The Final Blog ...

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Well, considering we are all back in New Zealand now, I thought I would wrap up the Travel Blog with some of what we got up to from Bosnia onwards.

I left the last blog with us exiting Sarajevo (and Bosnia) on route to Belgrade, Serbia. The train ride to Belgrade was one of the least enjoyable of the trip … it was long, hot, and even broke down at one stage. As Air Conditioning, I had our water bottle holding the window open, which at one of the stations I managed to knock out the window so we went most of the journey with no water whatsoever! Did I mention the train ride was long and hot … and slow too. We ended up going back up into Croatia before coming down into Serbia and onto Belgrade (our tickets and passports checked about 4 or 5 times!).

As far as Belgrade goes, this is the city I spent my birthday in (and I wouldn’t have picked that at the beginning of the trip) and it’s actually a pretty decent place. I guess it helps that it didn’t get the shit bombed out of it like Sarajevo did! Instead the Serbs did most of the bombing! It is fairly modern and reminded us more of a Western European city, than an Eastern one. Where we stayed was fantastic. The hostel was run by a couple around our age and had only been going for a week when we arrived. They were so friendly and helpful for the 4 days we spent with them. They kept beers flowing, had many tips and advice on what to do in the city and were genuinely 2 of the nicest people we’d met on the trip.

So what did we get up to in Belgrade you ask … well we walked a lot, as usual! We walked to a man made lake and took a swim one of the days, explored some of the older areas of Belgrade on other days, as well as visiting Kalemegdan (an old fortress area overlooking the mighty river Danube). As foodies, we drank and ate a fair bit, including treating ourselves to a pretty swanky restaurant among the Kalemegdan grounds. We were hardly dressed for the occasion, but they let us in anyways. I sometimes felt a little bad that as foreigners we can afford to go to swanky places pretty easily in some countries as it’s pretty cheap for us so we rock up in jandals and dirty clothes while locals make the effort to look smart, but that’s just the way it goes I guess.

Belgrade ended up being a transit stop between Bosnia and Romania, as we didn’t really feel like seeing Serbia as much as other places. We had an interesting trip to cross the border into Romania from Serbia. Basically we left Belgrade on a bus to Vrsac, a town close to the border, without even knowing if we could cross or how to do it. Once off the bus, a taxi driver was going to charge 40 euros to take us the 10 kms or so to the border (and we didn’t even know if there was any transportation on the other side). We were not going to be ripped off so it looked like we’d just head back to Belgrade on the next bus and plan something else when some helpful information folk at the bus station did some rallying around for us and it turned out that a train went across the border straight to Timisoara (in Romania) for a tiny fraction of the price. We were told in Belgrade there were no trains any more between Serbia and Romania so were expecting only to be able to bus (maybe), but it turns out there were no trains between Belgrade and Bucharest anymore, but still a train that crossed the border from Vrsac which we didn’t know about. After heading to the train station and leaving our bags we settled into a bar we found and knocked back a few brewskis while we waited for the train to depart.

We got to Timisoara in the early evening and yet again we were treated to the “I want to rip you off” taxi drivers. Getting ripped is never high on my list of things to do, so (and I still feel bad about this) I made us all walk the 6 kms to our accommodation that we booked! Now even I was struggling by the 5^th km so I started to regret the decision. It was dark and our less than helpful at times Google Maps had us wandering around what seemed to be some pretty dodgy neighbourhoods! Over an hour later and starving and thirsty and tired we finally arrived at our accommodation! It was quite nice so that was something. Our room was the largest we’d probably ever had and the staff was friendly. Our first order of business was to partake in a cold beer (as usual) and we found a delicious (and cheap) local beer that hit the spot nicely.

Now those who know their Romanian history (and we didn’t) will know that Timisoara is where political protests occurred in 1989 to bring democracy to Romania. A number of people were killed in the few days of protesting, in Timisoara, but also in other places like Bucharest, where protesting occurred after the Timisoara uprising. We had a look at the Revolution Museum, which documented the revolution and all that happened. There was a short film, which was really interesting and the lady there filled us in on some interesting aspects of Timisoara that came out of the uprising, such as various monuments and sculptures and what they represented. The unfortunate thing about our time in Timisoara was that it was raining and pretty miserable most of the time so we didn’t get to explore the city as much as we would have liked. We managed to walk around a little bit looking at some of the architecture, and areas of interest, but as is the case in Eastern Europe, often the most impressive and historical buildings and monuments have been left to rot and deteriorate which is a real shame.

Next stop after Timisoara was north to Arad. Arad’s an interesting place. The predominant focus of the city is a long boulevard that contains some of the city’s main sights and historical buildings, but if you divert off this street there are some really interesting clusters of streets to explore. Arad is pretty rundown to be honest, but that gave it a certain character about it that was actually quite appealing. There are now derelict old palaces, that if renovated back to their former glory would be absolutely stunning, but Romania really doesn’t seem to give a f*ck about maintaining historical buildings which is puzzling as they have some of the best architectural gems we’d seen on the trip. At one point Arad was known as the Vienna of the East, with its plethora of Hungro-Austrian structures, but now it looks more like the Palmerston North of Romania! On one of the days in Arad we headed out of the city to a place called Lipova. Taryn had read somewhere that there were some natural springs to soak in so that sounded heaven in this scorching heat. We got to Lipova and the place was an absolute dive. Not a place many, if any, foreigners ever visited we were soon told. This place was so rundown and ratshit that it made Palmerston North look like Rome! We got some advice from someone who spoke some English that there were some springs outside of the town so we caught a taxi and got dropped off at a strange location where there were 2 swimming pools … a big pool which was being cleaned so couldn’t swim in it, and a kiddies pool that we were allowed to go into. It was not quite the Hanmer of Romania we were expecting but we did take Niamhie for a swim, ate some lunch and of course drank some beers!

It was now time to head to Transylvania, the main draw card for visiting Romania. Our first stop was Sibiu. Sibiu was a city of contrasts. It had a beautifully preserved old medieval city center, surrounded by butt-ugly new city built around it. We stayed in the new part of the city in what was possibly our best accommodation of the entire trip. As far as things to do, there was not really much in Sibiu. Once you explored the medieval quarter, you pretty much had nothing else to do. It was great to see an area of historical Romania that had actually been maintained, but it was also quite characterless at the same time. There were heaps of tourists here, which we hadn’t seen in Timisoara or Arad, proving that Transylvania really is the tourist area of Romania.

Our next stop was to Brasov, an even bigger touristy place than Sibiu. Like Sibiu, it has a medieval quarter. Unlike Sibiu, Brasov’s medieval quarter has plenty of character and is interesting to walk around multiple times and explore. Also unlike Sibiu, outside the medieval quarter Brasov wasn’t a run down ugly new city but still an attractive modern place. We were in Dracula country so did the day trip out to Bran to visit Bran Castle (reputedly the inspiration for the home of Bram Stoker’s Dracula). Bran Castle has extremely loose ties to Vlad Tepes (the inspiration behind Bram Stoker’s Dracula), but boy does the village ham the horror and vampire theme to the fullest! It’s a bit much to be honest considering it’s not even proven that Bram Stoker did base Dracula’s home on the castle, or the fact that Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) never had much to do with the place, but they certainly promote the horror themes and souvenirs as if Dracula was real and still living in the area!

By this stage of the trip, we had decided to return to New Zealand for some personal reasons back home so we didn’t go further north into Transylvania that we would have liked. We did plan on going to Targa Mures and Sighisoara (birthplace of Vlad Tepes) but instead headed to Bucharest so we could start our way home.

Bucharest is your usual big city, but it is more attractive and interesting than I thought it would be. It has some fantastic architecture (always high on my list of things to see) and has a historical quarter that has many interesting things to see and great restaurants to relax the heat of the day in. Bucharest is also home to the world’s second largest building (this is determined by how much surface area it takes up rather than height). The largest is apparently the Pentagon in the States. This building is huge. It’s not really that attractive, but it is a giant structure that’s for sure. Bucharest served as the base to fly out of and as we had made the decision to head home we probably didn’t do or see as much as we would’ve had we been continuing on our trip. From Bucharest, we got cheap as flights to Istanbul, Turkey. From Istanbul, we were to get back to New Zealand via Kuala Lumpur.

We only had 1 full day in Istanbul but by this time we had all caught some nasty virus that had us coughing our rings out all the time. Niamhie had got it first and managed to share the love and give it to Taryn and me as well. Because of this we didn’t do much even on our full day here. Our accommodation was close to Sultanahmet (historical center of Istanbul) so we did go and see the Blue Mosque, but it was hot and muggy and we all felt pretty rundown so that was basically our Istanbul experience.

Now, Taryn and Niamh were confirmed to be heading back to New Zealand so we booked some awesome deal through Malaysian Airlines that had them fly Istanbul to Kuala Lumpur, then Kuala Lumpur to Auckland for a dirt-cheap price. I, on the other hand, considered spending a few more weeks on the road, as I didn’t have the immediate need to get back to New Zealand. I booked only my Istanbul to Kuala Lumpur leg home so I could fly with Taryn and Niamh, but then I thought I might head to Borneo and trek in the rainforest and explore some natural beauty for a while. But, after considering everything I made the correct decision to come home as well to be here for Taryn and Niamh, and because it is better to experience certain things with someone and we had planned the trip together so if we couldn’t all do it then none of us should. By this time the Kuala Lumpur to Auckland flight was way too expensive (even though Taryn informed that the flight was in fact half full) so I came home by flying Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, Singapore to Sydney, Sydney to Wellington … not a trip I would recommend to anyone. I got no sleep as I was constantly on a flight (which I can never sleep on) or in airports waiting for flights (5 hours in KL, 7 hours in Singapore, 3 hours in Sydney).

So here we are back in New Zealand. It is sooner than we thought but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. We had a great 3 and half months away and with it being an unfinished trip that only serves to head back to complete at some stage. Besides, this was only ever going to be the first of many LostBoyer family trips so our attention will soon turn to when and where to go next.

After reflecting on our trip now back in New Zealand, I can honestly say the best part was not any city or sight we saw, or person we met, but being able to see Niamhie grow and change through the trip. I feel privileged to have been able to spend close to 4 months all day every day with my daughter, when a lot of people do not get that luxury. Niamh was undoubtedly the star of the trip and provided the best memories that will stay with me forever. Traveling with a baby is not as hard as you may think. True, you are restricted on doing certain things, such as staying out late at nights, or being able to go to certain things, but the rewards far outweigh any restrictions. I wouldn’t have it any other way and can’t wait for the time we get to do it all again.

Well, that’s all folks! Taryn may add her own final blog, but this is it from me … J

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