Romania

Friday 3 June

Today Daniel had a full day of classes and Amanda needed to finish an essay for her uni course so we borrowed their car and headed off towards Romania.  We wanted to learn something about this beautiful country by driving a circuit through the plains and hills of the north-west.  Our plan had been constructed from internet maps and a GPS unit which declared that it had incomplete information about Romanian roads.  We were ready for adventure.

North west Romania, thanks to Google Maps

The border is about 40 minutes drive from Mariapocs, and our crossing at Vallaj was easy.  The guards spoke little English and Daniel had warned us what they might ask to see.  This time they asked for our reason for visiting, and it took some prompting from the officer before we abandoned detailed explanations and agreed with him simply that it was tourism!  He took our passports and the car registration and told us to pull the car over into the car park.  We waited five or ten minutes, (what could take them so long to query a couple of little passports?) and then we were given our documents and allowed through. 

We had planned to visit a couple of smaller cities and some little towns to get a feel for the place.  However, things didn't really go to plan.  The first impression we gained was the dreadful condition of the roads. I don't think I have come across roads that are in such poor condition.  At times, we would be speeding along a highway and then suddenly notice that the cars in front were slowing down and then we'd come to this section of road which has the most enormous pot-holes and the road surface is really uneven.  Derek was driving as my back has been playing up and Daniel and Amanda's car is a manual and I have to say he did a great job of not landing their car in anything but the smallest pot-holes.

Maize is a common crop

At one point in Cehu, our Tom-Tom insisted that we take a specific road that was closed for road works.  Try as we might, we couldn't find another road which would link up to the one we were supposed to be on.  So in a bit of deft navigation, we manouvered the car around the traffic cones, drove up the road which was under construction and carried on to our next destination.

Romania is clearly a very poor country.  Agriculture still relies in part on horse power - we saw a number of farmers tilling the fields using a horse drawn plough.  Horses and carts were commonplace on the road carrying everything from entire families to sawn logs.  We even saw a horse drawn hearse!  Road works projects often used teams of men with shovels, and many times grass or hay cutting at the roadside was done with scythes.

Housing is pretty basic in a lot of cases, especially in rural areas.  In the cities, there are multi storey blocks of flats which are often very ugly.  Some blocks are painted cheery colours but some have had little done since the change of regime in 1989.  Houses in the villages sometimes have collapsing roofs, leading us to speculate that there is a loss of population to larger centres.  Many decaying monoliths of concrete and iron, in villages and towns, seem to be standing tribute to Nicolae Ceaușescu's industrialisation efforts.  Many are abandoned.  Free-range dogs are everywhere and we had a couple of close calls when they wandered out on to the road.



A cared-for village house




Rural brickwork house




Urban concrete shops and dwellings



All in all, I'm really glad we went to Romania but I'm not sure that I would want to go back again.  The countryside was really pretty in parts but you couldn't take your eyes off the road for an instant because you never knew when the conditions would change.

City housing in Satu Mare

City living and shopping