Big come back to Poland

Bozceada was our last place on the map of Turkey that we visisted. From the island we started our big trip to Poland!

We set off at 12.00, we reached the land around 13:00 and Canakkale after 15.00. We took our things from Emre's flat and took a ferry to Eceabat, small town on the other side of Dardele Strait (the place where Jagoda dfinally lost her jacket). From Eceabat we hitchhiked to... with Istanbul couple and then with 3 Turkish blokes to Edirne. We visited Mosque there, the last sight which is on the UNESCO list and after this we went to Bulgarian border. It wasn't as easy as we expected. We wanted to take a dolmus but after 20.00 nothing was going toward that direction. We started to walk through the city in order to get out of the centre and find good place for hitchhiking. Unfortunately it was darkening and after 30mins when we found a good place, we couldn't hitchhike anymore as the sun went down already. We decided that we will take a taxi to the border but we only had last 10lira and 3 drivers that we stopped demanded at least 30! Finally an ordinary car stopped, its driver was a student – I explained him our situation, but he said that he can only take us 5 km far. It was about 20km to the border so we decided to go with him – adventure! After 3minutes fortunately we became best friends with young driver and he drove us for whole 20 km!

Eceabat

Edirne, Selimiye Mosque

Good-bye Turkey - great story

At the border we said gule gule (tr.goodbye) to Turkey and after unexpected very strict control (border officers were apparently bored and wanted to see our clothes:) we left that beautiful country which was our home for the last 1,5 month.

while trying to sleep in the restaurant

In Bulgaria we had some late supper (21.30) as we spent our last 10lira in some border shop, explaining the seller our needs in Polish J After some rest we started to hitchhike – it wasn't successful for the first 20minutes so we decided to ask for help the border officer. He turned out to be very helpful and said that he would ask the drivers when they are coming for and find us good transportation.

After 15 minutes he found a Turkish driver who was going to Trelleborg in Sweden through Poland and was very excited about taking us. He was transporting metal parts for Volvo factory in Sweden and said that after 4days he should be in Cracow and can take us there, so we agreed. After 4hours of driving he said that it is time for his pause and he must go sleep for 10 hours. He offered us that we can sleep in the tent nearby the car park restaurant. It wasn't good for us because we didn't have tent but we wished him a good night and went back to the restaurant to think what to do. We stayed there for another 3 hours trying to sleep and at 6 we started hitchhiking again.

We caught Bulgarian young driver and on our way. To Jagodas surprise we surpassed 2 polish trucks on our way – quickly we wrote POLSKA on our cartoon so when we left the car of our Bulgarian we waited for those Polish trucks and caught them within few minutes.

It was excellent coincidence, they were going to Poland and one of them took us to his truck cabin. We discovered polish society of truck drivers and found out bunch of necessary information about hitchhiking from Poland to Turkey. Jerzy offered us Polish breakfast and hot coffee. We helped him to fill in water in the truck. We crossed the Bulgarian-Romanian border at 10 and went with Jerzy to Romania. Around 14 he stopped on the car park for his long break – after 2 hours we asked next polish driver for lift and we went to Cluj-Napoca with him for the next stop.

Breakfast in the cabin

it saves our lives time

Thank you Mr Jerzy

Thank you Lukasz

It was very positive journey 'cause Łukasz was very joyful guy which whoom we're talking almost all the time. In Cluj-Napoca we found that in Slovakia there is national holiday and trucks can't get in there for whole day so we couldn't find anyone who was going there. When we got the the car park we were so exhausted after not sleeping last night that we finally took a room in the hotel :(

The next day we started again with Lukasz and we reached Hungarian-Slovakian border after 19.00. After 3 hours waiting we found a truck driver who was going directly to Piotrkow Trybunalski – our final destination!

Piotrkow Trybunalski, our final destination!

Thank you to Mr. Jerzy for trusting us from the first moment, then for encouraging Łukasz that he should take us J And Thanks to Łukasz for asking other drivers through the radio whether they can take two nice Polish students J Without this help it would be really difficult to get home so fast!