Romania and Bulgaria

Buna!

The border crossing into Romania was a lot quicker than the other two we have encountered, although it must be an inherant characteristic of border gaurds to be blunt and aggressive. They tend to just shout at you in their language which they must know you don't understand whenever you give them the wrong bit of paper or something.

Romania has even more horses I think than Moldova, and is green, hilly and beautiful. There are large parts of Romania that are very mountainous, but unfortuanately we can't really go there as we are running behind on schedule if we want to get through Iran before it gets too hot, and to India and Nepal before the serious rainy season start there. So we are going to speed up a bit now and try and get through Romania and Bulgaria quite quickly.

We have had the feeling so far that our presence hasn't been all that welcome in the places that we have been, as people tend to just stare at us and not say anything when we try and talk to them. I think we just need to get to know them a bit better though, and once you've got past the "who on earth are you and what are you driving" stage then they are fine. Rhona asked a passing scowling man with a horse and cart if she could take his picture, and all of a sudden he just chuckled and got his horses into a fine pose for her saying in Romanian something like: "you want a picture of me, I'm nothing compared to what you look like!". And we all laughed!

We spent one very pleasant night in Romania, with baked beans, corned beef and rice on the menu (hmm lovely...maybe should've stopped at that restaurant we saw after all!!). One little stray dog also enjoyed the shelter under our van..so much so we had to chase him away in the morning for fear of running him over - he was very cute, we would've taken him with us if we could. The next day we spent driving along the coast and over the border into Bulgaria; our easiest border crossing yet! All the guards spoke English and we were through within 10mins!! Whoopee! At one point just as we were going south of Braila in Romania, the road on the map crossed a very large river which we assumed would be a bridge or something, but we were treated to a very exciting ferry crossing! The ferry was just like a raft about 50cms from the water surface with an engine! All the cars and vans packed on to it overhanging at the edges, then we chugged across. Definately a highlight. Luckily it was a calm river, I wouldn't fancy it much otherwise!

We would've definately liked to have spent more time in Romania than we were able too. Some of the scenery we drove through was beautiful and I think there is a definate cultural richness that we would have liked to tap into a bit more. (I guess that is a common feeling for all the countries we've been through so far and I guess we're just getting a taster of each for now). Ukraine, Moldova and Romania have really made us think about our lifestyle and question "why" do we have the oppourtunity and resources to be able to go and travel the world when people are slaving away in fields all day just to be able to feed themselves? We have both experienced living in Kenya amidst terrible poverty, but somehow the fact that these are people with the same colour of skin as us, and are a lot closer geographically, has 'struck a chord', so to speak! The nice thing, and perhaps a big difference to what we experienced in parts of Africa, is that people seem to be living very happily, in the rural areas especially. In fact the simplicity of their lifestyle is very appealing although hard work!

So Bulgaria then; well we only had one night here as well (as we were already behind schedule from previous flirtations with Ukraine and Moldova), and we wanted to push through to Turkey the next day. It looks like Bulgaria is going supersonic, just buildings going up everywhere, hotel monstrosities starting to line the coastal areas. Property prices here are soaring as foreigners (Brits) are buying up the villas and houses, and roadside billboards display things like "Brits in Bulgaria" and "Luxury Apartments from 35,000 Euro" (in English of course). The roads here (well the coastal one that we took) are the best since, well Germany, although that's probably just because they are all new.

That said, we can really see why; Bulgaria is possibly the most beautiful country we have been to so far, its' forested mountains are bigger than the Carpathians, the Black Sea is glittering turquoise, the beaches are white and numerous of all sizes and busyness, they have lots of wildlife (we saw wild buffalo by the side of the road, and there are also many bears), and I think I would live here if I could! So I think there is still time - go and buy a house in Bulgaria!!

We are posting this from Sivas in Eastern Turkey, we've really burnt it through the last few days and hope to enter Iran on Wednesday, so we'll post up the Turkey installment then, which will be extremely exciting! Until then, all the best.