Fridges, heat and dodgy addresses.

27 July, Monday

As I sit here on the outside steps of the Class Hotel in Bucharest watching a Romanian father and son put a new fridge into Springy, I can think about what we’ve done over the last 2 days.

After leaving the Camping Fagety we headed toward the city of Sighosoara which has a nice hilltop medieval town which, luckily enough, was holding a medieval weekend. It was lunch time when we arrived, so we headed for a local restaurant, not knowing it was the town’s upper class hangout. We gazed over the hotel’s pool and watched the visitors sunbake and occasionally use the actual pool. We still can’t get use to people just lying in the sun (us being pale blue skinned).

We were hoping to visit 'the most haunted forest in the world' but it wasn't on the roads were travelling and nothing gave an actual location.

:(

It was still a warm day and I put it to the girls that we rest in Springy for a bit and then go to the hilltop town or I just go when they rest. Since it involves walking up a hill and looking at old stuff, both of the girls opted for the staying in Springy option.

I ambled up to see what I could see. The town itself is very nice but was infiltrated by people selling anything related to Dracula, fairies, Medevalish items and just stuff. I did spy a parade of people dressed up funny and decided to assess what Romanian re-enactors were like. Lots of modern boots, polyester, heavy swords and such. Hopefully without sounding too much a snob, it wasn’t high-end re-enacting but I didn’t mind as I’ve seen it before and understand. They were dragging around a ginormous steel sword on their shoulders and I couldn’t figure out why. I tried to see what they were doing but the crowds were too big, so I continued my wander along the cobble stone streets. That was hindered by a great metal fence put up by the council that blocked the main street of the town. I finally realised it was put there to channel the visitors around the back ways to see all the things. It’s a pity that I couldn’t speak Romanian or find someone who could speak Australian.

After visiting the towns museum and gazing from the top of the town’s tower, I bumped into people I recognised as re-enactors due to period footwear, tablet woven belts, etc. I had a great conversation with them, saw their encampment and they informed me that the other re-enactors were trying for the Guiness book of Records, largest sword put into a stone (like Excalibur) or something like that. When I was leaving, they were still puffing and panting and trying to do what they had set out to do.

The girls hadn’t died from heat exhaustion so we headed for our night time destination which was about 50km down the road. When we arrived, Dee let me know that they had discussed the matter while I was gone and would like to go to Hotel Dracula, a hotel somewhere down the road. I was feeling OK , so we continued down the road

Tuesday, 28 July

As we’ve spent over an hour in Springy at the border crossing from Romania to Bulgaria in 40 degree heat, I thought I’d take some time and update from where I left off at 2am in the morning.

We drove to Hotel Dracula and arrived just after 7pm. We were able to make an internet booking at a restaurant along the way but even though I booked for 2 adults and a child, I accidentally booked for one double room. We quickly sorted it and had to pay the difference for Gene but in cash. I figured the desk guy was pocking the extra cash.  The room was very nice but the air con didn’t go below 20 degrees, so we had to lump it and not use a doona.

I thought the hotel was done very well, with very few tacky decorations and lots of cool spiked clubs, helmets, spears, bows, glaives and flails screwed to the walls.

In the morning, I checked FB and saw that one of our close friend’s daughters had died tragically. It was a terrible shock for Dee and me and left Dee in tears several times during the day.

It’s now Wednesday, and I’m trying to finish the blog for the last few days.

We left Hotel Dracula and looked at Bran Castle. And that’s all we did. After visiting the local museum, we trooped to the castle to find it opens at 12 o’clock (what sort of tourist destination does that?!??!?!). As it was only 11.30, we decided to have an early lunch and then go in. An excellent plan that didn’t take in the fact that a 300m line of other tourists had the same idea and that was 20 minutes after it opened. After a quick evaluation of the situation, we decided, ‘Bugger this’ and went to Rasnov Fortress (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A2%C8%99nov_Citadel) which was very impressive.

We drove to Busharest and found the camping site (shock horror). Unfortunately, the owner was the Romanian equivalent to Basil Faulty. After listening him rant on the phone for a few minutes before serving me, then asking me for 2 forms of ID which was strange but then realizing his error, requested ID for 2 people. After we fulfilled that requirement and completing the normal paperwork, he lets me know that he only accepts cash (bugger and a bit unusual for such a large park). I’m short by 16 Romanian Lei as he draws me a very detailed map on how to get to the main road to find an ATM but not where on the road to find it (I foolishly thought it would be easy to see). I also asked if he knew, being the owner of a caravan park where I can take the van to have the fridge seen to. He demands that I show him what is wrong, even after I say the word, ‘fridge’ 3 -4 times. When he finally sees the fridge, he says he doesn’t know anything about those things. Not a problem, you can’t expect a caravan park owner to know about campervans.

As we drove down the road where the ATMs are, we realised that this was a highway and you had off-ramps and he didn’t mention which ones. We also realised he was an arse. Since we were now deep into the city and as we had some cash, we looked in the GPS for a hotel. Locked on, we adjusted our course and we were going well, even negotiating the Romanian city traffic well.

We hit the backroads that the GPS enjoys taking us but we paused at a 4 way intersection. To the left was the direction we were supposed to take, and the right and forwards was one way roads. A local confirmed the hotel was good but we shouldn’t go that way. Going forward was better but illegal. After the amount of disregard the local drivers have of the road rules, I wasn’t much perturbed at that point.

100m down the road, things went a bit pear-shaped. 3 parked cars (that were all facing the same way as we were going, so we weren’t the first doing this) narrowed the road but that wasn’t too bad. It was the collapsing wooden fence on the left that gave us trouble. We could push the fence back a bit and Gene used one of my self defence sticks to keep it away as I drove springy through.

We made it past the first 2 cars but the 3^rd was a bugger as its nose was right on the bottleneck. As we were carefully sorting this out, a car came down the correct way. Bugger. The passenger got out and helped us negotiate our way out without ripping anything off Springy or the 3^rd car.

We found the hotel and checked in just after 7pm. A long day, so we quickly dropped our gear off in the room and went to dinner. I mentioned to the Bianca, the desk attendant for the night, about our fridge problems and if she could perhaps look up the Romanian version of the Yellow Pages. She was amazing and organized the only campervan fixer upper in the city. I was hoping to visit him the following day but as it was a side job, he said he would come over that night. At 2am in the morning, we finally had the old fridge removed and the new one connected. The gas works well but we are still having problems with the electrical which makes me think it’s more to do with Springy than the fridge.

We fluffed around in the morning and didn’t leave the hotel until 11am, enjoying the last minute luxuries of flushing toilets, wifi and air con. We hit the road, heading for the Romanian/Bulgarian border, trying to divest ourselves of all remaining Romanian currency before crossing.

After paying the Romanian Vingette at the border that we had no knowledge of, we then waited for 1 hour 40 minutes to get past border control. Prior to the actual official bit of showing passports and registration papers (that happened easily), we had to wait in 40 degree heat for road works across the only bridge on the border in the area. The bonus for sitting around for ages was to ask the workers with an angle grinder to do us a favour. 

A few weeks prior, I had fixed a loose bit but I had to screw long screws up into one of storage bins that holds our hose and fold up chairs. They have been sticking out for ages as I didn’t have That Tool to finish the job. With 6 easy cuts, the job was done (and they didn’t even cut the wiring nearby!).

Once into Bulagaria. It felt like a ‘Claytons’ Russia (the Russia you have when you can’t visit Russia). With the Cyrillic written language being used and the different roads, it felt unlike any other country so far. So we drove and drove and drove. The 200km/day drags out when it’s mainly 70km/hour.

We finally hit Pleven at about 7pm, drew some local cash and headed for the address for the night’s camping spot. The address was used 3 times in the local area and after the second time, we knew we would find it or stay at a hotel. At 9.15pm, a hotel it was.  I don’t know if the address was wrong on the website or I used the wrong address……….

We are now just resting at a real camping spot outside of Sofia watching our newly cleaned clothes dry and are deciding where to visit tomorrow as a tourist.