Daryl & Heather Overland

Ok, time for another marathon blog from Heather - get comfortable. I've decided to give each day a name now, to help me remember what we did, so now I can share these with you too. Here we go, from when we left Greece (19.11), to when we left Romania (23.11).

19.11 - Snow outside the train day
We were on the train until 7.30pm - trying to sleep for at least half of this time. I was not very impressed with the passport checks before and after each border (Greece, Bulgaria, Romania), although I did like the Bulgarian man who said 'kangaroos' to me at about 3.30am when he returned our passports. They were very keen on searching our train for people coming in to Bulgaria - I'm not sure why - but were using torches to search compartments and walking all around the train. Will have to find out more about this later. We went straight through Bulgaria - there was snow nearly everywhere - if I could have taken some good photos I would have tried. But, I'm pretty sure that we'll see more snow-covered trees and mountains in the next month or so, so I'm trying not to get too excited about our first snow sighting. Spent the night in Bucharest - had to eat at McDonalds because my tracksuit pants weren't classy enough for the Romanian restaurant.

20.11 - Bucharest to Sighisoara day
Daryl led us on a bit of a walking tour around Bucharest before we had to catch our next train. We liked Bucharest - it was a nice city to walk through (ignoring the horrible traffic jams). It's like the city is hurrying to catch up with the rest of Europe with namebrands, shops, cool cafes and cars. Daryl got to see his first Dracula-related sight (there would be more). Then we stocked up on iced tea, rolls, cheese and yummy kabana at the supermarket and headed for Sighisoara. I think that this is my most memorable train trip (so far). In the few hours that we were on the train we went from a big, bright new city to some of the poorest places that I've ever seen. The scenery (particularly the mountains) was beautiful - Romania is a really nice looking place. And then there were the little towns, mostly with very home-made looking wooden houses, smoke coming out of the chimneys, and it was such a big difference. Lots of the houses had gaps in the walls or roofs, had bits tacked on the end and were surrounded by small farms. Some of the dirt roads running between them had horses and carts travelling along. The people were dressed in beanies, woollen jumpers and gumboots and were busy just living. They could never afford to be on our train - it was such a strange experience to be in the same place as them, but also in a completely different world.

21.11 - Exploring Sighisoara day
Today we wandered around Sighisoara (it's not really that big), checking out all of the towers and other sights on the tourist map. For lunch I had the weirdest cheeseburger ever (I have no idea what meat it was). For tea, we ate at a small restaurant where we were served by 'Barman Daniella' (according to her nametag). She had a very short skirt, but was very friendly. Daryl ate tripe soup (gross), then we had some little mince rolls, fried kabana, chips and cabbage. Not a bad feed and very affordable. Then it was back to the hostel for some more traditional Romanian costumes and singing on the tv.

22.11 - More Sighisoara and getting the train to Budapest day
We spent most of the day wandering through the outer streets of Sighisoara, away from the touristy citadel and more towards the farms. We also ate some great bakery food for lunch. We learnt a bit more about Romania, and I really enjoyed seeing the horses and carts driving along the roads with the cars. I wonder if it makes the cart drivers smile to pass petrol stations? Then we got on a train with the worst smelling compartment ever. I am not joking. A horrible night and I hope that we never have to experience it again. On the plus side, Daryl got to eat some tasty sarmales at the restaurant before we got on this train. I really liked Romania and it would have been great to stay longer, but I'll just have to tell more people to go instead.

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