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.
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