Last week, I’d been threatening to finally get out on the road after what’s turned out to be a fairly busy summer. I had heard about Hora La Prislop which is a big gathering of muzica populare and traditional dancing in the mountains outside of Sighet in Maramureş. It provided the perfect chance to meet a friend in Alba Iulia.

Just before heading out the door, I learned to my surprise that the festival had already taken place on the weekend previous which left me in a lurch.

After more research into other festivals in Romania, I learned of two promoted events going on southwest of Braşov: one in Calimaneşti, a small town just outside of Ramnicu Valcea, and a second in Tismana, a village somewhat near Targu Jiu.

It was literally the eleventh hour as I hem-hawed over my choices and, ultimately, decided to postpone meeting my friend with almost no advanced notice to her. No doubt a revenge will be exacted.

The next morning I was up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Early bird, worm, et cetera. Lemonmouse was coming along with me which meant we were coordinating for arrival to the autogara (intercity bus station).

We first hopped aboard autobuzul cinci to hustle on over near the centru where we needed to transfer to local bus number four. Here we waited several minutes, nervously watching the clock, until we realized we’d better just grab a taxi for the last half of the journey or our scheduled bus to Ramnicu Valcea would leave the autogara without us.

I quickly identified which taxi driver looked like the nastiest SOB and we climbed inside, frantically communicating our need to make it to the bus station pronto. Turns out, I made a great choice. This guy made Dale Earnhardt look like a slug. I mean, we were flying past people like Jesse Owens! It was truly an adrenaline rush.

Tripping over ourselves to get out of the cab, we buzzed over to the collection of greyhound-size buses and shuttle vans only to reluctantly discover that the bus had already left as feared. It took us two or three minutes to double check by walking around re-asking all the drivers, in case the signage was wrong, and generally feel sorry for ourselves because no other bus would be departing for another ten hours.

There was no need to give up hope, however. Afterall, the main autogara is attached to the Braşov train station. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. The first conversation was over pretty quickly as the CFR ticketbooth lady simply denied that there was any train from Braşov to Ramnicu Valcea.

Knowing this to be wrong, we approached another window and talked with that lady. She informed us that while there might be a train on some other day, today would be an exception as there had been some kind of problems or accident (details were sketchy) around Bucureşti which prevented that train from arriving Braşov (and, thus, continuing on to Ramnicu Valcea).

Rats. What now? Cancel? Go home?

No, dear reader. You can have faith in your Romerican. He’ll tread along that fine borderline between quietus and necrosis. Just keep your popcorn buttered and your seat well-cushioned as all will be revealed in due time, my friends.

There was always the untried option. That method of the brave and broke. The activity which is illegal in America. Hitchhiking. But, across Romania? Surely, the only people who’ve done that are weirdos and hippies, right? Not at all.

Hitchhiking in Romania has a long tradition that goes back to the Ceauşescu times when a goodly number of people did not own automobiles. Those privilaged enough to have a maşina realized they could quietly earn a second income by taking on paying passengers on longer trips, even if it was illegal to make money the state didn’t pay you. The whole affair was kept pretty much on the down low.

Unlike the United States where picking up hitchhikers seems like a certain invitation to theft, rape and/or death, the government in Romania does not broadcast anti-ride sharing propoganda. Hence, a whole lot of regular folks think of it as an opportunity to meet a stranger and avoid the boredom of the open road.

Many of those enjoy the chance to pick up a couple bucks as the local custom seems to suggest you should offer minimal compensation for the ride. Not everyone is strict about it. Most even claim it’s not important, but they still seem eager to take it when you offer.

Hitchhiking travelers can pretty much count on the rich passing you by in their shiny BMW and Mercedes cars, maybe sneering at you in the process. There is an exception to this generalism if you are a single female or perhaps two females. I’ll let you judge for yourself what the motives of the luxury car driver might be.

What you can expect is a broad spectrum of humanity driving large semi-trucks, small trucks, vans, station wagons, and sedans from the last few decades who still embrace the whole sense of road comraderie and sympathize with your needs, willing to pull over and let you inside for a conversation to while away the kilometers of their own trip.

It is probably my past experience as a boy scout that gives me flashes of: Be Prepared. I recommend you do the same as well. What this translates into, boys and girls, is that one should stop by a magazin in order to procure o sticla de doi litre de apa (plata, va rog) and maybe a couple pieces of fruit. You might get hungry while waiting for a ride. Maybe even thirsty under the hot summer sun.

Now provisioned, we needed to make our way to whichever part of town held the highway going in the direction of Ramnicu Valcea. Clearly, one wants to place themselves strategically: at the very edge of town where all the cars who pass you are exactly taking the highway you want to travel down.

It took us a bit of tromping around to mosey our way to the correct area. Along the way I saw what, in romangleza, was the ultimate in ironic advertising.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen! The New Winchester 100s are not only named after a deadly weapon because we know what our product can do to you, but we also include, free of charge, an extra lung to replace the one you lost from cancer.

Upon arriving on the dusty edge where town meets nowhere, we noticed some friendly competition for rides. I saw a guy who reminded me of my friend Andrei, in appearance, so I felt like making a joke in passing. He was holding up a sign upon which the letters “SB” were marked in bold green magic marker. We snickeringly asked him if he’d let us borrow his sign if he got a ride before us.

Not only did he find it funny as well, but, lo and behold, he had a second identical sign inside his bag to give to us. Am noroc, nu? Pretty cool of him to share with us. We kept on walking a decent distance from him, allowing him first shot at passing motorists before cozying up to a light pole.

Note to travellers: use a sign! SB is the romaneşte shorthand for Sibiu. If you can communicate quickly to drivers where you are headed, and in their own ’slang,’ then you are far more likely to get picked up.

Here’s another tip: don’t do like the locals do. The gesture for getting a lift in romania is to wave one or two hands in the manner you might motion to a dog to lie down. Basically, the natives are flagging the car down with slow/stop symbolism. No, no, no.

The roadside can be a competitive place. Distance yourself from others. Hold a sign. And stick out your thumb, in the good ol’ American tradition. That differentiates you as a “westerner” and many drivers will be far more interested to find out if you speak English or German and, thus, give them a chance to practice their language skills or compare cultures.

We stood by the roadside, thumbs extended and sign placed at the height of drivers’ eyes, for approximately half an hour. At one point, our friend down the way who had given us his extra sign looked back at us and threw up his hands in disgust. WTF? I returned the gesture. Aşa e, nu?

His luck wasn’t as good as ours. I’ve been a bit too busy to shave lately and so I’ve started something of a full beard, which is rather reddish in color. Like a fly-fishing lure, it seems to attract some attention in a country where beards are extremely rare and red-hair even moreso.

Granted, I was also wearing a pair of camouflage shorts which helped distinguish me as a probable-American. Hikers’ backback in view and thumb firmly projected, it’s hard to mistake things. And, so, we landed ourselves a ride.

A very long and large semi-truck swerved dangerously close to us and the aching squeal of it’s brakes sung out under the burden of the sudden rebellion against Newton’s First Law. Yanking our heads around to confirm the stoppage, it was time to quickly hoist on the bags and rush over to the waiting cab.

We climbed inside. I sat on the floor in the center and Lemonmouse took the passenger seat. A quick exchange of salut and mulţumim, then we were off. The inside was immaculately clean and smelled quite new. Illustrations of the Christian faith were carefully placed in strategic areas. Jesus, Mary and their duplicates started down at me as Mercedes-Benz semi exerted its considerable power to get going quickly.

It turns out the guy was from Moldova on one of his many long journeys between Bulgaria and Czech. Or was it Turkey and Hungary? I forget exactly, but the driver regularly straddles nations like borders don’t even exist. We explained that our Sibiu sign was a little misleading as we only wanted to go most of the way, but needed to be dropped off at an interchange so we could get to Ramnicu Valcea on a different highway.

Conversations ran the gamut. We discussed the viability of visiting Transnistria, but apparently it isn’t advised in light of the Russian gun-running mafia. Together we tried to find Moldova’s place in the world as it seems trapped by Russia’s desire to have a buffer zone against EU political interests, although most inhabitants would much rather join Europe.

In fact, he had been a part of the Moldova army at the time of the Transnistria insurrection. Moldova was recently independent of the Soviet Union, when a small enclave of almost-entirely ethnic Russians suddenly announced the independence of Tiraspol and other areas along the Nistria River.

Moldova mobilized their troops to put down the insurgence and, presumably, should have been able to retake control of their territory. However, a combination of well-armed ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians living in the region received a huge boost of support from the 14th Russian army, which successfully rebuffed the Moldovans.

The folks in Transnistria set up an unofficial government which remains steadfastly communist and in defiance of accepted world recognition of the Moldovan state. Animosity is high. But as long as the Russian government supports the gun-running, drug smuggling, human trafficking mafia ensconced there without sufficient interference from the West (who sees little incentive), then the government of Moldova is forced to tolerate the situation.

What about a future reunification with Romania, since Moldovans are, afterall, actually ethnic Romanians who were separated after World War II? Not gonna happen. It seems that the populace has been too russified and not just in a few borrowed words. For simple examples, they don’t see government quite the same way, they drink vodka instead palinca, and they’ve don’t know what branza barduf is.

Of course, no Texan is allowed to engage in a conversation without a talk about George Bush, the war in Iraq, American money, and references to Dallas. Our host was a well-rounded, studious type. He carefully contemplated the dialogue exchange and did not exhibit the Romanian habit of constantly talking over the top of you.

We lamented over the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In painstaking detail, we exchanged knowledge about the historical American mentality of “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!” vis-a-vis the predominant feeling in (Eastern) Europe of “whatever, I just need bread.”

Frankly, the time whizzed by pretty quickly as we solved the world’s problems. Swell fellow. Once it was time to go, we offered 20 RON (compared to the price of a ticket to Sibiu of roughly 50 RON) and I shook his hand. Just before exiting, I decided to ask if I could take his photo for my blog and he agreed.

And so it went. Time to cross the busy intersection and reposition ourselves for the next leg of our journey…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 at 12:37 am and is filed under Living, Travel Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.