Crackin' Krakow Part 2

The next day everyone got up about as slowly as they had the previous, and discussions were had on what was to be done. After a slow breakfast and the equally slow getting ready process we decided that we'd head on down to the Auschwitz concentration camps, and after a few more people entered and left the hostel we ended up with a group of about 8 reasonably conscious participants. After everyone got themselves sorted, we headed on out to get the tram down to the bus station, all 8 of us piling straight on. I was the only one with a ticket which I quietly validated, and not 5 minutes into our trip, two guys got on the tram in plain clothes and started asking people for tickets. Some of the group started acting the dumb tourist without a ticket, but we were all ushered off the tram and the next fifteen minutes were spent arguing with the two guys, who looked very dodgy, about how much fine they should have to pay. It involved a lot of slow communication and bargaining, at one point the guy pulling out his phone to call the police. Eventually I think they got the fine down to about 30 wotsits each, which I think equated to a little less than 10 euro. I'd say the best bargaining was done by Daniel, or as he was known to most of us, "Spaniard", who was a fairly charismatic dude and did most of the talking.

After a time we did get to the bus station, found the bus to Auschwitz and made our journey there. It took slightly over an hour, a time spent by most dozing or light conversation. Once we'd arrived, we had to decide whether to take the guided tour or wander about ourselves, the catch being that the guided tour didn't start for another hour. Suggestions were thrown back and forth, and the general consensus was that the guided tour was the preferred option, both to better understand what it was we were looking at, but also because a lot of us couldn't be bothered reading anything and rathered taking the lazy way out. Most of the group then wandered off around the camp, but Rod and myself decided that we were going to see it all pretty soon anyway and were content just to sit around the main entrance.

The tour started, and was led by a Polish girl who'd actually had family who died in Auschwitz, so understandably she was quite passionate about the information that she was providing. It was interesting to hear about the different buildings and the things that occured in the various places around the camp, along with more personal stories about where her family had fit in.

Auschwitz was actually broken up into three sites. The first, and what is actually known as "Auschwitz" (the Polish spelling is "Oświęcim"), was the first of the camps and and considerably smaller than the second, Birkenau. There was also a third camp, Monowitz, however there is no remnants of the third left standing. The buildings look suprisingly good, and if it weren't for the signs and information being given to us by our tour leader, it would almost seem like a nice place to wander around. The brick buildings are all in good repair, there are nice green trees all over the place and save from the rather intimidating barbed fencing around the place, the whole area was quite pleasant. Inside each of the buildings are different displays, and this is where the whole thing became a lot more sinister. They showed models of how the camps were laid out, and described the ruthless efficiency of the Germans in why Auschwitz was where it was and how the rail system easily transported prisoners from all over Europe to this central location in Poland. There were huge collections of actual peoples belongings (original) that had been stripped away from them on entry, and I remember one display of thousands upon thousands of shoes piled up in massive heap along two windows in one of the structures. There was also tons of human hair that had been uncovered when the camp had been liberated that the Germans had used for making various high quality textiles, hair that was shaved off each prisoner upon entry.

Our tour guide showed us the living areas and conditions of the prisoners including the areas where people were tortured in various ways, and the whole thing was particularly sobering. There were various rooms that depicted how the living conditions changed over time, beginning with nothing but straw on the floors, to straw sacks that were used as mattresses and then to the crowded bunks that some may be familiar with from common photos.

One of the last buildings shown to us, or rather pointed to in the distance was the commander's house, where he lived whilst running the camp, apparently with his entire family. I was a little taken aback to believe that someone would live with their family so close to such a terrible place, where the smell and noise must have been present constantly. The last building shown to us was the gas chamber and crematorium used in Auschwitz, however it was quite small, and most of it had been rebuilt as a replica to show what it would have looked like in operation. This building was only used whilst the Germans were constructing Birkenau, the largest of the camps, and known as an "extermination" camp.

Birkenau was our next destination, and whilst there were less buildings still standing there, it was unbelievably large. Once I had walked through the entrance gate to the camp, you literally could not see the end of it in the distance toward the horizon. The actual area of the place eludes me for now, but over 100,000 prisoners were kept here at any given time, kept in check by over 6,000 gaurds. It was here that most of the gassing was performed, with a railroad built right into the center of the camp so they could quickly bring prisoners directly to their imprisonment. Once they had arrived, they were quickly sorted into either workers or marked for death, often marched straight to the gas chambers where they would be told that they would get a shower, herded in 2,000 at a time and killed. There were four gas chambers and crematoria, run by prisoners themselves. The whole place was very shocking, and simply the enormity of the camp was enough to give you pause.

We wandered down the railroad, were shown some of the living quarters that had been rebuilt, saw the remnants of the gas chambers that had been blown up by the Nazi's when they heard the Soviets were coming and finished at the main memorial. There was a plaque in each language of the prisoners that had died in Auschwitz, and I noticed that the only reason they had an English one was due to all of the tourism they get to this place. After the tour was complete we had about an hour to wait for the bus, so we sat around and chatted, and eventually made the trek back up to the front of the house, went up the main entrance tower to get some photos and grouped back together to wait for the bus.

This particular bus that we were waiting for happened to be the last back to Krakow, and without any decent signage, we simply waited around about the area where we were dropped off previously. After a time a bus turned into the road on which we were waiting, went about 50 meters past us, turned around and paused for half a minute. We had waved it down as it drove past, and started walking towards it, and then the driver pulled back out and drove right past us, not having picked up a single person from the place. Realising that it was our last chance to get home, a couple of us thought quickly, and got the rest of our group to a couple of taxis waiting near the entrance. It was the first time in my life I've had the opportunity to jump into a taxi and request frantically "Follow that bus!!". The taxi driver did so, making it back to Auschwitz (the second stop of the bus) before the driver had left again, and I'm sure charged us a premium for the service. We joined the now rather large queue to get on the bus, and whilst we were all able to get a seat we were spread a bit further through the thing, and not in a nice little group as we'd been on the way there. Add to this that for some reason the journey back home took over two hours, by the time we'd actually made it back to Krakow it was dark, and I was tired and annoyed. I may have been overheard to wish unspeakable fortune on our complete wanker of a bus driver.

A short time later we made it back to the hostel, and quickly left again, as it was past 9, apparently the time when a majority of the restaurants close. We found a nice little italian place and had some food, myself ordering the requisite lasagne, a choice I later regretted as I feel that my dish had been sitting in a hot pan for a few hours and had turned rather hard, whereas everyone elses pizzas and pastas looked quite fresh.

Returning to the hostel to freshen up and get ready to go out, I threw down a few Jagerbombs and a beer and began to feel a bit better about life in general, and we headed out to find some other people from the hostel who had headed out to the club of the night by now. We chatted to the owner outside reception briefly, threw down a few of the offered vodka shots and made our way across town to the "Kitsch" club.

Upon arrival there were a bunch of people loitering around outside, one with a fresh wound above his eye, and I began to get a little nervous about the quality of the establishment. It actually seemed to be about two or three places all jammed into the one building, with our choice for the evening located up the top. Having nowhere else to go we decided to brave the place and headed upstairs to grab a drink. The top floor was split into two, one side playing cheesy retro sort of stuff and the other playing something I don't recall, but certainly a lot more pleasant to the ears than the former. Jon was in there doing his breakdancing thing and apparently having a vodka drinking competition with some Russian guys, a competition I dare say he wasn't winning. He was putting them away like a champion, however, and I will certainly not disparage his efforts. Considering he'd throw a couple down and then get on the dance floor and start spinning on his head, I'd say the man has a gut of steel. I had been bought a beer by someone at this stage, and it was about now that I realised how much I hated the staple Polish beer, "Zywiec". The stuff just doesn't go down very well and leaves an after taste that is far to reminiscent of vegemite. It didn't stop me finishing the beer though, despite my companions discouraging. For those interested, Tyskie and Lech are far better varieties of Polish beer.

An interesting side point at this stage would be to point out one of the ongoing running gags that permeated the whole of our time in Krakow. The hostel provided us all with a map, and on one side of the map it had a list of what it considered useful phrases in Polish. Amongst these included things like "Hello", "Please" and "Thank you", but also some other rather interesting ones such as "Are you a nurse?", "Do you have any available brothers/sisters?", and the kicker was "May I please fondle your buttocks?". I don't think anyone was game enough to try the latter while we were out, but the most hilarious to us (the boys at least), was "Do you know how to play the trumpet?". This would constantly get thrown about no matter where we are, and I do know that Rod gave this one a crack in a club, only to have the response "Well no, but I do know how to play the keyboard!". Apparently the lass didn't quite understand the euphemism.

Chris, the Englishmen that I would end up spending the next few days of travelling with, joined us at the club and actually ended up hanging around longer than any of us. We had a small group hanging around at one table, but the vibe wasn't quite as tight as it had been the previous night. Rod and Steve had found some chicks that they'd hooked up with the night previous, and were busy making repeat inroads there, and a lot of the Americans had already left that day. It was still a fun place to hang out, but none of it really left a lasting impression on me, and by about 3 I think most of our group had dissapeared. Chris had decided to move back to the cheese room to try and find some girls, a mission he was successful with and ended up bringing his prize back to the hostel around 5 in the morning, and the Spaniard tried his luck elsewhere in the club and managed to get a few numbers to chase up the following day. Clare and I left shortly after 3, picked up a couple more beers at a 24 hour shop, however it seems that once it gets dark you need to make your purchases through a rather intimidating iron grate. We hung out for a while back at the hostel and watched people slowly trickle their way back home, and a few hours later called it a night ourselves.

In what was becoming quite a trend by this stage, everyone was in bed until close to midday. Eventually we all roused once more, discussed the previous nights shenanigans, ate more cheese and yoghurt amongst deciding to check out Krakow's other primary tourist attraction, the salt mines. The transport there was a considerably simpler task, just a 20 minutes bus straight to the place, a fine free event. Deciding that our meager breakfast wasn't quite sufficient, we went to the restaurant across the road. I went for the chicken skewer, which far outshone the rest on the table, with my companions each receiving a rather small dish of scrambled eggs. Most decided to get back on the wagon with a pint to go down with it, and ensuring I steered clear of that horrible Zywiec stuff I ordered a Carlsberg to be safe, as the wait staff here didn't speak a word of English.

After a time we finally got to the salt mines themselves, and upon queueing we discussed which entrance fee we should get. There are two options, an English tour or a Polish tour. Tim, one of the bright sparks of our group suggested that if we were to get the Polish tour we could save a few bucks (it was cheaper), and we'd still get to see the whole thing. No one really disputed this, despite the saving being a rather paltry 4 or 5 euro, and off we went into the mine following a chap whom we couldn't understand a word of. We traversed down about 30 flights of stairs to get into the mine, and then set off walking through what was apparently only 2% of the entire underground labyrinth. This 2% still took a few hours, stopping in each cavern where there were various puppets and animatronics showing what would happen in different parts of the mine. Chris and I attempted to make our own hilarious running commentary of the place, however after the first few caverns this started to run short. I'm not sure if the tour would have been that much more interesting had we chosen the English tour instead, but after about an hour of following our Polish guide, a lot of us were completely over the whole thing. Each cavern didn't really show us anything different, and between looking at different sculptures carved out of the salt and licking the walls (Jon became an expert at this), there really wasn't that much to distinguish any one place from another. We did attempt to lag back occasionally to try and hear the English guide behind us, but after receiving a couple of death stares that could only be delivered by an eastern European, we kept up with our main group.

There was one very large cavern that had been converted into a sort of chapel/church, with carvings on the walls depicting various scenes. Clare rather cleverly deciphered most of them and pointed out their chronology, and the whole room was fairly impressive. Apparently you could book the place for weddings and the like, and it was supposedly a fully functioning place of worship. We left the church area and continued through the rest of the mine, which became less and less impressive as the caverns progressed. There was one cavern that was quite large, with a pool of water in its center. We were ushered in, and then a sound and light show was initiated that was just poor. A few spotlights shone on different objects within the cavern, but nothing moved and the sound was just strange and bizarre. We left the cavern all a bit puzzled, not sure what they were trying to accomplish with the spectacle.

Eventually we made it to the end of the tour, and we quickly found our way through about twenty different gift shops, and up into a very rickety and small elevator. We left the mine completely, and most of us agreed (the Irish girls not so much, they seemed to enjoy the experience at least somewhat), that the whole thing was a bit of a waste of time. I'm not even sure if we'd gone on the English tour that the excursion would have been much better for it. Most fell asleep on the short bus ride back to the hostel, and then pretty much everyone went back to bed for a couple of hours.

Later we headed out to get some dinner, but again leaving it a bit too late there were few places open. We had a group of about 10 people, and went into one place that wouldn't serve us because they "didn't have enough cooks in the kitchen". After a time we found a rather large mexican restaurant that was willing to accept our patronage, however split us up into smaller groups as they wouldn't allow us to move any tables. I ordered some ribs that were wholly unsatisfying (compared to those I'd had in Innsbruck), as the rib bones broke while I was trying to pull them apart, and the meat quality was just generally pretty average. We had a round of cocktails as they were fairly inexpensive, and after everyone was finished, "Boo" left as he had to make a train, and then the rest of us went back to the hostel to get ready for this evenings shenanigans.

The mood back at the hostel was fairly lackluster, drinks started flowing but I would describe it as more of a trickle than a fountain of alcohol. Clare challenged a bunch of us to scrabble, but this was abandoned halfway through as it was boring the piss out of most in the room. About three quarters of the group then decided to head out again that night, but a few of us were happier to hang around in the hostel and have our drinks indoors. I kept this going all night, with Clare being the only one with the stamina to keep up, watching the punters slowly trickle in from their outings, spent a while listening to a particularly hilarious comedian on Jon's laptop, whose name I wish I could remember. It was something "Tell", but I can't for the life of me recall his first name. Unfortunately typing "Tell" and "Comedian" into google isn't coming up with much for me.

Hearing the stories of those who went out was interesting, apparently they went to a fairly ordinary bar and then later on ended up at some kind of death metal gig, where all the ladies in the house would sit around the outskirts whilst the gents would stand on the dance floor and swing their hair around circles. A few were going to join in the festivities by swinging their shirts around, but were quickly discouraged from such and not long after made their way back to the hostel. I can't say I was altogether dissapointed in missing out, but it would have been interesting to see.

Eventually most made their way back, and then even the hostel staff wandered in about 6'ish to lay out breakfast for the morning, after which time Clare and I decided it was probably time for us to wrap up as well, but not before I was told that I must get up in the next few hours to see her off to her taxi. I did so, and then made my way back inside for another hour or two nap, and then headed into town to organise my night train ticket to Prague. Jon came with me, as he was headed off to his next destination and after a nice sushi lunch and a bit of wandering around the shops, I bode farewell to my breakdancing Asian-American friend and headed back to the hostel. When I returned I found Chris trying to work out his own journey to Prague, and ended up going back to the station with him and one of the other American guys and helped him sort out his ticket. While we were there, Spaniard rocked up and organised his own travel, and it became fairly clear that today was the exodus of most of our core group from the hostel.

The four of us took the opportunity to have another wander around Krakow, saw some of the sights we'd missed so far, and I showed them the rather delicious Polish barbecue I'd found the first day I arrived. There were some traditional Polish dancers and singers on the stage, and the whole atmosphere felt very authentic. The dancing is particularly unusual, basically a bunch of old women in traditional Polish garb stand with their fists on their hips and twist from side to side. It didn't seem very complicated, but they all had the look of people that take it very seriously.

After heading back to the hostel for a nap, we went out for a dinner recommended to us by Slovak consisting of "potato pancakes". He was very keen to take us all there, and ensured that we'd each put down a couple of vodka shots before heading out. I guess I was expecting a small restaurant or something similar, but it ended up being more of a take away booth, so we ordered the ham and cheese potato pancake as recommended and then headed off to a pub around the corner to have a few beers while we waited for them to be cooked up. This was the first chance I got to have a chat with Slovak, and his lifestyle is very interesting. He's been to Australian over 15 times, and regularly takes tourist groups from Europe, primarily Germany and Poland to see various parts of outback Oz, as he seems to love our country. He is very into organising tourist activities, something that was made clear to me the second day I was there when he took a few of our group hiking through Poland and into Slovakia. It was then made clear to me at this point, that one of the reasons he enjoys going to Slovakia is that he able to buy a type of Absinthe there that is apparently illegal to purchase in Poland. He also assured me that the skiing/snowboarding on the mountains between Poland and Slovakia is excellent and extremely cheap, something I hope to check out sometime during the European winter. Once our "potato pancakes" where ready, we were about to get up to go retrieve them, at which point Slovak told us to sit down, and he and who I assume was his wife went and brought them all back for us. It was essentially like a massive hash brown with ham and cheese all over it, and thoroughly delicious.

Our meal and beers finished, we hurried back to the hostel, as four of us (myself included) had to get our asses into gear to make our train. Chris and I pulled our damp washing off the lines, crammed them into our bags and hurried out the door with the other couple of guys who were getting the same tram as us, however Slovak wouldn't let us leave without having one of his evil Absinthe shots. It went down surprisingly well, but left a burn in my stomach that hung around for a good 5 minutes or so. We jogged through the rain, but missed the tram, and ended up flagging down a taxi to get us to the station. We arrived with few minutes to spare, found our platform and cabins and dropped our stuff.

Chris was in the cabin next to mine, sharing with an Irish group of two guys and two girls, and we all got along quite well. I tried to convince the sixth member of their cabin to swap with me in mine next door, which was a good deal considering I was in a four person cabin rather than a six. He poked his head into mine and spied two French guys with their shirts off, and decided to stick with his initial boarding. The train trip was average to say the least, but the company was good and they were serving beer (unfortunately warm) for the first half of the journey. We got stuck on the Polish / Czech border for a good two hours for some reason, an event which I found out from other travellers later in my journeys isn't too uncommon. Even though there was only the one passport check this time, I got less sleep on this trip than I had on the previous one from Budapest, mostly due to the raucous Americans partying with the French guys in my room. I stayed out of my cabin and hung out with Chris and the Irish group (I'm sure their extra passenger in our cabin was having a delightful time trying to sleep himself) until about 3 when the train finally started pulling out of the station at the border. About 6 hours later we arrived in Prague.

Krakow was awesome. It was awesome because Slovak really knew how to make people feel welcome and how to encourage them to have a good time (he really enjoys the tourist industry), and it was awesome because the group inhabiting our hostel while I was there were all really good fun to hang out with. We basically became our own little family for the better part of four days, and everyone was happy to enjoy everyone elses company. I'm sure had the group dynamic not been as enthusiastic and tight that I wouldn't have had nearly as good a time, as I didn't feel there was heaps to see in Krakow. Certainly there was Auschwitz which was interesting, and the salt mines which were not so, but the city itself doesn't have all that much in the way of major sights. There is a castle, which I actually never got to see up close, and the market stalls and town square were nice, especially that barbecue, but what made Krakow for me was definitely the fun I had after dark with my fellow comrades.

If anyone is going to put this place on their to do list, I would certainly recommend "Ars Hostel". Really, the name says it all!

The photos are also available.