Arrival in Sighisoara
Trip Start
Apr 19, 2008
1
2
6
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Sighisoara,
Transylvania,
Romania
Sunday, April 20, 2008
So i finally got in Vienna around 8:00 PM. I had 15 mins to get on the train to Sighisoara so i made a quick peak through the station and got some kebab from a very funny Turkish guy just down the escalator, at the right. When i got on the train to Sighisoara i noticed the comfort (compared to ICE) was a lot less. I reserved a couchette and when i found it i noticed it was packed with Romanian, which didn't speak English
Romanian guy with many beers
. They did speak a little bit of German, but my German speaking is quite bad... I feared a long boring night, but after some time we managed to communicate by using gestures, so the trip got kinda funny after all. Especially when it turned out one of the Romanians had a bag full of beer with him and some music.
I actually managed to sleep for several hours, but it was not comfortable. Plus you will be awakened two times around 3-4am for passport control. Also, imagine the air quality when six people are sleeping in a small room without ventilation. :)
At 9:15 AM on Sunday we finally reached Sighisoara. Before my trip i had read some stories on the web (i can't recall whether it was this site or not) that upon arrival you would be bombarded by gypsies and other people asking for money or trying to steal your pocket. I was fearing the worst... but nope. I saw two kids who asked something, but that was about it. I quickly learned how Romanian deal with them. They either wave them away or tell them to fuck off. I decided to use the first method. It works very good. They immediately suspend their begging and find another person.
When i arrived in the Hostel, (I made a reservation for Gia hostel, which is just two minutes from the train station.) there was only one person present, and of course she neither spoke English or German. I showed her my reservation and the first thing she said was 'NO, Occupied!'. (in Romanian) I said 'NO, look reservation!'
Gia hostel
. After some minutes, when she noticed i was not leaving, she ran into a room and i didn't see her for the next 45mins. I kept patiently waiting..... finally she got back and apologized. (in Romanian, but i could understand) It turned out there was one room left, probably the one i booked, but it was not cleaned up yet. DOH.I made myself comfortable in the room, dropped my stuff and quickly went outside. Only to walk to.... somewhere. The weather was beautiful. About 20 degrees, clear sky and it was very quiet with only some birds whispering. I heard about the 'old citadel' up on the mountain, so i thought let's try find it. While walking i noticed life is going very slow here. So many people relaxing and just doing nothing. No hurries at all.
The old citadel is part of the old center of Sighisoara which is up on a mountain. It is a fully preserved medieval town with buildings up to 400 years old. It is also the place where Vlad Tepes (Dracula) was born. After walking for just 15mins i got up there and was immediately welcomed by two Romanian guys which carried a drum. They were dressed in old medieval Romanian clothes. To my surprise they could talk in 25 languages. They saw me and shouted, English or Netherlands? I said, Netherlands! What followed: Welkom in Sighisoara, bedankt voor uw komst. We hopen dat u een prettige tijd heeft. And after that they bowed for me. I couldn't stop laughing. They talked Dutch! Way up the mountains in Romania
Hostel Gia
. Very good. My video camera was rolling, so everything is on tape. :)After checking out the old town and the Citadel i decided to get back to the Hostel. Some Itaian guy checked in and was also staying in my Room. We talked a bit and then i decided to go to the western part of Sighisoara. I noticed there was some music coming from there, so i was curious about what to find. I followed the people down the railway (from the station) and across the bridge. It turned out they had some sort of attraction park and a little festival. I noticed people were looking at me as in 'hmm he doesn't belong here' so i wisely kept my camera and other stuff safe in my bag. After peaking around for like 30mins i decided to go back again. Another guy checked in at the hostel, from France. We decided to have dinner together. I had some traditional Romanian 'Goulash'.
That was about it for that day. Next morning (9:15am) i hopped on a train to Bucuresti. The trip was about five hours from Sighisoara. On the train i met up with an Israelian woman. She told me she stayed in Brann (The town where Dracula lived in his castle) for 10 days and was going to fly back to Israel. It was nice to find someone who could talk fluent English. It made the five hours less boring.
I arrived in Bucuresti at 2pm. I met up with my friend Cristi at 5. He gave me some free dinner (and insisted to pay, i wasn't allowed to pull out my wallet. "You are my guest now!", he said :p ) and we talked for about 1 1-2 hour until he had to go back to work
Sighisoara View from Mountain
. I did some site seeing after that.... people's palace (biggest building in the world after the Pentagon), some nice park and the place where Ceaucescu held his last speech. After that i head back to the main train station to catch my night train to Belgrade.
Bucuresti looked very good. Not the architecture, because they are all ugly communist buildings. But i mean Life. Modern, fast and well developed. Even the metro looked way better than the one we have in Amsterdam. I read some stories about Bucuresti not being safe and other bad things, but that is not the case. I haven't noticed anything. Neither at the station, metro or out on the streets.
Little note: At the station they have 24hr luggage store for just 6 LEI. (which is about 1.75 Euro) Very good if you have a big backpack with you and want to walk around freely in the city.
I hopped on the night train to Belgrade around 9pm. The train looked quite bad. Worse than the one from Vienna. Luckily it wasn't packed with Romanians, neither Serbians this time.. so i had a whole compartment for myself. Up in Belgrade i had to hop on another train to Strizivojna. (Croatia) There is no direct line to Sarajevo, so you have to travel to Croatia first. I had one hour to spent, so i made a quick peak through Belgrade. Maybe i just saw the bad things, but it looked very bad. Much pollution and smog (very bad smell...) I noticed there were many 'sloppenwijken' (don't know the English word for now)
Gypsies, children, complete families were living on garbage places and things like that.
When i arrived in Belgrade I had already traveled a total of 40hours with two nights sleeping on the train, so my condition started to decrease
Old center with citadel at the back
. The trip to Strizivojna was still ok, but when i got there to hop on the train to Sarajevo i felt quite bad. And I still had to travel for 6hrs from that point. The last three were really bad. Since i couldn't have breakfast/lunch in Belgrade (they didn't want my Euro's) i didn't eat anything for almost 24hrs... I was so happy when i arrived in Sarajevo.........Some small notes:
The train trip in Bosnia was very good. Much beautiful scenery. Recommended. I traveled from Strizivojna, Doboj, Zenica to Sarajevo.
A train station in Bosnia/Romania, one guy for every task: besides the machinist, someone holds the whistle to tell the machinist to leave, someone is a mechanic, someone checks the tickets, another one is selling the tickets and then there is someone who keeps an eye on the wagons. In Holland this is all done by machines or a single person. :)
On the night train the conductor will take your train ticket and give it back in the morning. He needs to do some administration work for the customs.
When you travel in Romania, Serbia, Bosnia and i guess any country in Eastern Europe by train, be sure to have a complete travel scheme with you, so you know when and where the train will stop. They will not announce anything. If you are 'lost' you will have a big chance to miss the station.. because you will not have much time to hop off.
Note: sorry there is still some grammatical errors, i am in a hurry atm. Leaving to Travnik from Sarajevo today.
Comments
Have fun!
Heeee Chris!
Leuk dat jij nu ook op pad bent. Kunnen we lekker internationaal elkaars verhalen volgen...
Heel veel plezier!
Ingrid en Diane