"Buna Ziua" from Romania!

Since we last wrote we have travelled through many Eastern European countries and met some wonderful new friends. The world is full of great people!

After a tearful departure from Jo and rEkiny we drove off with Mike Carter, a London journalist writing weekly reports for the Guardian-Observer newspaper. He is writing about coping with a mid life crisis and has been given a brand new BMW motorbike and all the latest gear and told to go travelling for 6 months and write about what happens to him and how he copes!! Lucky bloke hey!

Next stop on the Polish travel circuit was Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp. The death factories killed 2 million people from 27 nationalities, about 90% of whom were Jews. They gased the people with pesticides, so dont use pesticides in your home! It was a terribly emotional day, they had displays of all the peoples shoes, hair they cut off to stuff in mattresses, suitcases; nothing was wasted. They tricked the people into thinking they were going to a better life and even had a band playing when they arrived from the train to welcome them. Then the Nazis told them to go and have a shower and gassed them to death. The fit young men and women they put to work building more gas chambers and most of them died within 3 months of arrival from overwork and malnutrition. The motto was to exterminate the jews through labour. Terrible time in history thanks to Hitler.

Tatra Mountains and trekking with rEkiny, Jo and Norbi was next; have we told you how much energy this man has- never go trekking with rEkiny. Jo was alright though!!

Off to Slovakia with Mike Carter in tow. Levoca was a lovely old walled town and we stayed in a 4 star hotel right in the centre for E40. We checked out Spissky hrad which is Slovakias largest castle dating back to 1209.

Hungary was next with lovely baroque city of Eger being a highlight. It also had a great castle dating back to the 13th century. The roads were great and we wound our way to a lovely little wine village called Tokaj. We then thought we would go to Ukraine and didnt realize we needed a visa. EU countries dont need one, but Aussies do. The same applies for Romania, so Mike the POM got into Romania and we had to go Budapest to sort out our visa. We dont normally like big cities but Budapest was beautiful with the 19th Century mansions, castle hill and huge parliament building. Three days later after amazing displays of incompetence on behalf of the embassy, we had our visa and could proceed into Romania. This is the first visa we have needed for a very long time.

Romania is a very special country in our hearts mainly because of the people we met there. It is the wild east of Europe with gypsies and horse drawn wagons on the streets with trucks and cars fighting for the same space. Somehow it works, but it is probably the most dangerous driving we have seen in Europe. The leader of the communist party Ceausescu had a devistating impact on Romania. He exported food to finance his huge ego driven visions; in 1989 Romania suffered the worst food shortages in decades. We saw inside many communist blocks of grey flats and got to see how Romanians live.

In Oradea we met Horizons members Csilla and Oliver Schul. We were their first guests and we had a fantastic time with them. We stayed 5 party nights as we were waiting for Polish friends Jo and rEkiny to come and travel with us through Romania for a couple of weeks. We all travelled together for awhile, 3 bikes, 6 people and had a blast!

We crossed the famous Transfagarasan Pass, checked out picturesgue Bran Castle and Peles Castle in Sinaia, which was a former Royal Palace. Man, the castles in this country are amazing! Next we saw Brasov Square with its baroque facades and Bohemian outdoor cafes, then Sighisoara to see Draculas birthplace and then we swam in the salt lake of Sovata with thousands of other people! We stuck to mainly secondary roads as there were too many trucks and traffic on the main roads. We then drove over the mountain range towards the north of Romania and said our final goodbye to Jo and rEkiny until we see them in Australia!

We had a magic night in Sighetu Marmatiei with Csillas mother and grandmother and then headed south on our "syrup tour of Romania". We met Alex in Cluj- Napoca, who gave us a whirlwind tour of his city. Then we headed off to Targu Mures to finally see Szabi and Krisztina Santha who we have been in email contact with for a long time. Scilla and Oliver joined us again for more parties. Soon it will be more good byes and then off to Bulgaria and Turkey.