Romania - No I didn't see any vampires

The train to Sighisoria Romania was undertaken mostly in the dark, my cabin-mates spoke about three words of English and I spoke no Romanian, hence conversation was at a standstill. Once it gets light I decide to check out the scenery, it looks grim, but that could just be the ghost towns, overcast weather or copious amounts of stray dogs.

I’m not sure what station to get off at so I decide to get off at the one closest to the estimated arrival time on the schedule, fortunately the train is exactly on time and I turn up in the right place, still a few place name signs viewable from the train would’ve been nice.

The hostel turns out to be an easy four minutes walk from the station; I settle in and decide to go on a tour because that’s what everyone else appears to be doing. Weirdly two Dutch guys in a jeep pick us up and we all pile in. We begin to see how the locals in the surrounding villages live, either really really poor or just really poor. The weird thing is that despite their poverty they greet us with smiles and the children follow us around striking poses, laughing and making faces. Of course if you take their photo they expect a few coins in return.

We visit all the deserted but well kept fortified Saxon churches that were pretty much abandoned centuries before. Saxon because the ruling Hungarians of the time gave land in return from protection from the Ottomans to the south and fortified, well for obvious reasons.

Drinking a beer in almost every village proves a great way to interact with the locals who are friendly but look at us like we’re aliens, which we are I guess. One bar has four old men sitting in it and all of them are wearing fantastic hats. I mention the words “awesome hats” enthusiastically to our group and one of the old fellers enthusiastically tips his hat towards me. As he looks me in the eye his wrinkled and aged face cracks a huge smile. I enthusiastically tip my cap back at him and return his smile, language barriers are broken.

After a few more beers the locals decide to really show us their hospitality, they crank up some phat tunes on a rusty old tape player. The thing is they assume that because we visit the Saxon church they believe that we are all Germans and the music turns out to be the oldest German folk music known to man, hilarity ensues as we don’t have the language or even the heart to tell them that actually none of us are in fact German.

In the evening I hang out with Soern and Jonas who are from Denmark. We drink a few unbelievably cheap beers, laugh and swap travel stories until the following day we all depart for Sibiu.

The minibus ride is notable for its death inducing driving as the three of us sit clutching the seats in front with whitened clenched knuckles as the locals calmly nod off despite the random swerving and dangerous speeds undertaken by the driver.

Old town hostel is nothing special in terms of its facilities however it is notable for its party hard staff. At this point I begin to realise that not only do Romanians drink every day, they drink every day to excess. As first I’m thinking that the Romanians are my kind of people but then my body informs me that I am not Romanian and therefore I will struggle to keep up with a people that treat beer drinking as an Olympic sport and every night is the gold medal match. Corporeal consequences are endured. I’m not so naive to say the clichéd “I’ll never drink again” speech but my body makes me resolve to cut back for at least a few days.

During the train ride to Bucharest an old man yells at us for taking our shoes off and I have an unrelated epiphany. It may have had something to do with the uplifting music on my MP3 player such as Guns n Roses, Queen, and interestingly a touch of Meatloaf but as the sun went down over the endless sunflower fields of Romania I came to the conclusion that I have a great life, Soren and Jonas backed away slowly at my over-enthusiasm.

Anyway, enough superlatives because here we are in sweltering Bucharest. My first impression of Bucharest occurred as we exited the train station, to my left an old man grunted as he blasted fourth a turd towards the already shit stained pavement, directly ahead of me a child of about 12 or 13 masturbated freely and laughed as three female Canadian backpackers hurried past, I decided that this was all too much and I promptly turned right and stepped in dog shit. I could tell already that I was going to have a ripper of a time.

Dinner was consumed in an Italian restaurant where my previously rock solid no alcohol resolve was finally broken. Hey twenty hours without alcohol is doing well for Romania! The next few days pass by uneventfully and Soren and Jonas depart for home with promises of a bed in Copenhagen if I need it.

Soldering on by myself I continue the daily battle to find a shady spot to sit/stand/walk in and sighting a McDonalds I feel an involuntary tingle as I smile with glee, McDonalds has air-conditioning! As I sit watching TV in the spot directly below the air-conditioning a man speaks to me as if in a dream, crap he wants me to buy something or get out, has it been 20 minutes already?

I decide to move hostels to a better one because the one I’m in is shit and I need a break from the party atmosphere. I meet a Swiss girl and we go for a walk in the park, she asks if I want to go for a beer and without thinking I’m having yet another beer. Hunger inevitably sets in and we hit a restaurant and proceed to wine and dine until the small hours swapping travel stories, talking EU politics and eventually ‘swapping recipes’. I figure I’ll just sleep on the 19hr train journey to Istanbul tomorrow right?

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