My Romanian Journey
Out of Cappadocia
When I got out of my
cave (actually cave hotel) at the early morning, I was cursing myself for
booking the early morning flight out of Cappadocia but all that changed when I
really opened my eyes. The view from my cave hotel entrance at the early
morning was awesome and there a number of colorful hot air balloons just taking
off, they are very close that I could hear the noise from the balloon burners.
The plan is to catch the shuttle from the hotel to the Kayseri airport at
630am, the Dervish Cave hotel staff arranged for the shuttle at the last minute
and got us some breakfast ready by 6am. The shuttle was on time, we had an
excellent sight of a number of hot air balloons and the traffic of their
support vehicles on our way to the airport.Kayseri Airport
It's pretty short flight
from Kayseri to SAW and the SAW airport was much bigger/better than I expected,
with a lot of nice places to eat and chill out (but no wifi). I couldn't
believe that the Starbucks at the airport, but there's a small coffee shop in
the security area where you could spend 10 Lira to get one hour of free
internet.
At Istanbul Airport
While waiting for the
flight to Bucharest, I had an interesting conversation with a dentist from
Dallas area, who was traveling back home about the Turkish language and how the
Ottomans didn't force the language on the people whom they ruled for about 400
years. Couldn't comprehend how the Turkish language is not spoken widely
in the areas ruled by the Ottomans. I don't have an answer for this
question yet. He was saying that the cost of travel in Turkey is more
than doubled in the last couple of years and I was shocked to see the prices
equivalent (almost) USA prices.
Story of an American Traveller - Meeting with Jay
I was sitting next to Jay
on my flight to Bucharest and after a few minutes of conversation with Jay, I
realized that Jay's story is the interesting(!) story that I can talk when I
talk about my trip to Romania. Jay, who is from Utah (USA), is on a three
week European trip covering Balkans and Romania, and who very well planned the
trip by booking the hotels/air tickets had little misfortune hit him when in
Croatia. Jay lost his debit card, with no other currency but with only
credit card, decided to get help from the credit card company asked them to send
him money when he's in Croatia. Not sure whether it is by design or God
wanted to mess with him, he got all of the money he requested in Croatian
currency just the day before leaving Croatia. At that Jay didn't realize
that Croatian money is pretty much useless outside Croatia.
Struggle to Convert Kuna
Jay booked a hotel in
Brasov and planning to take the train from Bucharest to Brasov after landing,
told him that it's was plan too and told him that I'd wait after the
immigration to see whether he could get some cash to support himself in Romania
for the next two days. You may think what in the world he's doing Romania
without money...his flight back home is from Bucharest. After clearing
the immigration waited for Jay in the baggage area for more than 15 minutes and
I was really tempted to leave but decided to hang around to make sure that he's
fine. Jay showed up after 25 minutes with a dejected look on his face
because he found out that the Croatian money that he had couldn't be converted
to Romanian money or Dollars or Euros. He checked with a bunch of money
changers at the airport but no luck. He was ready to make changes to his
flight and leave Bucharest next day. I told him that I could lend him
some money that he could use for the train tickets and after reaching the
hotel, he could try to get cash advance to support himself...and he could PayPal
the money to me once reaches home. Jay didn't want to get any money from
me and feeling guilty for me waiting for him.Gentlemen Agreement
Convinced Jay to go the
train station with me and he could buy the ticket for me & him using his
credit card to Brasov so that I could give him the train ticket money in cash
for him. The bad luck followed him to the train station too, when he was
trying to use the credit card at the train station, they informed him that only
the international tickets could be bought with credit card not the domestic
tickets. Since the train tickets reasonably cheaper, told him that he
could get the money from his hotel but he refused to accept my money for the
tickets and wanted to just hang around in Bucharest for his return trip.
I didn't book any hotels
or tickets for my stay or trip in Romania and I decided to experiment just
backpack without any planning. So I didn't have any hotel or hostel
reservations. I asked Jay whether he'd accept money from me if he could
share the hotel room (he booked a very nice place in the city center (Casa
Wagner)) so that he could avoid hanging around in the train station/airport for
the next two days. So got the tickets for him to go to Brasov and got
some dinner in the super market. When Jay wanted to pay for the dinner in
the super market, God showed up there with his punishing hand, and he was
requested to enter PIN for the credit card purchase, which he didn't have...;-(
So in the two hour time frame that I spent with this guy, I was able to
see how he was getting screwed by his misfortune.
Bucharest Nord
I read so much about how unorganized or chaotic the Bucharest Nord train station is, but don't believe it. It is an easy place to navigate and there's a help/information counter right where you get out of the train where you find help. There's a super market, money exchange and luggage storage facility in the train station - all well marked.
Romanian Hospitality
Bucharest airport is
relatively small airport for the capital of a country and managing the
communications in the airport was not issue. Instead of taking a bus to
the train station, decided to take the train from the airport (mini bus ride
for 10 minutes from airport to airport train station). I got a glimpse of
the Romanian spirituality when I started with a Romanian guy (Alex) traveling
from the airport to the train station. Alex was returning from Ottawa,
Canada from his two week training camp for the NGO work and he was indicating
that the west is very materialistic, no one was spiritual there. Only after
seeing the small status of Jesus in the mini bus, he was happy and he's glad to
be home. Alex's home is Transylvania and going in the same train to
Brasov. On our way to the train station, he was talking about time during
Ceausescu and after he was toppled how the infrastructure is crumbling.
He invited me to his home in Brasov as well as willing to give us ride to
the hotel from the train station. The Romanians are very spiritual and I
could see that whenever we cross the church in going in the bus, you can see a
whole bunch of people do a quick prayer ;-)
Arriving at Brasov
I could judge (may be I am
wrong) that Jay was ill prepared for his trip and he was thinking that he could
walk to the hotel but the hotel was at least 10 minutes away from the train
station by taxi. So we got a taxi for about less than $3 to go to the Casa Wagner
hotel and by the time we reached the hotel it's midnight. Jay was
paranoid that the hotel may ask for the PIN number when they use the credit
card, so he checked whether the PIN is needed before checking into the hotel.
The hotel was very well located and could spot a number of people at the
city center having dinner or drinks at that time.Visiting Dracula's Home
Decided to explore the
Dracula castle and the surrounding areas the next day by myself
and Jay
indicated that he's going to explore Brasov. The breakfast at the hotel
was decent but I got woken up by the noise of people going to the breakfast
area in the morning. The hotel staff was not very helpful in getting my
laundry done or getting more information going to places around the area, so
decided to check out the tourist information center at the city center to
figure the way around. The girl, Iuliana, at the Information center was very
helpful and informed that there's no need to go on a package tour but I could
manage by myself going on the bus - also provided the bus information to go to
Bran, where the Dracula castle is located.
The public
transportation in Romania is (dead) cheap and the bus ride to Bran (about an
hour away) cost me less than $5. I had to take a local bus from the city
center to Autogara#2 to catch the long distance bus to Bran. Getting the
bus ticket and bus from the city center was not a problem at all and luckily I
had asked someone (sign language) in the bus where Autogara#2 and he told me
where to get down. I thought that the long distance bus stand should be
easily identifiable from the bus, but I was wrong...I had to cross the road to
go to a different area for the bus stand.
While walking to bus
stand, I met Rachel who got down from the same bus and going to Bran also.
So we decided team up and explore Bran & Rasnov. The Dracula
castle looks small but walking through the castle interior shows the awesome
design of the palace in fitting in so many rooms so nicely. Getting here
by bus is so easy and on the way to the castle there are a lot of shops to eat
or buy souvenirs. If you are planning to visit, go early, else you will
be spending some time in the lines.
Visit to Rasnov
Rachel and I decided to
reach Rasnov and have lunch there before visiting the Rasnov fort thinking that
the lunch choices in Rasnov would be better. But we were wrong and
there're only a very few places for lunch at Rasnov. The bus, which is a
12 seater van, dropped us off near the center of the town and there're not many
people in the town - maybe it was siesta time. Rachel is an elementary
school teacher in UK and with my limited knowledge of education about education
system, we were discussing how the schools are run in our respective countries.
After having lunch in a pub, we started walking towards the fort which
initially started off as one kilometer walk ended up longer than that. At
one point we were wondering whether we were going to the right place - later on
we found out that the bus normally drops off people in a different place, very
closer to the parking lot of Rasnov fort.
There is nothing
impressive about the Rasnov fort but the view from the top was really good.
We took the fun train (tractor pulling a few carriages) to the top to
save time and we took the same train to come down after spending about 30
minutes in the fort. We were not sure whether the bus to Brasov will
stop, so decided to walk back to the Rasnov town to catch the bus. It was
getting closer to 5pm and we were worried that we may not back in Brasov for
the walking tour, so we decided to try hitch hiking to the town. First
couple cars that passed us were full and almost an empty van with two elderly
couple didn't stop but after crossing us they stopped at about 25 meters.
We started running towards the van, we found out later that they stopped
the van to take pictures of some birds but seeing us running towards the van,
they gave us ride to the city.
Entrepreneurship
While waiting for the
bus to Brasov, a car pulled over asked us where we were going, asked us to pay
the bus fare to go to Brasov and on the way picked up two more people.
Asked him whether he's running competitive business with the bus service,
he indicated that he was on his way to Brasov and making money on the way ;-)
Back to Brasov
More (Sad) Stories from Jay
Asked him about his
logic for not spending the money that he had for food or anything, he came up
with the other troubles he went through during the trip and it was bad.
While traveling from Serbia to Croatia in the train, he boarded the train
at mid-night, got into the compartment, climbed up to his upper berth and
slowly unpacked his stuff (in the dark) because a couple of other guys were
sleeping in that compartment. When the train conductor came to check the
tickets Jay looked (almost) everywhere for the tickets without disturbing the
other passenger at early morning wee hours and he couldn't find the ticket. The
conductor kicked out of the compartment and asked him to sit near the exit door
near the toilets are and he tried to sleep sitting there. It was pretty
bad because of the looks he was getting from the passenger going around that
area and the conductor was not willing trust him to let him stay in the
compartment. After the daylight arrived, he went to his compartments to
find the ticket between the seats and showed it to the conductor to get back
his pride back (at least some of it).Jay's Trouble in Turkey
Jay's return trip to
Utah was from Bucharest and he was flying to Bucharest from Croatia with 20 hr stopover
in Istanbul. After losing his debit card in Croatia, Jay got his Croatian
money from the credit card company just a day before flying out of Croatia and
he landed in the Istanbul airport where he had to get visa to get to the city
& to his hotel. The visa section in the Istanbul airport doesn't
accept credit card and need the visa fee of US$20 for the visa. When Jay
decided to stay in the airport for the 20hrs, someone in the visa realized his
situation and helped him to get the visa. And after all of these God's
tests, I met Jay in the flight to Bucharest from Istanbul ;-) At that
point, he was not willing to take any more troubles and ready to go back home,
I could understand why he wanted to hang on to the cash.Sinaia Visit
.JPG) |
| Monastery |
.JPG) |
| Peles Castle |
Leaving Brasov
Instead of staying in
Brasov for one more night, decided to head out Sighisoara and I was confident
that I could find hostels to stay. I decided to make a quick trip to
Poiana Brasov, which is just 30 minutes bus ride from the center, before
leaving Brasov and the train @830pm was working out better. Because
of the bus schedule to Poiana Brasov (every one hour there's a bus), I was not
able to spend more than 15 minutes in Poiana Brasov and not sure what I could
have done if had more time, because it was ski resort and not many things to do
in summer. The drive was good and there are places where you could see
the mountains and Brasov city, and since the bus ticket was about 50 cents
(return), it was not a bad way to pass some time.Encounter with Romanian Red Neck
Hunting for Hostel @ Mid-Night
Sighisoara has a small
train station and the center of the city is about 15 minutes walk from the
train station. I had a list of 3 hostels that are about 5 minutes walk
from the train station, so I was not worried about walking around and looking
for a place at about mid-night. The first hostel very close the train
station didn't have any beds so I started to walk towards the other places,
while looking for those two place I came across another hostel that I didn't
try to get a room but after walking about 10 minutes, I couldn't find the
two hostels I had in my list. Walking in the dark at night was not the
problem but the number of stray dogs in Romania was giving me fits..;-)
When I asked for any close by hotels in the petrol station at the end of
the road, the guy at the station offered to take me in his to drop off at a
hostel and when we reached hostel that I didn't bother to check while passing
by, they didn't have room. But the staff at the hostel (Gia Hostel) was
helpful in directing me another hostel (Hostel Mario), and misfortune that
hostel also didn't have beds available.  |
| With Mary |
The German guy managing hostel Mario, Marios, asked me whether I was interested in staying in an apartment, asked him how much it would cost me and he told me that same amount as the hostel (<US$30). He wanted to check with his friend whether she has any availability and it would be very close to his hostel. Remember that whole discussions were happening in German and sign language at mid-night ;-) An elderly German lady (I forgot her name, let’s call Mary) showed up in less than 5 minutes and we three (Marios, Mary and I) left to her apartment after I sent myself an email what I was doing. With all of the dumb things that I may do, I try to compensate with a few close to smart things ;-) Mary has two apartments in a big building, while staying in one of the apartments with her husband who works with Marios, she rents the other apartment
 |
| @City Center |
Sighisoara Visit
Train Trip to Sibiu
Because of my Sighisoara
hostel experience, I wanted to make sure that I'd have a place to stay so I
just sent emails to two hostels in Sibiu enquiring about beds and wanted them to
hold a bed for me. I was not sure whether, they had any beds are not but
I was not worried because I was reaching Sibiu around 330pm, so more time to
figure out. Luckily, the fist hostel (Felinarul hostel) that I sent the
email to, had a bed for me and it was a very old building but very well
maintained.
New Friends
Gypsy King Funeral
When started from the
hostel for the funeral, we have a group of seven people lead by the hostel
staff Mark and we all excited about the King's funeral -
it's a surprise to all of us that there's a king for Gypsies. It's a long
walk to the new part of the town and gave us exposure to the real Sibiu.
When we reached the king's home, there're not thousands of people for
that matter not more 150 people in that area but the slowly the crowds started
to gather - mostly spectators not Gypsies. There're about 500 people in
that area at the maximum and a lot of Gypsy gentleman very well dressed giving
TV interviews to a number of TV channels. The president of Romania was
attending the funeral to pay respect to the king and we were just 10 feet
away from the President of Romania.
There're a lot police but we
couldn't spot any security around the President and a lot of people can get
very close the President. The funeral procession was supposed to start at
1pm but there's no sign of that at 1pm, there're about 500 people in that area
at 1pm and we didn't think that the funeral procession anything great, since we
already spent 2 hours there, we wanted to see the King but the French guy lost
their patience and left. I was sitting on the railway track bridge for
some time and not patience, we all decided to wait there 'til 2pm for the
funeral, if not nothing happens, we'd leave at 2pm. Nothing happened at
2pm so we all left to visit a local market place we saw on the way to buy some
fresh fruits. Later on we read in the internet that thousands of people
were there, which seemed to be publicity news and not the real numbers ;-)
Walking to the other
side of the town and waiting under the hot sun made us tired, so most of us
bought some fruits in the local open market and after having lunch @Lucas,
we went to the hostel to take rest. Lucas is one of the best sandwich
places I had been to in Romania and there're a lot of vegetarian choices there.
On the way to the hostel Monica, Pia and I decided to rent a car to drive
in the Transfagarasan the next day and I was the driver because none of them
know how to drive stick shift.
After taking rest at the
hostel, I came back to the center to enjoy the Middle Ages festivities and see
some of the local attractions. The whole center was filled with local
merchants and middle age related shows and music. Also, there's a rock
music band was playing in a different section of the center and a number of
friends from the hostel were there. While I was having a quiet moment
enjoying the Middle Ages themed music at the center, I met Hugo from the hostel
there and we left to have some beer. Hugo was an IT consultant,
travelling by bike from Netherlands and planning to cover Romania, Ukraine and
Georgia in the next 2 months. He was planning to visit his girl friend's
place in Taiwan and after that planning to backpack in Burma in the next six
months. We talked for long about the IT consulting work in Europe and how
it is different from US before going back to the hostel.
Field Trip to Balea Lake
After crossing the
tunnel, which is 820m long, near the Balea Lake the scenery as well as the
weather completely changed - we saw the clouds moving in and started to rain.
Even when it was raining the road was good with drainage as well as
traction. We stopped near a lake on the way down to take
some pictures
and continued toward Curtea de Arges. The view of the Transfagarasan dam
simply amazing and we spent more time there than in the Balea lake area.
In such a beautiful area, the Romanian put an ugly Iron Man statue which
does not suit there ;-(
Return to Bucharest
Left the hostel around
530am after having the breakfast that Mark left for me in the fridge, to the
train station to catch 6am train to Bucharest. Had the goat cheese and
bread that I got from the super market for the lunch in the train while
enjoying the beautiful Romanian country side. After leaving the backpack
at the train station storage area, got the tickets to Sofia at the 11pm train
and took the metro to the Palace of the People.
Palace of the People
Winding Down
I spent about three
hours walking around Lipscani square, University square and Revolution square
before taking the metro to go back to the train station to college my backpack
and catch the train to Sofia. I spent only half a day in Bucharest and
really think that there's nothing much to do for more than a day in Bucharest
instead I would more time Transylvania.
International Train Experience
When I got in the train,
there's a family already sitting in the seats assigned to me and it was the
same case for another backpacker from Swiss too. While we were wondering
what to do, someone indicated not to worry about the reserved seat numbers and
asked us to occupy the empty seats available. We both moved to the next
room in the compartment and wondering whether the conductor would kick us out,
but that didn't happen. The Swiss guy asked me to take the seat and he
was getting ready to sleep on the floor. When I went to the toilet, I
noticed that the most of the rooms were empty in the train, so asked the Swiss
guy to move to the next room where he could occupy the empty seat and could
sleep on the seat instead on the floor.
Final Thoughts
Overall the backpacking
trip in Romania was good, made a lot of good friends and learnt a lot from the
fellow travelers. My advice to my friends is to visit Romania before the
others find out about this hidden gem and prices start going up.
