day 13, thursday 12^th august 99

We are to leave by around 10 on what should be a fairly short trip today. We want to get in some tourist' stuff and Sergio has recommended one or two places to go. There's another huge breakfast, on which we again make little impression, and then we settle the bill. It comes to 160DM each (around £55), which is very good for what we've had. I hope they made a good profit out of us.

We head off, aiming for a village called Densus. On the way we have to stop twice at level crossings for trains, the first time I've seen a train on any of the tracks we've crossed in Romania - and we've crossed a lot of railway tracks, very few of which have had barriers.

We park up in the centre of the tiny village of Densus. It was obviously once very prosperous - a central spot where four or five big farms concentrated their farm buildings. The large houses the farm owners once had are now dilapidated. There are holes in their roofs, walls at crazy angles and clear signs of collapsing foundations. Time has most firmly marched on for this place.

We came here to see the church, the oldest in Romania and one of the oldest, if not the oldest, in the world. It's a short walk from the village. Not everyone chooses to go. Iain and marvin stay behind as they're not into history. Jeff also stays behind - as he's been claiming to be a religious icon all of his own all through the trip, and regularly answers if we call "Ghandi!"; if he needs to talk to god, he just gets him on the telephone, I guess. Admittedly, for the rest of us, the interest is historical, rather than religious.

As we approach the church, some chaps are removing an ugly concrete wall and carefully replacing it with a rather groovy stone wall. This turns out to be the first sign of a slow restoration that the church is undergoing. The church is surrounded with a very heavy wooden scaffold. Close inspection reveals that this is very substantial and one of the workmen indicates that we can climb it if we want. We walk round the side of the church, intending to just walk round the outside, but are stopped in our tracks when we see that there are a series of archaeological trenches round the church. At the bottom of these are dozens of exposed skeletons. Very sobering and I wonder who there were, and what their lives were like. The archaeologists don't want us to take photographs.

A lady turns up and lets us into the body of the church. It is quite astonishing, small and close, with a low building. Four pillars hold up the roof and they are inscribed in Latin. These inscriptions mention the Emperor Valen and a general called Maximus, who they think was buried here. The church is still used by the Orthodox Church based in Istanbul, so the altar is partially obscured by an ornate screen. The lady tells us the altar, like the pillars, is 2nd Century. I briefly touch one of the carvings and can feel history running under my fingertips. The outer walls are 12th Century, with a 14th Century fresco on the walls over and around the nave.

Outside the church again, we look at the outlying buildings, which are 12th Century, but in much poorer condition than the earlier work within. We climb the scaffolding and are amazed by the ornate roof and generally high construction standards of the building work. At the top, Jeremy sneaks a couple of pictures of the open trenches. This sort of archaeological work has been outdated for maybe 30 years - just digging to see what's there.

As we leave the village, we realise just how rural this area is. We see lots of horses and carts and many people working in the fields, just as British farms once were, perhaps as far back as before the Great War.

On the roads towards Arad there are Police in many of the villages. It's obviously a day designated for watching motorist's speed. At first, I don't see how they can be effective, but then I see some lorries get pulled over and (in one village) a car driver gets arrested.

We have lunch at a roadside cafe - although Jeremy, Jim, Andy and I just have a semi-liquid ice-cream and lemonade. There are two fairly hard-faced looking prostitutes wandering about the lorry park. When a truck pulls over, they scramble to get there first. Amazingly, the truck takes them both.

We arrive at the guest-house in the village of Minis at around 6 p.m. The thoughtful owner has a beer waiting for each of us. This place is an old Romanian farmhouse (the owner tells us its 15th Century) in which, for a change, each of us has our own bed, with the notable exception of Andy, who gets a mattress on the floor. We sit around and chat for a while, waiting for the evening meal to be served. Our host wanders off to put on some music. John Lee Hooker wafts out of the window!

With the meal comes some (well lots, actually) red wine. Our host has a vineyard and this is his own wine - and it's delicious. We begin to knock this back at an alarming rate, Jeremy in particular. Our host plays some way cool jazz all evening on his big Coke can shaped stereo. It looks slightly incongruous as there's a hammer and sickle over the door. Jim doesn't finish his main course, so the owner makes him drink a glass full of something wicked looking "down in one". Jim manages, but about a minute later starts to look a bit more slumped and glassy-eyed. Later, he notices one of the farm's little cats wander in and do a hwuge shit in the corner of the room that looks alarmingly like the sausages we're all eating. Before he can tell us about this, one of the dogs runs in and eats the turd.

We take beer, wine and home made cognac onto the terrace for more drinking, laughing and general silliness. As everyone's curious to see how much they've been mentioned in this journal (the vain buggers), I end up reading virtually the whole thing out loud. Fortunately, it gets a good reception, although everyone's eager to add their own incidents and special moments. At first, I make lots of notes, but as I get drunker I give up and just pretend. By now, Jim is thoroughly pissed and finds it difficult to sit up.

Crispin decides to telephone his new girlfriend. As he hasn't got a phone, he borrows marvin's. Big mistake. To his extreme annoyance, the moment he gets off the phone, marvin redials and has a 30+ minute chat with her. As they've not been seeing each other long, Crispin obviously doesn't want her to know he associates with such types as us - and we can hardly blame him. It is terribly funny, though!

Mileage: 190