Istanbul

From where I am standing my eyes narrow from the dazzling light reflecting from the sea of Marmora. Turning my head to the left I can see the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. The score of ugly commercial vessels lying at anchor were moving against the relentless tides, failed to distract from the past glories of this place - this meeting of waters and of 2 great continents with their widely divergent cultures, we are of course in Istanbul.

The most exotic and enduring of our destinations it is also sadly, where this particular journey must end. As usual Jonny has selected our hotel wisely, since it is in easy walking distance of the 4 'must see' places: The Great Bazaar, Aya Sofia, Topkapi Palace and the Blue Mosque, I wont bore you by describing them all in detail.

The atmosphere that most distinguishes Istanbul from all that we have experienced before on this journey is the bustling trade. This city of 14 million souls is a heaving mass of commerce: new produce being delivered up alleyways by hand carts, servants running with trays of tea and coffee to merchants who don't dare leave their shops, incessant but good humoured approaches from shoe shiners, shoe sellers, carpet salesman and even restaurateurs to convince us of their best intentions for our welfare.

And weaving through all of this like a miasma are the complex aromas of the Orient: roasted chestnuts, coffee and a world of spices. The experience cannot of changed in 5 centuries.
For anyone who wants to understand the background to this remarkable country, you could hardly do better than to read "Inside the Seraglio" by John Freely. This wonderful book describes the inner life of the Sultans that ruled over the Ottoman empire for 500 years. At its zenith this Turkish empire extended from the eastern borders of Persia across much of North Africa and the Middle East and to the fringes of Austria.

Absolutely Bazaar

My first experience with a Bazaar was a terrible 80's night club on the waterfront in Bristol called Harpars Bazaar, I was 16 and the experience then was probably not far off the way you feel walking into the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul. Great hordes of people everywhere bustling and jostling to buy things (fortunately not alco-pops or warm larger!) At the busiest time of the day you can't move for the people and the din is overwhelming, the guidebook says that there are between 300,000 and 400,000 visitors here a day!

I have been told that there are at least 4000 shops here, tucked away in a warren of passageways and tiny avenues. An amazing collection of goods adorns each shop front from stunning Turkish carpets, meerschaum pipes, copperware, intricate tiles, leather goods, jewelry as well as the typical Hookah or water pipe.

Every shop master sits outside his shop and accosts you just as you think you have made it clear and is desperate for you to come into his store and see his carpets or whatever, they are so polite and inoffensive that it is sometimes hard to decline, especially when they are offering you a wonderful cup of apple tea.

They are not pushy or intimidating but wonderfully gregarious, you feel that if you smile and respond politely, that, actually you don't have a house/apartment and so nowhere to put a 30m square rug, they seem happy with your rebuttal and let you pass.

One chap accosted Dad and not happy with his answer, that he didn't need to buy anything, immediately replied with "well come in to my shop and buy something you don't need!" The name of the game here is haggling and usually you can get people to come down to well under half price from their printed or starting price, but it may take some time and some deadpan stares. I found getting my cash out to pay and then walking away usually did the trick, as they could never allow you to leave once they saw the colour of your money and so you usually got what you wanted.

The Bazaar dates back from the 15th Century and was the brainchild Mehmed II 'the Conqueror' as a way of ensuring the successful commercial identity of this fabulous region – for me the whole experience of the place was a highlight to this wonderful city.

International Incident - Railway Carriage arrested

It is 3am and we have been ensconced on the Bulgaria/Turkish border for several years, buying visas (with US $) having our passports stamped and greeting an endless parade of border guards and customs officers from both nations. Finally we learn that we must leave our carriage immediately because it has been arrested along with our steward. Both are carted away and we see no more of them. We hope the carriage at least will be allowed its telephone call and has been appraised of its rights in the proper fashion.
No explanation has been given for this extraordinary turn of events, but the rumour running through our newly adopted carriage is that alcohol may have been at the root of all this trouble. However we suspect the unevenness of the tracks was probably a more likely explanation for the rolling about we had been experiencing in the preceding hours. Still, the authorities would have more experience in these matters and should be able to recognise an inebriated railway carriage when they see one.

Top tips for passing 20 hours on a train without a dining car

Subtitle - How to put up with your 36 year old son in a 4ft by 6ft box for 20 hours

Do not read on unless you are significantly under the influence or bored senseless and life is devoid of otherwise simple pleasures

Written jointly by JB jnr and JB snr

1. Chilling your drinks (no refrigeration or aircon on Romanian trains)
After thoroughly drenching your Son's technical climbing socks in expensive Carpathian mountain mineral water, put the bottle of liquid that needs to be cooled into the wet sock, then using a complicated system of bunk-bed hanging straps to rig a hammock, hang the aforementioned device through the open window (preferably on the shady side of the train) so that the wind chill factor of the moving train can reduce the temperature of the bottle to that of a pleasant rain-cooled Taittinger - within an hour or so.

We know this works as we have done it. We believe the chilling effect is due to the coefficient of evaporation being greatly enhanced by the increased surface area with which water can evaporate from the surface of the sock, thereby extracting the latent heat from the contained vessel. Once the liquid (in our case Nestle Peach Iced Tea) is at the correct temperature, add a generous tincture of Vecchia Romania Black Label brandy (no other brand will do) to the glass of your choice (if you don't have one see below) and enjoy.

2. Make your own travelling wine glasses
Fashion a range of fine wine glasses and assorted tableware by cutting small plastic bottles in half and joining the bottoms together with surgical tape. We can particularly recommend the use of a spare Nestle Peach Iced Tea bottle, as it is then possible to design a bowl of the correct shape to deliver Moldavian Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 to the correct part of the tongue as per the Reidel range of specialist wine glasses. You will also need the following: Swiss Army knife (not only to open the bottle of wine) an Opinal Fine Knife (blade size no. 3 with sharpening steel), AA European road Atlas (to prevent unauthorised ingress of the aforementioned blades into your son's thighs.) Zinc Oxide Surgical Tape from the mandatory travelling First Aid kit.

While this specific reworking of a plastic water bottle is not specifically mentioned in any of the Blue Peter programmes, the fundamental principals involved should come easily to a regular viewer. Children make sure you ask an adult to open the blade for you and pour the brandy.

3. Make friends with your neighbours in adjacent compartments
They are probably American students travelling in Europe for the first time, so they need to be indulged - just don't mention the war! Offer them some of your Moldavian nectar in your personal hand crafted work of art, as a symbol of friendship and if you are particularly unlucky you may receive a slice of sweaty Romanian sausage in return from their backpack.

4. Invent classic 80's board games but with a twist - Pretzel Pick-up Sticks. Take one box of out-of-date (preferably pre-Cold War)"straight" Pretzels and empty onto your bunk and see if you can remove the individual Pretzels without getting the salt crystals snagged. This will keep your children amused for ages (particularly if they have recently turned 36!). If irreconcilable differences ensue as to whether the sticks moved because of the jerky movements of the train or by cheating, then hastily consume the same amount each and then move onto the next item in the list below

5. Help the time pass more quickly by listening to ipod music with travel speakers
Suggested tracks are:
The final countdown - Europe
Mix some water with the Wine - Joan ArmourPlating
Matey Kahlua - 10 million nicked bicycles in Brasov

6. Older people should always ensure that they sleep on the lower bunk and that the upper bunk is wide enough, so that when the body reposing thereon is ejected from it during the dramatic Bulgarian brake stops, he will fall onto the floor and luggage and not onto the frail individual below.

7. Always buy your "tic-tacs" from the mini-bar in the hotel, as they will always cost 10 times more than in a local shop and consequently taste much better.

8. When the train enters Bulgaria and when it stops for no reason in the depths of the countryside, take a quick turn outside to see if the rails are of a continuous welded type, or the older jointed variety. The latter will create a continuous clicketyclack that will penetrate your auditory apparatus over the next 20 hours, and from which you can enjoy a lifetime of mild tinnitus - assuming that is, that you are able to get back on the train and not be bitten by a 3 legged rabid Bulgarian hound. Under no circumstances should you attempt this in Romania as it is the proud possessor of 80% of the wolves and 90% of the bears in Europe - in that case just put up with the noise.

9. We only have another 12 hours to go, so we should be able to find atleast another 1 Top Tip to complete a Top 10 list - if not you get on far too well with your siblings and you need help.

10. Please note as a general hint to train travel through Romania, a certain guide book to Bucharest advised us that if you arrive by bus or coach into the city, something has gone fundamentally wrong in your life and no guide book in the world can save you.

Photos to follow tomorrow.

Jonathon

Sent from my BlackBerry

Rear ended by the Brides of Dracula!

Written by JB jnr
It took an hour to get out of Bucharest and nearly 3 hours to make the 150km journey up to the city of Brasov (see Dad's entry on the city).

We were in the non too salubrious suburbs of Brasov (pronounced Brashofv), stopped at traffic lights and all of a sudden our car lurches forward and sideways, and my head hits the side window and then hard on to the head rest. Dad swears and I cannot believe we have been driven into. A car crash, in a hire car in the middle of Romania – bar serious injury there isn't much worse than can happen on holiday.

I am a bit dazed and in shock, head hurts a bit and so does my neck but I am fine, Dad is fine also and so we get out of the car and are confronted with a 3 car accident, where a woman in a Skoda has hit a Ford and then crashed into my hire car, we have a crumpled rear end and flat tire. I don't understand a word anyone is saying, the whole road is queuing up with cars and everyone is honking their horn and this is in the middle of a busy main road.

The woman who has hit me (Angela) asks if I am OK and says she has called the police, as in Romania any accident must have the police present. They arrive in 5 minutes and all the cars are pushed off the road. Angela tells me we have to go to the police station and give statements, her friend will give me a lift and my father must stay with our car and luggage.

Amazingly everyone is quite calm, no-one is shouting, I am playing quite dumb as I have no idea what happened, so just happy to go along with what the police tell me to do. I was more concerned about leaving Dad on the side of the road in this dreadful suburb not speaking any Romanian for what could have been hours....and it was getting dark....and we were in Transylvania! I had visions of coming back to him in his boxers on the pavement and blue from having the blood sucked out of him.

As your parents get older you feel this sense of responsibility for them especially when they are on your turf, traveling to remote and unusual places, I was genuinely more worried about him and how he would fare as the sun set and it got dark than I was about the car or me.
I call the hire car company and tell them the good news, then jump in the strangers car with 3 Brides of Dracula including the one who rear-ended me) and head to the police station, we nearly have 3 more crashes on the way, the state of the driving was so bad and I was with a local! At the police station there are no computer systems everything must be hand written in triplicate, I need everything translated and every 5 minutes everyone has to leave the room to have a smoke (I have been amazed at how many people smoke here and in Hungary!) Actually I was very impressed at how efficiently the police handled the whole situation.

Finally after 2 hours of paper work and breathalyser tests (not that long really) I am given the documents to say it was not my fault and the hire company can get the car fixed (in Romania the police decide who is to blame not the insurers) and then on the way out the woman who caused the fuss says she is sorry for spoiling my holiday......very sweet! Good job I cant say you stupid blind cow in Romanian!

The Brides of Dracula agree to give me a lift to the hotel (where Dad in the meantime has cleverly managed to change the tyre and limp back to the hotel) and on the way back I pick up from the smattering of Romanian I have learnt, that they have recently returned from Italy on holiday and so speak some Italian to them to which they all respond fluently and we have a great laugh as the whole process could have been so much easier if I had said I spoken Italian.....well sorry for it not crossing my mind earlier!

After you have been pummeled by Olnj the Hungarian masseuse, you can't let a bit of whiplash and a car crash ruin your holiday!

Romania

Written by JB snr
This journey was designed to provide increasing exposure to challenging environments as we progressed and this was driven home with our arrival at Bucharesti Nord station. This is the real 3rd world in Europe, shabby and dirty, everyone milling about with countless beggars, peasants and shady looking characters trying to get our attention. Eventually got our tickets for the next leg of the journey to Istanbul and then our rental car to Transylvania.

Every second car in Romania seems to be a Renault 12 this was a successful model in the 1970's and I have fond memories of driving one in Newfoundland, Canada in 1972 (Jonathon suck on that one you were 1 year old!) Here they are still going well 35 years later, even if like me they too, are looking the worse for wear.

So now we have the latest Renault (Dacia over here) thank goodness for SatNav, it brought us straight to the door of our hotel, well it brought me to the door of the hotel, an unauthorized and uninsured driver (Jonathon was at the police station....read on!) and this was on countless crowded highways and unlit back streets. I shouldn't be too surprised at this, as my SatNav on the boat gets me through equally scary conditions on the Solent on a sunny afternoon to a specific berth at the Lymington marina!

We are now in Brasov, in the Carpathian mountains (Transylvania) of central Romania. We spent the first morning strolling through the old town, it has some excellent treasures, such as Orthodox churches and 13th Century garrisons and some shabby back streets glowing in the morning sun. As a serious photographer, mostly black and white and infrared, I lingered while Jonathon went in search of yet more Illy coffee.

In the afternoon we wandered deeper into the mountains to Bran castle of Count Dracula fame. Perched on a craggy outcrop and dating from the 14th Century, the rooms are well furnished and presented and it was used by Queen Marie of Romania well into the 20th Century. There are many original photos of her and the rooms she used, looking much as they do now. In the grounds there are several traditional rural dwellings. The whole place is a gem, despite there being no evidence that Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) ever stayed there.

Mercifully there was no evidence or commercialisation of the Dracula legend here, just as well then that we brought our own garlic, silver crucifixes and wooden stakes (no silver bullets needed as they are only for Werewolves!)

The simple if hard rural life,is still prevalent in much of Romania, with horses and carts everywhere and peasants wearing Caciula hats and serious hardship in their demeanor.
As we set out to do, we continue to sampled local dishes wherever possible, tonight it is traditional Romanian cuisine, Pork in a mushroom sauce for me and Pork in a Carrot sauce with Polenta for Jonny, both were excellent. The wine is the local Prince Mircea 2004 (100% merlot) rich and smooth but dark and purple like the puncture wounds on the neck of sleeping Dracul virgin. I have had more disappointing expensive Clarets.

Footnote:
Jonathon's response to our unbelievable incident with the car is very reassuring, he was calm and business like in the handling of the other drivers involved and relished the “new experience” factor of his time with the Romanian State police, the good humor with which he saw it all through, is a lesson to us all. It is almost the ultimate nightmare – an accident in a rental car in Transylvania.

There is a line from an insurance company advert that springs to mind “Don't turn a drama into a crisis” he didn't and neither, thankfully did the Romanians. Considering that I am a risk adverse Irishman in the “prime” of life, fatherly pride is well to the fore, after that, also but don't tell him this, I am less apprehensive than I was about his plans to cross the Greenland icecap towing the sledge in August, but once a parent always a parent.

A sleeper in Romania

Written by JB jnr
10:30pm at 'Keleti Pu' train station in Budapest is not the best place to hang around with your Dad, it doesn't feel the same place as it did in daylight a few days earlier. The nighttime tends to bring all sorts of undesirables to train stations.

Our 'sleeper' arrived a bit late, but we found our comfortable couchette and settled in for the mammoth 15 hour journey to Bucharest Nord station. As we were quite tired (and I was still sore from the massage) we bunked down quickly and the 'Wagon Lit' attendant came and told us that at 2:15am we would have our passports checked by the Hungarian police and then half an hour later by the Romanian Police. Dad gave me his passport and said I was in charge and not to wake him!

I awoke at 7:00am to the sunshine trying to eek its way through the blinds and the compartment was heating up. Dad was asleep so I opened the blind and lowered the window to let in some fresh air, as I was on the top bunk I could lie and look out the window and watch the remote lowlands of North Eastern Romania click by. It was warm under the duvet as the fresh cold air blew in through the window. I could smell the smoke from the scrub fires and the indisputable perfume of spring that comes as winter falls away. I was still groggy from the long previous day and a fitful nights sleep so this was a great way to enjoy the countryside.
We were still more than 5 hours from Bucharest and this is a region of the country that few tourists would ever get to experience, too far to drive from the capital on unsealed roads and no airports up here so really only available to train tourists or hardy travelers. For the next hour, before Dad awoke I got too see some of the poorest villages and the most rural way of life that Europe probably has to offer.

At first count I saw 12 horses and carts before I saw 2 cars, fathers taking their kids to a school no doubt miles away, the horses looked strong and rugged and were often accompanied by a foal, trotting to keep up. Old women bent double in the fields with hoes and tills working the soil, wearing the traditional woolen skirt, thick tights and heads covered in scarves colourful. Skin tanned and leathered from a hard life in the outdoors. Old men asleep in the fields tending their animals, some with a single horse, sheep and cow all grazing neck to neck. In the distance I could see the snow capped Carpathian mountains on the edge of Transylvania. I couldn't help but visualize Dracula's castle and wondered if his coffin was hidden somewhere on the train to be returned to one of his Brides. Stupid I know but the tale of Dracula left a strong imprint on my childhood memory, as I was always allowed to stay up and watch the horror movies on ITV in the 80's – Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee portrayals of Vlad Tepes scared me so much that Mum had to put the camp-bed up in their room as I was too scared to sleep in my own.
More fields swept by, more ploughed with horse than with tractor – as we stopped at some of the larger stations, I saw a man walking his cow on piece of rope and talking to it. Probably the most important thing he owned.

As the train passed through the mountain and snow capped peaks of Transylvania, I thought I was back in the ski resort of Val Gardena, where I had left only 3 weeks or so before. We passed very close to Poiana Brasov – Romania's most successful ski resort.

Then the lowlands of Southern Romania appeared and then the suburban rundown industrial sprawl of Bucharest. Oh yes we had left the Europe I was familiar with and this would be a new chapter to the rest of our holiday.