-A Trip North-

5-30-2007

I slept until 11:30am today and it felt great! I have not had a good night sleep for a while and have been in great need of a bit of R&R. Not because I have been working extraordinarily hard; or have been doing anything athletically productive, but because I am still a bit worn out from the Romania trip. Hours and hours on slow jerky trains is not quite as relaxing and peaceful as one might think; in fact it makes for a tiring and somewhat exhausting travel experience.
My trip began after work last Wednesday; I took a 6 hour train to Gorna Orakovitsa and then took another 2 hour train to Ruse(Ruse is a town right on the Danube; and pretty much the only access point to Romania from Bulgaria). After a snack and a power nap at my friend Jen’s place in Ruse; I took a 330am train to Bucharest. I arrived In Bucharest at about 6:10am and was a bit worn out from the trip. Luckily my overwhelming fatigue was almost completely overcome by my excitement and fascination with this new country I was ready to explore. My first impression of Bucharest was sheer amazement. Here I was at a very modern, clean, and functional train station; and yet only 70km from the border of Bulgaria. The train station looked like the ones in Western Europe, not of one in a slowly developing Eastern European country. Sofia for instance has a train station that I would describe as unimpressive at best.
It is now about 6:25am, I have secured some strange plastic money(the money is plastic and even has a clear window on it; money you can swim with sounds great in my book!) from a nearby ATM and am ready to catch a train to Brasov. I took the first train I could find and ended up on a new high speed express train; which means I paid an arm and a leg for the ticket. The lesson was learned and I ended up taking the slow train back which took about twice the amount of time, but was a third of the price. I suppose you get what you pay for. After arriving in Brasov I met a cool Ausie named Trav and after some breakfast we made our way to a nearby hostel. Trav and I got along well and ended up sharing the same itinerary for the rest of our trip.
The Hostel was Awesome! The staff was cool and the kitchen, lounge, rooms were superb. The best part of this particular hostel was the people; they were very interesting and had fascinating stories to tell. Ohh and a few good looking lady travelers made good company for the nights out on the town. I spent most of my time With Trav, Ollie from Black Pool, Ezra from the States, Lisa from the states and Mary from the UK. Ollie was an interesting fellow with a strong UK-village accent. He owns a small bar in Peru and after the weekend, offered to put me up with a job for a while if I ever came through Peru. Hmmmmmmm well I now have the travel bug…….and am starting to think about exploring South America. First things first however!
I found Brasov to be quite fascinating, it is a relatively small town in Transylvania and is home to several old churches and historical buildings. I climbed to the top of a nearby mountain and was able to see the beautiful town of Brasov at a birds eye view-which was blissfully breathtaking.
Brasov-The famous Black Church is in the center

Brahn Castle-Below

Church near Hostel-

Peles Palace-below


During my second day in Brasov I took a tour to Brahn Castle(dracula’s Castle) in Transylvania. It was built in the late 1300s but has been restored several times over the years(which made it a bit less significant and attractive). I did not find this castle to be overly impressive but it was unique and interesting in its own way. We also visited a few other castles, ruins, and an old Palace on the outskirts of Brasov.
Brasov crew-


After a couple days in Brasov, Trav and I took a slow train to Bucharest. I will add that this train ride was absolutely painful in all aspects of the word. It was hot, the windows barely opened, people around us smelled horribly of an aroma I can describe as a mix of rotten garbage and unique and pungent mystery spice. And of course the train lasted 4 agonizing hours…………ahhhhhh I felt like it would never end. When we arrived in Bucharest things somehow changed……..Bucharest train station was no longer a model of excellence. In fact it was the opposite; it is hard to explain the things that I was now seeing. At 6am the Bucharest train station is clean, quiet, and lacking any sort of crowd. At 3:30pm the tables had turned; the true problems surfaced, and my new observations left me in a shocked and saddened state of mind.
The first thing Trav and I needed to do was to find the bus stop that was supposedly on the outside perimeter of the train station. We proceeded to exit the train station and to walk around the outside perimeter. As we were walking I immediately noticed; packs of wild dogs laying in the sunshine, a group of scandalous cab drivers, and a group of 20-25 Roma sitting on a cement sidewalk. Ok…..this is after all Eastern Europe, and this sort of visual is actually a bit normal and cliché for the outside of a train station. However the shocking part of this experience came as I drew nearer to the group of Roma. The group was large in numbers with ages ranging from 11-35. They all looked very down and out in appearance, shoeless, mostly shirtless, and very dirty and scruffy looking. They also shared a skinny impoverished appearance, with eyes that showed no true emotion. It was a look of confusion, numbness and blocked pain. I suppose I should mention that each and every Roma in this crew was clutching a small plastic bag lined with silver paint. Between conversation they would huff a potent and mind numbing amount of paint into their lungs. How can this be happening? In a public place there is a large group of people just hanging out and huffing paint like they are puffing on a cigarette. It was frightening for me to see this and it made my stomach clench with uneasiness and a disturbed sort of pain. As I walked within feet of these men and women I began to see just how large this problem was. As I walked by the group I noticed three different men with deep lacerations on their arms, and long deep scars all over their bodies. I had to look away because it was so disturbing for me to see. One man who I would guess to be in his early 20s had several 4 inch horizontal slashes on his shoulder that were at least a half inch deep and that must have been less than a day old. This was undoubtedly some sort of self mutilation, which was apparent when looking at the pattern of deep systematic looking scars that started at the top of his hands and extended to his shoulders. In the past I have read about people with self mutilation problems, but seeing this up close and in person had a very different effect on me. These troubled men and their self inflicted pain really showed me a dark, cruel, and painful side of life that I had not often been exposed to during my earlier life in a suburban paradise.
I will add that this huffing problem did not seem to be an isolated incident. As Trav and I took the wrong bus and walked around a rough part of Bucharest we kept seeing sketchy looking Roma, and Romanians huffing paint. Well I guess you could say that this is certainly a common occurrence in any large city. And I would say you are right; It is common knowledge that huffing, drugs and alcohol are quite prevalent in large cities all over the world. I am only writing this because I was so incredibly shocked at how visible and seemingly tolerated these problems were in Bucharest. Hundreds of thousands of people come in and out of he Bucharest train station every day, and yet large groups of people gather on the outside of the station regularly, to huff paint as if it is an ordinary part of some sort of twisted and sad yet generally accepted social gathering. What do the police think about this situation? What can the government of Romania do to help these people ? I do not have the answers to these questions but it did make me think about the possible answers.
Another interesting incident happened when Trav and I were waiting for a bus about 3 miles outside of the center of town. To make a long story short; we lost the address of the hostel we were staying at, took a wrong bus, and became horribly lost and displaced in a sketchy part of Bucharest. As we were waiting for our bus we saw four 13-15 your old guys stumbling down the sidewalk toward us. They were walking very slow and were displaying exaggerated mannerisms. The youngest of the crew kept waving his hands slowly in front of his face and periodically stumbling into the street. We were both puzzled by this bizarre behavior and immediately wrote the kids off as being part of some sort of adolescent drinking binge. When the kids stopped next to us and heard Trav and I speaking in English; the oldest kid turned around and began to stare at us. After a few minutes all four of them were staring at us with a non-threatening glazed look in their eyes. Their crooked stance and unsteady feet made their situation almost humorous. It was as if they were completely oblivious to their surroundings but had some sort of currious reaction to our voices. After a few awkward minutes of trying to ignore the strange kids, the oldest teen asked us where we were from. After a few minutes of mostly incoherent rambling we had learned that these kids had injected themselves with a drug called Ketamine (it is some sort of animal tranquilizer commonly snorted or injected). Again this situation is perhaps typically but I cannot say I have seen this sort of thing in Bulgaria or in my previous travel experiences. On the surface I would say that perhaps Bucharest has a bit of a drug problem, but what do I know I was only there for a day.
After a few more bus rides, a lot of walking and a bit of confusion we were able to find our hostel. It was a small hostel in the middle of town, and was decent beside the fact that the beds were a bit uncomfortable………….actually I would go as far to say that they were very uncomfortable.
So we toured around the city that night, checked out a few government buildings, including the Palace; which is the second largest building in the world. The business/ diplomatic district in Bucharest was brilliant. It was full of beautiful and articulately designed buildings and was intertwined with lovely parks. Overall I would say that Bucharest is a city worth checking out………but as I mentioned previously there is a very gloomy and ugly side to the city that can be very disheartening.
After seeing pretty much all I wanted to see in Bucharest; I decided that it was time for me to hit the road. Trav and I headed to the bus station around 9:00am and arrived around 9:30am. The first thing I noticed upon arrival at the station was a group of shirtless, shoeless, and raggedy looking Roma kids huffing paint on the front steps. There were about seven of them from ages 7-10. WTF!!!!!!!! It keeps getting worse! Eight year olds huffing paint, destroying their brains with each inhalation. It was so sad to see these kids and their predisposition. If a homeless Roma boy starts huffing paint all day at age 7, what exactly does the future hold for him? There are 5,000 Roma in my town and I have never seen anyone huff paint. I know for a fact that if a group of Bulgarians or Roma were huffing paint outside our municipality, the cops would come down on them hard and clear them out immediately. Obviously the goal should not be to clear them out and shove them to the side. Of course I know absolutely nothing about this problem/epidemic; and am only a stunned observer of something sad and very real that I will not quickly forget.
The train to get back to Bulgaria took 4 hours even though it was only a distance of 78km. We arrived in Ruse around 3:30pm and were looking forward to checking out some old monasteries built in a cave. The idea was abandoned after a flash flood soaked us to the core and forced us into the home of my friend Jen (PCV). Well basically the trip ended there………I parted ways with my Ausie friend Trav and headed back home.

5-31-2007
-Side Note-
I must add that my opinions of Bucharest are based on a short and minimal experience; therefore my reactions to the drug problems could very well be inaccurate / and based on isolated incidents. I will also add that it has come to my attention through a Romanian citizen that the police and the government of Romania have been actively working hard to deter drug use including huffing paint. it appears that the drug problem in Bucharest has been rapidly declining over the past 15 years do to these efforts. FACT: all big cities have major problems! Even the beautiful and important ones; Example WA DC!