Arrive in Bucharest, Romania
Trip Start
Sep 22, 2008
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39
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Trip End
Nov 06, 2008
Bucharest, Romania
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
bit of a sore neck. Next time will know to book a sleeping carriage. Oh well you live and learn.
Arrived at Bucharest at 6.20am and had not eaten for the whole trip. Luckily they had an operating McDonalds in the station itself and I still had the 50 Romanian lei that Tamas had given to me. Enjoyed the burger and coffee, then found an ATM to withdraw some more money.
Got approached by a cabbie who told me that there is also a bus that goes to Constanta and that it was much more comfortable than the train. Having endured the train for so long i took his advice. We had about 90 minutes for the next bus to leave so he drove me about the city for awhile checking out some of the old buildings as well as one's from Concescu'e reign of terror over Romania.
Finally got to the bus station, got onto a sleek looking mini bus and off we went.
Unfortunately the windows were mostly fogged up, still being early so didnt get a lot of pics on the way. About 2.5 hours later we arrived at Constanta, the seaport of Romania.
I had planned to stay here a night, but i didn't like the look of the people. Gypsies everywhere walking around after money, turks all over the place, people spitting all over the ground. Also my tonsilitis had put me back a few unexpected days as well. So i enquired at the bus station for the next bus to Varna, it was in about 4 hours time.
Being reluctant to leave my luggage behind and not wanting twheel it everywhere I just sat down and made myself comfortable. Finally the 4 hours went by and we boarded the bus. I was the only 'foreign' one on board, the rest were either Turks or gypsies. Once the bus took off everybody lit up their cigarettes and started smoking. I couldn't wait for this trip to be over with.
Had our passports checked at my first Passport Control Check. Went to take some fotos but a siren started to schreech very loud. Didn't know if it was from my photo antics or something else, but thought better stop. Found out later that it was forbidden to take fotos there. No idea why, it's only a passport checkpoint. Boarded the bus again, was given a terrible cup of brown coffee and then we were in Bulgaria. About another hour later they dropped me off in Varna while the rest continued their way onto Turkey.
Met up with Damyan and his wife Irena and Damyan;s parents. Went out for pizza dinner, came back and went to bed. It had been a whole exhausting couple of days and \I was looking forward to a good night's sleep.
