Roamin' Romania

Ok, so in the last blog we were on a train from Belgrade to Bucharest. What is it with these places and the letter 'B'? Belgrade, Bucharest, Budapest, Bulgaria... it's no wonder I can't remember where I am. And ok, I only chucked 'Budapest' in there because it sounded good - but its been confusing me because before Agata left we had to figure out how to get her back to Krakow, and it meant train journeys through Belgrade (spelled Beograd everywhere else though, so that was confusing) then Budapest then Krakow... So Budapest has been in my conscious for a while.

Anyway, as I said before, got absolutely no sleep on the way from Belgrade to Bucharest, so when we arrived (early - surprise, surprise, for the first time ever - thanks to our driver, Speed Racer...) I was in no fit state to start thinking about whether to find accommodation, spend the day in Bucharest, or head on to Brasov or Sighisoara (our other intended destinations in Romania). We've actually got to be more conservative about our time now, because if we're not careful, we'll end up in Istanbul too late for the train to Syria - and at this stage, I've seen conflicting information about the train times - some say it only runs on Sunday (in which case we are in serious trouble, its Sunday now), some say it runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, but you have to reserve a couple of days in advance - so the long and short of it is, we might be having to really rush Syria, Jordan and Israel, which would be a shame. Whereas it would be easier to come back to Romania or Bulgaria, if we don't see it all in the 3 days we've allocated. They don't care if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport...

So you get out of the train at Bucharest train station and immediately feel as if you're at the end of the earth. Bit like Morden tube, really. Looks pretty grim. And seeing as there's a train in 20 minutes to Braşov, in the Transylvanian Alps - well, sounds like a plan. So we hopped on the train, and then immediately thought that perhaps we should've gone to Sighişoara instead, as its further north, and therefore might be more economical time-wise. Too late now though.

The beauty of catching buses and trains to various places is you often get to see a lot of very beautiful scenery on the way. If your eyes are open, that is. But the problem with trains and buses is that they often have a habit of lulling you off to sleep. Especially if you've just spent 10 hours on one without any. So it was quite a surprise after nodding off for a few hours, to blurrily open my eyes for a split second and encounter the mist-covered Transylvanian Alps, looking eerie, spooky, and very much like Dracula could pop out at any second. Absolutely gorgeous scenery.

So we finally get to Brasov around 10am, having now been on trains for 14 hours or so, very tired. We decide to stay in Braşov and head off for the most useless tourist information office ever. This woman was incapable of anything. Unable to help with accommodation, no I can't phone the youth hostel for you... that sort of thing. Eventually we managed to get out of her a very badly faded photocopied map of the town, and information about a bus we hoped would get us to the centre of town. Found one of the budget hotels from the guide book, and just managed to get in before the pack of German backpackers we could see heading in the same direction. The hotel was Hotel Aro Sport, and the receptionist there was very icy. Completely unimpressed that we were checking in before midday, and told us so, in no uncertain terms. Then put us in a room where the bin had not been emptied, the beds not made up, and the ashtrays were full-to-overflowing. Fortunately when we returned to the hotel later that evening our request for the room to be prepared properly had been completed, and it was a much better picture.

Having said that though, although the Tourist Info chick and the Hotel chick were unhelpful, in general the Romanians are very helpful. When we made our way back to the tourist info to find out about day trips to Bran and Raşnov, we met this old guy outside who was not only more helpful and more information than the tourist 'information' chick, he would've actually taken us to the bus stop if we needed it. To be fair, we've found that willingness to help and go the extra mile throughout much of our travels through the Balkan states.

Anyway, we got the bus to Bran which has an amazing castle, and a load of Dracula tourist tat. The castle was very beautiful and you could really imagine Vlad the Impaler living there. We then got a bus to cute little Raşnov, and went up to see the 14th century fortress. Very impressive. Nearly got run over a few times though by old Dacia's (the Romanian Holden) and several horses and carts. Very quaint.

Spent the evening wandering about Braşov, before heading the next day on the bus to Sighişoara. These places look so close on the map, only 100 or so kms away, but it takes an eternity to get there. At least this bus was pretty good, the driver even stopped off for a coffee break after 2 hours.

Sighişoara is just magnificent. It's architecture dates from the 14th century, and is just amazing. I'm so pleased we made the extra effort to go there. It has a lot of Vlad stuff too, apparently Drac spent his formative years in one of the villas there, so of course we went and had a look. It's now a restaurant.

So we wrapped it up in Sighişoara and got the train to Bucharest. On the train we were stuck in a compartment with two women who I have dubbed the "Ciggie Sisters". These old birds were wierd. Every 45 minutes or so they'd pop out the back of the carriage (which was no smoking, of course) and have a quick fag. They both would've been about 55 or so, one of them looked like one of the teachers from school, quite matronly (but a bit dopey, to be honest) and the other one looked like she was having some sort of mid life crisis, or at least was stuck in a bad "Prisoner" re-run (friend of Bea perhaps?) with her faded denim jeans and her white T shirt, short cropped (grey) hair. At least Bea didn't do anything too offensive (other than stick her feet all over my seat, and also her constant fascination with keeping the window shut despite the fact it was quite stuffy), but the dopey one, she had a huge icecream bucket full of smelly chicken which she kept getting out and grazing on. And if she wasn't at the chook, she was on medication - swigging from the medicine bottle like it was a Pepsi or something. Oh and popping pills too. Nice.

We kept getting accosted by this dude who was selling pringles and stuff, that's ok (except he really wouldn't take no for an answer - and Ciggie Sisters made no attempt to tell him to go away, thanks girls), but then a gypsy dude got on the train and was trying to sell us a small tub of blackberries that looked like leftovers from last week.

Anyway, despite all this entertainment, we arrived without incident but of course had nowhere to stay. So we saw a 1 star hotel across the road from the station and headed for it. The guy wanted some stupid money for his silly 1 star room. No thank you. So we were about to head back to the station when this woman, ın thongs, 3/4 trousers and a tank top (what ıs ıt wıth the tank tops, eh) and NO TEETH approached us wıth offers of a room. We had nowhere to go so we decıded to have a look.

The room seemed clean enough and was close enough to the station, so we took it. It was only after we'd paid and she'd left that we realised the light didn't work, and all we had was a touch lamp to light the room. Hm.

Went for dinner and got back very tired, jumped into bed, and then I discovered, in the light of the touch lamp and TV combined, two stuffed birds directly above my bed, looking down at me. I swear I've never jumped so high, it was like something out of Hitchcock's The Birds. Serious freakage. Much begging with Agnieszka to swop beds...

Next day we did a bit of a wander around Bucharest (after checking out pretty early from toothless woman's villa), nice enough town - then back to the station for more train shenanigans. Our destination this time? Sophia, Bulgaria...