Day 16 Welcome to the Netherlands

We have discovered a golden rule of travel, the longer the trip and the more accurately you try to predict the estimated time of arrival, the more likely it is that something will go wrong. Our trip from Munich to Amsterdam was long and we needed to arrive at a particular time to meet the people who own the B&B where we are staying.

The trip began well because we were traveling on a German ICE  train, which is clean, efficient, fast and very comfortable. We leave Munich on time at 9.55am and arrive in Frankfurt on time at 12.03pm. We change platforms, and we are on the next train bound for Amsterdam, which also leaves on time at 12.26pm. As the train departs we hear a very long announcement in German, which is then repeated in Dutch and finally in English. The announcements are repeated numerous times during the journey and state that due to an accident between Emmerich (Germany) and Arnhem (Holland) the train will stop at Emmerich and we will need to catch a bus to the other side of the border. The bus will deliver us to the Arnhem railway station and from there we will catch a regional Dutch train to Amsterdam.

As announced we arrived at Emmerich and boarded a bus to Holland. The bus was crowded, slow, stuffy and not at all like a German train. After about 20 minutes we reached the border and there the bus was stopped and armed border police boarded the bus to check passports. All did not go smoothly as a young Spanish-speaking guy, who was sitting directly in front of us, did not have a passport. He was removed from the bus and we assumed, escorted to some form of detention. All of a sudden Holland’s reputation as being a very liberal and lax country didn’t seem to fit this scene of guns and arrests.

Finally we found our way on to a train bound for Amsterdam where again we experienced a weird side of Dutch hospitality. Richard tried use his mobile to call the B&B from the train to explain our lateness, only to be abused by a couple of very cranky, old Dutch businessmen. It seems that the carriage we were on was a ‘Silent’ carriage and these guys took it upon themselves to enforce the rules. Over the next  70 minutes we were not the only targets of these grumpy Dutch enforcers of the silence, several other passengers were also asked to be quiet.

So welcome to The Netherlands, a land where marijuana is legal, where euthanasia is legal, where gay marriage is legal and where prostitutes can advertise themselves in a shop window, but a land where you cannot, at fear of being abused, speak out loud on a train!