Off road: La Brasov.
Caution: This is my personal travel experience. Persons who look for either technical, literary or medical writings, the red button with cross symbol at the top right corner is my suggestion. And the religious views on this work is my own personal view on religion and god. Any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, please pardon me.
Off road: La Brasov
I wouldn't be writing this, if I had not had the company of Muthusaravanan to go there, Brasov, a town in Romania., with some beautiful Saxon villages on its outskirts, bordered by the Carpathian and Bucegi mountains. The beauty of villages and mountains, no more reasons we need to visit the place. Legends about The Dracula and the region Transylvania are like cherries on top of the cake. Nothing could possibly be more interesting. I had this plan of going to Brasov since oct 2011, that is, soon after I landed in Romania. But I failed every time I planned. This time I was pretty much determined and I thought I would be going with a group this time, if not, drop the plan forever. Like always, this time too, many weren't able to join me. They all had their own explanations. I was about to bury my desires of going to Brasov in a nice, Saxon designed, Romanian made coffin this time, but for one call to Muthu, he said "Yes we can go". We actually planned for just one day and later we changed it to a two days visit. And friends, this is just gonna be my travel experience, like what we saw, talked, what we felt when we visited certain sites. This is no literary work. So don't be expecting high level language and vocabularies. Trust me I am very bad in English. This is my first one in English, so, if this turns out be good and if I am satisfied as well, I may continue writing.
Thinking of where I should start from, the trip was decided just 10 hrs prior to the starting time. In fact it all happened like this. I called Muthu at 10 pm or so, Thursday, 1.11.12 (our actual plan to Brasov was to go on Saturday 3.11.12 morning and come back the same night) and told him that no one else is coming and asked him even if its gonna be just the two of us, should we be carrying on. He said "why not". And added, "if only two of us, why not tomorrow (Friday, 2.11.12) itself?". I said I needed time and eventually, I, later, at (11 pm approx) confirmed. After all I was not ready to miss the chance to visit Brasov, the exotic beauty of Romania, as people say. And this tour or picnic or trip or whatever, reminds me of my college days trip to Ooty with Siddharth Raveendran, Sivakumar Reddy, Jai Ram and Selvakumaran, where we decided at 1 am about the trip and started right away at 2AM.. we drove all the way, Siddharth's car and reached Ooty by 7 PM next day. It was a good memorable trip. Hope they all remember the trip. Back to Romania., we decided to take the railroad to enjoy all the sceneries and luckily we had three options. The first train at 6 something AM, the second at 7 something AM and third one at 8.25AM. We opted the third one so that we can get adequate sleep. We decided to be at the train station at 7.45AM to get the tickets.
Saturday 7.45AM GARA DE NORD Railway station: We met at the metro rail subway and we walked towards the tickets issuing office "CASA DE BILETE". Muthu was like "You buy the ticket as u speak better Romanian, more over You have the student card, so we might get a concession." I was in the counter now trying to speak Romanian to that lady officer "Buna Ziua. Vreu sa plecam la Brasov" and she gave me a 5 seconds stare (I swear I dint know what she was thinking) and then started speaking the typical Romanian accent English "Buna ziua. You wanted to go Brasov?" Now I understood the reason for that stare, my Romanian was too bad that she started speaking in her broken English. Muthu should have been very happy that she was speaking reasonable English. But for me, I thought come on lady I have spent almost 6 months of my precious time to speak this language and You cannot insult me like this in front of my friend. She turned the monitor that was on her desk towards us, it showed the list of trains to Brasov and the timings, and asked us which one we would want to travel on. We selected 8.25 AM. Now she told "I am errnn... I am worried that train is late for 15 minutes. You want to take the bilets still?" We thought its good that the train is delayed by 15 minutes for we can have our breakfast. "yes" we replied. We booked the return tickets also. "170 RON" she said bearing a grin. I thought I can give her my student ID so that we could get some concession. She rejected my ID card too saying that its past the expiry date. Insult No.2. We paid the full money and were in a restaurant a couple of minutes after, having our breakfast. We came out of the restaurant at 8.10 and saw the departures board which showed our train was delayed by 50 minutes. Did she, the lady officer, mean fifteen minutes or fifty minutes? "To hell with her broken, Romanian English", we thought. But told ourselves it was our mistake too, to not to verify the delay period one more time before booking the tickets. So were we waiting for the delay time to decrease on the board. In a way I was comfortable with the delay, so that I could use one or two fags before we set off to leave. But the delay timer was not not only coming down but was exponentially going up from 50-75-100.. every 10-15 minutes interval. This time being frustrated, we din't hesitate to go to the officer and ask if we can change to some other train.
We were at her cabin,explaining the situation. She reached for the phone and talked with someone for 2 minutes. We were told our train is gonna be delayed further more but she arranged an alternate for us and said "There is a train going to Timisoara via Brosov. If you want you can get in but the train leaves at 9.45 AM sharp from 6th lane. It was 9.43 already. We ran, as in India we do, dint mind anyone on the way. We saw the controller on the platform, got our tickets verified and he said "haideti, repede, repede", (come on, fast, fast) we ran towards the first door.. it was closed. We dint know we had to press a switch to open the door.. so stupid of us. Ran towards the second one, the guy at the door pressed the switch for us, the door opened and we got in thanking him "multumesc multi". The train was set to a slow start. We din't even know if we got in to the correct v(w)agon or correct cabin, all we wanted to do is get in the train and go to Brasov as soon as possible. We wondered if we can go and sit somewhere, we were a bit tired by then. Since this is not the train that we booked our tickets in we decided to stand and travel for the whole 2.40 hours. And only in the train we witnessed, for the first time, a passenger bribing the controller for not having tickets. I told Muthu "If only we had known this earlier, we would not have spent that much money on the tickets and still standing inside the train". I had drawn myself a picture of the train and the cabin, the previous night. Yes, I was dreaming with my eyes open thinking that I would be given a decent chair or a couch to rest while on board. My imagination of an European train was shattered. Trust me guys its no way better than Indian AC coaches, except for the automated doors and toilets and they take too much money for it. Muthu was taking pictures right from the starting point and that made our journey a lively one. He kept his camera ticking. By the time we reached Brasov, he had let the numbers cross beyond 490..
Yes we reached at 12.20. We were discussing about how to look for an accommodation as we walked down the platform. We haven't even reached the station exit, there came a guy, Romanian, in his late 30s, introducing himself as Mr.Florin, a tour agent. He was standing at the entrance to get new clients, you all know this happens in a tourist spot. So he luckily got us and we too were fortunate to have him. He told us that he has his own apartment converted into a hostel like setup and if we want we can stay there and the price would be 100 RON. We thought there is nothing wrong to have a look at the place. He also told he has some other clients in there, in the other room, all from poland and they would be leaving shortly. And he had no more clients for the day so the entire place (a hall with sofas, computer with internet, a kitchen-fully furnished, and the bath, and a double bedroom with tv) will be ours for just 100 RON. It was not a bad deal we thought and agreed. Our accomodation was solved and now we were thinking about how to go to places around. We knew nothing about Brasov. We were totally alien. Now again he, Florin came with an offer. He said "If u want I can take you to the two important places, Bran (Dracula castle) and a fortress, here which is like 35kms from here and you pay me 100 RON for this again. We immediately accepted as we knew these two are "must see" places in Brasov and even if we had taken a taxi, 35 kms and 3 hours waiting charge, would have cost us more than that, moreover we had no idea about the bus routes. It was a rainy day too. So that was a better option for us. He assured us that when we are back to the apartment, the polish girls would be gone and the mess created by them would be cleaned up. So we din't wait. Got into his Renault MUV and moved onto gears.
The place in the above photo is called the Old street or Old city. When we reached there, Florin started explaining everything like a tour guide to us. He slowly switched over from guiding to discussing. He started with ancient Romanian History, talked about communism, 1989 Revolution, Caucescu, America and so on. It was something like half an hour non-stop History and civics class on a car in a foreign land by a foreign teacher for me. Muthu was happily taking a nap in the rear. I was just wondering how can a tour agent know all these world history, politics, etc. I asked him "what do u do Florin?". He said I was a history teacher, I finished Law School, was a football player, now I coach a football club in Brasov and I do tour management too. I was like "WTH". From then on I called him only Mr.Florin. But I had a doubt that might be trying to fool us around. When he stopped talking we were in the Bran castle. I couldn't wait to get in and see what is inside. We were waiting at the ticket kiosk and the lady said 30 RON per head. I gave her my student again and got insulted again. Mr.Florin came in and talked with the lady and got us the two tickets just for 20 RON. All we did in the Bran castle was take some pictures and we learnt from Mr.Florin that the original dracula castle is something else and is far away from Brasov. Nothing revealed about Dracula. All they have inside is the regular castle stuffs, Queen's bedrrom, dress, ornaments and jewels, some war equipments. And of course some photos and inscriptions. we were disappointed.
The next thing we moved to is the Rasnov Fortress. Built by the Saxons. This one was also good but not something to be wondered at. Its a very old half ruined fortress. It looks majestic from outside but what's inside was disappointing.
We went out after this had our dinner. Roamed around the city centre. Found some land marks for the next day. Went to the apartment. As he assured, the apartment was cleaned, was smelling good. most important thing, our things were all safe. Mr.Florin's image went up with me. Well this is all for the first day.
The next day 9 AM we went outside with a plan to visit the Black church first. Well ahead of opening time we were there. we took some pictures and then when it was open we had to buy the tickets. This time around I din't want to try giving my ID and get insulted. So I payed the whole amount. I was wondering why the name "Biserica Neagra" "the Black Church". seriously I dint have any idea till I came out of the church with a brochure. That place, in the name of god, is now used to increase the state's revenue. I remember telling Muthu "This is my first time ever inside a church". But now I reckon visiting St.Francis church in Goa once, when I was a kid. I apologize, Muthu. This is my second time ever inside a church. The church wasnt very appealing from outside. But I must admit, I was astonished with the way they have designed the interiors, decorations, it was awesome. But not allowing us to take photographs disappointed us. It was way beyond impressive. The name "Black church" was given because the entire church was on fire sometime back in the history (dont remember the year) and walls were all black. so this name. They renovated and now it functions as a museum. I had a thought after reading this from the brochure that i shared with Muthu, "God cant even save himself and his place after all from a fire, and still people believe in him that he'll save each and everyone from all the problems".
After this we went to the cultural museum, nothing really interesting was there.They had all mud pots which they call historic, and they had historical trading bills, like receipts for Transylvania trading spices with India, silk with China, etc..They had the historic tax documents which was also interesting. The guide in there was interesting, she was very well obsessed with India such that instead of guiding us she was asking questions about India all the time. When I asked her for a picture, she said okay and then said "Dont show this to your girlfriend, she'll be jealous." Me: "I am still single. So don;t worry. What about u? Married or Boyfriends?" she said "No. Single". I told her "I may ask u for a dinner date soon." She was saying "Why not. I am ready to go with u." And to Muthu I was telling " why didn't we come here yesterday itself. today we are gonna leave the place."
We had been to the White Tower and Black Tower and the first Romanian School. And strada Sforii. They claim it be the world's second narrowest street. All that was Okay kind of a thing. Not so exciting!
We had funny moments too. It was too cold outside and rainnig too. I got my rhinitis again. I was keeping on wiping my noseand Muthu with the camera was picturising me every time i did that.
And the most important thing I misplaced my sun glasses in Mr.Florin's car and when I called him, he said its with him and he would be giving it to me when I leave and he did. Now he commanded respect from me. And we were checking our camera memory cards, after boarding the train, the number has crossed 2500. Transferred every single photo to my hard disk and I am back home with good memories.
I started writing this 12 past midnight (04-11-12) and dozed off at 4.15 AM. But thanks to my roommates who woke me up again at 4.30 and made me stay till 6 in the morning after which I lost interest in sleeping and from then i enjoyed continued writing till now.
Off road: La Brasov
I wouldn't be writing this, if I had not had the company of Muthusaravanan to go there, Brasov, a town in Romania., with some beautiful Saxon villages on its outskirts, bordered by the Carpathian and Bucegi mountains. The beauty of villages and mountains, no more reasons we need to visit the place. Legends about The Dracula and the region Transylvania are like cherries on top of the cake. Nothing could possibly be more interesting. I had this plan of going to Brasov since oct 2011, that is, soon after I landed in Romania. But I failed every time I planned. This time I was pretty much determined and I thought I would be going with a group this time, if not, drop the plan forever. Like always, this time too, many weren't able to join me. They all had their own explanations. I was about to bury my desires of going to Brasov in a nice, Saxon designed, Romanian made coffin this time, but for one call to Muthu, he said "Yes we can go". We actually planned for just one day and later we changed it to a two days visit. And friends, this is just gonna be my travel experience, like what we saw, talked, what we felt when we visited certain sites. This is no literary work. So don't be expecting high level language and vocabularies. Trust me I am very bad in English. This is my first one in English, so, if this turns out be good and if I am satisfied as well, I may continue writing.
Thinking of where I should start from, the trip was decided just 10 hrs prior to the starting time. In fact it all happened like this. I called Muthu at 10 pm or so, Thursday, 1.11.12 (our actual plan to Brasov was to go on Saturday 3.11.12 morning and come back the same night) and told him that no one else is coming and asked him even if its gonna be just the two of us, should we be carrying on. He said "why not". And added, "if only two of us, why not tomorrow (Friday, 2.11.12) itself?". I said I needed time and eventually, I, later, at (11 pm approx) confirmed. After all I was not ready to miss the chance to visit Brasov, the exotic beauty of Romania, as people say. And this tour or picnic or trip or whatever, reminds me of my college days trip to Ooty with Siddharth Raveendran, Sivakumar Reddy, Jai Ram and Selvakumaran, where we decided at 1 am about the trip and started right away at 2AM.. we drove all the way, Siddharth's car and reached Ooty by 7 PM next day. It was a good memorable trip. Hope they all remember the trip. Back to Romania., we decided to take the railroad to enjoy all the sceneries and luckily we had three options. The first train at 6 something AM, the second at 7 something AM and third one at 8.25AM. We opted the third one so that we can get adequate sleep. We decided to be at the train station at 7.45AM to get the tickets.
Saturday 7.45AM GARA DE NORD Railway station: We met at the metro rail subway and we walked towards the tickets issuing office "CASA DE BILETE". Muthu was like "You buy the ticket as u speak better Romanian, more over You have the student card, so we might get a concession." I was in the counter now trying to speak Romanian to that lady officer "Buna Ziua. Vreu sa plecam la Brasov" and she gave me a 5 seconds stare (I swear I dint know what she was thinking) and then started speaking the typical Romanian accent English "Buna ziua. You wanted to go Brasov?" Now I understood the reason for that stare, my Romanian was too bad that she started speaking in her broken English. Muthu should have been very happy that she was speaking reasonable English. But for me, I thought come on lady I have spent almost 6 months of my precious time to speak this language and You cannot insult me like this in front of my friend. She turned the monitor that was on her desk towards us, it showed the list of trains to Brasov and the timings, and asked us which one we would want to travel on. We selected 8.25 AM. Now she told "I am errnn... I am worried that train is late for 15 minutes. You want to take the bilets still?" We thought its good that the train is delayed by 15 minutes for we can have our breakfast. "yes" we replied. We booked the return tickets also. "170 RON" she said bearing a grin. I thought I can give her my student ID so that we could get some concession. She rejected my ID card too saying that its past the expiry date. Insult No.2. We paid the full money and were in a restaurant a couple of minutes after, having our breakfast. We came out of the restaurant at 8.10 and saw the departures board which showed our train was delayed by 50 minutes. Did she, the lady officer, mean fifteen minutes or fifty minutes? "To hell with her broken, Romanian English", we thought. But told ourselves it was our mistake too, to not to verify the delay period one more time before booking the tickets. So were we waiting for the delay time to decrease on the board. In a way I was comfortable with the delay, so that I could use one or two fags before we set off to leave. But the delay timer was not not only coming down but was exponentially going up from 50-75-100.. every 10-15 minutes interval. This time being frustrated, we din't hesitate to go to the officer and ask if we can change to some other train.
We were at her cabin,explaining the situation. She reached for the phone and talked with someone for 2 minutes. We were told our train is gonna be delayed further more but she arranged an alternate for us and said "There is a train going to Timisoara via Brosov. If you want you can get in but the train leaves at 9.45 AM sharp from 6th lane. It was 9.43 already. We ran, as in India we do, dint mind anyone on the way. We saw the controller on the platform, got our tickets verified and he said "haideti, repede, repede", (come on, fast, fast) we ran towards the first door.. it was closed. We dint know we had to press a switch to open the door.. so stupid of us. Ran towards the second one, the guy at the door pressed the switch for us, the door opened and we got in thanking him "multumesc multi". The train was set to a slow start. We din't even know if we got in to the correct v(w)agon or correct cabin, all we wanted to do is get in the train and go to Brasov as soon as possible. We wondered if we can go and sit somewhere, we were a bit tired by then. Since this is not the train that we booked our tickets in we decided to stand and travel for the whole 2.40 hours. And only in the train we witnessed, for the first time, a passenger bribing the controller for not having tickets. I told Muthu "If only we had known this earlier, we would not have spent that much money on the tickets and still standing inside the train". I had drawn myself a picture of the train and the cabin, the previous night. Yes, I was dreaming with my eyes open thinking that I would be given a decent chair or a couch to rest while on board. My imagination of an European train was shattered. Trust me guys its no way better than Indian AC coaches, except for the automated doors and toilets and they take too much money for it. Muthu was taking pictures right from the starting point and that made our journey a lively one. He kept his camera ticking. By the time we reached Brasov, he had let the numbers cross beyond 490..
Yes we reached at 12.20. We were discussing about how to look for an accommodation as we walked down the platform. We haven't even reached the station exit, there came a guy, Romanian, in his late 30s, introducing himself as Mr.Florin, a tour agent. He was standing at the entrance to get new clients, you all know this happens in a tourist spot. So he luckily got us and we too were fortunate to have him. He told us that he has his own apartment converted into a hostel like setup and if we want we can stay there and the price would be 100 RON. We thought there is nothing wrong to have a look at the place. He also told he has some other clients in there, in the other room, all from poland and they would be leaving shortly. And he had no more clients for the day so the entire place (a hall with sofas, computer with internet, a kitchen-fully furnished, and the bath, and a double bedroom with tv) will be ours for just 100 RON. It was not a bad deal we thought and agreed. Our accomodation was solved and now we were thinking about how to go to places around. We knew nothing about Brasov. We were totally alien. Now again he, Florin came with an offer. He said "If u want I can take you to the two important places, Bran (Dracula castle) and a fortress, here which is like 35kms from here and you pay me 100 RON for this again. We immediately accepted as we knew these two are "must see" places in Brasov and even if we had taken a taxi, 35 kms and 3 hours waiting charge, would have cost us more than that, moreover we had no idea about the bus routes. It was a rainy day too. So that was a better option for us. He assured us that when we are back to the apartment, the polish girls would be gone and the mess created by them would be cleaned up. So we din't wait. Got into his Renault MUV and moved onto gears.
The place in the above photo is called the Old street or Old city. When we reached there, Florin started explaining everything like a tour guide to us. He slowly switched over from guiding to discussing. He started with ancient Romanian History, talked about communism, 1989 Revolution, Caucescu, America and so on. It was something like half an hour non-stop History and civics class on a car in a foreign land by a foreign teacher for me. Muthu was happily taking a nap in the rear. I was just wondering how can a tour agent know all these world history, politics, etc. I asked him "what do u do Florin?". He said I was a history teacher, I finished Law School, was a football player, now I coach a football club in Brasov and I do tour management too. I was like "WTH". From then on I called him only Mr.Florin. But I had a doubt that might be trying to fool us around. When he stopped talking we were in the Bran castle. I couldn't wait to get in and see what is inside. We were waiting at the ticket kiosk and the lady said 30 RON per head. I gave her my student again and got insulted again. Mr.Florin came in and talked with the lady and got us the two tickets just for 20 RON. All we did in the Bran castle was take some pictures and we learnt from Mr.Florin that the original dracula castle is something else and is far away from Brasov. Nothing revealed about Dracula. All they have inside is the regular castle stuffs, Queen's bedrrom, dress, ornaments and jewels, some war equipments. And of course some photos and inscriptions. we were disappointed.
We went out after this had our dinner. Roamed around the city centre. Found some land marks for the next day. Went to the apartment. As he assured, the apartment was cleaned, was smelling good. most important thing, our things were all safe. Mr.Florin's image went up with me. Well this is all for the first day.
The next day 9 AM we went outside with a plan to visit the Black church first. Well ahead of opening time we were there. we took some pictures and then when it was open we had to buy the tickets. This time around I din't want to try giving my ID and get insulted. So I payed the whole amount. I was wondering why the name "Biserica Neagra" "the Black Church". seriously I dint have any idea till I came out of the church with a brochure. That place, in the name of god, is now used to increase the state's revenue. I remember telling Muthu "This is my first time ever inside a church". But now I reckon visiting St.Francis church in Goa once, when I was a kid. I apologize, Muthu. This is my second time ever inside a church. The church wasnt very appealing from outside. But I must admit, I was astonished with the way they have designed the interiors, decorations, it was awesome. But not allowing us to take photographs disappointed us. It was way beyond impressive. The name "Black church" was given because the entire church was on fire sometime back in the history (dont remember the year) and walls were all black. so this name. They renovated and now it functions as a museum. I had a thought after reading this from the brochure that i shared with Muthu, "God cant even save himself and his place after all from a fire, and still people believe in him that he'll save each and everyone from all the problems".
After this we went to the cultural museum, nothing really interesting was there.They had all mud pots which they call historic, and they had historical trading bills, like receipts for Transylvania trading spices with India, silk with China, etc..They had the historic tax documents which was also interesting. The guide in there was interesting, she was very well obsessed with India such that instead of guiding us she was asking questions about India all the time. When I asked her for a picture, she said okay and then said "Dont show this to your girlfriend, she'll be jealous." Me: "I am still single. So don;t worry. What about u? Married or Boyfriends?" she said "No. Single". I told her "I may ask u for a dinner date soon." She was saying "Why not. I am ready to go with u." And to Muthu I was telling " why didn't we come here yesterday itself. today we are gonna leave the place."
We had funny moments too. It was too cold outside and rainnig too. I got my rhinitis again. I was keeping on wiping my noseand Muthu with the camera was picturising me every time i did that.
And the most important thing I misplaced my sun glasses in Mr.Florin's car and when I called him, he said its with him and he would be giving it to me when I leave and he did. Now he commanded respect from me. And we were checking our camera memory cards, after boarding the train, the number has crossed 2500. Transferred every single photo to my hard disk and I am back home with good memories.
I started writing this 12 past midnight (04-11-12) and dozed off at 4.15 AM. But thanks to my roommates who woke me up again at 4.30 and made me stay till 6 in the morning after which I lost interest in sleeping and from then i enjoyed continued writing till now.
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