckily I had tied up the bag, and retrieved it a few metres down the hill. As I was not intending doing any speeding back to the Skoda, I decided to put it on the luggage rack at the back, letting the bag mould itself around the metal work. At this stage, I also didn’t want to have anything hassling me up front. The restart was uneventful and, still charged up, I didn’t even notice the heat or my surroundings on the ride back to Don and Debs.
My companions were quite nonplussed about my five minutes of adventure, but as I related my experiences to them, adrenaline did its thing once again, and a bout of trembling shuddered through my body. A strange experience at 27 degrees Celsius! I pulled out the tools, secured the rear-view mirror and gave the bike a thorough "once-over"…there appeared to be no permanent damage. In my absence, Debbie had convinced Don that after his experience of the day before, he was more than qualified to drive on his own. After all, these were quiet country roads - nothing to worry about - and she wanted to ride pillion. I personally believe that Debs was just so overcome by the heat that she wanted to be on the back of the bike, no matter what!
Despite the fact that I did not really feel that excited about riding after my altercation with the vineyard, I agreed, and Debs joined my on the bike - the first time we had ridden together on this trip. My wife is generally an excellent passenger, intuitively leaning into corners, and trusting my judgement. It was good to have her on board again. As I was now saturated with perspiration, I decided to leave my protective Kevlar/Goretex jacket in the car with Don, and it felt out of this world to have the wind soothing my twitching body. One of the great pleasures of motorcycling, and memories of "Easy Rider" - except the BMW handles far better than a Harley ever will.

I plotted a course for Budapest, keeping Don within range in the rear-view mirrors. Bordering the Eger wine region to the west is the Mátraalja, where at the town of Gyöngyös Australian-trained English wine-maker Hugh Ryman made the first truly excellent Hungarian white wine with Chardonnay, and this has steadily improved over the years, now displaying a lovely pineapple fruit. Heading for Gyöngyös, the countryside changed, flattening slightly and with a greater diversity of crops. Now there were more than just vineyards - the fields were filled with sunflowers, wheat, oil seed rape and other stuff that looked distinctly edible. The road was not as tight and winding as it was through the vineyards, and Debs and I were thoroughly enjoying the agricultural aromas, and the wind through our T-shirts. But God, it was hot and time for another refreshing pit stop.
I pulled over at a small café-cum-restaurant where we enjoyed a brace of ice cold Colas, and I resisted the temptation to try the local specialty - Viagra Ice-cream!! A small crowd formed around the GS outside (funny how it always seems to pull the people!). One old man asked Debs where we came from and was gob-smacked to hear that we were Africans! As I had calmed down a bit, I did a more thorough inspection of the GS, and found something that may have contributed to the fall in the vineyard - the nut and spacer on the center stand’s right-hand mounting point had disappeared. When on its main stand the bike thus naturally listed to the right. As much as I disliked using the side stand, we would have to be careful about using the center stand for the rest of the trip. As much as we all would have liked to just "park off" for a few hours, the road and Budapest (the capital of Hungary) called.
The next section of road wove through a succession of hamlets, and it narrowed somewhat. Here there was no space for error. Under steering through the myriad blind corners would either put you straight into a crash course with the oncoming traffic or drop you into an unforgiving ditch off the fringe. Debbie and I were having fun, and left Don and the Skoda behind. Shifting through a tight right-hand corkscrew bend, gravel on the road forced me to under steer and I slipped wide. At that moment a dilapidated local bus trundled into view through the upcoming left-hand curve. Pupils dilated and pulses soared, but we made it past the oncoming behemoth in one piece. I slowed down, deciding to take it easy and give Don a chance to catch up with us. About five kilometres later we had been waiting for ten minutes at a T-junction, and still no sign of Don. Oh shit.
Tracking back the route we had just come was not much fun at all. I have no doubt that Debbie was thinking through the same possibilities that I was, and all of them were negative. When we rode back through the curve where we had had the close encounter with the bus, a cold shudder ran down my spine, and I hoped with all my might that Don had not got too close to the same 4-wheeled death trap. Coming through the curve I felt my heart in my throat - there was the Skoda pulled off the road in a small siding…and no sign of the man himself.
We pulled off in a gap at the front of the car, and there he was - sitting on the ground at the car’s front right wheel. The tyre was flatter than a nun’s breast, and the alloy rim bore the scars of the roadside ditch that had obviously drawn him in. Luckily Don was OK.
A few laughs, a bit of sweat and a lot of water later, we had managed to find the lock-nut key, loosen the rim that was tightly mated to the hub, and fit the spare wheel. Adopting a "you bend it, you mend it" approach (i.e. it was too damn hot ;-) I let Donald do most of the dirty work. A two-litre bottle of fizzy water quenched our thirsts, rinsed away the sweat and salt, and washed the road grime and tyre gunk from our hands. Don’s T-shirt proved a convenient towel! He felt OK about driving further, and we got back on track for Budapest.
From the T-junction onwards, the traffic increased. We had moved off of the country roads and onto the main arterial through Gyöngyös and Hatvan and into the capital. It was stop-start stuff in sweltering heat and amid billowing clouds of sickening Central European diesel fumes. Debs thought that, as I spend quite a lot of time in Budapest on business, perhaps it would be best if I led us into the big city, and if she drove into town. We pulled over at Hatvan, right at the turnoff to the Hungaroring (the home of the Hungarian Formula 1 Grand Prix), and changed places.
Thanks to the GPS and a few recognisable landmarks I managed to get us into the centre of Budapest, Hungary’s largest city (two million people and growing), and securely parked in a multi-story parkade. Divided down the middle by the Duna (Danube) River and laced together by seven bridges are two distinct cities: hilly, historic Buda and the commercial, smoggy flatlands of Pest. Despite the schizophrenic split, Budapest is quite homogeneous: grand baroque and turn-of-the-century architecture, breathtaking public baths (one of the great legacies of the Turks), Roma (Gypsy) folk musicians, and paprika-spiced cuisine are the ubiquitous stuff of "Let’s Go" travel guides and glossy brochures. What these publications do not prepare naïve American visitors for is Budapest’s cheap thrills - some of the best looking hookers in Europe, the porn-movie production capital of the world, the sleazy nightlife, the dark and interesting alleys and streets, and the excellent pedestrian shopping area of Vaci utca (where you can find all of the above)! That’s exactly where I was taking Don and Debbie!
From Kárvin Tér (where we had parked) I led my travel mates down Kecskeméti utca in the city’s 5th district. This part of town is familiar to me. In recent months I have been spending two to three days a week in Budapest, and in the evenings like to walk from my hotel down to the Budapest NET Internet Café on Kecskeméti utca. They also run a street view "Webcam" on which I have been known to make occasional guest appearances...! I took Don and Debs to this café so that they could see from where I was sending them messages late at night. Across the road was a pub with tables out on the sidewalk where we stopped for a cooling refreshment.
From the metro station at Ferenciek Tere we turned left onto Kigyó utca, and there we spotted the first BRW R80GS "Basic" I had ever seen in Hungary. The only anomaly on this GS was that it was fitted with the square, black and aluminum cylinder heads of the early ‘80’s G/S…just like Donald Massyn’s and Hartmut von der Ohe’s bikes back in South Africa.
We turned right and onto Vaci utca, the city’s expensive and touristy shopping promenade. Walking down the rows of flashy shops, one would not say that one was in the old "Eastern Block". This could be the Champs Elysee, Oxford Street, or any other prime shopping area in the west. Prices reflect this, and there’s no way that I’d ever risk buying something in this square kilometre. There is one exception, however; the Burger King at the top of the promenade undoubtedly makes the best hamburger in Central Europe! We stopped to test this hypothesis…and Débra certainly agreed. Good value for money.

Walking past the Marriott Hotel, we made it to Belgrád rakpart on the banks of the (not so) blue Danube. Actually it’s a filthy gray, and another of Don’s romantic notions bit the dust! After a walk through the flee market on Belgrád rakpart, and a photo call outside the John Bull Pub (frequented by Hartmut von der Ohe all those years ago), we headed back to the parking garage.

Leading the Skoda out of the city center was more difficult than getting into town. After a minor detour towards Ferihegy Airport (while the GPS logged onto satellites and got its bearings) we took the ring road, skirting anti-clockwise around the city, crossing the Danube and turning north along its western bank. Passing some Roman ruins, we stopped at a filling station and tanked up. I handed the GS over to Don for the final leg of the day - the beautiful ride along the river to the Danube Bend. The small villages along this magnificent piece of road are where Hungarian city dwellers bring their family - complete with dogs and even caged birds - for picnics, rest and relaxation. Retirees, who live in many of the region’s small cottages, keep busy tending gardens full of cherry trees and domestic animals. Corn, sugar beets and alfalfa grow along the river’s edge. Aaaahhh! Bucolic Hungary!
Donald was a lucky guy to be riding this last stretch. It was late afternoon. The light was soft. The traffic was light. The countryside was magnificent, and the river was splendid. From the following Skoda I noticed another consequence of the agricultural tumble earlier in the day. The GS’s right-hand rear indicator mounting had been slightly bent, and the whole appendage was drooping forlornly. I was pissed off…Goddamn it, I hate damaging things…I needed a drink!!
As Don was riding point at the end of the day, it was his responsibility to seek out suitable accommodation. With the broad, brown Danube to our right, he proceeded northwards against the flow of the mighty river. Peering down from the road, we noticed that the Danube traced almost a heart shape as we swept upwards past Szentendre Island, looped up between the Börzsönyi and Visegrád Mountains, wrapped around Domos and continued upstream towards Esztergom on the Slovakian border. This is an interesting town that is known as the religious capital of Hungary. The star attraction in town is the restored palace ruins which houses the room where some believe King István I, the first king of Hungary, was born. In addition to uniting the various Magyar tribes, Saint István I established Christianity as Hungary’s national religion in the 11th century. He also built the country’s first cathedral in Esztergom. Cool, but we had alcohol on our minds!
The village of Tát (just west of Esztergom) was where we eventually stopped for the evening. The intimate little hotel was a wooden construction, right on the banks of the Daube. Try to pronounce this one:

Hotel Öreghalász
Szivek Ferenc
Felszabadulás út 2
2534 Tát
Hungary
Tel/Fax: 06 33 / 444-592

We dropped our stuff in the triple room on the first floor, and quickly found out why the hotel was empty. We were attacked by squadrons on Danubian mosquitos dive bombing in formation! Yeee-haaa…splat fest!! There was only one solution - quinine - with lots of gin to go with it!! Check out what The Straight Dope has to say about this preventative measure! ;-)
Still in our sweaty road gear we headed for the restaurant-cum-bar on the ground floor. The waiter didn’t seem to mind out pungent aroma, and brought the first tray of drinks. As he put them on the table, we ordered the second round…this was going to be a rough one! By closing time, the drinks bill for the night was 41% higher than the cost of our accommodation! Looking at the receipt for the evening I see that between the three of us we had 12 Gin & Tonics, 4 bottles of Hungarian Chardonnay and a round of Unicums. We kept it all down with Vienna Schnitzels.
We were asked to leave the restaurant, and so finished off the last bottle and a half of Chardonnay upstairs in the room. We also enjoyed two cigars that we had brought with us from Eger. With all the smoke in the room, no mosquito was coming near us. That fact that we had rubbed Gin & Tonic over all exposed parts of our bodies I’m sure also confused the Hungarian blood-suckers!
They weren’t the only ones confused. I remember the heat. I remember Don shooting video. I remember clouds of cigar smoke. I remember Debra crashing across our double bed. I remember nothing after that. Mosquitos? What Mosquitos?