eric's blog

Well... I can't say I've had the best few days. I was pickpocketed and lost my wallet (with all my cards and about $100) and camera. We had just arrived in Brasov, and were at the train station. We had to take a bus to the hostel, and as soon as the bus arrived, there was all these people pushing and shoving to get on. We're quite used to this now, people can be very rude while scrambling to get on a bus (don't even think about lining up), that we didn't think to much about it. Even on the bus (before it started moving), there were plenty of people pushing and shoving. However, because this seems to be quite common here, we paid little attention.

The problem was that after a little while, the bus was suddenly not very full. This seemed a little strange, and then just a few seconds later, I felt my pocket, and noticed that my wallet was gone. It all fell into place and made perfect sense at that exact second. All those people had been working together, pushing and shoving so that we wouldn't notice. I didn't know what to do, but we quickly got off the bus (it still hadn't left), and sort of looked around. Of course, they'd gone by then and there was nothing to do. We found a police officer, but there's nothing that he could do anyways. Apparently, these people 'work' the train station, and they are very good at what they do. That officer gets reports of this every couple hours, and countless others don't realise until they are in town. Of course, it didn't help that I've gotten very comfortable around here. At the start of the trip, I would always keep my hands in my pockets in those situations. I was also stupid to havemy camera in my cargo pocket, which is something I never used to do, but it's convenient. I won't be doing that again, though.

While the situation does suck, there's really nothing I can do about it. I'm glad that Jocelyn is with me (and that she didn't have anything taken), so I'll be OK money-wise until I can get my cards replaced. I'm also happy that pretty much every other Romanian we've met has been extremely friendly and nice, although this would probably also contribute to why I didn't suspect anything.

We're still in Romania, and I'm loving it. It's such a great country. After spending a lot longer than we thought in Sighet (and visiting a whole bunch of little villages around there too), we headed to an area called Southern Bucovina, which happens to be in the north east corner of the country. The train ride there was amazing, as the whole country side is just rolling green hills, with little villages along the way.

We decided to stay in a little village called Vama, and use that as our base to explore all the monasteries around the area. This town was great, as it wasn't touristy at all. Just a few guesthouses around. The next day it was off to see the monasteries. The thing is, that the busses here suck. The good thing is that it's very easy to hitch hike, so people just do that instead. We always manage to get rides quite quickly, and you're just expected to pay the bus fare (although sometimes they won't accept that). Anyways, we got to the monasteries, and they were awesome. The insides and outsides are completely covered in frescoes. Cartoon Jesuses and other important biblical people are great to see. It's really strange because the insides always seem to have one room that's completely covered in gruesome images. Saints heads are being chopped off (and the halo remains around the head) and blood is gushing everywhere.

After that, it was off to Transylvania, the home of Dracula. We wanted to break our long journey up by spending a night in a city called Cluj-Napoca. We thought that this would be a smart idea, but man, were we wrong. We had the intention of camping, and since that was a bit away from the city, we had dinner first. We then followed the direction from our Lonely Planet, and that's when things went wrong. It told us to take a bus to the end of the line, from where it would be an easy (and marked) 2km walk. nope. It turns out the end of the line is way past where we wanted to get off, and the 2km turned out to be a lot more. There were no signs either, so we relied on friendly locals. We arrived after almost 2 hours, at about 11:00.

The next day wasn't so great either. Our plan was to take an early bus to Sibiu, so that we would have the whole day to explore that city. However, the only bus that we could find (it turns out the bus station has been moved, so it was not in our book) was at 4pm. We then arrived to Sibiu in the late evening, and went to the hotel that our guide recommends. However, this was full, as were any other hotels that we managed to find around town. We started joking about sleeping in the park, but once 10 o'clock came around, it started to sound like a good idea. Our saviour was when we decided to check the internet, and found that a hostel had recently been opened, and it turned out they had room for us. Yippee!

We're are now in Sighisoara, birthplace of Vlad Tepes. You may know him better as Dracula. We saw the house where he was born, which has now been turned into a tourist trap restaurant, where the waiters dress up in capes and everything. But at least the town is really nice, even if it is a bit too touristy.

1. Be an innocent looking old lady, in traditional Romanian dress, complete with scarf over your hair (although it is quite possible that the border guards are on to this disguise, don't let that stop you)

2. Get on train in Sighet, Romania. Do not bother buying a ticket.

3. When ticket collector comes by, give him half the regular fare. Do not bother being inconspicuous about this.

4. Wait on train for Romanian immigration officials to take their sweet time to stamp exit stamps on passports.

5. When train arrives in Ukraine, make your way to the door in order to be the first one out.

6. As soon as door opens, jump off train and sprint towards the small open gate (step 1 of this list should not stop you from doing this).

7. Crowd and push around the gate in order to get to the front where the Ukranian border guard in randomly handing out immigration cards to be filled out. Grab one, get back away from the gate, and fill it out as fast as possible.

8. Go back towards the gate, where guard will let you in a few at a time. (be sure to push and shove, it will get you through faster)

9. Wait in line again, show passport to the official, get stamp, and proceed to searhing room. Guards may ask to look into your bags, or ask how much money you are carrying (at this point, if possible, it would help to be a confused looking Canadian. It may lead to some laughs and smiles, and a pat on the back from the guards).

10. Arrive in Teresva, Ukraine, where the large market is right next to the border.

11. Find your local connection at the market, who will gladly sell you very cheap cigarettes at greatly reduced rates. Buy as many as you can.

12. Make sure to buy other things as well, this will make you not look as suspicious when coming back into Romania. All household goods are available, as well as groceries, clothes, and anything else you can think of. I recommend the raw meat sitting on tables in the sun (the flies seem to like it, so it must be good), particularly the pig heads (go for one that's smiling).

13. When the time comes to head back, proceed to train station.

14. Again, proceed through Ukrainian immigration. Do not worry about this one, they don't care what you have.

15. Get back on train. As it is at the station, and as it crosses the river back into Romania, be sure to start hiding your cigarettes. There are strict limits on how many you are allowed to bring back, so hide the throughout all the things you have bought during the day. Then proceed to shove them down your pants, shirt, and anywhere else you can think of. Tip: elastic clothes will make sure that stay where you want them to. Your bra strap is good for that. Just be sure to wear baggy clothes over top of that layer.

16. When Romanian officials come on board, give your passport to be stamped. Do not worry yet, these ones aren't looking for your cigarettes.

17. Wait around nervously as other carriages begin to be searched. If possible, get a little kid to wander around to see which border guard is on duty today.

18. Switch seats with a couple of Canadians. (we are not sure why, but give it a try, even if it's just bfor fun)

19. Have a border guard come and start going through your bags. She may yell at you to go open things up for her, but you can yell back.

20. Once train starts to go again, look out the window, and smile and wave at all the poor people who got caught. Be glad that your not one of them.

21. Sell cigarettes on the streets in Romania.

22. PROFIT!!!

23. Rinse. Repeat.

24. Wipe hands on pants.

It's been a very busy past few days of travelling. We've seen a lot, but we're quite tired now. It all started with a day trip to a small town, Bugac, to see some traditional Hungarian cowboys. While walking to the stable, we hitched a ride with a horse and cart (which other tourists paid extra for), and then watched a cool horse show. The highlight had to be the way one of the cowboys would gallop 5 horses at full speed. 3 in front, while he was standing on the 2 in the back, I really have no idea how he didn't fall off.

That same day, we came back to where we spent the night before, and took another bus to a really small town, Abony. The town was really nothing special (although it had a great restaurant with amazing goulash), but it's where Jocelyn's step-grandpa is from. We even saw the house where he lived.

It was then off to Eger, famous for it's wine. It's too bad that my stomach was not feeling very well while there, but we still managed to drink some good wine. There's a little road, in what is called the "Valley of the beautiful women" (or as one translation put it, "nice women valley"), that is just lined with wine cellars. Pick whichever one looks good, and go ask for a glass of wine (starting at about $0.25 per glass). You can also bring an empty plastic bottle, and have it filled for really cheap (about $4 per litre). Good times.

Our next stop was really interesting fo me. It was where my grandma (on my mom's side) grew up, a town called Nyiregyhaza. The town has pretty much no tourists at all, so it was quite hard to find a place to stay. But it was really cool to see it, even visiting the street where my grandma lived (sadly, the address where her house was is a new building).

At this point, we are now in Romania, the land of the gypsies. Getting here was tough though. ALthough the place we wanted to get to was very close on the map, busses and trains don't go where you want, and it takes forever. It even involved spending a night in what is considered the ugliest city in Romania, simply because it was getting late, and we needed to sleep.

But we are now in a great little town called Sighet, in the northern part of the country, the Maramures. It almost feels like we've gone back in time in this country. Certainly not as developped, but full of charm. We found a great little hostel, run by a british guy and his romanian wife. The mattresses are even full of hay, as i guess other matresses would be hard to come by around here (although it's not too good for my allergies).

One thing that's great about Romania, is the language. Since it's a romance language, it is quite similar to french ans spanish, which means picking up a few key words is fairly easy. The confusing part is the money though. The Lei has recently (6 months ago) been changed. Because it was worth so little, they decided to take off 4 zeros. However, people are not yet used to it, and when prices are quoted, it can get a little confusing. Also, since the old bills are still in circulation, you have to think about it for a second. a 10,000 lei bill, is actually 1, and 100,000, is 10, etc. I think I'm getting the hang of it, and since we're liking Romania so much, we may be staying a little longer than we thought.