We said a sad, or as sad as is possible at 5 in the morning, goodbye to Emily at the airport in Bucharest and had a good disagreement about where to head next. In the end the lure of the Black sea was just too much and I (Will in this case) managed to give a good case for the 300mile detour.
In hindsight my argument was a load of rubbish. The brand new, empty, straight and very flat dual carriageway from the capital to the coast was fun for about 10minutes – as were the incomplete “service stations” that consisted of a carpark and a loo block in the middle of nowhere! Luckily we had filled up with fuel before and arrived in the top Romanian seaside resort of Constanta in time for lunch. There is a huge port and an extensive promenade which I think is a little past its hay day. More Morecombe than Monte Carlo. We saw some sites but decided that the tourist brochures might have been onto something when they recommended Transylvania… A night on the banks of the Danube was followed up by one of the best camping spots we’ve found so far in the foothills of the Carpathians. Hidden away on top of a hill in the sunshine with a good spot for a fire, we cleared the extensive evidence of other visitors and burnt it. This was a stroke of luck as it turns out the black acrid smoke of burning plastic deters bears, wolves and vampires – we awoke in the morning with all of our limbs and no fanged teeth.
According to the Lonely planet Bran castle is the home of Dracula, however he seems to have been usurped by “Queen Maria” whose photos are everywhere. I really liked the small interesting rooms and hidden passageways and decided to put an offer in. The master bedroom had especially extensive views down the valley, perfect for spotting approaching guests! The mystery of the missing Dracula was solved by a particularly bubbly hostel worker when we checked in to Rolling Stone in Brasov. Apparently there are two Dracula’s castles and a very savvy tourism bureau!
Brasov has been a relaxed stop. Nevil had gearbox trouble but he mended himself on the way to the flash Mercedes dealership. The service man had great fun driving the right-hand drive banger (no offence Nevil) and weaved alarmingly in and out of the very shiny cars in his carpark! 700Euros for a clutch plate is a little out of our budget so Mercedes Van Nevil (he’s now a dutchvan) is going to hang on for a bit. Roshan is leaving tomorrow night and we’re going to do some hiking with the bears and a Canadian from the hostel (we wouldn’t want to have another night with just the two of us, would we?!)
It’s been a little while since we posted anything particularly interesting here but to be honest we’ve just been cruising about in search of something suitably spectacular to write about. If you’ve seen the more recent photos you’ve seen a little of the beautiful and occasionally very industrial countryside we travelled through. We’ve got used to overtaking horse and traps and 12-year old scooter-riding boys along the roads now and it now seems normal to see packs of dogs roaming every part of the countryside.
At the border into Romania we impressed a border guard so much with our newly-acquired Romanian skillz (“boo-nuh-zee-wah” is something that approximates “hello”) that she asked if, when we’re back in the UK, we could send her a copy of our Lonely Planet eastern european phrasebook as apparently they have nothing like it here.
Entering bucharest was fun. Trying to locate a hostel we liked the sound of proved difficult and once again we recruited the skills of a Romanian student studying (coincidentally) computer science to help us find the place. In between having geeky computer conversations with Roshan and me (Ben) he proved to be totally useless and we spent a couple of hours driving in circles around the suburbs of the city.
Bucharest was okay, but nothing particularly special to look at. The four of us had a big-ish night out at a club and during the day wandered about. Saw the balcony/square where the dictator Ceausescu made his speeches until he was executed in 1989 and the massive (Communist) Parliament building he built for a ridiculously huge $6billion in the 80s. It’s the 2nd biggest building in the world by floor space after the US Pentagon building.
The city contrasts quite a bit with the rest of the country. As with most cities it’s a lot more modern than the countryside, more westernised. Apparently the average wage in Romania is something like 120quid a month (1,440 a year), not much at all. By the price of drinks on our night out (same as UK) there is a pretty massive variation in incomes.
