Hello all,

You will be happy to know that we will be adding a new feature to our posts called “Funny F’in People”. We will be posting photos of really funny looking people. Of course this is my idea and there has been discussion between Brandy and me as to the sensitivity issues this will cause. But since most of you looking at this board know me and my immature sense of humor, you have in the past and should continue to give me some KLH leeway.

We took a 5 hour electric train from Budapest to Zagreb last week. We thought we were going to have our own berth and as the train readied to depart I was crossing my fingers when who should walk in but two Brazilian students living in Germany traveling through Croatia on little fairy wings. Accent and all. They were good company for the ride and had traveled a lot, so provided us with some very useful info. (no photo, sorry)

Croatia still shows some of the scars of the early 90s but is very fast covering them up and it is certainly not something that this country is dwelling on.

Zagreb is a very FASHIONABLE little berg with everyone on the catwalk or so it seems. The beautiful people of Croatia go for coffee in all the little squares and alleys dressed to the nines. So I scrubbed up the flip flops, pasted down the wild hair and spit polished the wife and off we went. I took one look at the prices on the menu and up we went to the market for some bread and cheese.
We stayed in what looked like an old monastery or church turned into a make shift apartment house/church. Unfortunately we did not get the steeple room or I would have rung the bells at odd times just to screw with Zagreb’ head. It was a great location just inside the old city, which you can pretty well rip around in a day.
We met a couple of young yanks from Colorado that were backpacking Croatia as well.

We then took a bus to Croatian’s most loved National Park, Plitvice. Brandy said that it was to be amazing with a bunch of water falls. I was sort of thinking a long hike with something like Brandywine Falls at the end. We paid our park fee walked about 100m and BANG huge waterfalls everywhere. The place was wild with hundreds of pools flowing into one and then another. The colour of the pools, or so I’m told, was amazing lots of vivid blues and greens. Each pool had a sort of tropical look about it. The park had been a base of some faction in the early 90’s and all the infrastructure had been destroyed but it was shiny and new when we got there, with boardwalks under the really spectacular parts. The one drawback on the boardwalks is that they get congested with tour groups, usually elderly tour groups. For the most part we had taken the “K Route”, which is the longest route some 15 km so we only ran into people near the park entrance and exit. Near the exit we ran into a particularly long queue of gentle old souls slowly shuffling along, bless their hearts. I managed to get to the front without tipping any of these beauties into the drink when who did I find leading this group? Not Gandolf but his grandmother shuffling along. (no picture) Oh well.
We stayed in a beautiful little “Zimmer”, room for rent just outside the park, which reminded my of pictures of Switzerland.
We are off to Dubrovnik tomorrow, an 11 hour bus ride with a lovely wife who is never all that happy with long bus trips. If only someone would give me a cat to hold on my lap the whole way it would be just perfect.

Chow, The Hughes’

You can all email us at bandyandkevin@telus.net

Also, the "Comments" function of our website has been on the fritz but thanks to Chris at Boots n All (our webhost) it's back up and running.

Photos:
Our place in Zagreb
Zagreb Market
Our place at Plitvice
Plitvice Falls
Plitvice Boardwalk
Us at Plitvice