The next morning began with a hurried, desperate scramble to erase any evidence of the apocalyptic mess we'd made of our room before we had to check out.

The one glaring difference between the nature of my backpacking adventures of yore, and this trip (aside from its duration), was the fact that this time I would be accompanied by an experienced resident of the country in question. This, in my head at least, would mean we could swan about unchecked and fancy-free, chatting, laughing and generally endearing ourselves to locals wherever we set foot, employing a combination of Rachel's insider knowledge and Thai linguistic skills, and my.... general presence.

The Berlin bus of bants seemed like a beautiful breeze compared to our outbound journey, and Tash and I were gifted many an hour of calm for podcast bingeing, upright napping and quality chats. 

The bus to Krakow was, thankfully, a lot less eventful than its predecessors, involving only a bizarre communal film and several hours of roadworks.