Into the Wild Transylvanian Night
Place: Sighisoara, Romania
Continuing my trip with a broken heart, I finally entered Romania, a country I had been trying so desperately to get to but couldn¡¦t in the past week.
Good thing is that, I finally exited Hungary, now a country that will forever link to the memory of my stolen camera and digital camcorder.
I took out my "Lonely Planet Romania" from the backpack. This was the only single country guide (sort of, it actually includes Republic of Moldova info too) I brought for this trip. All others I had are multiple country guides like "Let's Go East Europe" and "Lonely Planet Western Balkan." Yes, I really did plan to spend more time in Romania than in other countries.
The train stopped at the border area for quite awhile, later moved forward, then it stopped again. This was going on for more than an hour (which caused further delay for my arrival). Finally it started moving fast forward again, and traveling from Western Crisana region into the Transylvanian Region. After entering Transylvania, the scenery started to morph from monotonous flat plain into rolling hills. We were getting into the Carpathian mountain.
Romania is scheduled to enter European Union (E.U.) on January 1st, 2007 (Together with Bulgaria). However, some issues that E.U. still has may force the entry date back to 2008. Interestingly, I was surprised to see that E.U. flags are flown everywhere, every station we passed by, as if Romania is already in E.U. They must be very, very proud that they are almost (almost, but not yet) the part of this prestigious club. However, the two Swedish girls in my compartment did have some doubts about Romania¡¦s qualification. To be diplomatic, they did not delineate further.
When the Polish student got off at Simeria, he was already more than one hour late for his scheduled arrival time. At 8:20pm, one and an half hours late, the train finally pulled into my first destination in Romania, Sighisoara. Due to that there is no announcement on the Hungarian-Romanian train, I had to pay close attention to which station we were at. Worse still, ours is the last car in the whole train (now there were 10 cars on this train), the train was not even inside the platform to enable me to see which station we just arrived. The little stream and a beautiful medieval clock tower on a hill across the river indicated I just arrived at Sighisoara. Quite a few backpackers got off at this station. I said goodbye to the two Swedish girls and jump off the train.
It is such a small and basic station. There was no tourist info kiosk around (I heard it is difficult to find that in Romania). Fortunately with the good map on Lonely Planet, I found my way to the nearest youth hostel, Nathan's Villa
(http://www.nathansvilla.com/sighisoara.html), but was surprised to find that they did not receive my reservation sent a day ago. I was referred to the private house next door. With the charge of 60 Romanian Lei (17.15 Euro, compared to Nathan's Villa 10 Euro per bed) for my own room and sleeping on a pullout sofa bed, I reluctantly accepted the offer. The owners do not speak any foreign language (well, I even tried both French and German) but they seem nice. Since Nathan¡¦s Villa did the referral, I was allowed to go there if I had any problem. I was also allowed to hang out at their lounge area if I would like.
Feeling extremely worn out (At that point, I hadn¡¦t had any decent sleep for two nights in a row) and depressed (just could not stop thinking of my stolen camera and memories), I should have gone to bed early after the accommodation issues had settled. However, when I heard there was a bar-hopping outing at Nathan¡¦s Villa that night, I just went along. Led by a local (Nathan¡¦s Villa manager, Lumi), I thought it would be nice to see what Romanian nightlife was like. And hopefully, some partying (and alcohol) could help me get over the loss I just experienced, at least for now.
Different from Krakow, in Sighisoara (or maybe the whole Romania), you seem to run into some more ¡§hardcore¡¨ backpackers. Many of them try to see only Romania and neighboring countries (Bulgaria or Serbia) but not the more popular destinations like Czech or Poland. And some of them just spend long time wandering wherever without a set plan or schedule. In my outing group, two English guys (judging on their looks, they should be in their forties, or even fifties) have been on the road for possibly almost a year; A cyclist from Belgium planned to just bike around Romania, and maybe in Ukraine, in his one-month vacation; A Scot just finished teaching English in a Romanian village and now traveling around. It is also interesting that there are fewer Australian travelers around (then I found out Romania is one of very few countries that requires Australians to apply entry visa).
We had a blast at a local nightclub called "No Name¨ In addition to some nightclub staples (yes, they played that Shakira song again, my hips don¡¦t lie when I heard that song), they also played some Spanish and (supposedly) Romanian dance music. Beer and mixed drinks here are cheap too. A huge bottle of beer (even imported ones like Beck and Heineken) usually is around 5 to 7 Lei.
After the nightclub closed, Lumi actually took us back to the hostel lounge to continue the party and to have even more drinks. The two English guys brought out several huge plastic (plastic?) bottle of Beck¡¦s beer and some local brand. Whoever even brought out Vodka and started mixing Screw Driver. The alcohol flowed freely and I ended up having too many drinks. Under normal condition, I would have watched out if I overdrink. Damn it! I just lost my precious camera and memory card, who give a damn about hangover tomorrow?
When I stumbled back to my bedroom next door, I remember that sun had almost come up. It was already tomorrow. The date (August 4th) when I had the worst train ride in life and lost my camera was now history.
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