Traversing Transylvania in the dead of night & general wrap-up

A bird's eye view of Rasnov from the fortress. It seemed suitably nostalgic for this particular entry.

My last chapter on Romania, for the time being. For once, I am at a loss for words. I feel that I haven’t said a tithe of what I’m thinking. And I may well have to do an epilogue/wrapup of this entire trip.

I have very mixed feelings towards Romania. Safe to say, they would be a lot more positive if not for the bus 780 incident and the inbuilt tendency we have for a negativity bias (I keep falling back on this, don’t I), as well as the various racially charged encounters we met with.

Another thing is the fact that my timing couldn’t have been better/worse (depends on how you look at it). All I can say is, it affects your perspective dramatically if you actually know someone who’s from the country you’re sightseeing in. If you’re on good terms, it automatically enhances your experience – or it sets you for a huge letdown, depends which way the pendulum swings. If you’re on good terms but the country turns out to be a craphole (to the point where your friend’s awesomeness can do nothing for the general lousiness of his native town/country), it actually makes you view him/her in a less positive light. Which is not fair, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that life is rarely fair.

I also realised that I haven’t talked that much about gypsies.  Before I came to Romania, my only impressions of gypsies were the romanticised images we get from Notre Dame de Paris and Carmen: beautiful, passionate, black-eyed women with a love for freedom. The reality is harshly different. A blogger named JS Bangs has it spot on when he describes how he feels about fictional gypsies as opposed to real ones:

“Before coming to Romania I thought of gypsies basically the same way I thought of pirates: something exotic and alluring that existed only in distant times and places. I was very excited to see real, live gypsies when I came to Romania. But discovering the actual situation of the gypsies in Romania was a rather rude shock.” (source)

Technically, you learn to avoid them, and give them a wide berth, but you still can’t help observing them with fascination (from a healthy distance).

I don’t have many photos for this entry, since there was basically nothing left on the itinerary. We took the night train from Deva to Bucharest, which lasted 8 hours and cost 20 pounds. We had booked beds, and while neither of us got much sleep, it was an awe-inspiring, humbling and exhilarating experience. The heady, raw sensation of hurtling through the night-clad plains and hills of Transylvania, through the shadowy wild crags of the Carpathians, peering out of the window and watching the land beyond the forests roll behind you into the far, far distance, was otherworldly. You have the feeling that anything can happen. The fact that I was reading Dracula and had just gotten to the part where Lucy Westenra turns into a vampire, did not help my adrenaline levels – I jumped every time the train ran over an uneven welding, or someone walked by our compartment.

There were 6 bunks in our compartment, and we’d both booked the lowest bunks since we were too lazy to climb. This is my bunk.

The ladder leading to the upper bunks.

The corridor, which was actually sort of creepy..

Despite the fact that there were 6 bunks, there were only four of us there, all women. And in spite of the fact that there were only 4 people, it was still quite a squash. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have SIX people crammed in this tuna can.

Joanne and I had been agonising over how we were going to get to the airport once we’d reached Bucuresti Nord. There was no way in hell we were going to take bus 780 again. I would rather pull out my toenails, one by one.

Luckily, some people we’d met at the Sibiu hostel had informed us that the train was a very viable option, which is what we did. We bought our tickets at Bucuresti Nord once we’d arrived, and they weren’t expensive by much to be honest. You take the train (about forty minutes journey) to the Aeroport station, then a minibus takes you to the airport, which is about 10 minutes ride. The train station sells these tickets together, priced at 7 lei. No scammers, extortionists or pot bellies, plus the journey was much more comfortable. I repeat, for all of you who are flying to Bucharest and figuring out how to go from there, TAKE THE TRAIN. I can’t emphasise this enough. It’s only costs 1.5 lei more which is not that much to be honest, and an unbelievably small price to pay for your general state of well-being.

Something rather odd happened on our journey from Bucurest Nord to Aeroport. There was a boy sitting across from us in our compartment and we ended up making a bit of small conversation. He asked us polite questions like where we were from, what we were doing in Romania (cue the incredulous look when we said we were tourists) and how we liked it. The food was fantastic (another wtf look) and the Carpathians were lovely, we said diffidently. He smiled, rather wonkily, and said that it was fine we liked Romania, but he personally didn’t care much for his country. We were really surprised, since the vast majority of all the other Romanians we’d encountered were almost fiercely patriotic. (Again, there’s a wealth of information and opinions on the status quo of Romania and its citizens/immigrants, as well as their own attitudes towards their nation/identity – just type keywords such as Romanian reputation in the EU, so I shan’t comment on this, not in this post anyway.) Anyway, before we’d started talking I had been listening to another Romanian pop song I’d caught on air, Ipotecat by Delia. I had this song on replay – it’s ridiculously catchy. You might be able to get the general gist of the song from this stanza that Delia croons in her soft voice:

Viața le împarte mereu așa

Life always deals it out like this

Totul se întoarce asupra ta

What goes around comes around

Poți fugi, dar nu te poți ascunde

You can run, but you can’t hide

Soarta te găsește oriunde

Fate can always find you

(There’s a full version of the lyrics, both original and translated, here.)

Understandably, we were extremely taken-aback by his admission of how much he disliked his country, and asked him why. After some false beginnings and sheepish grins (his English was not that fluent), he took out his phone and used the google translate app to express what he wasn’t able to say in English. (Google translate again – the Romanians really like this invention.) When he was done, he held out his phone to me, and for reasons not wholly comprehensible to me, these words will always be seared into my memory:

“It is a country full of thieves and liars, like that song you like so much.”

I don’t know why these words made such a huge impression on me. Probably the fact that he was an untypical Romanian, his passive-aggressive tone that even google translate couldn’t mask, the strong words and his expression – half disparaging, half resigned, a smattering of vaguely amused – as well as the aggregation of all that had come to pass in the past few weeks: my Romanian friend, their bad rep, the way people responded when we said we were going there, all the things that had happened to us and that eureka moment when we realised that people were not wholly unjustified in their prejudice. I know that’s a terrible thing to say, but again, no smoke without fire.

We got to the airport without incident, and went back to England without a hitch. I arrived back home at about 5pm (set the clock back 2 hours to Greenwich mean time), my mind full and my thoughts tangled. It was fantastic to be back on good old British soil – Joanne said that it felt as if we had returned to civilisation. It was certainly lovely not having people goggle and make the occasional racial slur wherever we went, to be normal again.

I am still not wholly sure what to make of Romania. What I do know is that it completely bamboozled my expectations, and was nothing at all like what I had imagined it to be. To be honest I’m not sure what I had expected it to be, but it certainly was not what I found. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Perhaps both. What I do know is that my opinion of it has changed drastically; for me, it only used to be the land beyond the forests and Wallachia, the last stronghold of Christianity against the Ottoman Turks. Now, it’s a place with mind-blowingly fantastic food, and equally shocking poverty and desperation. One thing’s for certain, the Romanians don’t do things by halves. For them, it’s all or nothing. Perhaps that’s both their strength and weakness. One other thing I know for sure is that I don’t regret this trip, not even one iota, in spite of all that happened. It’s one of the best and most meaningful things I ever did in my life, and I’m so glad I went. Romania is like nothing I’ve ever encountered: simultaneously exotic and dangerous, beautiful and lethal, proud and vulnerable. And maybe, just maybe, I will be back again.

Romania, day 1 – Beware of the airport bus scam in Bucharest

 Bucharest, the capital of Romania. This picture makes it look 100x better than it actually is.

So, I’d been planning this trip for ages. I’ve always wanted to see Romania, because of Transylvania and, more recently, Vlad Tepes. Anyone who’s familiar with east European history knows all about the Impaler of Wallachia and how his fate was intertwined with Mehmet II, the infamous Fall of Constantinople and the Order of the Dragon.

What I hadn’t anticipated, though, was how anti-Romanian almost everyone seemed to be. I was fresh out of my West Europe/Iberia bout, and during that trip I had gotten the first few clues that Romania was not that popular among the class of EU. In England, it’s even more obvious – people actually grimace and look like they’ve stepped into something if the word “Romanian” is even mentioned. There’s lots of politics involved, mostly immigrants and the NHS and the like – just check out Dailymail – but I can’t really comment on that since I’m not British.

Anyway, we were pretty much sneered at every time we tried to buy Romanian leis/leus/RONS (I still can’t tell the difference between these three? RONS makes me think of Weasley is our king). At this point, we were kind of fed up with all the hate we were getting. I’m very ostensibly Asian, not Romanian or Roma, my name doesn’t end in -escu, I won’t be pulling a Carmen on you, and I’m not here to claim free benefits or healthcare.

Romanian leis/leus/RONS.

I suppose I should also talk a bit about our itinerary. We’d initially planned to do this mini round trip – Bucharest, Brasov, Sinaia, Sibiu, Cluj, Sighisoara and the Iron Gates (which border Serbia), then back to the capital. And I’d really been counting on visiting Poenari Fortress and Snagov Monastery, both of which are musts for any serious Vlad fan. Unfortunately, we had only 6 days, so I had to whittle it down considerably. After seeing some of their more well known castles (Bran, Peles etc.), I don’t think I’m too upset about the ones I didn’t get to see, but I do feel a tinge of regret when I think of missing out on the Danube. Add to that the fact that Romania has a lot of room for improvement when it comes to general transport. The Iron Gates is practically unreachable if you’re two Asian girls who left their international driving licences at home..

Did I mention that the Romanian online railway website is really tricky? So you have cfr.ro, where you plan your trip, and then there’s an entirely different website (https://bilete.cfrcalatori.ro/vanzare/loginuser.aspx) where you do the actual booking. Which took us ages to find.

We got around by trains mostly, which connect the major cities/towns quite well. Secondary means of transport were buses/coaches and taxis. We were especially careful with taxis, since we had been heavily warned about them by all the locals, and I do mean ALL of the locals that we encountered. Not to mention the whole hoard of taxi horrorstories floating around the web! However, we had a pretty good experience with their taxi drivers on the whole, and it really does work out very cheap (if you’re not being conned/scammed, that is) so it’s worth giving a shot, though you should always exercise your vigilance, let them know you’re not someone to be messed with. Do not get into the taxi if you think the cabby looks sketchy, eg. tattooed within an inch of his life, smoking like a chimney, reeking of pot, glittering in the sun and sprouting fangs..

I know I’m jumping around a bit here, but I wanted to lay the groundwork, and anyone who’s planned their own getaway in countries they’ve never been before knows that the preparation process is just as important as, if not more than, the actual trip. But I digress. One of the main defining parameters for this trip was something that happened literally right after we got off the plane. I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that it was a deeply traumatising and very disturbing experience, and effectively ruined, or at least soured, the rest of the trip for us.

Well, we’d just reached the Henri Coanda, otherwise known as Otopeni airport, safe and sound (so far), via one of the big three low cost carriers. I’d found that bus no. 780 could take us from the airport straight to the city centre, which would cost us 4.5 lei. We bought a little blue card at the coack kiosk right outside the terminal, which the seller said was what we needed for the bus, and were informed that this was the Oyster of Bucharest and that it was loaded with two journeys. We went on the bus and beeped it through – at this stage all was completely normal – and felt very pleased with ourselves. Little did we know what horrors were in store for us!

The ticket that started it all

The trip lasted for about an hour, and near the end of the journey was when things got very unpleasant. A woman in plain clothes (we initially thought that she was a civilian) came up to us and demanded to see our bus tickets. I smelled a rat immediately, but we did as she said. She then beeped both of our cards on some sort of app on her cellphone. Mine went through okay, but my friend’s showed red. The woman then informed us (in rather broken English) that my friend’s card was invalid, and that she would have to pay a fine of 50 lei.

We were gobsmacked. My friend immediately produced the receipt given to us when we’d purchased our bus cards, and told the woman that this was proof that we’d bought our card fair and square and we weren’t trying to cheat her etc. No can do, the woman said. Another blogger who had the same experience as we did had it completely right when he described the woman as “ruefully/gleefully demanding our money.” I then demanded to see the woman’s ID card. Of course, it was all in Romanian, and the woman kept insisting that this ticket checking scamming was her job. I said that I couldn’t read Romanian, and that it could be anything. She chose to ignore this comment. I said that we were approaching our stop and would she please let us leave. And just when we thought that things couldn’t get any worse, they did. A bunch of pot-bellied, middle-aged men came and surrounded us, and demanded our 50 lei. And the other passengers just sat there and looked away, and did nothing, which I found equally disturbing.

I tried to go past the woman, but she grabbed me forcefully and flung me back. You’re staying here, she said. We’re going to the police station. The police station? I said, in defiant relief. Good. That’s where I WANT to go. Because we’ll go there and I’ll tell them what you’ve done here today, since what you’re doing is obviously very wrong.

That took the wind out of her sails, and she paused for a moment before saying, OK. If you want to go to the police station, that’s 150 lei.

At this point, one of the locals finally (thank you) decided to intervene. He and the woman started arguing forcefully, half in Romanian, half in broken English. Basically he was telling them that we had bought and paid for the tickets, and how were we supposed to know that one of them was invalid, and that it wasn’t our fault that the ticket didn’t work – that was the seller’s fault. He also mentioned the fact that we were tourists and didn’t understand Romanian, and that since we’d obviously PAID for the tickets, we weren’t at fault. And this was what the Woman said:

“What do you mean, she (pointing at me) can’t speak Romanian? She CAN speak Romanian, all right.”

I repudiated this ridiculous claim immediately, and noticed our bus stop going past. I turned back to the Woman and her cronies, and demanded that they let me go. In answer, they packed around us even closer. I tried to get past them, but they threw me back fiercely. Something inside me snapped, and I launched myself back at them desperately. I am still not quite sure how exactly I managed it, but I somehow got through all those compact, sweaty pot bellies and flailing limbs, and half-fell off the bus, which had stopped at another stop. Again, the passer-bys just stood there and didn’t help us. When I’d picked myself up from the curb, the bus was driving away and I could hear my friend screaming. I can’t articulate the horror I felt in that moment; at this point, I felt that the people here were capable of anything, and I was sure that I’d never see her again.

Next to me, the local boy (who had also gotten off, although I hadn’t noticed at the time) was on the phone. He told me that he was calling the police, and that those people did this to tourists all the time – the day before, he said, they’d forced an American to give them 50 USD. He suggested that we go after the bus, since my friend was still on it, and I followed him in a sort of half-daze. The bus had drawn up about ten minutes walk from the stop we’d “gotten” off – and my friend was still trapped inside, with the woman. The driver and some of the pot bellies were outside, milling about and smoking. I immediately drew back, but the boy told me that they wouldn’t do anything to me. Says you, I thought, the memory of the tussle still horribly fresh in my mind, but I followed him nonetheless.

The two of us stood outside the bus, and I shouted some words of encouragement to my friend, while the pot bellies glared at us. After about 20 minutes of stalemate (the police still hadn’t showed up) the doors opened and my friend came out. The pot bellies got onto the bus, which drove away, and I yelled after them, but of course they didn’t stop. The boy shrugged and said that they weren’t sticking around for the police. I asked him suspiciously if the police were to be trusted, which he assured me they were. My friend was all right – very shellshocked and distressed, obviously, but intact. She hadn’t given them any money, and we waited there till the police came. They talked a bit with the boy, looked over our passports and asked us what we were doing in Romania, and gave us incredulous looks when we said we were here as tourists – “Touring? Here? Alone? In Romania? You girls are brave horrendously stupid.” (We were going to get a lot of this in the days to come.) They offered us a ride to the hostel, which we gratefully accepted. Before we left, I thanked the local boy, who said that he hated the bus scammers and that they were giving the city a bad name (amen to that!), and that he was just doing what was right.

The police saw us safely into our hostel, and instructed us to keep safe (easier said than done) and call 112 if we ever needed help again. It was still rather early on in the day at that point – about 2pm – but the two of us were still so traumatised by the whole incident that we simply flopped on our beds after we’d checked in, and stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, talking about what had happened. We were seriously debating whether or not to book the next flight back to London. I told my friend what a Romanian acquaintance of mine had said when he heard I was going to Bucharest – “You are going to Bucuresti? It is not safe there. I am worried for you, I wish I was going with you.” As well as all of the annoying “I toooooold you so” guff when I told him what had transpired. Even the local Romanians don’t like their capital – another thing we were going to hear a lot of in the days to come. No smoke without fire.

(A/N: Am flying over the English channel right now and it is simply magnificent. It’s a sunny, clear day and the sea is turquoise. As always, it takes my breath away, seeing how close UK is to the Continent. I feel like I could swim over there. Britain, the empire upon which the sun never sets.)

Some of the hostel’s other guests showed up – a Romanian girl from Brasov, and a lovely Slovenian couple. We told them about our nasty run-in, and they were wonderfully sympathetic. They also effectively talked us out of going back to London, assuring us that central Romania, where they’d just come from, was perfectly safe. They then invited us to explore the city with them, which we accepted with pleasure. We ended up having a lovely evening and fantastic dinner – Romanian food is among the best I’ve tasted in my life, and I’m East Asian. I might actually consider coming back, just for the food. More to come.

A statue of Romulus and Remus in the city square