10/8/99

After a good nights sleep we got up early and went down to the swimming pool for a morning dip. We were greeted by a group of aging women doing their morning exercise in the pool – all terribly Russian!

The plan was to find a bike shop to see if we could get the bits I needed and then catch up with the group. The only bike shop we could find was shut and so we bodged the headlight with some plastic and then headed off. It was suggested the AA may help and so I called them. They said they'd see what they could do to either get one in Romania or send one out from the UK. Unfortunately this didn't work out but it wasn't a major problem. It was then just a trudge across to the Romanian border. Once again we crossed without problems and some of us celebrated becoming millionaires. With a truly ridiculous exchange rate you only needed to change forty quid to a get a million Lei.

It was a complete change as soon as we crossed the border. The environment immediately became obviously poverty stricken and the atmosphere was different.

We'd decided to try and stick together in Romania and so bimbled along in 30degrees of heat at about 50mph - already 20mph over the limit. The first town brought the poverty even more strikingly to eye. The town was a complete ruin - people on the streets, clearly with little in the way of housing, many buildings were derelict. All the roads were in an appalling state.

We passed through the town and stopped off for drinks before pressing on, deciding that we'd bend the speed limits even more in the hope of making some progress. The reception everywhere was very friendly with people watching us pass through the towns.

One of the stranger sights on the journey were the presence of prostitutes on the side of the roads in the middle of nowhere, how they got there and how much business they got were not known. All the cars in Romania seem to be knackered and there was a fairly constant stream of broken ones at the roadside. One thing that did surprise me was that the EC are paying for a lot of road building in the country, with the aim of rebuilding their infrastructure.

We arrived at our guest house early evening. It was actually a families home - all set around a central courtyard. The only minor hitch with the place was the toilet, which consisted of a toilet seat over an open pit. It was just a tad smelly. Soon it was time for dinner and we were fed a huge and delicious meal, all washed down with vast amounts of local beer and home brewed plum schnapps. Sergio & Bogdan from the Enduromania group came down to keep us company and Bogdan ended up staying the night and got drunk with the rest of us. Marvin once again came close to deploying the ucl but graciously stepped aside for another, nameless party to step in.