Tales of My Travels - Europe

By Cameron Yorke

A road trip of epic proportions through Europe from Sweden to Turkey and back, in 2005 when the world was just beginning to rediscover Eastern Europe after the Cold, and Balkan wars. Hilariously funny, sad, scary and outrageous at the same time, it tells a story of friendship, old and new, sex, lies, intrigue, and deception in the world that existed before smartphones, satnavs, and trip advisor, in countries where the language barrier is the least of one's problems!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cameron. Yorke
• Release date: May 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781549928659

Cameron Yorke

I grew up in New Zealand, but ran away to find fame and fortune at the age of 19 and have lived abroad ever since, working as a Freelance Journalist for the past 14 years. My main loves are food, wine, travel and fashion, and I've been fortunate enough to have developed a career from writing about these, although I have been known to stray occasionally! I've reviewed most of the top restaurants in the world, writing for international travel and lifestyle magazines worldwide, travelled extensively, and lived in many amazing countries before moving to Britain in 2005, where I've written, presented and produced documentaries, television series and short films. ​ My books are mainly of a memoir and self help genre, or travel and lifestyle, but all are based on personal experience. I'm a keen activist for gay rights, along with prison reform and rehabilitation, and have founded a charity to support victims of drugs and the chemsex culture, funded by the proceeds of 'The Chemsex Trilogy' I'm currently single, incredibly selfish, and bloody difficult to live with. When I'm not writing, I enjoy reading, skiing, sailing, horse racing and formula 1, the beach, dining out and a good party. I live in Monaco, Cyprus and  Andorra  

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Table of Contents

Tales of My Travels 

Cameron A. Yorke 

Table of Contents 

Dedication 

Preface 

Chapter 1 - Singapore 

Chapter 2 – Singapore again.. 

Chapter 3 - Sweden 

Chapter 4 - Copenhagen 

Chapter 5 – Tallinn 

Chapter 6 – Progress Report 

Chapter 7 – Riga Bloody Riga! 

Chapter 8 – Riga again... 

Chapter 9 – Malmo madness 

Chapter 10 – More Malmo 

Chapter 11 – Carol’s Copenhagen 

Chapter 12 – London Burning 

Chapter 13 - Fjordland 

Chapter 14 – Cross Country 

Chapter 15 - Amsterdam 

Chapter 16 – Berlin Blitz 

Chapter 17 – Rostock to Riga 

Chapter 18 –Tallinn and Copenhagen 

Chapter 19 - Hamburg 

Chapter 20 – Czech Republic 

Chapter 21 – Austria and Slovenia 

Chapter 22 - Croatia 

Chapter 23 - Montenegro 

Chapter 24 - Macedonia 

Chapter 25 – Ali Baba & The 40 Thieves 

Chapter 26 – Olympos Olympos 

Chapter 27 – Mykonos – Island of Light 

Chapter 28 - Serbia 

Chapter 29 - Berlin 

Epilogue 

About the Author 

Keep in touch 

By the same Author, 

Dedication

What goes on Tour, Stays on tour! - For Sally

Preface

Iwas bored! At 38 years old I was at a crossroads in my life and had no idea which direction to take. Some would call it a midlife crisis, but I wasn’t quite ready to admit to that!  Although I might have been 38 on paper, in reality I didn’t feel any older than I had ten years ago, and indeed could still pass for 29 on a good day, with a fresh top up of Botox,  from the right angle and with excellent lighting! One thing was certain; I needed a change of scenery and now was the perfect opportunity to affect it. I had sold my business some months before, and since then had found myself drifting aimlessly, flitting from one job to another, with very little to interest me, seldom holding down a position for more than a month or so at a time, before becoming bored and restless for something to challenge me and hold my attention. I had never been a good employee, and now, having been self employed for almost 20 years, I was probably the worst underling in the world! The problem was that most of the bosses I’d had the misfortune of serving were stupid. This was not entirely their fault – we all rise to our own level of incompetence, but more often than not I had found myself knowing more about their businesses than them, and when they would inevitably come up with an idiotic decision or idea, I could never contain my disdain.

The new owner of my business was of a similar ilk. Her name was Joan and she had been a customer initially, rather gauche and nouveau riche, we'd thought - Rich rather than wealthy, and the words ‘understated’ or ‘minimal’ didn’t feature highly in her vocabulary. She would often come into the shop on a Saturday afternoon, her cheque book so fat she would have to drag it around behind her, looking for the newest, flashiest addition to our stock, and had almost furnished her entire home with bling from our showroom floor.

How much is that? she would regularly bellow across the room, before dragging said cheque book from her customary orange Birkin, slapping it down on the counter and filling in the digits, her gaudy, heavily bejewelled fingers flashing in the late afternoon sunlight.

I‘ll make it out for $500 more and you can give me some cash, I’m a bit short for the weekend she would regularly decree, arrogantly assuming we would accept her cheque without hesitation, before sailing out through the double doors in a cloud of Estee Lauder’s ‘Beautiful’, looking back as an afterthought, advising that she would be home all afternoon - clearly expecting delivery of her purchases the same day!

We had known she was loaded, but had no idea just how rich, however the rather sad story had emerged soon enough from our gossip-happy neighbours when much to our surprise she had heard that we were thinking of selling, and had almost bitten our hands off in her rush to buy it.

Apparently, for the past 20 years she had been having an affair with a rather prominent, but married bookmaker. Finally two years earlier He had left his wife of 40 years and moved in with her and their now 12 year old daughter, fulfilling all the dreams she had never believed would come true, and elevating her in status from ‘The other woman’ to de-facto wife. He had then promptly suffered a heart attack and died, leaving the ex-wife destitute, and bequeathing his entire estate to Joan, meaning that she would never have to work again in her life. I said sad earlier, because I actually felt terribly sorry for the poor ex-wife, who had put up with a cheating scoundrel of a husband for decades, only to be left out in the cold on his death. Joan had however initially been beside herself with grief, but had decided in recent months that she needed something to keep herself busy, and what better than the most stylish gift, furniture and homewares store in the district, to further elevate her status in society as she held court behind the counter for the ‘ladies who lunched’!

I had casually mentioned that we were thinking of selling one afternoon, while she was on one of her regular shopping jaunts.  Arthur, my partner, was tired of the country life and had been longing to move back to Melbourne for some time now, and to be honest, after 7 years in the business, I was exhausted! Three times a week I had been getting up at 3am and driving the 145km to Melbourne’s flower markets, then rushing back to open by 9am, before working a full day on the shop floor, and it had taken it’s toll both physically and mentally.

How much d'ya want? she had asked, and to be honest, it had taken me completely by surprise. We’d been mulling over the idea of selling for a couple of months, without any thought to how we could make it happen, let alone the financial aspects! I'd driven home that evening and Arthur and I had stayed up late into the night discussing the options. Ironically, we had both thought we wanted out, but now, when faced with a flight path we were hesitant. What would we do? Would we even be employable after so many years in self employment? And how would we establish what the company was worth? There was also the question of our egos to consider. Here, at this point in time we were the owners of the biggest destination store in Country Victoria. Our ads were all over the regional television networks and people would drive for hundreds of kilometres just to shop in our store. Customers would regularly admit to shopping with us so that everyone knew where their gift had come from due to our distinctive branded gift-wrapping. Socially we were the Belles of the Ball, Big fish in a small pond, everyone wanted to be associated with us, everyone wanted to be our friends, and this was a major consideration if we were thinking of throwing it all away. Back in Melbourne we would quickly sink into anonymity, and although we were not short of friends and connections there, we both knew we would not enjoy the same celebrity status we currently commanded here.

Next morning, after a hasty phone call to the accountant, we had resolved to ask a ridiculous amount of money for the entire business as a going concern and see what happened. In a sense we were trading our entire lifestyle - we had a huge amount of goodwill on offer, but as the accountant had pointed out, this was largely due to our personal popularity, and would not necessarily translate to an asset for the incoming purchaser, however this was not our problem, and if they were not clever enough to see it, who were we to complain. To cut a long story short, we met with Joan and her advisors, named our price and they accepted it, lock, stock and barrel. Within 24 hours we had reached an agreement and the baby we had raised from nothing over the past seven years was converted to a seven figure bank balance instead, which, even after payment of all our commitments, left us with a tidy sum, meaning we could take our time and carefully consider our next steps. I was concerned that Joan would lack the necessary acumen to maintain the business in its current form – her eye for style alone would be enough to decimate everything we had fought so long to build over the years, but as Arthur assured me, it was now out of our hands.

Back in Melbourne things did not go so smoothly! Arthur, after seven years of life as a disciplined, dedicated businessman, was eager to hang on to the last vestiges of his youth. Being some 11 years younger than me, he felt that he had missed out on all the things young 20-somethings did before settling down, and no longer wanted the obligation of a business or even a responsible job. For him the lure of nightlife, parties, and the carefree lifestyle of nights behind the bar, followed by days at the beach were his ultimate goal, whereas I was looking for a slightly more mature existence. Although we now had a sizeable bank balance, I was aware that it would very soon be eroded without any form of income, and having worked so hard for so many years without really having a life, I was keen to build on what we had amassed, rather than pissing it all against the wall! These differences of opinion resulted in many an argument, and coupled with the fact that we were both occupying different ends of the day’s spectrum, with me working business hours whilst he started at 6pm and worked into the night, it meant that we barely saw each other, becoming ships that passed in the night, with neither of us willing to shift ground. The relationship deteriorated to the point where we were barely speaking, and then plummeted further until the rows started erupting at the slightest provocation, which then sunk to violence on two occasions, the final one resulting in me spending days in hospital with bleeding around the brain, after being hit over the head with the blunt end of a four foot long, seventeenth century, solid wooden monastery candleholder! The situation had become untenable and at the insistence of the local constabulary, I had been forced to take out a restraining order on him, as by now I feared for my life. This was particularly hard on me as I still loved him, but it was clear we were at different stages in our lives, both wanting to travel very different paths.

In True Cameron Style, Arthur had moved out and within a month Johan had moved in. Actually, I’d had very little say in the matter. I'd known him for a number of years, and when I had turned up at the local gay pub one evening very soon after the split, Johan had heard rumours of it and lost no time moving in for the kill. After a few drinks he'd suggested a move to a nightclub, where we’d both dropped an ecstasy, and the rest was history. We headed back to my place in South Yarra as the sun was rising, and basically he never left. The relationship had been doomed from the start – We were good friends and although I found him amusing, I was still in love with Arthur, and should never have jumped into something new so soon. He was the impossible princess, and was looking for someone to place him on a pedestal and provide for his every whim, and I just wasn’t prepared to entertain that idea! The sex was less than exciting and very soon dried up completely, resulting in us both looking elsewhere, with neither of us caring what, or who the other did.

It was over a couple of drinks at the Street Café in St Kilda that Johan announced that he was moving back to Sweden. His grandmother had been very ill for quite some time and had apparently taken a turn for the worse, and he wanted to go home and spend some time with her before she passed away, which actually translated to the fact that he wanted to return in time to safeguard his inheritance before his twin brother got his hands on the bulk of the estate. In the six years he had lived in Australia he’d had a constant battle to obtain permanent residence and subsequent citizenship, despite three proposed marriages to ‘ridgy-didge’ Aussies, one girl and two men, all of whom had tried to extort varying amounts of money from him for the privilege – something He had neither the means or the inclination to surrender. Now his chances of mounting a successful and credible application based on family had all but run out, and with me being a New Zealand citizen, I was of little use to him in this regard. Anyway, by this stage I had my own problems. I was drifting aimlessly, disheartened by my attempts at meaningful employment, dissatisfied by my relationship with him, and conscious that I was stagnating, with no sense of purpose or direction, which was causing me to drink too much, indulge in recreational drugs far too often and sleep with too many men in my intoxicated state, with whom I had no interest or attraction. Something had to give.

It was November and in the lead up to Christmas I had teamed up with a friend of mine, Luke, to sub-lease a once popular cocktail bar in South Melbourne. The lease was up in May, and with the owner being a 90 year old widow with four sons who were desperate to get their hands on the building for re-development, there was no chance of a renewal, so the idea had been to run it over Christmas and the summer season, me providing the funds and Matt providing the management skills to suck as much money out of it as possible for the least amount of effort before it would close forever as the clocks were turned back to winter time. This had at least given me a reason to get up in the morning, but it was hardly a long term solution.

Johan turned up one Friday night, I suspected to cadge free drinks for the evening, but although he had finally by this stage moved out of my house, we had remained good friends and were still seeing quite a bit of each other. It was a balmy summer night and we sat outside at one of the al-fresco tables over a few cocktails and chatted about what each other was going to do. Four Mojitos in, he mooted the idea that I should join him in Sweden. He knew that I loved Europe and reasoned that now was the perfect time to take a complete break, at least while I sorted out what to do with the rest of my life. I had been to Britain, Germany, Italy and France on a number of occasions in the past few years, but each time had been for business and I’d had no time to really enjoy any of them, as on each trip our work load had been epic. I’d always had a morbid curiosity about life behind the iron curtain, and had been fascinated in the past to hear stories of life in Russia, the Ukraine and other lesser known Eastern European destinations, and now these countries were infinitely more accessible since the fall of the wall so in my booze adled mind, it sounded an excellent idea! We resolved to meet up the following Sunday and discuss it further.

We met for a drink at Veludo, in Acland St – yet more cocktails! This time, though, I’d had a chance to think things through, and so had Johan. Having not lived in Sweden for six or seven years, he was unsure of what he was going back to, and I think more than anything, welcomed the idea of having a wingman of sorts, whilst he found his feet again. He also needed someone to pay for his flight, as after years of using his father as an emergency cash reserve, the Bank-of-Dad had dried up and he now had no idea how he was going to arrange a ticket. His grandmother was currently in an aged care home, and the family were keen to have someone living in her house in Holviken, just outside Malmo, so our accommodation needs were looked after. I had commitments with Spy lounge until April, but he was keen to go sooner, so I agreed to speak to my travel agent on Monday morning and book a flight for mid March, allowing him to avoid the worst of the Swedish winter. I would follow a month later, joining him on the 18th of April. We arranged to meet the following week at the Swedish Church in Toorak, which doubled as the Embassy, and apply for my permanent residence visa, which he assured me would be processed within four to six weeks, so all that was needed after that was for me to decide what to do with my possessions, rent out my flat, and start planning my adventure!

Chapter 1 - Singapore

ILeft Melbourne at 10am this morning and have just got to the hotel in Singapore. Staying at the Hotel Bencoolen, which is a great location, very near Orchard road for shopping, and just up from many of the other shopping centres as well. The rooms are not bad, and it has a great pool on the roof top - Thank God because it’s fucking hot here! It rained on the way into town from the airport, so now there is steam vaporising off everything. I had an extremely amusing flight. Boris and Axel, backpacking friends of mine from Germany came down from Rochester for my going away party, and brought Dennis, their Aussie House mate down with them, as he was flying out the same day to the Philippines. Once we got talking we learned that by some freaky coincidence, he and I were on the same flight!

Anyway, the night before we had started at the Street Café in St Kilda. Hayelley, Anna, Sino, Amy, Axel, Boris and Carol, a dysfunctional concoction of friends from many different areas of my life had all come for a final drink to say goodbye, Then Carol insists I go for a final drink with her at the Prince of Wales. She is getting blind drunk by this stage, so I have one drink and escape back to the motel, as I have to be up early, and it’s already midnight! It's quite clear that she cannot drive home in this state, so I leave the door unlocked in case she comes to her senses and realises I am gone. My alarm goes off at 5am and no sign off Carol, so I’m hoping she didn't try to drive back to Hoppers Crossing, but I don't have time to worry about her ridiculous irresponsibilities now, as I've got a plane to catch! Later I find out that she couldn't remember my room number, so she slept in the car.

I've promised to make a detour on the way to the airport to pick up Dennis at his ex-wife's house in Sunshine, which of course takes far longer than expected because the taxi driver has no idea where he is going through the maze suburbia, but eventually we find the address and its off to the Airport, where we check in as he decides its time for a Beer (7.30am)! I'm sure I’m still intoxicated from the night before! He goes to the bar, and the barmaid is busy, so he just helps himself to the fridge! She doesn't notice, so he goes back five minutes later and does it again! After a quick stop at the duty free shop on the way through for cigarettes, we're off to the departure lounge. Once airborne, the seat belt sign goes off and Dennis is pressing the call button.

Two Bloody Mary's thanks love, and make 'em big! Actually it’s just what I need to bring me back to normality again, because by now I am dehydrating badly. I then begin to realise this is going to be an extremely long flight, when he orders another round of Bloody Mary's, and begins to regale me with stories of his numerous girlfriends in The Philippines, and what he is going to do with each one of them, in graphic detail! He evidently has a girl there that he has been visiting on and off for the past 10 years - she wants to move to Australia permanently with him, (as they all do!) but the problem is he's still sort-of seeing his ex-wife! Meanwhile he has another girl in the next village which he has been porking for the past two years - of course she is much younger! He flies to the Philippines four times a year, and on top of all these encounters, still finds time to visit a few brothels along the way. The weird thing about it is, he is so fucking ugly! He really looks like Sméagol from Lord of the Rings! Anyway, this time he is in The Philippines for three months, so he'll have plenty of time to fulfil his agenda!  The first story is funny with Dennis, but by the time you get to the 10th, the jokes start to wear a bit thin, and after the third drink, they become much more graphically detailed! By this point in the proceedings I've switched to Gin and Tonic, not quite so potent. I vaguely entertain the idea of sleeping, or pretending to be asleep but as soon as I close my eyes I feel a sharp prod in the ribs, and Two more G & T's thanks Love - Great! Luckily lunch is on the way by now, and then finally I might get a reprieve, or at least, regain some ballast, with something to