Category Archives: On the road

Tris and I are really big softies at heart. We stayed our last night in Romania with a dude called Adrian… and his puppy, older dog, 2 kittens, pet sheep, pigs, goats, chickens, turkeys, geese, rabbits, ducks and his grandma.

There is something about animals that makes your heart go “Awww”, especially the younger ones. The puppy was so cute and the kittens woke both us at god awful hours wanting some attention. The rest of the animals just had to be regarded as food.

The pigs were tasty. Nom nom nom.

It is something you never want to happen; your best mate getting hurt. I wasn’t there to witness the event but I heard it as soon as it happened.

I heard a loud shout. Panicked, I ran over and there was Tristan, clutching his hand… he had burnt his finger on the exhaust of his motorbike.

This will haunt him for the rest of his life. He will always picture, in slow motion, that time he was spraying his chain when his index finger got too close to the exhaust and gently touched it. Even a touch is too late as pain wracked through his finger. The damage had been done.

Now a blister has formed to remind him to be a bit more careful next time.

Dick.

As I walked back to the hotel at 2ish AM I couldn’t help but think that I was in vampire country. It was really quite spooky walking the back streets of old town Brasnov, with not a soul in sight and being accompanied only by the barking or howling of dogs. The dilapidated buildings, narrow back streets and limited lighting created and sense of foreboding.

But, I had some chocolate and a sprite so I was content. Burp.

In the spirit of things, Tris and I visited Bran Castle today. This is the castle that is incredibly loosely associated with the Dracula myth, and Bram Stokers’ story. So loosely in fact that I probably spent more time there than Vlad Tepes, the Impaler, on who’s bloody reign the vampire story is associated with. While he might have gone to the loo there once, I can confirm I definitely did. Just a number one.

As we sat in a restaurant at the base of the castle, knocking back a beer (as bikers do before going for a ride), we both thought… meh. We came a long way to see not much. Sure it was an interesting looking castle, but it wasn’t that amazing.

All the people we meet over our time in Brasnov confirmed that it was just a tourist trap. There were plenty of other more amazing castles to see in the area. But, as we pointed out, they all required more effort to see, some with over 1400 steps up to reach them. Fuck that.

We stayed for a couple of nights in a small city called Giurgiu, across the border from Bulgaria just on the Danube. While there might not have been 10000 dogs, you could be forgiven for assuming so. They were everywhere; strays roaming the streets in small packs, or just on their own. You had to be careful to not stand in dog poopie.

Aside from the dogs, Giurgiu doesn’t have much going for it but we really enjoyed a day off to relax. Both Tris and I had been getting grumpy at just about everything so a day doing sweet f all was called for. We stayed with an amazing host family, with mum plying us with food every morning, and the two daughters showing us around the town and introducing us to various local characters.

Our first night had us drinking beer at a local bar where between 7 of us we drank 22 beers. It cost us a total of £22 – Tris and I were quite popular after we generously offered to pay for it all. Later on in the evening we ended up charging through the streets in a pick-up truck to go swimming at someone’s pool, followed by more beer and a sing-a-long. They were amazingly awful enough so that even I could join in. It was quite fun and very entertaining. We stumbled home somewhere around 2pm and managed a sleep in.

Breakfast from mum was intriguing. I braved a milky yoghurt thing that was drinkable but wasn’t particularly pleasant at the same time. Tris wussed out. Once you got over the idea of the chunks of stuff in it then that made it easier.

The girls then took us for a wander around the town. We saw more dogs, homeless people, deteriorating buildings and, surprisingly, lots of roading improvement works. The fat taxi drivers lifting their tops and rubbing their bellies was a particularly intriguing sight and one thing I might bring back to London to start a trend. But what was really fascinating were the gypsy houses.

There are poor gypsies and rich gypsies. The poor meet your usual expectations of what a gypsy looks like, but the rich ones lead a complety different life. They build these enormous houses; 2 or 3 stories high with many balconies and ornate facade. They call them Gypsy Palaces. It’s all about keeping up with the Joneses, trying to ensure your house is better than the one next to you. The funny thing is that they spend all their money creating a great looking house from the outside, but can only afford to live in two or three rooms on the inside. They are never completed properly, sometimes to the point where they poop in a hole out back because they don’t have the plumbing done.

Our time in Guirguin was great. That was solely due to the people we stayed with and met. As a tourist destination it probably wouldn’t feature on anyone’s list unless you like cheap beer and dogs.

Our last views of Croatia (Dubrovnik) before heading into Here Be Dragons territory

A big aspect of this trip is that we don’t really have a major plan. Associated with that is that we didn’t do any planning at all.

Planning means research.

Research would have been helpful as it turns out.

We hit the border of Croatia and Montengro with high spirits. The road from Split had been really fun to ride and we’d seen some good sights. Coming up to the guards window, I removed my helmet and smiled politely at the guard as I handed over my passport.

“Motorsickle documents and green card.”

“Um, sorry, what?”

“Motorsickle documents and green card.”

“Er… do you mean our vehicle registration documents?”

“Yes. And green card. Insurance.”

“Um, well, they are in London.”

Turns out that crossing into Montenegro and Albania wasn’t as straight forward as we had thought. Or not thought as the case may be. But manage we did, by smiling lots, talking quickly, thowing in the odd joke, pleading ignorance, and generally just waiting until someone gave in. And give in they did.

It was unsettling though as we both dreaded the idea of being stopped by local Police and being put in a situation where a bribe would have to come into play (and we had it confirmed that this would have been the case). So we drove as responsibly as we could, overly so, and decided to get back into an EU country as quickly as possible. We did both countries in two nights, one 8 hour day and one 12 hour day riding.

The Greeks smiled and welcomed us back. Our relief was evident and accompanied by a much needed high five.

Haskovo, Bulgaria

Tris looked nervous. He’d just come back from organising some gear in the room we were staying in and he had the heebie jeebies.

“I don’t believe in ghosts, spooks or things similar, but I was just alone in that room and I felt really uncomfortable. It was like someone was very curious about what I was doing and I didn’t want to look in the mirror in case I saw someone standing over my shoulder.”

I’d been in the room on my own earlier but didn’t feel a thing so I was mildly curious about what Tris had experienced. Still, worrying about ghosts was far from my mind when I eventually hit the bed exhausted. But, were we alone…(dum dum dum da)

At some stage during the wee smalls I woke to a loud noise. Something had banged loudly on the door. Hearing Tris moving on his mattress I figured it was him kicking the door as his feet could touch it easily. Something else felt strange though – the sheet I had on me felt like it had been pulled off, which is actually what woke me up. Too tired to worry or think about it, I just pulled them back on, curled up inside them and fell back asleep.

In the morning we spoke about it and the door being banged was in fact Tris kicking the door. But he did it though as he’d been woken by some blankets falling onto his head.

Was this room haunted? We didn’t stay to investigate more.