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.