23 May Travelling from Bucharest to Budapest

We designed today the real rest day, even though it is Monday.  It is not possible to travel for long without getting exhausted unless we scheduled some rest days in between.  An overly tired traveler will not be not having fun or making coherent observation ;-) 

We woke up at 9 am.  At coffee, we researched in preparation for Budapest - what we should try to cover, etc.  By now, we have a system of some kind ...  We had found that free tours conducted by locals to be most informational.  Without it, a building or a sight might be just that ... with the additional information from the local, we understood its significance.  We take a little bit with us while when we walked the towns in the shoes of those who had gone before us.  We see things both through their eyes as well as through our own, a little more empathy in addition to just clinical analysis, adding a little more soul and heart.  Our judgment of what we observed was tempered with understanding the burdens that they bore even as we do not bear them.

We discovered that we could not get into our apartments at Bucharest until 3pm even though we would arrive rather early in the morning.  Yikes.  Check in and check out would be at a different spot from the apartment itself.  Another Yikes.  Oh well, let's see when we get there.  Let's hope there is a safe place to deposit the heavy bags so that we can go exploring rather than camp somewhere till check-in.  It appeared that the apartments were part of AirBnB even though we booked through booking.com

It was past 12pm before we were ready to leave our hotel room.  It is a good thing check out here in Bucharest is at 12pm.  The hotel appears to be quite relaxed with that.  They did not bate an eye lid when we turned up at reception 20 minutes past checkout time.  There is no business area, so we handed them our large bag, and took the rest with us to the railway station.  There, we discovered that there was an earlier train to Budapest that we had not known about.  Sometimes, not all the train information are available online.  We decided to exchange our train ticket for the earlier train, sacrificing 9 Euros reservation that had been paid and paying an additional 148 LEIs (AUD 45) for a reserved sleeping couchette in First Class (that was not available to book online when we made the reservation online from Australia).  The train leaving Bucharest at 5.45 pm would get to Budapest by 8.30 am.  It felt like a much better choice.  

We found a power point in the McDonald at the train station, so we bought an espresso and sat there connecting to the internet from Brownie next door whose free internet was much better than of CFR (the Romanian train company) which was slow and intermittent.  The things we do to get free Wi-fi.  By then, we had decided against hiking out to the park at the Bucharest University not too far away with our computer and camera stuff.  We will do a rest day in the proper manner.

Time disappears quickly when one is on the internet.  No wonder it is alternate reality for some.  At 4pm, we collected our bags from our hotel and made our way to our train on Track 13.  It was possible to board early at 5pm.  We settled in and found ourselves on the top bunk in a two to share cabin.  Soon our room mate appeared.  She turned out to be the CEO of the World Wildlife Fund at Bucharest.  What serendipity!!!  We had a great time chatting about everything as if we were old friends.  She has an older sister and is married to an ornithologist whom she met when she was a biologist researcher at a Ramsar site shortly out of university.  She is on the way to a conference for the Danube Delta – it is a regional project and they will be doing their annual budget session.  It was great to have found yet another friend with whom we share so much same interest.  It looks like in the future, we would have to come back to the Danube Delta specifically for the birdwatching tour.  We could have kicked ourselves for not planning that in earlier!!

We also found three ladies from New Zealand travelling on the same train when we were on our way to check out the dining car. Wow, the quality of the train has improved compared to that from Sofia to Bucharest.  This train was designated Euro Night. Its speed was a great improvement from the previous train.  It had a dining car, even if the dining car looks no more posh than the canteen that serves the remote mine sites my travelling companion had worked at. Still, how can one complain when one can get snacks, coffee, beers and wines.  Two of these ladies are retired and one is a laser technologist with a private eye clinic – she is Indian lady.  In the exchange that ensued, we came to the conclusion that Asians are rather obviously status conscious.  We can say that being Asians ourselves.  Against a background where one is the only Asian, the trait stood out uncomfortably.  Our discussion topic turned to the "10th year sabbatical" in Australia.  In the dining car, we also found a gentleman with his laptop plugged into the electric socket of the snack store. Obviously a frequent traveler on this train trip?  There is also an electrical plug hidden in the mirror over the wash basin in our cabin.

In spite of being on the upper bunk, it was comfortable with sufficient space for everything .  4 in a cabin would be crowded but we were only 2.  And both of us were relatively easy going.  We photographed till the sunset, then sat in our bunk to write this blog.  Time for bed soon.  The country side with the Carpathian mountains were really pretty especially at sunset.  The local passengers were all very helpful to point out the views.  The only down side was that the windows of our cabin was damaged by water in the double glazing.  We could not open it fully so the camera could not capture it for posterity.  Still, the mind's eyes saw the beautiful scenery.  In its hey days, this part of the world was not unlike Switzerland. The lush green with the castle like buildings.  The buildings there then little jaded. Communism appeared to have permitted their deterioration from lack of upkeep and now funds are required for nation building elsewhere.

The streams through the mountains

Cow in village street

Mountains

Religion is everyday life here

Sunset 

Shepherd with flock at dusk

Dusk over mountains

Almost in Hungary

Flowers in field

An old well still in use

Deers spotted in field

A stork spotted in field

May fly on the window of the dining car at morning coffee

Romania is interesting in that even though it is a republic, it has a royal family that lives in Switzerland.  They have claimed back the lands and properties that were theirs in history but in turn, they made them accessible to public as museums.  The King is rather sick so he has passed his crown to their Crown Princess, Margarita.  The royal family continues to play a role in promoting Romania and in philanthropy.  A nice symbiotic relationship.

Our room mate and my travelling companion discussed the various ways for implementing environmental projects.  Our room mate especially liked the idea of floating solar panels on old reservoirs to potentially part or whole finance the costs of cleaning up a time bomb that used to be a gold mine project that she was working for.  May be my travelling companion should go work for WWF or birdlife.org.