Into the Ukraine

My dear readers. It has been ages since my last post and for this I apologise. Traveling has become more intense, more challenging and has allowed less time for writing and philosophizing. In order to bring the blog up to date, I will do one long entry encompassing everything that has happened in about the last three weeks. There will be less detail but in the book I will write after this tour I will include all events I experienced.

Having left so early in the morning, by 800 I am at the port on the far side of the river from Galati in order to take the ferry across the Danube. Enjoy a coffee and watch the activity in the port. The sky is wonderful, I am feeling fine, full of energy and excited about crossing the border into the Ukraine. Galati proves to be nothing special – I did not expect it to be - and I am in and out quickly. In order enter the Ukraine I have to first enter the Republic of Moldova, ride about 5 kms in it and then cross into Ukraine. This meant a lot of border hassle. First to leave Romania, which was not too bad, then to enter Moldova, which I thought would be a big deal due to the reputation that Moldava enjoys. The border guards were however very professional and even friendly, laughing when I told them that I was going to ride to Odessa. They quickly stamped my passport and I was through. Moldova has always held a mysterious place in my mind and it was strange and exciting to be here. It makes me think of ex-Soviet bureaucracy, gangsters and gypsies. After a few kilometers there is a joint Ukraine-Moldovan customs-type check, though I am not really sure what it is. That was a bit more complicated and I had to wait in a room not knowing what to do. I was sure that I was going to be hit up for a ‘gift’ but that did not happen. It just took time. A few kilometers later I left Moldova and though had only been there for about 30 minutes had to go through the formalities again, and then both passport and customs to enter the Ukraine. In total there were 5 checks in the course of 5 kilometers, but it was nothing but bureaucracy, no necessary bribes and it was not bad.

Once in the Ukraine there are two routes to Odessa – the main route that re-enters Moldova, carries on for about 50 km and then re-enters Ukraine and means two more border controls – and one that swings way south but stays within the Ukraine. Having just gone through 5 controls I was not too keen on doing another two that day but the main route to Odessa was much shorter, so I chose to deal with the bureaucracy. Nonetheless, after just a few kilometers the main road changed from bad pavement to cobblestones. Cobblestones. This is the main route between Ukraine and Romania and during Soviet times surely was of significant importance but still, made of cobblestones. Such a surface on a bike is not a pleasure so I turned back and headed down the route that swings south along the Ukrainian side of the Danube delta. The route was piss-poor and the heat overbearing, but there was very little traffic and so it was ok. Hell, I was in the Ukraine, and on my way to Odessa, so feeling quite good about the adventure. The problem with riding in the Ukraine is that the towns are very far apart, the roads are bad and there is nothing to see except fields, fields and more fields. Every 30 kms or so one can see an old collective farm, but these are largely abandoned and so it is just fields and fields. Within days I was no longer looking left or right but riding along more than half zoned out and just staring at a point about 3 meters in front of the bike to watch for and avoid large holes. The riding was not pleasant.

As evening approached on the first day I was still far from the town of Izmail, which I had sort of selected as a target for that day. There was a collective on the horizon and I thought I might find a place there to pitch my tent. It was deserted however, but down the road I saw a sign for the town of Larschanka and rode toward it. In the town I stopped to talk to some townspeople about sleeping in their gardens but was not able to make myself understood or to convince them that I was not a threat. Whatever it was, I carried on through the small streets. At one point there was a house with a small market in front and many people milling about. I started to explain to them that I was looking for a place to sleep and suddenly a young woman appeared and talked to me in English. I told her what I was seeking, she communicated to the group and then all the people started talking amongst themselves about where I could go. It looked like a nice, friendly group and I hoped that I could stay near there and partake in the happenings of the street. Maria told me to wait a moment and then soon came out to tell me I could stay in her house with her parents and brother. They set about to put things in order and I sat on the bench across the street from their house and had a chat with Igor and Andrei. There is a lot to tell about my stay there, but for the moment I will just say that it was wonderful. Everyone made me feel completely at home, cooked great food, fired up the Russian sauna, had the neighbours around for a dinner and big talk and a lot of vodka. I had my own room and we talked a lot and on the first night I was invited to stay the next day to go fishing in the delta. The next day with vodka hangovers Nikolai (Kola) and I piled into the neighbour’s old Volga and drove down to the delta and in a filthy old wooden boat set out to fish for a few hours. Luckily we did not catch anything but did buy a load of fish from one Kola’s friends who is a professional fisherman. Later that day I was invited to the old Soviet shooting facility and fired some of the guns. The next night we had a huge pot of fish stew, a lot of homemade wine and more great talk. The whole stay with Kola, Mascha and Tanja deserves a chapter for itself and will get one in the book.

From there it was another three days of riding through fields and strong headwinds, the monotony being broken only by imposing soviet monuments. Nothing special about it but I was coming closer to the destination and counting the time in days and no longer in weeks or months. When I finally arrive at the Black Sea again just south of Odessa it is like a wave of joy to see something cool and inviting after days of fields. Here there are no long distance cyclists or other westerners with whom to stop and chat and break the routine. I am alone in the fields and although it is only for a few days, I am feeling worn down by the many thousands of kms, the headwinds, the monotony and probably also by all the drinking I am doing whenever there is occasion to do so. So when I arrive at the sea it is like a revelation and I feel renewed. I pass through small and simple beach towns and then arrive on a Friday afternoon in the Odessa beach mecca of Zatoka. It is the commencement of a three day weekend and there is a lot of action with massive amounts of holidaymakers arriving. I walk all up and down beach searching for a room for one night but because this is a holiday weekend no lodging wants to let a room for one night. I had basically resolved to hang out until late and then sleep on the beach but talking with two men on street who are advertising rooms for let, they ask me about my journey. Like almost all men here they have worked on ships and can speak some English. A group forms around us and all are talking about my bike and journey. One nice man hears that there is nowhere for me to stay and says “come with me”.  I follow him to where he is staying and tells the administration “this guy rode here 50 days from Switzerland and can’t get a room, do something for him”. I am able to get a very simple wooden cabin, more like a shack, for 70 ghrivna. The family holidaying in a cabin nearby from Kiev sees my bike and he and his family come over to talk. He is also a cyclist and I am soon invited to them to sit on their porch and drink vodka and eat Russian food. In the evening I visit the holiday town. There is loads going on and I have a beer and walk on beach.

In the morning the stench of the communal loos has me out early looking for a coffee. I spend a few hours in the town, visiting the beach, writing, repairing flat tire, then head out to Odessa. The ride to Odessa is only 55 kms but is hard because there is a lot of traffic and hilly. Kola, from Larschanka, is going to be arriving in Odessa today as well in order to work there for a month. He will be staying with friends in the city and I have been invited as well. When I arrive I start to ask around for the address he has given me. I am expecting an industrial city but find a very quiet town with peaceful, wide streets and general quiet that makes me think of Vilnius. I talk to some Azeris who are very curious about my journey from Switzerland and why I am in Odessa. 

Your prison is walking through this world all alone

When we arrived back in Mahmudia, there was no point in riding any further that day, so we stopped by our babushka to ask if we could stay another night. She was sitting in the garden with her friend, another Russian babuschka, both dressed in colorful dresses and head scarves. It was like a scene out of revolution-era Russia. Babushka was very happy to see us and started cooking almost right away. Over a dinner of salad, bread, fried potatoes, chili peppers and homemade wine, she told us her story.

She was born in 1944, which was a shock because I would have guessed 20 years earlier. In any case, she was born in 1944 and attended school until the 4^th class, which was taught completely in the Russian language with one hour of Romanian as a foreign language per day. She was only 14 years of age when her mother died, leaving 5 daughters to be raised by the father, who had managed to create a relatively prosperous family farm. Problem was that shortly thereafter the new pro-Soviet government collectivized all the farms and the father lost everything that he had

worked to attain. This was too much for him because he had some sort of breakdown and disappeared for three years. The five girls had no idea what had happened to him. Only three years later did they learn that he was alive and living in Bucharest. In the meantime the girls worked on the collective farm and all married early. Our babushka married at 18 but the marriage lasted only 3 years because her husband drank too much. She married again thereafter, had children and a happy life, a lot of which was made possible, she says, by the great system and country that Nicolae Ceaucescu created. Besides the sadness she showed when she talked about how unjust it was that he was executed in 1989, the entire time we were there she was always smiling and happy a pleasure to be with.

That morning we headed west toward Tulcea. Tat had a train back to the big city at 1500 and after that I would carry on alone toward my destination of Odessa. The outskirts were comprised of gypsy villages but the center of Tulcea turned out to be quite nice. It was a bloody hot day so when we arrived we sat in the shade and drank a cold one, then walked around the town square and visited the stalls selling hand-made goods from around the country. There was a Danube festival in the town that weekend and there was a lot going on.

At the station we bump into Alex and Ina again, which is a pleasant coincidence. They are heading south as well and so Tat will have company on the train. I however, am alone again and quite sad about it. Many years ago I chose to leave the environment in which I lived and set out on my own in order to change the course of my miserable existence and remove myself from the bad influences that defined my life. The result of choosing to live far away from everything I knew was that I did and still do spend a great deal of time alone. Frankly I am used to it and not bothered by it, until I have spent long periods of time with others. Then I realise the alone-ness and the loneliness. Here I was in a part of the world that I did not yet know, was again alone and for the next few hours was feeling quite down. It made me think of a passage in the book Rad Ab by Peter Smolka, a courageous man who several years ago rode his bicycle alone around the world. He told of when his brother joined him for a few weeks of riding in Africa and how alone he felt when his brother returned home. What I am doing is nothing like the great adventure he undertook, but I could in that moment relate to that feeling.

I spend the afternoon and early evening riding west of Tulcea in the direction of Galati. The countryside is made up of light hills and golden wheat and corn fields and is beautiful. Near sunset I arrive in a village and begin seeking a place to sleep. Stopping at a few houses I am unable to get a corner of a garden in which to place my tent. Knowing or perhaps feeling that I will find something, I continue on unconcerned. The road climbs a hill as it enters the village and to the left a dirt road branches off to a collection of houses. To the right of the main road the hill drops off toward the Danube delta so that there is a brilliant view over the delta and the sunset. At the first house three elderly people are sitting outside, overlooking the delta and the sunset, and I begin talking to them about the evening, the route, etc. In time I raise the issue of a place to sleep and they offer me their garden. This house must the local meeting place because as the evening progressed and the sun fell closer to the horizon, about a dozen people of all ages had turned up to hang out on the steps before the house. As they turned up they would talk with their friends and then slip in a “who is this guy?”. Then the conversation would start again about my trip, my bike, the Delta, etc. The view over the delta and the sunset were so spectacular that an apartment in my country with such a view would cost at least 10’000 per sqm.

I remembered that I had a half bottle of red wine in one of my panniers and I broke it out and we passed the bottle around. Some people I know would really be annoyed with me for drinking out of the same bottle as those people in the village but fuck it, I did not think it would do any harm and it made for a nice moment. When the sun had disappeared the local hang-out closed down, we went inside, the old lady made dinner for me and then I rolled out my iso-matt and sleeping bag and slept outside under the porch. By 600 in the morning I was on my way and heading toward Ukraine. 

Lazy days at the beach

We spent two days in Sf. Gheorge, sleeping in the tent in the garden, visiting the beach and visiting – strange to me – an independent film festival being held at the campground. It seems like an odd place to hold a film festival, deep in the swap in a place accessible only by two boats per day. The town is located two kilometers downriver from where the river meets the Black Sea. It is comprised of one main street and one semi-street that follows the quay along the river. There are probably 100 houses in total and the streets simply sand streets. During the stay I notice a total of about 4 cars, which are four-wheel drive vehicles that can probably be used to reach the only other town in that part of the delta, Sultina. Other than that, the village is only accessible by boat. There is one beer-garden-like establishment, a bancomat, a general store and we hear that there is a pizzeria, but although we walked around the entire town, did not see it.

Even if it is a strange place to hold a film festival, it is in any case a nice atmosphere. People have come from all around the country and some even from abroad to camp, enjoy the beach and in the evening watch films on a big screen set up in the campground.

The two days we spend there are on the beach, picnicking, eating fish stew cooked by Aurora. The campground is located between the beach and the garden in which we are staying. There is a lot going on there due to the festival and so whenever we go or come from the beach we stop there to check out what is going on. On this day we stop there to buy a couple of cold ones, make a lunch of salad, cheese, bread and beer and chill out under the covered communal area that has a number of long wooden tables. It is crowded and we find two places across the table from a middle-aged couple. They are clearly foreign and I was 90% sure that they are German. Usually it is easy to tell. I think it would be interesting to talk to them about why they are hear, etc. I have a German-language book in my backpack that I was reading at the beach and as we unpack our things I lay it on the table nonchalantly, as a way to break the ice and start a conversation. There was no comment so then I asked if they are German and they responded affirmatively. We tried to talk with them, offer then to dine with us, etc, but we got only one-word responses “nein”, “ja” and they were almost physically leaning back to get away from us. It was a strange. They soon left and Tatiana said to me “these people are on holiday? If they are so, what are Germans like when they are home?”.

We then found the campground showers and showered for the first time in days. They were communal camping showers with only luke-warm water, but if felt great to be clean again. At the house of our babuschka Tatiana had been able to wash her hair when our babuschka heated water on the stove and helped her by pouring the water over her, the old fashioned way. I had not showered properly in days.

Since there was a larger number of visitors in the town due to the film festival, there was some confusion on the boat situation back to the mainland. On our last day we rose at 6 in order to be at the quay at 630 for the 700 boat. by the time we arrived half the campers were already there and it was quite clear that we could not get on the boat, which was limited to 150 persons. We hear that normally the crew would overload the boat, but today someone from the maritime control entity was aboard, so that this was not possible. We are told that larger boat will arrive in the afternoon and it will have place for all who remain. That means that we have another day on the beach and in the late afternoon we return to the quay, accompanied by Costi. 

The boat is indeed much larger and we easily have place for the bikes. After all the sand, sea, and wind of the last few days we are tired. A quick exploration of the boat turns up lifeboats on the top deck and we stretch out in one and slowly cruising down the river we watch dark storm clouds roll in over the Ukraine and watch the lightning show. The storm was off in the distance and no threat to us, though it was cool and we pulled on fleece and jackets for that lovely evening-at-sea feeling and dozed off in the lifeboat. The trip upriver is longer than the one downriver and when we woke we still had 2 hours ahead of us. I went exploring and found in the bow of the boat three German boys, who I had seen the day we arrived, playing great music on their old battered instruments. We moved to the bow, found a spot to lean against the bulkhead, view the delta drift pass and listen to their music. It was a great chill-out, end of a long weekend at the beach atmosphere. 

still too tired.........

That morning we have a tremendous wind coming from the north and we are riding due east. In order to stay on the bike I have to ride leaned over about 10° into the wind. Wind like this I have experienced only in the Bretagne, at the sea. It makes the riding hard and by early afternoon we are wrecked. Looking for a picnic location we go up and down the woody beach bordering the Danube, but the wind is so strong and constant that any attempt at eating would be futile and result in eating more sand than food. We head away from the water and after a time we find a picnic table next to a store, buy cheese and beer to accompany the kilos of fruits and vegetables and bread we had been given by Ioanna before our departure, eat a huge lunch and fall asleep for a well-deserved rest. The night before we ended up sleeping in the small house of Ion and Ioanna rather than in the tent but I had had a rough night because Ion, just a few metres away in the next room, snored like a machine all night.  

In the late afternoon we arrive in the Lipoven town of Mahmudia, from where we hope to catch a ferry boat the next day through the delta to the sea. We meet a little girl on the street who tells us that her babuschka has a room to let and we walk over with her. The old woman has a lovely little house on the main street, a comfortable room for us and a garden with a pergola covered by grape vines full of fresh grapes. The room is very inexpensive and we gladly move in. It seems that she takes in visitors more for the pleasure of having people in the house than for the few RON she earns. She busies herself making up the room and asking what we would like to eat that night. In the evening we sit together at the table outside, eat a nice dinner, drink a bottle of wine I bought at the store and also her homemade wine.

The next day at three in the afternoon we have – allegedly – a ferry boat to Sft. Gheorghe, which lies at the end of one of the three main river branches of the delta. I write allegedly, because accurate information here seems impossible to find. One hears things from others, then tries to substantiate it by checking again with others and if one is 80 or 90 percent sure, that is already something. At 2 o’clock we walk the bikes down to the port to see what we can find out. There is a large group of people waiting for a boat, so it seems that our info was indeed correct. At about 3 a large ferry turns up and it is a chaotic scene of passengers disembarking and embarking and loads of food being carried aboard for transport into the delta towns. We manage to get the bikes aboard and are directed toward the stern of the boat. My bike is so wide with all the bags mounted on it that it is hard to maneuver it but I get a hand from another cycling tourist who grasps the handlebars while I take the back of the bike and we manage to wedge it into a corner in the stern of the boat. The man is named Costi and is planning to ride his bike from Sft. Gheorghe to another town in the delta from where he hopes to find a boat going to the Ukraine (he is not sure if there is boat but will wait at the docks for a few days) from where he will ride home to Kronstadt (Brasov), Romania. His bike is ancient, maybe from the 1970s, but he has managed to ride it all over southeast Europe, the Balkans, even to Istanbul. We talk for a while, then go to explore the boat and buy tickets. In regard to the tickets we are told we can pay RON 56 for the two of us and receive tickets, or we can make a “gift” of less than that and not have tickets. You get the idea. This is how everything works around here. We are on a budget tour and choose the gift option and spend much less than the normal price.

We slowly cruise three hours down the delta, relaxing on deck, drinking cold beer and watching the nature drift past. It is an old boat, beaten up, but fits perfectly into the scene. A trip like this should be done on an old beaten up boat. Arriving at Sft. Gheorge, which is located at the end of this branch of the river about 2 kms from where the river meets the Black Sea, the local taxis our out en masse to meet the visitors. The local taxis are horse-carts and a dozen of them are waiting. We see Costi at the quay with three others. He is visiting friends here and we are invited to go with him to visit the friends.  Costi is a professor of violin and the friends he is visiting are both in the Transylvanian Symphony orchester. Aurora is an oboist and Lenu is flautist. Again, despite being simple bicycle tourists, we have the great fortune to arrive among intellectuals. On the boat Costi also met Alex, a young man from Tulcea who studied engineering in Constanza and is now doing a master degree in marine engineering in Norway and his girlfriend Ina, from Stuttgart, who studied ship building in TU-Harburg (Hamburg) and is now also doing a master in marine engineering in Norway, and they are there also with us in the garden. It is quite a colourful group and we sit for a few hours in the garden drinking home-made wine and talking. 

Too tired to think up a title to this entry.........

Riding north into the delta we come to our first Lipoven community – Russians who came south hundreds of years ago to escape the reforms introduced by Peter the Great. It was quite a surprise to pass from one village to the other and see the writing change to Cyrillic and the language to Russian. Stopped for coffee and to check the map. The terrain was easy, with rolling hills, but the wind was a real challenge. This area of the world is now a great source of wind energy. The Spaniards in the form of Iberdrola arrived here a number of years ago to harvest the energy, which must be very good if they had enough patience to overcome the local bureaucracy.

We carry on along quite roads with little traffic and villages placed about every 10 kms. The roads are pleasant but when the wind comes directly from the front we cannot be making more than 3kms per hour. Walking the bikes is the solution, otherwise it is just a waste of energy. In the early afternoon we arrive at a well preserved fortification overlooking the Black Sea, which is said to have been a Genovese fort in the 14^th century, when that state had these trade routes under its control. After the visit to the fort we stop for cold beer in a local bar. Rather than a bar it is a set of tables on a concrete patio and a refrigerator inside. The bar lady simply collects the money and opens the bottles. It costs 2 RON, so who cares how it looks? It is time to eat but in the only store in town we ask if it has cheese and get a response as if cheese were a delicacy. The answer is no, but the message behind the answer is ‘cheese? What kind of an idiot are you?’ We move on and find a larger town, buy food and create a monumental picnic in the small town square. The street dogs arrive to get their food. They are very sweet. One would think that dogs who spend their entire lives as strays fighting for food and survival would be very mean, but they are usually very afraid and very happy if one plays with them and pets them. As we are eating a man who is clearly in a bad state turns up to rest in the square. Homeless is a word we would use in the west. He is just in a bad state and probably never had a home or a decent life. Thinking about all the kindness that has been shown to me over this trip and thinking that it cannot simply be chance – that my task is to pass some of that on to others – we make him a big sandwich and then I go to buy him a cold beer. It is nothing, no special gesture or effort, but I do feel that I am sending back some of that wonderful positive energy and support that the universe has been sending me.

With full stomachs we set off for the late afternoon ride. With strong headwinds we ride not more than 15 kms later and arrive in a very poor town set at a crossroads – one direction heading directly to the city of Tulcea and the other heading due east into the Danube delta. Selling fruit at the intersection is a great big bear of a man of whom we ask directions. We start talking and soon Ion suggests that we set up tent in his garden. It is hard to arrive there, he says, and we should wait until his son comes to collect him and then follow him. We walk to the store to buy some biscuits, talk with Ion for a while and soon his son arrives in a horse cart and they load up the fruits and vegetables that were unsold for that day. We try to understand his age. He looks little older than I am but speaks of his grown children and grandchildren. It felt a big confusing and I was not sure of the situation at first. We follow him through the village, down some dirt roads, to a neighborhood of old wooden houses on the outskirts of the village. The garden is teaming with ducks, chickens, geese and loads of other animals. We meet the two children who still live at home, the wife and two grandchildren, then set up the tent in the garden and are invited to drink some homemade cherry schnapps and the family toasts our arrival. Later we walk through the garden and pick fresh vegetables and fruits for dinner and then all sit down at a plastic table in the garden for dinner. We get to know Ion and his wife and learn their story. Ion is 51 and already worked 25 years as an electrician in the coal mines in the south of the country before moving to the north five years prior to work as a farmer. The family earns money by selling vegetables, fruits and eggs in this village and surrounding villages.

After dinner, Ioanna, the wife brings a small bottle of whiskey and Ion and I enjoy a drink. A typical miner he is not. Even when we first met on the street it was evident that this is an intelligent and educated man and our discussion over whiskey reveals this even more. He is discussing literature and asks about our favourite poets and authors. Now, I am no intellectual and say something about Pablo Neruda, but in truth I don’t recall any of his poetry. Neruda’s life is interesting to me and I once visited his former house in Chile, but poetry in general, although I am sure it is very interesting, I have never really been able to get into. Ion tells us that he was raised in a very poor part of the country and was raised by a physically abusive. As a child he would escape and hide in the fields around his village and would bring books with him when he did so.  His brother, he tells us, did not find an escape from the violence and became a violent person himself, got into trouble as a young man and passed away early. Ion learned to become an electrician while serving in the military and when he returned to his village he became an electrician in the coal mines. I think he must have continued to bring books with him when in mines. I can picture him in a dark and dirty mine shaft, reading Alexander Dumas by his coalminer’s head light. Under other circumstances he might have become a literature professor or an author, but in Ceaucescu’s Romania, coming from such a background with little formal schooling, he surely had little if any chance.

Normally I refrain from talking too much about my life and travels when with poorer people because my world is usually too strange and exotic for them to understand or perhaps even an affront to people for whom existence is a struggle. It was not so with Ion and family. They were thrilled to hear the stories and see the photographs. We left the next morning after a big breakfast of coffee, warm milk directly taken from their goats and quite a few shots of palinka. We exchanged contact information with the 21 year old daughter, Ionela, and have been in contact with her since to thank again for the wonderful time. I will stay in contact and if this blog does become a book, will send a copy to the family. By the way, the title of the last blog entry (12 August) is from Ion. 

Do good for someone and forget about it quickly thereafter. Receive good from someone and remember it forever.

Saturday we were on our way. This week I would be accompanied by Tatiana, my girlfriend who lives in Bucharest. She managed to borrow an old bicycle from her cousin and although it would be a real challenge to manage on that bike, she was keen for the adventure. Because the route from Bucharest to the Black Sea is nothing spectacular, we again boarded the train at the city’s main station for the 3 hour ride to Constanza. She is an expert in the local customs and rituals and within minutes arranged a wonderful deal with the conductor that had him close one of the wagon’s toilets so that we could stow our bikes in the gangway and us sitting in our own first class cabin, and all at a very favourable price.

Saturday night we visited the city centre and walked along the seaside promenade. Constanza is still quite run-down but it holds a great deal of history and we decided to see it again the next day in daylight. We arrived at the bus stop having just missed the last bus to where we were staying. Although taxis are inexpensive here, after the week of normal life in Bucharest the budget is especially tight for the coming weeks. One bus was standing there and preparing to return to the depot. Two other persons at the bus stop had also missed the last bus and using their in-bred Balkan creativity developed from life in the jungle, Tatiana and the other two offered the driver 4 RON to drive us home on his way to the depot. I imagined trying to bribe a Swiss bus driver………….….In any case it was a first for me, it was funny and it really worked out quite well.

Indeed there is a lot of history to ponder in this part of the world. Formerly known as Timos, Constanza was an important Greek and then Roman city of commerce and much of the city’s identity today seems to be based on that history. In the Piata Ovidiu we drank coffee and thought about his banishment here, to the periphery of the Roman Empire, what must have been about 1700 years ago and how it must have been then. I expect it was quite nice actually. In the 1400s this city and all the surrounding areas became part of the Ottoman Empire, and the Turkish community and its influence remain strong today. Within a stretch of 300 meters of one street in the old center there are a mosque with its regular calls to prayers various times per day, a Catholic church and a very large and important orthodox biserica.

Later in the day with the bikes loaded and ready, we asked directions out of town from a middle-aged man on the street. He was not quite sure of the way and after looking up and down the street, thought the better of it and asked another man passing by what he thought. They began a rather long discussion, in Turkish, about the best route for us. It was clear that he placed a lot of importance on assisting us and we appreciated it, not just for the directions, but for the kindness. The discussion with the man on the street apparently did not provide the information he was looking for, so putting his hand up in a motion to us as to say “just relax, I will have the info in a moment”, he made a phone call. The person on the other end of the line apparently knew what he was talking about because in short order he explained to me, “go to the next stoplight and turn left, then continue straight on”. Between the man on the street and the phone call, it seemed like a lot of discussion for ‘go down and then turn left’. It felt like that scene in ‘Lost in Translation’ in which the Japanese director is giving Bill Murray lengthy and animated instruction in Japanese about what he wants and then the translator says to Murray ‘he wants more passion’. Bill Murray, in his classic style, says ‘that’s it? More passion? It seems like he said a lot more than that’

Heading up the coast we arrived in the beach resort of Mamaia. It begins with an area suited for budget tourists and we stopped there for a beer. Very big beers cost 3 RON everywhere, but the bars can be not too nice. We found one with tables and chairs on the sand and I chose it, but then noticed loads of rubbish on the sand strewn all around. The bar’s patrons did not seem to mind sitting among the trash, perhaps due to all the 3 RON beers they were consuming, but for me it was too much.

As we moved north the standard steadily improved to the point at which, at the most northern part of Mamaia we found beach clubs that rival the beach clubs that one finds in Italy or France. Beautiful white sand, rows of luxurious deck chairs under individual summer-tents and beautiful restaurants. We stop for a quick swim and then move on. We are adventurers and not high-class beach tourists.

In order to leave the city behind we have to circle around a large industrial area that is really heinous, but just 30 kilometres north of the city arrive in the village of Vadu, buy some vegetables from an old lady selling produce from her garden and ask about the route to the beach. For the last 10 kms we are really out in the sticks and this town is no different: one mini-market and a collection of houses. From there it is 3 kms along a sand road to the beach, which is completely virgin, no development, no houses, no water, nothing. Wonderful. There are two other tents set up and we place ours close by. Since we could not secure the tent into the sand, we used the bikes on either side of the tent as lashing points and secure the tent in that way. Besides the other two tents – one a family that spends weeks there each summer in an enormous house-like tent and two others who arrived like adventures on a Honda Africa Twin – there was nothing around. Then the standard evening programme of swimming, drinking red wine, cooking on the camp grill and eating at sundown.

As usual, I woke in the night, but rather than turn to my iPod to distract me and drown out my thoughts I listened to the breeze against the tent and the crashing of the waves. I always find it strange to think that waves have been breaking against the shores every few seconds for hours, days, years, millennia, millions of years, without any interruption. Is that not a strange concept when you think about it? It never stops. If you just think back to the times when Romans were on these beaches, it looked exactly the same as now, the waves were crashing onto the beach just as they do now. We tend to think today that the world is so different than it once was. In some ways it is, through cars, airplanes, cities, communication, the sheer number of people, etc, but how much does that really comprise of the world? Maybe 3%. We can say that 3% of the world has changed radically. On the other hand, the beaches are the same, the mountains are the same, the hills are the same, the plains are the same. Remove everything that man has created, which in the grand scheme of things is not all that much, and everything is the same as it was 10’000 years ago or 50’000 years ago. I am sure that one day humans will die out, the cities and everything that man has built will erode and disappear, the earth will carry on and nobody will notice or care about all the “wonderful” things we have created. I don’t mean to philosophize too much, but wake in the middle of the night in a tent on a virgin beach on the Black Sea and maybe such philosophy is a natural consequence.

I went outside for a stroll in the sand. The night was warm and the breeze off the sea fresh. The sky was overwhelming. There have been occasions on which I have seen more stars in the sky, but not many. A sky like that always has an impact on me that is almost physical, as if that many stars actually have an impact on me that stops me in my steps and forces me to feel the moment. No man can describe such a sky in words and I won’t try. To stand there in the night on the beach, hear the waves, feel the sea breeze and be part of that sky can only be described as a gift. Some might call it a gift from god, I call it a gift of the universe but regardless of who gave me that gift, I think you know what I mean. I left the door of the tent open and laid down so that my head was at the door and I could look up into the sky. The Milky Way appeared as a creamy white streak from horizon to horizon and there must have been a meteor shower because shooting stars sailed past every few seconds. I fell asleep to the sky and the waves and the sea breeze.

Within minutes of waking in the morning I was in the sea for a morning swim. Despite being a “gypsy”, I am still a lawyer and financier and thus still always have my Blackberry with me. When I woke I saw a message from a friend telling me of the sharp market crash of the prior day. Like anyone who is tuned-in to what is really happening in the world (meaning they don’t follow the mainstream media) I knew this was going to happen. Had I been “in the world” and had I had a job and speculative money, I would have long ago taken positions on the down side and would now be reaping the benefits. It would have been a chance to really clean-up, but it was not so, so I just enjoyed the waves and used the very fine Black Sea sand to scrub my face and body. Then coffee cooked over the camp stove and discussions of the plan for the day.

The countryside most of the day was unappealing, extremely dry, barren, mostly brown, yellow and even the trees and grass seemed more yellow and dried out than green. Along the way we met two cyclists from Holland sitting before an orthodox church. They were just breaking for lunch and sat with them, talked and ate together. They live not far from Texel, which is a wonderful island off the Dutch coast and we talked about it and some of the wonderful places we know in Holland. Being Dutch they are real cyclists and have many tours behind them. Next year they will be retired and are planning a three month USA coast-to-coast tour. Later we met two Belgians and then two Swiss. When you are out in these dried out, unwelcoming fields and fully loaded long-distance cyclists come toward you it is an unspoken rule that you stop, talk and exchange information.

By late afternoon the barren landscape had changed to richer fields and the flats to light hills. This was a much more welcoming environment and I started to feel better about this part of the journey. We stopped in Baia, located on the main north-south route, bought some food for dinner and then turned off to the secondary road toward the Danube delta. The idea was to find a protected place, ideally in someone’s garden, and set up the tent for the night. We ride through the village slowly but all the gardens are full down to the last square meter with vegetation, and so we press on and will probably have to ride to the next town. Just at the edge of Cearmuria de Jos I saw a house with a very beautiful, large and open garden and we circle back. By now I have become an expert in asking about accommodation and when I see an old man in the garden I stop just outside the gate. He comes out slowly, offers me his hand and I start off in my funny and limited Romanian. He seems a bit confused by what I am saying and so Tatiana steps in. He of course offers us a room in his house. A month ago this would have been surprising to me, now it is standard course. We say that we would like to sleep in the tent in the garden.

Fane is 70 years of age and a former school teacher of geography. He lost his wife seven years ago and has one son who is a university professor in Bucharest and another who lives nearby, in Tulcea. He is happy for the company. Until 1964 he lived in the far south of this country, then went to the capital city to attend university, talks wonderfully of his university time when the state provided for everything and he could study and live for free, and then was sent here to teach school for a three year obligatory period. Because the life here is far richer – in the sense of culture, topography, proximity to the sea, etc - than from where he originates, he stayed, married and raised a family here.

The garden is lovely and we set the tent in a corner under a tree. Fane picks tomatoes, fresh peppers, onions and garlic from the garden and gives them to us with great pleasure. There is a long wooden table in the garden and we set up a big dinner of a huge salad of fresh vegetables, pasta that we cooked in his kitchen, local red wine and fresh fruits I just picked from the trees in the garden.

After dinner we sit in his kitchen and I write this entry. The night is alive with the sounds of the three dogs in the garden, about 50 chickens and numerous roosters living just behind our tent and the passing horse-drawn carts. In this part of the world they seem to make up about 25 % of the means of transportation and I hear them passing frequently into the late evening.

                                                

The roosters wake me before 6 and I am up and about, make coffee in the kitchen and write more of this book. Later Fane wakes and makes more coffee, local style and then offers me the ubiquitous morning schnapps, which of course I accept. We start the day slowly, writing, talking, drinking, packing our gear and head out at about 9 o’clock. 

It seems to me some fine things have been laid upon your table

This week of rest and recovery has been very different than the month of travel and I have been behind in writing because I don’t yet know how to assess it. For me personally it has been wonderful, relaxing but also a frustrating step back. Here is why:

The last hours in Serbia were wonderful. The roads rose and fell as the Danube cut through the cliffs and the views up and down the river were amazing. There was little traffic and as the sun set it turned the hills deep green and the fields a wonderfully rich gold. In regard to Serbia, despite the few negative impressions I had during the last two days south of the Danube, I was wonderfully impressed by the country and very much want to return, especially to visit Novy Sad again and to visit Peter and Gaspar. Those last hours in Serbia were wonderful, perhaps made even more so because I knew that at the end of that day I would cross the border into Romania. This country has been a topic I have touched upon earlier in this blog and it is a country about which I have very mixed emotions. Being completely objective I can say, without upsetting too many people, that it can be a very challenging place. Being subjective I say, and I will upset some people with this, that there are things about this place that make my blood boil and make me swear that I will never return – that I will leave cursing the place and its people – and then never return. Nonetheless, at the same time I can say with conviction that some of the most beautiful places I have seen on this earth I have seen in this country. Go to Maramures, put on a rucksack and walk from village to village, or walk through Siebenburgen from Schassburg and Medias and you will experience scenery, history, people and warmth like few other places I know. Just about Maramures alone I could write a complete travel book but that area has had such an impression on me that I would not want it to become known by the world and ruined by tourism. I wrote earlier about hitchhiking there and being picked up by a family in a horse-drawn cart. They were so friendly and happy to collect a foreigner who took such pleasure in their simple form of transportation.

Thus, with mixed emotions based upon mixed experiences I swung down off the hill toward the border crossing. It was a Saturday night, about 30 minutes before sundown and there was a long queue-up of cars and lorries waiting to cross the border. On the bike I could ride past everyone, directly up to the front and sneak in behind the first car in the queue. I waved to a border guard and with body language asked where I was expected to queue on the bike. He waved me through without checking anything. At the Romanian side I was also signaled to go all the way to the front. The border guard eyed my passport and looked at me incredulously. I think I must have lost more weight in the course of the last month than I thought because he really did not seem convinced that the photograph in the passport was of me. Perhaps I have also become uglier since my photo was made, though I hope that is not the case. He held me up for 5 minutes but let me through without further comment or questions. 10 kms from the border to Turnu-Severin. I arrived in the dark and headed directly to the railway station. In the course of the last weeks I had decided to bypass southern Romania by train and instead spend my time exploring new areas. A night train was leaving in 3 hours and so I walked the bike into town, stopped in a small market to get a very cold beer and sat down in the town square to relax. Being a hot summer Saturday night many people were out, walking, talking, visiting, living as people do in southern climates in summer. By night it actually all looked ok and I was rather enjoying sitting there, relaxing from a month on the bike, drinking a cold Timisoareana and just observing. Later I grabbed some food in the market, headed back to the station, made a small picnic and prepared to enter the train. 

This takes preparation because there are no railcars designed for bicycles, no baggage cars and one cannot even buy a ticket for the transport of a bicycle. Whether the bike gets on is all at the discretion of the conductor. I had to think about where to position myself – at the head or tail of the train – once I had the ok of the conductor, how to remove the bags and gear from the bike in a hurry, lift the bike onto the train while others are exiting and entering and then jump down to collect four panniers, a tent, iso-matt and sleeping bag before someone walks off with them. There is a little bit of stress involved. I positioned myself at the head of the train and fortunately that is where the conductors exited, so I could ask right off if it would be ok. He made a troubled look, which usually means that something is possible, but that it will cost money, bakshish (a gift, let’s say). He sent me to the last car in the train, so I had to hurry down the platform. Some people helped me to get the gear and the bike onto the train before it rolled out of the station, but the entire access area of the railway car was filled by me and my things and there was nowhere to move and it was a right mess. Once we were moving I was instructed by the conductor to move everything to the other end of that railcar. A half an hour later I had the bike secured, the bags stowed in a seating compartment, paid far too much in gift money to the conductor and actually found four seats in a compartment a few metres from where the bike was locked. Nobody seemed to mind that I removed my stinking shoes, put my sleeping bag under my head for a pillow and stretched out to enjoy the ride. I got a few good hours of sleep until at about 3am dozens of people entered at some unknown station and stormed in to grab any available place to sit. I had woken and stood up to observe the commotion and was glad I had because had I still been stretched out they surely would have pushed me off the four seats I was using. I managed to hold onto one seat in the corner and soon fell asleep again until I reached Bucuresti Gara du Nord at 4.50 in the morning.

Between Sunday and Monday I slept a total of about 30 hours. I had arrived wrecked, filthy, and aching but by Tuesday I was quite fit again, enjoying the cafés in the city’s recently restored and wonderful old town, air conditioning at night, cognac before bed, putting the bike back in order, eating bad food in town, cooking good food in my friend’s apartment, writing, searching for jobs, and conducting another telephone interview for a job in which I am in the final rounds. Basically, within 48 hours I was back in the normal world and it felt good for a while.  By Thursday however, I was frustrated and ready to go. The return to the normal world had been too quick and abrupt and I was quickly becoming too comfortable and soft and besides that, all the food I was eating was making me feel ill. Life on the bike makes a person hard, lean, purposeful, resistant to cold and wet, and grateful for any small comfort. Upon my arrival I had fully welcomed the comforts offered me and now, after a few days, was feeling repulsion toward them. Like the sick to one’s stomach feeling after eating far too much, I felt that in my whole being. I just wanted to be rid of it and back on the road and back into my element. 

So you think you can tell heaven from hell?

Peter and Gaspar told me to expect a different Serbia on the other side of the Danube. The river marked the border of the former Austria-Hungary Empire and the people and their mentality are different on the other side, they told me. Over 90 years have passed since the change from Austria-Hungary to Yugoslavia and depending how one looks at it, that is either a long time or a short time. When it comes to people and how they generally change and adapt, it is a blink in time. 

As I crossed the long bridge to Smederevo I did experience change. The streets were much more chaotic, the people instantly seemed less friendly and there were many more gypsies to be seen. The atmosphere is also what I would call ‘ziganata’, or being influenced by gypsy mentality. I know that in this time in which we are all expected to be so correct and proper that such wording will be frowned upon by some, but correctness has its limits. In Smederevo I visited the old town and would normally have laid down for a sleep, but the town did not seem too welcoming, so I pushed on. I was riding along major thoroughfares and some unattractive towns and also riding through stinking areas in which the locals had created the fields into rubbish dumps. I started to wonder if all the prejudices that exist in my country against these people could indeed be true.

Mid-afternoon I am stopped behind three cars waiting for a bridge to open. The bridge serves both rail and automobile traffic and we are waiting for a train to cross and allow us passage. In the BMW 3-series before me are three guys who look like local mafia – ugly, fat and wearing shirts that are far too small for their disgusting bodies. The music booming out of their car is of a Turkish or Albanian genre and I am really not feeling that I want to stay in this part of the country. Weighing my options I start off behind the cars as soon as the bridge clears. Just before crossing I see that there is a foot path on the side of the bridge and dismount to use it. Had I not done that I would not have seen Dietmar at the riverbank below the bridge. He had taken a late lunch break there and was just about to set out. It was nice to see him again and we compared notes on how the country had changed. That afternoon we rode together and went through areas that can best be described as disgusting. For hours we were passing through towns fully of gypsies living in stinking dilapidated houses that looked as if they had been abandoned at the end of the last world war and then taken over by these people. In the mud and rubbish filled gardens little children were playing in the putrid stink, filthy and unkempt. Not even photos could portray it completely. Dietmar took it all in stride, not being too terribly bothered by this or by the change in environment. I have developed a strong distaste for these people over the last years and this was as close to them as I have ever come and closer than I ever wanted to come. Village after village, they all proved to be zigani towns. It was becoming late in the afternoon and we had to think about overnighting somewhere. The prospects looked slim as in each village we entered we would scan the people and then discuss whether it was ok to stop or whether to push on, despite the setting sun. Each time we unanimously agreed to push on.

About 20.30 we were still riding and within minutes we would no longer be able to see enough to ride safely. At the edge of a town that we were leaving we say one farmhouse that looked quite normal and we circled back to ask if we could sleep on the grounds. We had already entered the grounds and were near the door when we say gypsy clothing hanging on the clothes line. Dietmar said quickly, that we should move on but by then a young boy had come out of the house and I asked anyway. He did not understand and ran to get his father. It was apparent that they were also gypsies but the father seemed accommodating enough and pointed to a corner of the garden in which we could sleep. It was dark so we set up quickly.  Using our forehead-lights we had a quick picnic dinner and gave scraps to the 5 or 6 kittens that were playing around us. While we were eating one of the gypsy women from the farm came out, completely drunk and intent on giving us Serbian-language lessons. I thought, “this is going to be a long fucking night” but eventually some kids came out and convinced her to go back inside the house.

Without a tent and the weather holding out but questionable, I laid out my large plastic tarp on the ground between two pieces of farm equipment, put the air mattress on top and then the sleeping bag. The idea was that if it would rain I could fold the tarp double over me, like an omelet and at least stay dry. The rain started a few hours later and I did just that, which seemed to work quite well for a while. It was just a bit loud under the plastic tarp as the big rain drops slapped against it. I was also concerned that the lightning might strike one of the pieces of farm equipment located on either side of me. There was nothing to do however, but to try to sleep. Holding the omelet closed with my right arm I grew tired of that position and rolled over on my other side to see one of the kittens that had crawled under the tarp behind my head. When I looked at her in surprise she gave me a ‘meow’ as if to ask if she could stay in there, protected from the rain. I slept again with a little black and white kitchen just in front of my face. She stayed there the entire night.

Dietmar woke me at 8.00 and it was still raining. Everything was soaked, including my air mattress and my sleeping bag. Completely soaked, not just damp. I don’t know how I managed to sleep so deeply, but I did. We packed in haste, stuffing wet gear into bags, feet into wet shoes and arms into wet jackets. It was unpleasant, to say the least. We headed back to the center of town to visit a café and warm ourselves. I had my first flat tire of the journey and resolved to repair it when the rain stopped. The café was ugly and unwelcoming and the coffee terrible. Soon some of what looked like the local mafia showed up and it became even more unpleasant. It was still raining and soon the streets were flooded, so we had no choice but to stay there and put a good face on it. An hour later we said let’s get the hell out of here, I sprayed a quick-fix repair solution into my tire, and we headed down the road in the rain. A few villages later, this one directly on the river front, we stopped in another café. This one was also unwelcoming and cold and with equally bad coffee. Again, we had little choice because we were completely soaked. A large barge was tied up nearby and I went searching for the captain with the intention to ask for passage for us and our bikes downriver. I try to find him by talked to some locals about it but they did not understand me and directed me to the ferry boat that has service every few hours to the other side of the river.My shoes had permanent puddles in them.

From this café we could see down the river and the coming weather and every time a patch of less-dark clouds appeared we assured each other that the weather was improving, even though we did not believe it. I guess we stayed there for 2 or three hours and eventually the weather let up a little and we decided to leave. My tire had gone flat again, so we entered the porch of an abandoned house and repaired the flat.

We rode all day in the rain. We were already as wet as we could possibly be and when riding at least we were not cold. Sleeping in the wet sleeping bag was not an option for that night so I said to Dietmar that we should find a room and that I would pay for it with my last francs. In the town of Golubac we found a mini-apartment for 2200 dinars and moved in. We both commented on how funny it was to be so content with something so simple. Two single beds, a tiny kitchen and about 20 square meters, but it was warm and inviting, had a hot shower and was like a palace to us. We managed to half-dry the equipment by the morning but my shoes were still miserably wet and the next morning it was raining just as much as the previous day. 

The mini-apartment was located directly at the river and in the morning we are awoken by the horrible sound of screaming pigs and looked outside to see a farmer moving his pigs from his truck into a boat, which they were clearly not too keen on doing. My midday the sun was starting to return to life and showing itself on occasion, giving us a lot of hope. The route was rough going because at this point the Danube is very narrow and the road cannot pass alongside the river but climbs along the cliffs running alongside the river. It meant a lot of pushing the bikes up the hills. Early morning we stopped in a very simple restaurant at the edge of the river. The idea had been to buy food and make a picnic, but a restaurant would cost just a little more and at least it would be dry for a while. The lunch was amazing, accompanied by local wine and while we were enjoying it the clouds went away and the sun shone down strong and warm. Within a few hours we were dry relishing in it. 

The rest of the day was beautiful riding, hardly any towns and moderate traffic, very hilly with amazing views over the Danube and some of the narrow canyon-like areas through which it passes.