Ahhhhhh Istanbul. I'm sitting here in our little hotel in the Sultanahmet district, sharing a square with the Aya Sofa Mosque and the Blue Mosque. The place is thronging with tourists, mainly Turkish, milling in the afternoon sun, or sipping coffee in the shade... which is exactly what I'm doing.
We arrived yesterday (or probably the day before by the time you read this) after another all-day-all-night ride, this time from Romania. Besides P coming a cropper in the outside lane of the motorway at 4am just outside Sofia, Bulgaria, it was a pretty uneventful trip. He's fine, bar a bit of friction burn to the knee. More of that later. For now let's get back our time in Romania...
Both of us felt, and were certainly made to feel, very much at home in Brasov and leaving all our new friends was very difficult. Given the time, I would have liked to stay a good deal longer. Possibly forever. The countryside is easy on the eye, as most certainly are the ladyfolk. The former is verdant, mountainous, colourful; the latter tanned and lumpy only in places that improve the view.
Romanians are among the most friendly and hospitable folk that you'll find anywhere. Nothing is too much trouble. A fine demonstration of this is exemplified by a day we spent in the company of Alexandru Neamu and Ilulia Munteanu (the young couple in the pictures).
Alex is 21, studying construction and working with his father doing the same. Ilulia is 22, also studying and working in a clothes shop. They live in a high-rise, overlooking the forest on the outskirts of Brasov and I hope they are typical of the new-generation Romanian...
We met A at Dan's and Ilulia during a Friday night on the town, which started with pizza and ended in a karaoke bar with untold bottles of red - which the girls drink with Coke! Rather than go back 'home' and wake Dan and Nico at 3am, we took up the offer of a spare room and went back to Alex's place where we managed to chat until the sun was up at 6am.
The following day we were taken on a tour of the old town, narrow streeted and colourful with impressive churches and marvellous turn-of-the-century architecture. Next we visited Bran Castle, synonymous with the Dracula legend (though in reality Vlad Dracula only stayed as a house guest a few times). I dare say he was well treated, fed and watered, the ever-present threat of a bit of an impaling notwithstanding.
Our sightseeing and the kind hospitality continued. A late lunch was taken in a posh mountain restraint specialising in traditional Transylvanian fare. The wolves and bears nailed to the walls didn't bode well for a vegetarian option and thus was it so. P got to eat corn porridge, aubergine and pickled pepper, while I packed my face with minced pork wrapped in cabbage.
After our hard-travelling, low budget days the tourism came as a treat, but the chance to spend an easy-going time with our Romanian hosts was the real pleasure. Relaxing with Alex and Ilulia allowed us at least some understanding of how Romanians feel about their country, hopes for the future and, though they don't like to talk about it, the too-recent past.
Until just 17 years ago this country was labouring under one of the cruellest, most inhuman political systems ever seen in Europe, headed by the infamous Nicolae Ceaucescu. The food queues and beggarly children were the outward signs of a decrepit system in terminal decline, but the brutal control freakery that spawned the physical hardship also had tendrils extending into each home and levers acting on every aspect of life. Fall out with the system and your whole family would suffer the consequences...
In the mid-to-late eighties, as in the UK we wittered on about house equity and comparied the number of valves in our engines, the people of Romania were starving as their agricultural assets (of which there are many in the fertile valleys) were exported to finance Ceaucescu's megalomaniacal lunacies. Which wasn't too clever as the anti-communist wave swept eastern Europe. His end was as rapid as it was deserved.
On December 21st 1989 Ceaucescu was being challenged at a public address. Despite the army firing into the crowd, thousands demonstrated the following day and took back their country, arresting Nicolae and his ludicrous and despised wife as they attempted to flee by helicopter the next day. The trial was a formality and on the 25th the Ceaucescus were riddled by firing squad - which was generous, I reckon.
In the 'west' we remember news images of the pitiful human wreckage unearthed in the country's orphanages, the battle for the airport when the terminal's security staff, not recognising the reality of the situation, opened fire on the army. Retributions were swift and functional, the social change from overbearing state oppression to relative freedom happening almost overnight.
Alex and Ilulia were only five years-old when the Ceaucescu regime fell. And they remember the aftermath, not all of it pleasant. 'Who was it shooting at us after the 22nd', is, says Alex, a question-cum-saying derived from the early days following the revolution in which snipers fired indiscriminately at the populace from the forests surrounding the city. He and his family found themselves crawling around the floor of their flat, windows covered with blankets as neighbours were shot at. And shot.
They still don't know who the disparate elements were, but that's not going to stop them moving forwards.
Pankaj knew about as much about Romanian history as he does about fine Scotch whiskey and how to baste the Christmas turkey. Having seen the friendly, open nature of Brasov it came as something of a shock when I tried to explain. One illustration that hit home was an off-the-cuff remark from Ilulia. Alex had been calling her 'Julia', which, she says, is what her mother had wished to call her. But in Ceaucescu's shadow a non-Romanian name was 'not a good idea'... cue P looking at shoes and emitting a long hiss that ends with a word rhyming with 'duck'. Not being able to call your kid what you choose - that's social control with knobs on.
Seventeen years ago the population of Romania were dazed by change, woken from a nightmare. They've done their blinking, they've had a good stretch and now they're ready for some get-up-and-go. I may be wrong, and probably am considering I've spent so little time in the country and am generally regarded as an idiot by those in the know, but it appears that like many previously oppressed peoples the light is all the brighter for the years of darkness. Romanians that we met truly revel in their freedoms, friendships, cuisine, booze, sex (though I didn't get to check this bit out first-hand, love) and sport. Life.
Of course, we were mixing with relatively well-off Transylvanians. There were also the poor on the streets and picking their way through the garbage. Even young children begging at the traffic lights. But then where isn't there a measure of poverty? Sometimes it's easier to see the social problems when we're abroad.
Our friends were very keen that we saw their country in a positive light. Although never stated, I'm sure they're tired of the outdated stereotype image of Romania as a 'basket-case' country; sick of people concentrating on the negative when there is so much marvellous, positive stuff going on. And there is. And it is. The overriding impression is positive.
In the countryside, where little has changed bar the adoption of rubber tyres on the horse carts, you could call it 'backward'. Or, if you were so inclined you could dub it 'charming' instead. If you want to see Europe as it was 60 years ago, then rush to the hills of Transylvania before it changes, which it must, inevitably.
I can't imagine spending the whole day with a pair of 21-year-old Brits, but Alex and Ilulia were far more socially mature than any counterparts I've met at home. And patient. Realising we had an interest in wildlife, they'd told us about the bears that come from the forest to raid the bins on the edge of town and offered to take us to see them. We were well up for it.
So, at 10pm we found ourselves at the extremity of a 'council estate', sat in Alex's car, waiting for bears. We had almost given up on a sighting, and were driving from one garbage point to another, when a huge head loomed from behind a wall. A bear, not a huge male, but a bear. Unfortunately a dog chased it off.
Driving away, we passed another set of bins and... four adolescent bears were clambering all over them, into them, wandering onto the pavement! Of course we had to get some snaps, so left the car.
It wasn't easy taking pictures of bears in near-darkness. They seem to absorb light - everything around being perfectly exposed while they are but black blobs. Without my 'proper' flash with us we had to use the built-in one on the camera. Which meant getting close.
In these situations one tends to get carried away with the task in hand and it's only when you pull the camera away from your face that it strikes home that you are stood but 30 feet from four wild brown bears. These are some of the fastest accelerating carnivores over a short sprint and we wouldn't stand a goat's chance at Eid of getting away, but they seemed not the least bit interested in us when they had trash to root though. Both of us had a go at some close-ups and there was no fear, thrilling though it was. It's one of those situations were you go by instinct and anyway, if they want us they've got us, sure as they relieve themselves in the woods... we were entirely in their paws.
And that wasn't even the end of our big day out. P and I have seen tigers together and now bears - some kind of celebration must be in order, so we joined Alex, Ilulia and some more nice friends of theirs in a bar for drinks. Sorry Nico for waking you at 1am to get in.
Before we've finished with Brasov it is only right that we thank Dan and Nico, Alex, Ilulia, Gabone et al for everything they did for us - and they did everything. So we will. Thanks chaps. Thanks for the company, the lifts, the phone calls, the internet time, the cooking, the care you took to feed Pankaj interesting, carefully considered and delicious vegetarian food (rather than the bread and cheese option he's been suffering in Europe). Oh, and the washing etc, etc. The handshakes and warm greetings. And your time, thanks for your time.
LEAVING BRASOV We left Dan's and the Brasov satellite town of Prejmer on the 30th, late in the day, taking the two-hour ride to the Bucegi Mountains where I hoped to photograph some rock formations. Leaving the main road we went up and up, tackling rough dirt roads, for the first time toting full luggage.
Some 15 miles of tracks took us to 2000m, where, in the fading light, we stumbled across something of an hotel. I say 'something' because it looked more like a factory, which after a manner of speaking it was. This was an athlete factory, built under the old regime to train their glorious heroes at altitude. On top of a mountain, with snow all around, in the dark, it seemed like a good idea to stay, despite the cheerless demeanour of the place. No cooking (though we got some bread, cheese and ham); no bar; no smiles; no cheer. Still, the views of the Bucegi were dazzling come morning.
This venture into the high and rough stuff was to double as a bit of training to find out what both we and the bikes can do - to push ourselves a bit. Thwarted by snow, we couldn't make it to the rocks, despite trying several routes. It was just too much of a struggle and we must have picked up the fully-laden lumps a dozen times in three hours trying to force a route trough.
Admitting defeat, we moved down the mountain, again on rough tracks, until we came to a 'cabina' set at a beautiful spot by a ford in rich, deep forest, with fir-scattered limestone escarpments as a back-drop. Unfortunately the manageress wanted the equivalent of 30 Euros (about 5 million Lei, I think) for a double. I explained this was beyond budget and instead we got two separate, shack-basic rooms (a luxury) above the restaurant for half the cost. Less-than charming outdoor squat-bog and a little cool at 1500km, but lovely and peaceful nonetheless. The food was also excellent, P being well taken care of, and we got some local hooch on the house.
The following morning we got stuck into some action photography, using my remote control taped to the 'bars and it was about 2pm before we headed down the mountain, riding through a gypsy settlement we'd seen on the up. The gypsies of Romania are reviled and mistrusted so far as I can make out (I have little personal experience with which to argue either way). The inhabitants here, bar the waving children, looked surly, unfriendly, threatening even.
So we stopped for a drink and to buy some cigarettes. It didn't take long for the ice to break and rather than getting arsey about us getting cameras out, there was a surfeit of enthusiasm. With digitals folk can see themselves 'immortalised' instantly and soon people were taking turns to pose, the kids, with permission, clambering over the bikes. These were not the hardcore travelling gypsies, who look completely Indian-like - P being several shades lighter of hue - but nonetheless were colourful characters and Asian-poor.
And thus began the haul to the Bulgarian border, reached at about 9pm. The south of the country appeared a little harder, less friendly, than the Transylvanian heartland. Still horses, carts, equine-powered ploughing. Still dark gypsies and rag-tag children, still smiling, waving, but just a little tougher.
As if bidding a fond farewell and offering us something of a parting gift, some roadside ladies near the border lifted their tops to show us their breasts, which we thought a rather splendid and charming farewell gesture. Goodbye Romania. And thanks for the mammeries.
I'm going to have to leave it at that for now as some geezer is distracting me by wailing his tits of from the mosque above me and there is also a kebab calling me from over near the bazaar. The light is down, sheep fat is sizzling on the charcoal. Tomorrow's instalment will contain windy motorway nonsense and a senseless knife attack in the madness that is Istanbul traffic - the worlds scariest... so far.
Damon
