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Published: September 24th 2007
When last I wrote I was heading to catch the night train to Bucharest unaware of the adventure I had in store for me. But first anyway I'll take you back to the beginning of the story which is back when I (vaguely) planned this portion of my trip and decided to travel to Romania. My guide book is amazingly positive about Romania and in particular Bucharest, the first line is "Forget Prague, forget Budapest: Bucharest is where explorers are heading. This is Eastern Europe's secret". However I was soon to learn that my guide book was the only book which was even remotely positive and not only that but the owner of my Belgrade hostel said to spend as little time as possible in Bucharest. I was also telling Rod where I was travelling for the rest of my trip and when I mentioned Bucharest, he replied "the dog one...?". You see something that my guide book left out about Bucharest was the 100,000 stray dogs on the streets and that if any of them bite you then you need to go for rabies shots! Suddenly I had images of myself being chased through the streets of Bucharest being chased by 100,000 dogs. When I was talking to Sarah and Tessa in the Belgrade hostel they read their book and found that it said to avoid Romanian hospital at all costs which would have presented a conundrum had I been bitten! So it was nervously that I booked two nights (much less than initially planned) in the Romanian capital.
I was at the train station sitting and having a hot chocolate in preparation for a potentially very uncomfortable train ride to Bucharest when I noticed a guy walking through the station and thought to myself "He's an Aussie". I forgot about him and was walking along the train station when someone standing behind me asked where I was from. Turns out that Paul was from Australia, in fact Melbourne and just finished a double degree at Melbourne University studying Science and Engineering. Anyway we ended up in same compartment and hoping that no-one else would come in our one, cause if they did then it would be quite cramped - in the end we were lucky. We talked for ages and then started reading - I finally got to start reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame which I had bought back in Dublin but everytime I started reading it would be on public transportation which always puts me to sleep, and then I wouldn't remember what I'd read. But this time I finally got into it and got over 100 pages read. During this time we had travelled over the Serbian - Romanian border and they had come in and searched under our seats (and I think had we not clearly been foreigners they probably would've searched our bags too). We finally made it over the border and were still reading when Paul nudged me. Several men were outside our cabin, standing on the window ledges and unscrewing the ceiling. Finally they managed to unscrew the ceiling and then started to pull out several large, black garbage bags full of something out of the roof. They then screwed the ceiling back in place and moved down a little bit to unscrew the next bit of roof. Paul was thinking of telling someone but I thought we should wait because it seemed really coincidental that the train guard hadn't come down the corridor the whole time they had been scrounging in the roof. We kept reading and then the train stopped. I looked out the windows and couldn't see any station anywhere around us (by this time it was pitch black outside). I then noticed the sound of digging and when I peered out the window I noticed that there were four of five people outside digging by torchlight and pulling out things that looked like large chocolate boxes. I told Paul what was going on outside and we turned off the light in our cabin so we could watch them easier. They then started digging at a new place but for some reason the train started moving again and left those people behind. There was no way that the guard and driver couldn't have known what was going on so we decided not to tell anyone. That night I kept most of my valuables in my pocket, the rest under my pillow and padlocked my bag to the overhead rack (unfortunately there was no way to lock the door). I was woken by my alarm at 5:55 and jumped up to get our stuff off the train. It was at this point that Paul told me that he had been woken up by a man in the middle of the night who had opened our cabin door holding a torch and screwdriver and only left after he realised that Paul had woken up.... Then the train stopped and we got off quickly- within a minute conductors were pounding on the train window telling us to get off. I think we had gotten on the smugglers carriage as no other locals seemed to be on the carriage except us. We never figured out what they were smuggling, but whatever it was they had clearly decided that Romania was the easiest way to get it into the E.U.
Paul then went to get some money out from an ATM and got really excited because it was plastic money, the first time either of us had seen that since leaving Australia. So after that exciting experience we left the train station to a completely deserted city. I thought for a minute that we had arrived in a country town it was so quiet (at it was 7am their time!). I was on the watch for the 100,000 dogs but only spotted one in the journey to the hostel. The hostel took forever to find, mostly because they put the name of the street as Str. Gen. Berthelot but it was actually written on the street sign as, Str. G-Ral Henri Matthias Berthelot - which I walked straight past. After I dropped my bag off at the Funky Chicken hostel, Paul and I headed into the old part of town. We were looking for somewhere to sit and get a hot drink and finally one of the street cafes opened at 9am. The ATM had annoyingly only given me 100 lei notes so I had to pay for the drinks using that note, and was given back 34 individual lei notes as part of my change which made me feel really rich cause suddenly my wallet was really fat. We walked down the B-dul Unirii towards the Palace of Parliament which is the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon. Its a very impressive building. After a bit more wandering Paul headed to the train station again to catch a train to Brasov in Transylvania and I went to get some food and then back to the hostel. I sat on my bed intending to read a little bit but fell straight asleep for a few hours. I went out and got some food to eat for dinner and then headed to a cafe and got some hot chocolate and cake and kept reading my book (by this time I was really into it). That night as I was walking down a street I heard howling and noticed a huge dog sitting on a mound of dirt howling a little bit too much like a wolf for my piece of mind. Then a few other dogs started, so I just started walking back to my hostel quickly but without calling too much attention to myself. That night I got bitten several times on the neck ... by mosquitoes not vampires.
I spent the next day roaming the streets of Bucharest. I headed back to the palace with the intention of going inside, but unfortunately the entrance was on the other side of the building which meant that I had to walk all the way around the huge building and its equally huge garden in order to get to the entrance. I then went up and bought my ticket to the guided tour which is the only way of getting inside short of becoming a Romanian Member of Parliament. I bought my ticket at 14:22 (exactly!) but the next tour wasn't until 15:00 so I had to wait. I sat outside reading for most of the time and then headed back inside. It seemed like I was going to be in a really small group until several huge groups of American tourists arrived. Because they had reservations they were allowed to go in front of us in the queue and then the staff were telling us that we would have to wait until 16:00 for our tour. Luckily there was an American woman there who complained and managed to get us added to another group that was leaving in 10 minutes. A tour group made up most of our group and were all retired Americans who all were name tags that proudly displayed their name and state in the US, which were all different colours depending on how many tours you have been on. They really didn't like the stairs and I think would've happy to only see the bottom floor. The palace was very large and the rooms were huge. It isn't quite finished yet and some of the rooms were not fully furnished but it was still very impressive especially to learn that Ceausescu had things rebuilt several times until he was completely happy - including a set of marble staircases that were rebuilt 5 times. I then explored Bucharest a little bit more, got some food and then headed back to a cafe where I polished off the last part of my book. It is such a good book and I really recommend it to everyone. I think it might be in my favourite books, and was a bit easier (and shorter) than Les Miserables. Overall I really enjoyed Bucharest and felt like it had a really nice energy to it, even though it also combines that with the worst elements of cities (being overcrowding, pollution, noise, etc...). But for the rest of my travels I was unable to find anyone else who liked the city.
I got up a bit late the next morning and headed down to an internet cafe to book my hostel. Then I grabbed my stuff and caught the 1:30 train to Brasov in Transylvania. I fell asleep in the train (although i did manage to read quite a bit of my new book - Hard Times by Charles Dickens). I woke up at Brasov station and had to quickly grab all my things and jump off. So I was a bit flustered on the platform and waved away a woman trying to push her hostel until I realised that she was from my hostel. She was just going to show me how to get there but ended up completely re-selling her hostel and pushing various tours- so I was quite relieved to get away from her. I caught the bus to the hostel and got another introduction by the woman at the station's daughter who tried to tempt me into going on the organised tour to Bran and Rasnov the next day. I decided I could do it cheaper by myself and also I don't really like travelling as part of a tour group. I walked around Brasov a little bit that afternoon and then decided to climb the nearby mountain to the Brasov sign (thats right - the town has a Hollywood style sign overlooking the town saying BRASOV). The hostel girl had drawn on my map a vague route to the top if I decided not to take the cable car so I set off in that direction. I began to climb and it was quite tiring but then the path started sloping downwards and I almost ended up at the same level as where I had started from. In desperation at the thought of the climbing being useless I set off up a path that went straight up the side of the mountain. This was a very gruelling path and just seemed to keep going. I felt like I should have made it to the top ages before especially as I was walking quite fast and talking no breaks but it just kept going. Finally I got up to the top and realised that the path I had been following had led me all the way to the other end of the mountain and I still had to walk all the way along the top to get to the sign and view. By this time I was also nervous that it was going to get dark and I would have a tough time on the climb back down. Finally I reached the top but had to walk past four very alert dogs at the top which eyed me the whole time and made me very nervous. Then I made it to the sign, appreciated the view for a while and started the descent down the mountain before it got dark. This time I found the right path but it was so gradual and was taking such a long time that I ended up taking shortcuts at various places otherwise I would never have made it to the bottom. I got some food and headed back to the hostel where I read a bit of my book (nowhere near as good as Hunchback). Then a few people arrived from Australia and Canada and we all headed downstairs to the bar in the hostel where we had our welcome shots and a few beers and then I headed back up to bed a little after 1am. The two Canadian guys had run into Paul from the train earlier that day and heard the smugglers story which was pretty coincidental.
The next day I set off a little later than I wanted to and decided to walk to the train station which was stupid and took me forever. The train and bus stations are where the gypsies tend to ask for money, but I saw very few male gypsies - they tended to be young girls and old women. They were very persistent and if you gave money to one then more would suddenly appear so the general method was not to deal with them - however when they came on, often with severe injuries and disabilities and stared at you it was tough. Gypsies were in every town in Romania and lived in the shanty towns just outside of centre. From there I caught a bus to the bus depot, and then the bus to Bran Castle aka Dracula's Castle (oooohhhhh!!!). So anyway this is the castle that Bram Stoker based the castle in his book on, but it is unlikely that Vlad Tepes (the real life character who was partly the inspiration for Dracula) ever went there. I arrived at Bran castle (which had some tacky souvenirs outside, but nothing quite tacky enough!) and walked up to the castle. The castle is quite small and really not very scary looking although it was cool that there was a secret catacombs path between floors. I looked around quite fast and then caught the bus back in the directions of Brasov but getting off at Rasnov. Rasnov also had a Hollywood style sign but theres was placed right under their castle on the mountain and felt even tackier than the Brasov one. It had started drizzling by this stage but I decided to ignore it and climb up to the castle. However I wasn't sure I was on the right road and it seemed to be tacking a really long time so I ended up climbing straight up the mountain on what I though was a path. However the path became less and less like a path as I was walking and I began to realise that I had been following an animal path (fears of running into a bear began to surface in my mind). Anyway I got completely turned around and ended up not just lost but Blair Witch lost. Finally I made it out to a clearing at the top of a mountain and discovered the castle .... was on the other side of a huge ravine! I could see the town and so decided to head that way down the mountain but eventually it got to the point where I couldn't go down any further and so I went a different day which involved sliding down a slope until I got to the bottom of the mountain. I had images of me losing control and plowing into a tree and the Rasnov papers would all read "Stupid tourist climbs wrong mountain: slides down mountain and dies". I know sliding down the mountain implies that i went fast but it took ages and I was getting exhausted. Then I saw a road which got my spirits up but the dogs from the house near to where I could get out started barking. I slid down the rest and was so relieved to get to the bottom until I came face to face with a huge fence! The idea of trying to find another exit was perhaps the most depressing thought ever so instead I climbed the fence and collapsed over the other side. Then I tried my best to walk down the street with as much dignity as possible whilst the dogs kept barking. I headed straight to the bus stop as I had decided that my adventure was better than any castle could ever hope to be and I had actually been able to see into most of it from the other mountain. Well thats what I told myself anyway! Finally the bus arrived and I jumped on and caught it all the way back to Brasov and then after two more buses I made it back to the hostel where I collapsed onto the couch. After a short break I went out and got some food and then it was time for the bear-watching tour that I had signed up for that the hostel ran. I had visions of myself chasing bears through the trees desperately trying to follow but remain undetected - but all it actually involved was heading to the dumpsters that the bears tended to frequent. The bears were there when we arrived and it was really cool being so close to them. The mother bear slipped open the top of the dumpsters and then would either scoop something out or climb into the dumpster to get it out and take it back to her cubs who waited further up. The bear stayed for much longer than apparently is usual and then after that bear left another arrived with her cubs. This bear was much less patient. She walked up to a dumpster and basically turned it over and over again until she figured out how to open it and then she realised it was empty and knocked another dumpster over. However this one landed partly ontop of the other one and then when the bear wasn't expecting it the dumpster crashed to the ground. Everyone (including the bear) jumped and we all backed up a bit. Eventually the bear left and our little group headed back to the hostel where I had a couple of drinks in the bar and then went to bed at about 1am again.
The next day I had a slowish morning and sorted some things out, and then I caught the train to Sighisoara. It was only a short walk to the hostel where I dropped my bag off. The woman at the hostel was a bit abrupt and hard to like. I left the hostel and went exploring around the old town which is very pretty but a little bit under construction at the moment. I walked up and through the cemetery. I found it very unnerving the amount of tombstones that had the spouse of the dead person's name on it but without a death date (all set up just waiting for the inevitable!). I went back to the hostel and met Andy and Anjee, who were both Americans travelling independently of each other. I got to talking to them and we were joined a little bit later by two English girls, Nic and Rachael, and then later on by two Aussie guys and a Kiwi guy. We sat around (I drank a bit of Andy's bull blood wine) until quite late and then headed out to meet the woman who ran the hostel at "the best bar in town" which was tiny. We sat there for a while talking, but the hostel woman was a real character, which basically means she was absolutely insane. She seemed to have no conception of what was offensive and hilariously insulted everyone at the table - although it really didn't seem like she was kidding most of the time! She said the two English girls were "cheap girls", completely ripped into Andy about George Bush and consistently insulted the two other guys (one went to bed). Me and Anjee remained fairly unscathed because we had less to drink and were happy just to laugh at the insults rather than attempt to engage her in conversation. Every second word out of her mouth was "f***ing" this and that, and by the end of the night she was callings us all "f***ing fags". So we headed back to the hostel quite late although we lost one of the guys and the hostel woman as they headed to the 24 shop nearby, where we heard later that they all hate her there and want to kill her. Which actually made me feel really bad for her, but in many ways it wasn't completely unexpected. We were sitting in the "club" (communal area nicely described as the best club in Sighisoara) with the night guy (who said his name was Igor but I'm pretty sure was lying) and his friend, but Nic and Rachael were quite drunk and got one of the leaflets advertising the hostel and began to cross out the lies on it (there were quite a few). It was really funny, but a tad insensitive and they felt really bad the next morning.
The next day I set out with Andy and Anjee to look around Sighisoara. Andy was a fascinating and really nice guy but he was part of the Armed forces and lots of things kept relating back to that - which was really interesting but I think at times it got in the way. He also made comments that were clearly jokes but went over everybodies' heads. For example the night before he said that he always cringed at the stupidity of the American soldier stationed in Germany who went to visit his soldier girlfriend in Kosovo, and thats all he said. So we all looked confused, and I joked that it was romantic - and he eventually explained that American soldiers can't travel to areas where other soldiers are stationed as an undeclared soldier can indicate that an offensive action is being undertaken. But he made lots of jokes like that, which required a lot of explanation. We headed back to the cemetery (it has the best views - Its not that I love hanging out in cemeteries) and found an a grave that looked like it had been opened from the inside - not what you want to see when you are dead centre in the middle of vampire territory. We ran into the English girls and a different Kiwi guy called Blair a little later. We all went to a traditional Romanian restaurant where Rachael who is vegetarian ordered something that looked like baby food. I got some really good sausages with pressed beans (which also had a vague resemblance to baby food). After lunch, Andy disappeared and the rest of us went into the museum which was interesting if a little random in its exhibits. But the view from the top was what you paid for and it was very impressive! We then headed to the internet cafe and booked hostels and checked e-mails and then Blair went off to explore whilst the rest of us went to buy food for our meal that night. We went to the market and got harrassed by all the people selling their (sometimes questionable) vegetables. In the end we made fried rice with capsicum, onion and green beans. We had asked Blair if there was anything he didn't like and he said there wasn't - but I turns out he doesn't like capsicum or onion, so not sure that he loved it but the rest of us polished it off quickly. The rest of us also decided not to drink but Blair started drinking vodka. We went to the "club" and started playing cards. "Igor" and his friend were there along with a group of Americans who had arrived. Igor and his friend started getting really drunk, and then Igor (who was working at the time) started playing the same two Robbie Williams songs over, and over, and over again! It was pretty funny but after over an hour of not being allowed to change the CD it did to start to get pretty insanity provoking. Whilst he was in the toilet Blair (who was quite drunk but denying it) went to change the CD, but Igor caught him and got really angry and quite aggressive. I took that as my cue to go to bed which most people followed. But whilst I was getting ready for bed I heard raised voices and crying from the kitchen. Anjee had been walking past saying nothing and Igor had called her fat, and then launched into an Anti-American tirade. I went in and told him to get out of the room and go and sit down for a minute, and he got quite abusive towards me but I just stared at him without saying anything (which I'm really good at doing) until he got uncomfortable and the mood broke and Anjee decided to leave the room. This was shortly before Blair (who wasn't drunk as he told us) apparently offered Igor a whole glass of pure vodka which Igor sculled all in one. We had left Igor during this but then discovered him later sitting in front of the fridge pouring mayonnaise all over himself and rubbing it into his skin. Blair and the English girls wanted to play tricks and call home from the hostel (which I thought was pretty bad, cause Anjee wanted to make a complaint and by them doing stupid things as well it was going to seriously undermine that). In the end he passed out in one of the beds. The next morning he apologised and claimed to not remember what he'd done, but I think he was more scared of what we'd tell his job and post on hostelworld in the reviews section.
The five of us then headed off to the train station. Blair got off the train at Brasov and the rest of us travelled on to Sinaia. We had an overpriced lunch (didn't know that the prices were listed by kilogram and not by price of the whole meal) and then walked on to Peles Palace. On the way to the palace we walked past a man sitting on a bench with a lion cub. We had to do a double-take to make sure but it was definitely a lion. He was sitting on a busy bench showing off the lion and was happy for people to take photos and pat the lion. The whole thing seemed cruel and very illegal but the police drove past and didn't seem to mind. The palace was amazing, and one of the most beautiful things I've seen on this trip. We walked up and got on the tour. It was ridiculously expensive to buy the pass that allowed you to take photos, but I was annoyed at being ripped off at lunch and took a few sneaky ones. After visiting the palace we walked back to the train station (and the lion who was still there). Anjee caught the train back to Brasov and the three of us left headed to Bucharest.
In Bucharest we went to get a taxi to our hostel but they tried to rip us off and so we caught the bus instead. Once there we headed back out and got some pizza for dinner. The girls really didn't like Bucharest (and I found their dislike contagious) but when I left to get some snacks I liked it again. I did a washload that night and then to bed.
The next day I sorted out some last minute things and then said goodbye to Rachael and Nic and headed back to the train station where after some confusion I worked out which train I had to catch in order to make it into Veliko Tarnovo in Bulgaria. A man tried to claim I needed to pay an additional 60 lei reservation fee but I just ignored him because I knew it was just 5 Euros and was relieved to get on the bus. I was in a cabin with a very friendly but non-English speaking Bulgarian, and two Americans but more about all of them next time.
PS. Sorry about the length!!
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Barbara
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SCAREEEY!!!
That was scarey! Glad I didn't read it the same night as I watched 'Wolf Creek'. Yes, I know you told me not to watch it and yes you were right - I shouldn't have.