Like in a movie

“Custom! Custom!” a voice jolts us out of our sleep in the middle of the night. We open the compartment door and hand out our passports. “What do you have in the box?” the Romanian officer wants to know. “Camping equipment”, we reply and explain that we are traveling from Germany to Burma on our bikes. He nods, looks at us somewhat incredulously, stamps the documents and wishes us a pleasant night.

The next day we enjoy the ride. Because of all the equipment in our sleeping compartment we can only lie down rather than sit, so we stand in front of it and look out of the window. The landscape has changed since we have been in Romania. We drive through Carpathian valleys, over bridges, through deep, lush green forests, poor villages, past crumbling factories, dilapidated buildings and battered railroad stations. The iron snake seems to be digging its way through flowering fields where farmers and workers are still harvesting hay and grass with sickles. They work in groups in a crouched position and rake the roughage for the animals by hand. Sometimes we see a man standing in a kilometer-long field with a pitchfork, defying the endless work like in the Middle Ages. We feel like we are in a movie, a movie that presents us with unreal images, but we are aware that we are looking naked reality in the eye. Right on our doorstep, people are still working as they did in Western Europe a hundred years ago. The fields were still cultivated with horse and oxen plows and people had to work hard to earn their daily bread. “It’s hard to imagine that Romania will be accepted into the EU as early as 2007,” I marvel.

“Do you have a ticket for your bikes?” a Romanian train official suddenly asks us. We use sign language to explain to him that we have all the papers. Looking grumpy, he disappears and seeks out his Austrian colleague. We can see that he defends us, but they both come to us again. “He wants to get something for himself,” explains the helpful Austrian, shrugging his shoulders. “Here’s our luggage ticket. We’ve even booked a three-person compartment for ourselves,” Tanja explains with a friendly smile. “We’re going to Burma by bike. Do you understand? It’s very far. We’re going back to Romania. We were already in her home country last year,” she adds, making gyrating movements with her arms and puffing like a walrus to simulate pedaling for the officials. Suddenly he laughs and the ice is broken. He wishes us a nice day and leaves us unmolested.

A little later, I have a chat with the nice Austrian. “Do you know why we’re traveling to Romania in such an old sleeping car?” he asks me. I shake my head. “We once traveled with modern wagons. A Romanian technician came, held his hand to the generator and said it was hot. The wagon had to stay in Romania because of a supposed fire hazard. Weeks later, we got the wagon back completely empty. The beds, the generator and all the valuable technology were missing. That’s the reason,” he explains to me. I learn one or two stories that amaze me, but also explain how high the risk of theft and corruption is in this country.

We arrive at Bucharest station 40 minutes late. We are nervous because we supposedly only have 15 minutes to unload. There is also the risk of losing parts of our equipment through theft during unloading. There are only two of us and we can’t be on the platform or in the compartment at the same time. There are shady characters who are just waiting for the opportunity to leave luggage lying around unobserved for a few moments and then it’s done. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll help you and I’ve also told our security guard to take care when unloading your equipment,” the Austrian conductor reassures us. Before I know it, he and the security guard are grabbing the heavy trailer box and carrying it onto the railroad embankment. I can protect my back this way. The four of us carried everything onto the embankment in no time at all, without giving a thief the slightest chance of an opportunity. We say goodbye to the helpful people, attach the bikes to the trailers, click the Ortlieb saddlebags onto the delite-black bikes and push them into the station concourse. “I’ll have a look around for a hotel,” I suggest. “Okay, I’ll wait here and look after the bikes,” Tanja replies. Tired and exhausted from the long journey, I drag myself along the sidewalk to a hotel the conductor told me about. “What, 70 euros?” I ask, startled, and make my way to the hotel where we stayed last year before we left. Although it is very run-down, I am pleased to finally have a room where we can rest. “Sorry, we’re fully booked,” I hear and walk to the next hotel just 200 meters away. “No problem, we have a room for you,” replies the friendly woman at reception. From experience, I take a look at the accommodation first. It costs just under 40 euros and hardly deserves to be called a room. I would rather compare it to a bugged hole. It stinks of old smoke and there are blankets over the separate beds that have not been washed for years. The door lock can be picked by any hirer in no time at all and my gut feeling tells me that we can’t leave our equipment there for a few minutes. Dejected, I run back to Tanja and explain the situation to her. We decide to take the 70 euro hotel and push our bikes there. “I’m sorry, but we’re fully booked.” “What? I was just with them a moment ago and asked for a room,” I wonder. “You asked about the price but not whether we have a room available,” the young woman apologizes kindly. She then recommends the Hotel Orhideea, which is said to be just one kilometer away. We get on our saddles and pedal along the main road in Bucharest’s rush hour traffic. I have to concentrate like hell not to drive the heavy bike and trailer into the kerb. We’ve now been on the road for over 36 hours and although everything has gone well so far, we’re both dead tired. In the corner of my eye, I can see a driver blocking the traffic behind us so that we can get ahead unmolested. As we drive onto the sidewalk opposite the Hotel Orhideea, he gives us a friendly wave. “Must be one of our guardian angels!” I shout tiredly and push my vehicle along the busy arterial road.

“Yes, we have a room for them,” we hear. We can hardly believe it, but the hotel only opened four weeks ago, so it is brand new, equipped with air conditioning and everything a tired traveler could wish for. It also makes a safe impression, our bikes have their own lockable room and it costs no more than 50 euros per night. Compared to the other accommodations we have seen in Bucharest so far, a dream. With the help of an employee, we are relieved to get our equipment to our accommodation, where we plan to spend the next few days acclimatizing and working out the route to the Black Sea. Happy with the journey so far, the way my back has held out and the good accommodation, we enjoy a shower and a good night’s sleep.

We look forward to your comments!