The train turns out to be more of a glorified tram and we rattle slowly toward the Romanian border, the driver blasting his horn constantly at animals on the track, and also gypsies, whose shacks line the side of the track for the first hour or so from Belgrade. Get to the border at Vrsac and change trains, after a long delay at passport control (we are entering the EU now) rattle along on an even crappier train toward Timisoara.
I'm met at the station by a guy I met through couchsurfing, after dropping my stuff at his place we head out. Timisoara is a beautiful city, built by the Germans some 200 years ago it is also a popular university town. The revolution in 1989 started here. They were always opposed to Ceausescu, a town that just wouldn't play along, kind of like Benghazi in Libya. It's something that the people are rightly proud of. It's a bit of a special place in Romania, and considers itself the most European and cosmopolitan.
There are quite a few people out late on a Tuesday night, have a few beers and meet some really genuine, open people. Soon find out that this is absolutely the norm in Romania. After the bars close we grab big bottles of beer from a kiosk and go up on the roof of an abandoned building in the city centre, scrabbling over fences, through windows and up dodgy ladders in the dark. Absolutely worth it though, a great view and some beers in good company.
Adrian, the guy I'm staying with is an absolute legend, cooks me a big Romanian breakfast and coffee in the morning. He is typical of the youth in Romania today. Energetic, highly educated (almost everyone speaks English here, that certainly wasn't the case in Serbia), hardworking, creative and open hearted. I read the Daily Mail (in a 'know your enemy' type of way, I'm definitely not right wing!) and they would have you believe that when the work permit laws change at the end of the year pretty much the entire populace of Romania is coming to the UK to 'take our jobs' and live rough in the streets. Fearmongering. I find it incredibly arrogant too, everyone I talk to is happy in Romania, although they aren't rich they live to the full, enjoy family and friends and live in a large and stunningly beautiful country, why should they feel the need to go and chase the dollar in crowded, rainy England? It's a load of crap and I'm sick of hearing about it. Given the choice I know I'd much rather live in Romania.
A word about gypsies. Most of my prior contact with Romania was through gypsy culture (music mainly) but that's only a small part of the picture here. I think a lot of people assume that Romania is the land of the gypsies (Roma > Romania) maybe that's where a lot of the fearmongering stuff comes from. Romanians are more of a Latin people who live side by side with gypsies, their language is beautiful and I can recognise many words from Spanish. Very few Romanians speak the gypsy (Romani) language and I'm laughed at when I ask if they are curious to learn. The relationship between the two is similar to that in Serbia, the gypsies do all the crappy jobs (looking after the toilets etc) and the Romanians get on with their own stuff. There's a bit of anti gypsy sentiment but it's mostly pretty harmonious, everyone seems to have worked out how to live together.
Out during the day in Timisoara we bump into couple of friends of Adrian. They announce that are going to the beach and ask if I'd like to come. Its a long way away. My original plan was to cross the country over Transylvania, stopping at a couple of towns along the way. As I'm behind schedule and the place that they are going sounds great, I accept and get on a 16 hour train ride, crossing the country overnight in one fowl swoop (not sure if that's the right way to use that expression!)
The train is huge, 20 wagons long and full to bursting, taking people to Bucharest and also to the seaside. I get a cramped little seat but give it up for an old lady with huge saggy boobs and a bad back, so spend much of the journey standing up with my head out the window, or trying to doss down on the floor to catch a bit of sleep.
Finally arrive at the sea, hitchhike the rest of the way to Vama Veche. It's right on the border with Bulgaria, it started as a sleepy, underground hippy town but now everyone in Romania knows about it. Arrive on Thursday so it's not too crowded, but in the next couple of days it really fills up with the Bucharest weekend crowd. Pitch tent under a plum tree and go out for a walk.
I go straight down the beach toward the border, having never been to Bulgaria and wanting to set foot in it. It's about 2km away and I'm soon alone, it's beautiful and peaceful. The peace is shattered by the shrill, electronic honking of a jeep and some shouting through a megaphone. I'm approached by border guards who let me know aggressively that I absolutely cannot cross the border here on the beach, I have to go up to the road and go through border control. They are both EU countries but there's no free borders here, it's outside of the Schengen (is that right?) zone. Border control is busy and I figure it's not worth queuing for ages just to walk a bit on Bulgarian soil. I'll go there soon enough I'm sure.
Go for dinner at the gypsy fish restaurant, they control the fishing in the area somehow. Pick a random name from the menu (scrumpu) and get a large fish and some pâté stuff made from roe. It's amazing and super cheap, worked out to be about 30 kroner. Go for a night swim then find a place playing live music on the beach. It's 'folk' music, two guys with guitars. One sounds exactly like Kim Larsen and the tunes are pretty similar. There are lots of bikers around, everyone knows the words to all the songs and it becomes a mass singalong. I'm made really welcome, people share their wine, explain the lyrics and keep giving me palinca, a clear spirit similar to rakija from Serbia, but even stronger.
The music is amazing, especially the upbeat songs. Romanian sounds great lyrically, and it's really easy to move to, especially after all the palinca. There are quite a few gypsy songs, sung in Romanian, and gypsies are mentioned frequently ('ciganski') suggesting that there's a bit of pride and integration going on culturally, despite everything. I recognise quite a few songs because they are sung by zdob si zdub, a Moldovan band who are popular here. I found them a couple of years ago by accident. I switched on the TV and Eurovision was on, there they were as the Moldovan entry, crazy guys with trumpets and large pointy hats, spinning around on unicycles. I thought they were pretty cool because of the trumpet/rock combo, and also because they were so anathema to the Eurovision norm of cheesy pop and love songs. They came to Copenhagen so I saw them and have liked them since, they are a reason I got reading about Moldova and so am here now. At home they are my little secret (no one is interested anyway!!) so it's kind of cool to be around so many others who know these songs.
I did have some regrets about missing Transylvania at first, but this place is amazing. Of course the sea and beach is always nice, but it's just so damn Romanian. People come from all over the country to eat and sing and dance, I didn't meet or hear any other foreigners, except for and old American guy who ran a hostel. Instead of being alone amongst the tour bus towns and tack in Dracula country, I found somewhere real, lots of fun and so very free. You can drink what you like, where you like, walk around and swim stark naked, people were smoking joints all over the beach...hardly saw a policeman but they just didn't seem necessary. Transylvania can wait until next time.
I can't overstate how welcome I feel in Romania. Maybe it's because I live in Denmark where people are a little more cold and reserved, but here people interact so easily, and smile really frequently. People talk to strangers as if they've known them for years, and they love helping each other out. Maybe it's one of the few good things to come out of the special kind of communism they had here (Romania wasn't in the Soviet Union, it was closer to Yugoslav style communism) there's a definite sense of teamwork in society. I love it. Overall though, communism was a disaster here, Ceausescu was a particularly brutal dictator, spending ridiculous money on ostentatious projects on a whim, and living a grotesquely opulent lifestyle with his family and cronies while the people suffered.
So that's four days in Romania. It's been way too brief but having spent the whole time in the company of Romanians, (thanks couchsurfing) I feel like I got an awful lot out of it. Again the girls are beautiful, a real mix of mainly dark and Latin, but also blonde blue eyed girls with sharp, almost Slavic features. Romania has changed hands so many times in its history that there really isn't a certain Romanian 'look', which is noticeable for me having come from Serbia which is a lot more homogenous. There are the original Romanians, mixed with Hungarians, Turks, Saxons from Germany, Slavs from Russia, gypsies... The beer is pretty standard lager/pilsner stuff but they almost seem embarrassed about it, sometimes the only thing I could get on tap was Carlsberg and Tuborg! A little annoying coming from Denmark and only being offered Danish beer. But at least I discovered palinca, and the wine was really good too, even though I don't usually drink it. Food was amazing, being a agricultural country there's a lot of hearty fare for those long days in the fields, my three favourite ingredients eggs, cheese and meat featuring heavily. A dish called mamaliga really stood out, mushy polenta mixed with cheese, covered in runny eggs and ham. I ate a lot of that.
I could go on and on about this country, I really love it. I'll be back soon with much more time on my hands, this place needs a month at least to do it justice. I'm now a little further up the coast having hitched to Constanta, I'm going to spend the night in Galati on the border with Moldova, the poorest and least known country in Europe. Should be interesting!
Next stop, Moldova and Transnistria
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