ME :)

The Parking Scam

The parking scam is quite simple. If you drive a car or rent a car and you need to find a place to park your car in the city or in any city/town in Romania chances are you will find someone on the street standing there directing you to a parking spot.

If you happen to accept their spot that they are directing you to then chances are you are going to have to pay this person some money. If you don’t pay them any money then you will find that once you get back to your car, it has been scratched or damaged.

This is a cunning extortion technique and usually conducted by the male population young and old. One thing to do is not to park where these guys direct you to but attempt to find your own parking spot. If you decide to park where they have instructed you to park, pay up or you will pay for those scratches especially if it’s a rental car.

The Mobile Phone Scam

Why you would by a mobile phone in Romania in the first place? Well if you decide to then do be careful where you buy it from and who you buy it from. Here’s how it works. The seller will show you the phone; he will allow you to play with it and so on making you feel comfortable that it’s genuine.

Once you decide to make the purchase, you give the phone back to him and you get the money ready. Meanwhile, he will switch the phone with a fake one. Inside the fake one, it is filled with sand and it will weigh the same as the original. Once the money and phone is exchanged, both parties will go their own ways. The seller will make a profit while the other buyer upon realizing the phone is fake and filled with sand knows he has been scammed.

The Taxi Meter Scam

This was investigated by a show like A Current Affair/Today Tonight and the undercover investigator caught the taxi driver red handed as he confessed on how he ripped off passengers particularly the tourists. I’ve been told that they’re stamped down on this but I’d be quite skeptical.

The taxi driver had a special button near his steering wheel which upon pressed incremented the meter value by a certain amount (most likely 1 Lei). The taxi driver would cunningly do it at certain intervals so that the passenger doesn’t get alarmed by how fast the fare is rising. By the end of the taxi trip, he would gain a nice sum of extra cash through this technique.

smiles

Monday 04-May-2009

Today was my final day in Romania and on the agenda was a visit to the Palace of the Parliament. This building is the world’s largest civilian admistrative building, most expensive admistrative building and heaviest building. Alin managed to book a tour of this building for around midday with the English guides.

The tour was run during business hours so security was important to them hence you need to bring your passport for the tour. You couldn’t bring your camera inside unless you paid a fee to take photos. If you didn’t pay the photo tax then they confiscate your camera and you would collect it at the end of the tour. The same goes for your passport.

The tour was only for 45 minutes as we went from room to room. In the space of 45 minutes we only covered an amazing 1% of the entire building. From my calculations it will take you 4500 minutes to cover 100% of the building which equates to 75 hours! Pack those rucksacks and begin your trek around the Palace of the Parliament ladies and gentlemen.

From the Palace of the Parliament we walked towards the Union Square (Piata Unirii) then inside the plaza to see if Alin’s uncle was around. He wasn’t so we left the plaza and headed to the Cismigiu Gardens for a stroll and grab some lunch at Monte Carlo restaurant. My favorite food on the trip so far is Mititei which is grilled minced-meat rolls made from beef mixed with various other ingredients. We got a plate of those and these Mititei were the largest I seen all trip and boy did it taste good. I’m salivating as I type this out, I want some now!

Parking in Bucharest is another concept altogether that you need to grasp here in Bucharest. It seems you can just about park anywhere you want. Wherever there is space or a concrete slab then just park there even if it’s a pedestrian crossing or a footpath. Just park your car on the footpath and let the pedestrians walk around the car, on to the road and then back on the footpath if there is not another car parked next to it. There’s a traffic island on the street, sure just park on there too!

It’s amazing what some of these drivers can get away with and it doesn’t help either when the Police can be so easily bribed (not that we bribed anyone but have been told). We were waiting at a set of traffic lights to cross a busy intersection. There were cars turning from the opposite side of the street coming down the road we were crossing.

There were also pedestrians on the other side of the road waiting for the green man. All of a sudden there was one car making the turn but instead of going down the road, he decides to drive towards the group of pedestrians waiting at the lights, drives on to the footpath while everyone had to get out of the way and then down the footpath dodging people to find a parking spot. What on earth?!

Chris was kind enough to pick me up from the apartment and take me to the airport. He didn’t want me to take a taxi and get ripped off by the taxi driver. He lives relatively close to the airport so I guess it wasn’t that inconvenient for him. The Bucharest Baneasa airport is very small with 6 check-in desks in total. There is another airport about 10-15 mins from Bucharest Baneasa which is the main international airport. The airport itself is only about 15-20 mins from the city center so as you are driving up the highway towards it, it suddenly appears out of nowhere.

The line for check-in was very long and the locals don’t seem to understand the concept of a queue. They would just roll their suitcases up to the check-in desk ahead of everyone else that has been waiting in line and just do whatever the hell they wanted. So it was ridiculous waiting in the queue for about an hour just to check-in. I did hear rumors flying around that they will close this airport and with the way it’s running at the moment, it is quite possible.

smiles

Sunday 03-May-2009

After recovering from a big night, we headed downstairs for a light breakfast before checking out and heading to Rasnov. In Rasnov we visited the Rasnov Fortress which is located on a hilltop in the Carpathian Mountains 200m above the town. Rasnov Fortress isn’t in great shape since it has been around since the 13th century.

There are some parts of the fortress that is quite dangerous as you may slip or fall down a set of stairs. There’s no such thing as health and safety here so be careful. There are some great views of the town below and also surrounding mountains to be seen from up here so it’s definitely worth a visit.

We headed back into Bran to see if we could visit Dracula’s castle but the city itself was jam packed with people. There was a festival taking place there and the large crowd put us off so we decided just to head back to Bucharest and making a pit stop at Sinaia for lunch.

The traffic back to Sinaia was ridiculous. There is only one highway that goes from Bucharest to this part of Romania so when there’s a long weekend the traffic basically comes to a crawl. This is still about 160km from Bucharest mind you and there were already signs that it was going to be a long drive in.

It didn’t really matter to me because once we crawled our way into Sinaia, we headed to a Taverna Sarbului for lunch and this was by far the best meal I’ve had all trip. It was superb! The menu had so many options and I just wanted to eat everything. Taverna Sarbului is relatively high up in the mountains in a rustic environment, so the location is also great. The only one drawback as with many other restaurants in Romania, you can smoke in it! Apart from that, I highly recommend this place and so do many other local celebrities who frequent this place would agree.

From Sinaia back to Bucharest the traffic did die out so we took advantage of that and sped all the way back. That evening Alin & I went for a walk around Bucharest so that I could see what it was like. Like most Eastern European countries, there were plenty of cars about, car horns going off and there wasn’t the hustle and bustle I’d expect it to be. This is most likely due to the May long weekend in Romania and the tradition is to head down to the Black Sea to drink up and party.

Not to worry, we met some interesting characters during the walk especially the owner of a corner store and his mate, an old guy who hated Americans for backstabbing them during the war. He was quite friendly to us and to me especially. He even want to have a drink with me but due to the language barrier, I had no idea what he was saying and Alin couldn’t translate properly because he was talking to the owner.

I wanted to take a photo with him, but in Romanian he asked Alin what he should do in the photo, he didn’t know how to pose, whether or not to smile or from what I understand from Alin, “should I kiss him” didn’t eventuate. I was only told of this comment after the photo was taken since Alin wanted to see what this old man would really do. Nevertheless this old man really enjoyed our company but we had to leave and make our way back to the apartment.

smiles

Saturday 02-May-2009

Breakfast consisted of tea, bread, salami, boiled eggs and some sort of yellow/brownish cake which I had no idea nor did Alin know the ingredients of. After watching a bit of Romanian TV, Ioana and her partner Chris picked us up in their ute and we began our journey into the Romanian countryside.

My first impression of the Romanian roads was that there are no road rules whatsoever. It seems like if you go in the same direction as the car in front of you and you stop at a red light are the only laws applicable. Other than those two things, there appears to be no other road rules that one must follow. You can drive as fast as you want, but slow down when there’s a speed camera, overtake someone while there is oncoming traffic, wear seat belts only when you see a police officer just to name a few.

Along one of the highways at midday Ioana pointed out some prostitutes on the side of the road. Isn’t it a bit early for them to be parading about during the day? It seems they’re quite liberal about the profession so it doesn’t matter what time of the day it is, they’re happy to advertise their services.

We passed through the town of Comarnic then on to our first destination being Sinaia. Sinaia is a mountain resort which offers hiking and also winter sports. In Sinaia we went to visit Peles Castle, Pelisor Castle and wandered around the garden there.

Lunch was at a restaurant called Vanatoresc which served only game and hunting food. So animals like wild boar, venison, bear and other species were all on the menu. I wasn’t at all comfortable with this kind of food but out of respect to Ioana and Chris who took us there, I sampled everything that was ordered and hid the fact that I feared to eat any of this sort of delicacy. Lucky they had an animal that I could eat without guilt or fear, and that was some grilled pork with polenta balls which tasted very bland. You need to mix the polenta with the sour cream and add a fair amount of salt.

The next port of call was Bran which was about an hour from Sinaia. Bran is famous for Bran Castle which is commonly known as Dracula’s castle. Yes, the castle does sit in the region of Transylvania in Romania. Upon arriving at the castle, we found that it was closed so there wasn’t any chance to visit and explore its compounds. Would we have needed to wear a garlic necklace to deter the vampires? Or would some Romanian Lei (their currency) be just as potent?

I noticed quite a long line of people queuing up outside a small store. I didn’t know what they were queuing for but before I knew it, I was in the same line waiting with them and the whole gang. Everyone was patiently and eagerly waiting for their serving of Kürtös Kalács. On the banner it looked like a kebab stick but they explained to me it was a type of pastry treat powdered in a flavor of choice which is delicious. That’s possibly why everyone was in line, waiting for some Kürtös Kalács goodness.

These things were quite large and for about £2 it is an absolute bargain. It looks like a giant bread roll but it is actually hollow. You have 2 people in the back making the dough, then 2 people cutting the dough and wrapping this dough firmly around this wooden stick. Once the dough is wrapped, it then goes on a flame grill which, takes seconds to brown and cook.

Once golden brown, it goes to another area where it is coated by nuts, cinnamon, chocolate and so on. Once coated, it is placed on a stand ready to be removed from the wooden stick and then slid into in a bag and taken away by the customer. To eat it you simply peel away a portion of the bread/pastry and continue repeating the process until all is gone. It was worth the 40 minute wait in line under the light rain.

After fleeing off with our 3 rolls of Kürtös Kalács, we headed to our hotel and checked in. The hotel is advertised as a pension but to me it is a hotel. The room was massive with a single and king bed, nice bathroom, stunning views of the surrounding countryside and cable TV all for the price of £30 per night per room. An absolute bargain if you ask me. The hotel is located in the middle of nowhere; quite simply there is nothing around it other than another pension across the road.

The bar and restaurant is down stairs and the closest town is at least 15-20km away. You will see cars driving past all the time but now and then you will see the horse and carriage, even in the middle of the night when its pitch black. I don’t know about you but horses do not have headlights! These roads do not have any lights so you will need to rely on car lights to see anything.

We all took about a 1.5 hr nap before heading into Brasov for dinner. You will recognize Brasov and Rasnov with their Hollywood-like sign of their own town up in the mountain. Brasov has a good feel to it, fresh air, no where near as busy at Bucharest and has some amazing food. We dined at this tavern towards the end of the main strip which served a meat platter dish to die for. None of the meat on the platter was foreign to me, so I was happily tucking away at it until I could eat no more.

The night ended with cocktails at Café Mado where the shots of alcohol were not proportional the non-alcoholic substance. So a tequila sunrise would be in a glass with the tequila making the glass half full and the rest would be the other ingredients. After the tequila sunrise we had the vodka cocktail and after that we were all spent and called it quits. Luckily Ioana was the designated driver and drove the three intoxicated guys back to the warm hotel. Chris couldn’t help himself buying more beers at the petrol station where we the three guys happily continued to drink en route to hotel.

smiles

Friday 01-May-2009

I didn’t know what to expect in Romania nor had I planned anything on this trip. Thanks to Ioana who does live there, she was going to plan everything for Alin & myself. I’ve heard countless scams that go on in Romania and also have read and seen the infamous gypsy community in various parts of Europe. Now that I was in the heartland of gypsies what was I really in for?

At Luton airport I took enough money out for the 3-4 days I was going to be there. It was just a mere £100 and I wasn’t planning on taking any more money in Romania at all. The flight to Bucharest takes just under 3 hours and we were going to arrive in Bucharest at about 2am. Bucharest is 2 hours ahead of London hence the stupid hour of arrival, sometimes you wish everyone was on the same time zone.

Alin was sleeping on the plane and snoring quite loudly. He had his chair inclined so in that position, it could be possible for one to snore. However if I was sitting up right and sleeping, I wondered if it was possible to snore? Do let me know if I sit next to you on a plane and I fall asleep and snore.

Apart from the long, strange stare from the passport control officer which felt like my passport is fake written all over it, we gout out of the airport relatively unscathed. Ioana was waiting for us outside the airport at 2am and whisked us away to Alin’s grandma’s place in the heart of Bucharest or rather the ‘Mayfair’ of Bucharest. However I still had no idea where I was and I didn’t have any maps of Bucharest.

smiles