Eastern Bloc: Ron King

Bloc Dept: Along the way, my partners, Los Angeles-based photographer Rik Paul and Tennessee journalist Ron King, and I would get in some unique back-road cruising. We'd also have a chance to mix with people shedding the yoke of communism for a Western way of life. Stockpiled with an assortment of guidebooks, maps and giveaways, we coined our seven Eastern Bloc capitals trek Around the Bloc in a Week, according to Vancouver Sun. The junket got off to a wobbly start. After a hectic week of juggling travel schedules, insurance papers and shipping deadlines, I arrived in Europe bushed. When I called the shipping agent in the port of Rotterdam, he informed me the container ship carrying my new '91 GMC Jimmy was five days late and it was the summer of 1990. With the recent fall of the Berlin Wall, our upcoming road trip would provide a glimpse of the Eastern Bloc countries letting down their guard and allowing anyone with a decent set of wheels to experience an extraordinary twist of history. Starting at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, our plan was to follow a counter-clockwise route through the former East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland and get back to our start point exactly one week later. The 17 sets of border formalities would be an adventure in themselves considering 1990 was the first summer the Bloc had been open for unrestricted travel in about 40 years. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.