The cheapest flight from India to Europe was through Kuwait
to Frankfurt. Both flights with a 3 hour
stopover in Kuwait took us 14 hours. The
passengers in the first flight were very different from the ones in the second
flight. The Indians seemed to be content
with everything during the flight. The Arabs
started making demands before the take offs.
We also found out how the women eat with their faces covered. They actually take every bite under the cover
raising it just a little bit. The
service of Kuwait Airlines was great, and there was enough leg room in our
seats.
We arrived at Frankfurt International Airport at 3pm. Karl, who agreed to host us through
couchsurfing.com, came to meet us. It
was a beautiful sunny day. A lot of
people were riding bicycles. There was
no traffic on the streets, nobody was beeping, and even one homeless person was
decently dressed (his shoes were definitely in better condition than my husband’s). We could effortlessly walk on wide unobstructed
sidewalks. We took metro to his huge and
very clean apartment. After a long warm
shower, the laundry was the second thing we did. Feeling clean again, we went to the store to
buy some food for dinner. Karl made us a
pizza from scratch. He also offered us some
good German beer. We fell asleep a
minute we went to sleep after a long day.
We slept on the floor in the living room. It was cool in the room for the first time in
months. We slept like babies. We woke up early in the morning. We felt well rested and ready to continue our
journey. We had no trouble adjusting to
the local time since we gained 5.5 hours.
When we lost time flying to Taiwan from US, it took us 4 days to adjust. After breakfast we got to the edge of town using
public transport to the best location for hitchhiking to Prague. We found practical information about
hitchhiking on hitchwiki.com.
We decided to hitchhike all the way from Frankfurt to
Lithuania, while visiting our friends on the way. Dangis has his high school
friend living in Prague, Czech Republic.
I have a Polish friend I met in Chicago who now lives Warsaw, Poland. We thought we would save some money, and it
would be another adventure. I used to
hitchhike a lot when I was a student in Lithuania, even belonged to Kaunas
hitchhiking club. On the over hand,
Dangis never hitchhiked in his life. It
is about 500 km from Frankfurt to Prague, almost 700 km from Prague to Warsaw,
and another 450 km from Warsaw to Vilnius.
Even I, in my all hitchhiking days, have never hitchhiked such huge
distances before. It took some luck to
make each distance in one day.
Frankfurt – Prague distance was the easiest. As soon as we got to the first gas station,
it took us less than 30 minutes to find the first ride with a truck. It was going to Prague, but it had to make a
mandatory break before the Czech border.
The driver himself was from the little Czech town on the Czech – Austria
border. He spoke perfect English with a
slight Irish accent (He works for the Irish company). The driver was very friendly and even bought
us lunch and coffee in the gas station.
After he stopped in one of the gas stations for the night, right away we
found a women who agreed to drive us to another gas station 80 km away from
Prague. She was coming back from a
business trip. She also spoke perfect
English. Some years ago, she also quit
her job and travelled around US for 6 months.
It was also a pleasure chatting with her. It took us less than 10 minutes to find our
last driver right to the center of Prague.
He was young, but spoke no English or Russian, only Czech or German. He was also nice- he held the cigarette in
his hand the whole ride, but did not lit it until we left the car. At 8pm we arrived to the center. The first girl we asked agreed to lend us her
phone to call our friend. He picked us
up and drove us to his beautiful home. 
The dinner was waiting for us. We even got a guest room with a private
bathroom. We felt like kings. Finally, we could really rest from our travels
for a few days. We did not have to
search for a place to sleep or for a place to eat anymore. It was a great feeling. The weather was beautiful for a few days. So, we got to spend a lot of time outside, visiting
a palace, hiking in the park and walking in the city. We even had an honor to celebrate Dangis’
friend’s birthday. We had some fun.
Warsaw – Vilnius distance was the shortest, but not very
easy. The first car dropped us off in
the middle of the expressway with cars flying by fast and little place to pull
over. I made an LT sign, so one truck
driver had to really break to pick us up.
He was on his way to Lithuania, but he also had to make a mandatory break
to sleep. He agreed to drop us of in the
gas station where a lot of Lithuanian truck drivers make a stop there. There were a lot of Lithuanian drivers, but a
Russian from Estonia agreed to take us.
He dropped us of on Polish – Lithuanian border. It was a strange place to hitchhike, a road
with no shoulder. We decided to stand
next to the gas station. It was slowly
getting dark, and we were worried to get stuck on the border in the middle of
nowhere. One truck had to block the
driveway of the gas station to pull over for us. Luckily, he and his partner with another
truck were going to Elektrenai, which is 50 km away from Vilnius. I got into one truck, and Dangis got into
another truck. My driver was also a
Russian, who spoke perfect Lithuanian.
When we were left on the road, it was already dark. Nobody even slowed down for us. Finally, when we were going to take out some
cash for the bus, one guy pulled over and took us another 10 km to Vievis. Dangis went to the store to take some money
out in local currency. As soon as he
returned, a bus arrived going to Vilnius.
We decided not to waste any more time and boarded the bus. The bus even had Wi-Fi. We arrived to Dangis’ parents’ apartment
around 10:30 pm. After having late
dinner and a pleasant conversation with Dangis parents we went to sleep at
midnight. We arrived in Lithuania 9 days
after arriving to Europe.
It is pleasantly cool in Vilnius. The one thing I cannot get use to is the heat
inside the buses and the stores. We are
not used to such a contrast anymore. It
was easier for me to handle the heat in India.
It is the same problem I had in US with air-conditioning in the summer,
just opposite. Also, we noticed right
away that the air in Europe is very dry, compared to the air in Asia. Other than that, we really enjoy the cool
weather, the ease of taking public transport and crossing the streets, the
cleanliness of the surroundings and most of all the food. The funny thing was that nobody agreed to
lend their phone to Dangis in Vilnius when he was a little lost trying to meet
with his friend.
Another funny story was that after travelling around the
world for a year without ever getting really lost or loosing each other, I
managed to go for a walk in the forest near Vilnius and got lost for hours.
We already got to see a Lithuanian movie
, met some old
friends, and went to see some art exhibitions.
Now I still want to go to the theater and meet some more old friends.
