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Published: April 30th 2006
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"Forget Prague, forget Budapest, Bucharest is the new backpackers' gem," says the first line in Lonely Planet. Well, the guy who wrote that must have visited an entirely different city than the one we did. Among the "New Pragues" in our guidebook, Bucharest is really the least deserving of the title. This city was completely bled dry by its dictator Ceausescu. We've been to many countries that experienced revolutions in the late 80s, but the Romanians showed a particular hatred for their leader when it took them only three days into the fight to execute him.
Unfortunately, he left his legacy in a massive eyesore now called the Parliament of the People. The second largest building after the US Pentagon, the monstrosity houses the two government houses and serves as a convention center that can be rented out to anyone willing to pay. The public tour is run out of the convention office. Imagine taking a tour of Congress, but in every room, the guide tells you that the room can be used as a theater, concert hall, or reception room for 300 people. For all of our friends looking for that special destination wedding, the Romanian Parliament of the
People is available.
Ceausescu also bulldozed several Bucharest neighborhoods to make way for a Romanian Champs-Élysées. Now this boulevard features rows of not-quite-working foutains and traffic that has no idea where to go. Everywhere you look in Bucharest is another example of poor city planning. You just have a feeling that this guy built all of these monuments, and anyone who dared ask, "But where will the cars park?" had his head chopped off. The people have been left the bill for projects that they could never afford. One tour guide told us that Romania wants to join the European Union in the hope that they can achieve the economic status of Greece. We stayed in the city's only backpacker
hostel, and it's set to close this weekend.
After the Parliament building, our other main tourist stop in Bucharest was the
Museum of the Romanian Peasant, which really demonstrates the lack of sites. We thought the museum's collection of clothing, housewares, farm tools, and hundreds of painted eggs interesting, but being followed by a couple of gypsy children as we visited old churches was far more exciting.
After just a couple of nights, we boarded a train for Bulgaria. Romania has
Parking in Bucharest
Why not just pull up onto the curb? a rediculous train system that requires that you not only buy a train ticket but also a separate seat reservation, but seat reservations are not available until 2 hours before the train and not after a half hour before. We bought our tickets the day before, but since there was only window for international seat reservations, and the person in front of us decided to take 45 minutes trying to bribe the ticket agent to do something that she clearly couldn't, we were told "too late" and "pay on train for the reservations. So we took our 2nd class tickets and tried to board the 2nd class car, but the doors were all locked. When the 1st class car conductor looked at the tickets and said come on in, we jumped on. Of course, 15 minutes after pulling out of the station, she came in and demanded an outrageous 4-times-what-we-had-been-told-at-the-station price for the reservation. With a translator who was fluent in phrases such as "that's not my problem, it's yours," this was a really pleasant discussion. After arguing over this price for several minutes, we asked whether we could move into the second class car, and were told "yes, no
one is holding you here, you are free to go." So we did. In this car, we found in one cabin three fellow tourists from our Bucharest hostel and in the next Andy Kaufman's Tony Clifton. He looked like he was a grand time blaring Turkish music on a boom box, making tea on a rigged-up stove, and enjoying a fragrant cigar, but we chose to sit with our British friends. Just before the Bulgarian border, the lounge singer came into our cabin puffing his cigar, blocked the doorway and asked us each for 100,000 Lei. We angrily refused and asked him for some identification. We reached the border, and he left us alone. Only after some discussion at the border, the 5 of us realized that 1) this was the conductor, 2) he was asking us for the reservation fee which we actually did owe him, and 3) he was asking us for the equivalent of less than $4 in a currency that we were not going to be able to exchange anyway. But it was too late, when Justin tried to smooth things over after the border, we were told to get out of his cabin. Thankfully, at
the border they added two more train cars since we had now been kicked off the only two that left Bucharest.
Still a group of 5, when we reached Vilinko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, we hiked to a place that had been recommended to us by two Australians at the Bucharest hostel. Rosa Grigorova welcomes tourists into her home, "likes happy tousists," and took care of us whether we wanted it or not. Within 5 minutes of dropping our bags she marched us down the street to her favorite restaurant and told us to "eat here." When Chris woke up the next morning and got up to use the restroom, Rosa told her "not yet, more sleep now" and sent her back to bed for a few more hours (it was 9am). For breakfast, she made us ham and cheese sandwiches and "miracle" tea from her garden. And when Chris was sitting at the breakfast table in her socks, Rosa came and put slippers on her feet.
Vilinko Tarnovo is a small town on the train line between Bucharest and Istanbul, and was a really nice one night stop to break up the long trip. Not full of sites (despite
Breakfast at Rosa's
Justin and Adam enjoy the hospitality the Monkey House listed in the guidebook), the town is full of cafes with gorgeous views of the valley and green hills. We spent the day roaming from table to table with our three British friends - Ferrah, Joel, and Adam. Ferrah is traveling for a few weeks in Europe, and Joel and Adam are a month into their overland trip from Europe to China via Kazakstan. Before getting on the train to Istanbul, we stocked up on supplies, and a good portion of the trip was spent playing cards, drinking beers out of 2 liter bottles, and drawing angry looks from other passengers. We pulled into the Turkish border almost as soon as we fell asleep at 3 in the morning. After the color drained out of our faces when we heard "you do not have a Turkish Visa," we were relieved to find that we only had to step to the next window to purchase a $20 sticker.
We've arrived in Istanbul, but we had to spend the first day recovering from the trip here.
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Elena
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Happy to know u enjoyed Bucharest :) -very interesting to read how foregners see us and our legacy. (Elena-Bucharest, Romania)