Rainy Ride into Romania…

"Lets give it another go, shall we...?" Early morning start from Budapest...

I had ridden in better weather, a time or two...!!

I left Budapest and the comfort of the Molnar residence, at 6.30am…

Tibor had left for work, and Panni saw me safely away… Had it not been for the long road I knew that lay ahead of me, I might have delayed my start until a few hours later…

It was raining, and continued to rain for the remainder of the day…

I took the M3 motorway, wanting to get as far along the road as quickly as I could, hoping to get ahead of the weather front that seemed to embrace the Hungarian countryside…

Now the Hungarians are taking the piss...!! There has to be a Finnish connection here somewhere...!!

The Big Fella celebrates his 80th...!! The speedo must have been stuck... Surely I wasn't taking pics at nearly 140 km/h in pouring rain...!!

I refused to turn to places I could not pronounce...!!

Run out of longer poles, boys...?? On the outskirts of Mezopeterd, close to the Romanian border, I came across this sign, giving me the low-down on which way to go...

It never let up until I was a half hour out of Sebes in central Romania, almost 550 kms away…!!

I had planned to overnight there, but decided to take advantage of the weak sun that struggled through the clouds, and pushed on for another hour, heading for Sibiu…

At that point, I came upon the tail end of a massive traffic jam… I muscled my way to the front of it all, passing hundreds of trucks and cars, and discovered that the road had been closed, and all traffic was being diverted through the countryside…

The roads were not on the GPS, so I rode “blind” for over an hour, passing through villages that in some cases consisted of barely half a dozen houses… There were no road signs indicating whether or not I was going in the right direction to get to Sibiu, which irked me somewhat…!!

My detour through the countryside was not without a few highlights...!! Yeah..., of course I pinned the throttle back through this section...!!

A part of me wanted to turn back for Sebes, but the stubborn side of me won through, and so I pushed on, committed to riding until I found a sign that would tell me I was on the right track… I had been on the road for 11 hours and was beginning to feel the tiredness seeping into my muscles….

My back was the first to send me a “please stop soon…!!” message, followed by my shoulders, especially the left one, which I had injured in Ethiopia…

The pins and needles in my feet had been there for a few hours already, and were more easily ignored… A voice in my head said, “That’s what you get for sitting on your butt in Budapest for five days…!! Suck it up…!! Take the punch…!!”… Hate that voice sometimes…!!

The light was fading fast now, and I was pretty sure I would be riding in the dark soon… Although the road was narrow, its surface was good, so I was able to ride quite quickly… In one village I almost clipped an old lady who stepped out of her front door and into the road…

In the smaller villages, brightly painted houses are set very close to the road...

The houses are barely a metre off the tarred surface, and I am pretty sure that along this stretch, the odd pedestrian must find themselves having a premature meeting with St. Peter…!!

Security looked to be non-existent, so I rode on to look for a safer spot to park the Big Fella...

After a long, wet, and back-stiffening ride, we settle on the Hotel Ana, just outside Sibiu...

Most of the houses had their shutters closed, which indicated quite clearly that nightfall was not far away…

I pushed hard, zipping past fields planted with maize and pumpkins, over little bridges, avoiding carts loaded with firewood and fodder, and all the time wondering where all the traffic was…?? Had I taken a wrong turning somewhere…?

And then, finally, out in the distance, I saw a long line of traffic running perpendicular to the road I was on… I let out a long breath that I must have been holding for the last few minutes, and turned onto the main road running into Sibiu…

The first hotel I came across looked nice enough, but the parking was unfenced and right on the main road… I wanted safer parking for the Big Fella…

I rode on and a few kilometres later turned in at the Hotel Ana… I sat on the bike in the parking lot for about ten minutes, thinking about the 12 hour ride I had just completed…

Despite the weather, it had been another memorable one…

The Big Fella sizes up the Romanian border post.... "This looks serious... They're asking for your little red book and my papers...!"

I had a small suspicion that I was getting into the countryside...

Romania becomes No: 46 on the list...

There was the German or Ukrainian guy at the filling station on the M3 motorway, where I had stopped to refuel and get some coffee…

I was just about to mount up, when he came walking up to me with a cup of cappuccino in his hands, offering it me, saying “Drink, drink…!!”

Earlier he had asked me a few questions about the bike and my journey, and I had done my best to reply with the smattering of German I had at my disposal… I walked back into the café, and saw him standing in line to order his own coffee…

I was touched that he had arranged a cup for me before he had got one for himself… I stood drinking it, and when I caught his eye, saluted him and mouthed, “Danke!” to him across the crowded room…

He smiled and nodded, and as I left, we exchanged another round of waves…

Beautiful church just outside Oredea...

I never got his name, but his kind gesture remained with me for the next few hours…

I am still amazed at the amount of friendly people I have met, and the little things they have done to make out chance meetings unforgettable ones…

I stopped next to large church outside the town of Oradea, to take a short break and get out of the rain for a bit…Visibility was not that good, and riding slowly through traffic meant that the rain drops settled on my visor in larger quantities than when I am zipping along with the wind “wiping” most of the rain off the visor…

When I opened the visor to get a better view of where the heck I was going, rain got onto the inside of it, and then I ended up looking through a double layer of raindrops… Not pleasant…!!

The locals had heard we were coming, and had prepared themselves accordingly...

Which way to go...? No shortage of road signs here...!!

Weird designs on these houses in Huedin... Apparently, well-to-do Gypsies try to show their wealth by building these grand monstrosities...!!

This one is nearing completion, and will stand among the biggest on the road...

These massive horses led the parade...

Then, in a small village just outside Cluj Napoca, I rode through a procession of young couples in traditional dress, all walking hand in hand, the girls with their right hands on their hips, following behind a line of carts pulled by huge barrel-chested horses…

I edged past them, and then stopped behind a police car that was trying to stop the traffic to allow the procession to pass…

I hopped off the bike and stood amongst the locals, joining them in their clapping in time to the song the couples were singing… In light of all the happiness that was on display, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to do at that moment…

Three horsemen were leading the group, dressing in all their finery, astride horses the like of which I had never seen before…

As luck would have it, the couples stopped right in front of me and did a dance, whirling around and singing in time… It was an amazing moment for me… I could hardly believe that I was standing in the midst of all this…!! What incredible luck…!!

The horses were very nervous of the bike, and one became so unmanageable, that its rider had to dismount and walk him past the Big Fella…

My heart swells when I look at this photo...!! I loved the fact that they were having so much fun, despite the weather...

"So you have just the one horse then...?" asked the Big Fella. "I have about 80 in this here engine of mine...!!"

The couples line up again, to move further down the main street, while the rain continued to fall...

A few gaily decorated carts also formed part of the procession...

They marched past the Big Fella, giving him envious glances...

I am not sure what they were celebrating, but whatever it was, they did it with style and panache…!! I watched them walk past and only got back on the bike after the crowds had thinned… It had been a magical moment…

The "neck biters" also have a dealership...

Stefan Emanuel of Motorrad Romania...

In the city of Cluj Napoca, I spied a huge BMW dealership, and on impulse dropped in to see what was happening…

BMW Transilvania was actually just set up for cars, but outside, I saw a Motorrad gazebo, with a few bikes parked next to it… I met with Stefan Emanuel, who seemed genuinely delighted that I had dropped in to say hello…

He explained that they were touring the country, exhibiting bikes at all the BMW dealerships, trying to expand their footprint in Romania… Apparently only about 100 bikes are sold here in a year…!!

He was amazed to hear that between just two branches in Johannesburg, they sell that many bikes in a single month…!!

We chatted about my trip and the Big Fella for a while and then after a long round of photographs, and promises to try and get some sponsorship for me in the months ahead, I bid the BMW boys goodbye, and got back on the road…

Carts became a common sight... I passed one that had nobody at the reins...!! Either the horse knew exactly where to go, or there was a Romanian lying in a ditch somewhere...!!

Just outside the village of Alba Lulia, and shortly after I had begun riding in the direction of Sebes, the road to Sebes disappeared under a pile of rubble and half built bridges, forcing us to start a long detour...

Half an hour later, when I stopped to refuel, in the town with the unfortunate name of “Turda”, the two young pump jockeys came over to chat and ogle the bike… They were very friendly, and spoke English fluently enough for us to joke and laugh about a variety of subjects…

“Be careful of the gypsies down in the south…!” one of them advised, “They will steal anything you leave unattended…!”

“So I’ve heard… Is it true then…?”

He rolled his eyes and nodded vigorously…

“We don’t like the Gypsies….!!”, he told me…

“Why…? They are Romanians, just like you…!”

“Gypsies are Gypsies first, and then call themselves whatever the country is that they are in…!”

“Do you guys have any Gypsy friends…?” I asked them innocently, already knowing the answer…

Their eyes flew open, at what to them, must have been the craziest thing they had ever been asked… “No…!” they said in unison…

“Do you have many black friends..?” one of them asked with a sly grin…

Touché, boys…! Touché…!

On the road to Turda, the sun tried bravely, but failed to make much of an impression on the dark skies...

For a long while thereafter I thought of the injustice of castigating white South Africans about their prejudices when in many of the countries I had ridden through, those very same prejudices are as plain to see as they are  back home…

“One nation under one sky…!!”

Yeah, right…!! Dream on, politicians… Dream on…!!

I got off the bike, took off my helmet and gloves, and began untying my gear… I was glad that I had managed to get at least an hour’s ride closer to the mountains that I planned to ride in the next day, and later, after a hot shower, I reloaded a new route through the Carpathians onto the GPS, deciding to ride them north to south, down as far as Pitesti, and then double back to Sibiu through the Olt Valley… A 360 km round trip that Gi-Gi advised would take us seven hours…!!

I was looking forward to riding “the road that scrapes the sky” as it is known here in Romania, but could not see us taking seven hours to do just 350 kms… (She would prove that my eyes needed testing the next day…!!)

By the end of the day I would also have none of that...

But first, a few Voltaren’s and an early night were needed… The Gypsy Biker was made to feel his age today…!!

©GBWT 2010