It's Work Jim, But Not As We Know It

Hello dear reader(s)! You may have surmised from my writing hiatus that my travels are over and that I have returned to the world of the working. And you would be right ... to a degree. It is true that I now have a job, with a pay-cheque and everything, however the travelling has not abated as much as I had envisaged upon my return to the UK.

Upon my return to the UK I decided to do a little tourism somewhat closer to home. Despite having worked a mere 15mins walk from the Tower of London for over 1.5 years I had never actually visited the iconic monument - a lacuna I quickly set to rights.

I See Dead People

My time in Huntsville proved to be unexpectedly eclectic, however my initial reason for visiting was simply to visit the prisoners' cemetery, where all those who die whilst in the "care" of the Texas justice system, and whose bodies are not claimed by family, are buried. Now it may seem like a macabre thing to visit, but I found it a sobering and important place to have seen. The cemetery is surprisingly large, unadorned and unmarked, occupying a wasteland between two nondescript roads on the edge of town. No signs announce or inform the passer-by as to the site's identity, no fence separates it from its surroundings. Every expense has been spared. So much so that up until 2000 the graves were marked by a simple concrete cross inscribed with a date of death and prisoner number. Nothing more. Not even a name by which the deceased could be remembered. As if in death these people are no longer considered humans but simply numbers, a burden to be placed in the ground, a sack of shit that has the temerity to waste our tax-payer dollars.

A sea of concrete crosses devoid of any embellishments or even names to distinguish them, just a date and a prisoner number. According to Dostoevsky a society can be judged by how well it treats its prisoners, in which case America ought to perhaps take a look at itself.

Ignoring Your Neighbours

You can really feel the difference when crossing from Romania to Bulgaria. Despite sharing a long border the neighbours are not particularly close. The Danube forms Bulgaria's northern frontier with Romania for over 460km and yet there is only a single, solitary bridge along this entire length, between the towns of Ruse (Bg) and Giurgiu (Ro). And a very unscientific poll I organised in Ruse showed that even at this vital communications node between north and south isn't that attractive to locals, with several saying that they had never visited the country they can see every day across the river. Instead the country seems oriented more towards its eastern neighbour Turkey (no surprise given 500 years of Ottoman rule). Yoghurt, ayran, fresh salads and kebabs are big on the menu, a few pencil-minarets can be see here and there and public water fountains are ever-present (a particular delight for me as drinking water is important for the frugal traveller). There is also a sizeable Turkish minority in certain parts of the country and so on buses you might hear the odd çok güzel, or even get picked up by a truck driver called Mustafa whilst hitching in some random rural backwater (very friendly guy even stopped to buy me tea).

Locals doing a traditional Balkan hora dance at a village fair close to Ruse.

Flâneur

Once you cross the Carpathians the landscape changes dramatically: gone are the gentle hills, bijou villages, Teutonic neatness and general postcard vistas. Instead the Wallachian Plain stretches south like a great hazy, dusty pancake all the way to the Danube. When God was making this little corner of the world he was in a rush and didn't bother with niceties such as aesthetics and wanted to get it over and done with as quick as possible. And things don't improve much when you get to Bucharest.

Most Romanians are quite disparaging about their own capital city. Even people from Bucharest find it hard to muster up many compliments for their hometown. And its hard not to see why: the historic core has been mercilessly gouged and scarred by the senseless megalomaniac whims of Ceauşescu. In the early 80s he embarked on a grandiose project to create a unified civic centre in the city, to be crowned by the unmistakable Palace of the Parliament. Unfortunately Ceauşescu's chosen site for his grand dream was already occupied by the historic city centre. But this posed no problem to the resourceful dictator who showed great resourcefulness in razing a third of it to the ground, including countless churches, monasteries, synagogues and old houses. Many of the buildings were not completed (or even started) by the time of the revolution in 89, and so the city is left with these open wounds, reminders of a painful past, that are still festering, years later.

The ludicrously opulent Palace of the Parliament is famed for being the second largest administrative building in the world, and also the heaviest one. An obscene amount of marble, gilding, silk, crystal and other luxury items were used on this, Ceauşescu's pet project. By the time of the revolution it was about 70% complete and it would have cost more to stop than to complete, and so Romania has been burdened ever since with this oversized white elephant.

The Usefulness Of Maps

From my recent posts it looks as if my time here in Romania has been a constant search for ever more obscure minorities. It may have looked like I had gone as far as I could with the Saxons, but I managed to dig out (almost literally) one more ethnic group despite having to travel quite far (almost 2000 years) to find them.

The name Romania comes from the Romans, which seems obvious enough. It is, however, strange when you stop to think about it. The Roman legions were only in what is now Romania for a mere century and a half before getting kicked out by the Goths. They did leave their language though, which has remained to this day, making Romania an island of Latin language surrounded by Slavic and Hungarian. But the Romans didn't stroll into an empty country. The land was home to the Dacian tribes who were not, by any means, simple cave-dwellers. Though in the end they still got steamrollered by Trajan and the Roman war machine. What I find quite amusing is the pride that Romanians have for being the descendants and cultural inheritors of both the Dacians and their Roman conquerors. For example the unassuming, regional town of Deva has both a statue to the Dacian king Decebalus as well as to his nemesis Trajan, just 200m further down the road (I'm not sure what either would have made of the juxtaposition).

The evocative ruins of Sarmizegetusa.

Little Saxony

The Făgăraş Mountains, part of the Southern Carpathians, form an imposing and almost impenetrable barrier running east to west. These mountains have always been the southern border of Transylvania, the first and most important line of defence for the region. In the 12th century, to strengthen and protect the border marches the Hungarians invited Saxon (German) colonists to set up shop in the valleys on the northern foothills leading to the important mountain passes. For this the Saxons were given trading and social privileges and they soon became the urban elite, along with the Hungarians.

It wasn't all fun and games though, and after the Mongols came hordeing through in 1241 they decided to beef up their defences. Instead of building castles (which are usually for nobles anyway, of which there were not many amongst the Saxon settlers) they decided to make their churches into veritable fortresses. It seems like every town and little village between Sighișoara (Schässburg in German) and Sibiu (Hermannstadt) has its own, über-Gothic fortified church, some of them surrounded by up to three rings of defensive walls up to 12m high. Their interiors and graveyards are also almost entirely German affairs, with solid names like Wagner, Schmidt and Kohler peering back at you through the ages, a testament to what once was. It was a joy for me to potter from one village to the next, sometimes hitching a ride or otherwise taking a small path over from one valley to the next, enjoying the bucolic scenery and gorgeous woods in their golden autumn finery. It's not just the churches that indicate this western transposition mind you, the villages and houses here are also set out in a very different form from ordinary Romanian villages: the farmsteads have a central courtyard enclosed by high, contiguous walls, there are no gardens and, most strangely for Romania, there are no grannies sitting by the side of the road commenting on life as it passes by.

The fortified church at Biertan dominates the village and can be seen, looming, from miles around as you approach.

Gypsies, Tramps And Thieves?

It is common, no matter where you travel, for locals to ask you what you think of their country. Romania is no different, but with an added extra: people declaim that Romanians are not all gypsies and not to judge the country because of them. This is telling for several reasons. Firstly that this is the impression that many in the West have of Romania and Romanians (if they have an impression at all); secondly that ordinary Romanians are embarrassed by this preconception; and thirdly that this is a negative image. It is sad that in today's world where we have done our utmost to banish discrimination against blacks, Jews, homosexuals, the disabled and women, that prejudice against gypsies, or Roma, is not only widespread, but also accepted amongst many, otherwise liberal, sections of society. As a people they are the poorest and most disadvantaged in Europe. How did this come about? and who are the Roma anyway?

Colourful Roma clothes worn by the friendly Gabor family with whom I stayed.

I Hate Mondays

When I was still gainfully employed I, like many of my office-rat peers, was not generally pleased when Monday came around and woke me out of my weekend-induced torpor with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Now that I'm on the road I am no longer beholden to the Mon-Fri working week and generally lose track of which day it is. Nevertheless I still manage to find reason to hate Mondays. It's common policy in many places, especially those not on the well-trodden tourist path, to close their musea one day a week, which usually happens to be a Monday. And so it was today as I ambled around Târgu Mureş, every place I wanted to visit (admittedly not many, but still) was closed for the day. So I was limited to just wandering the streets and watching the people pass by as I sat in the main square and basked in the rare October sun. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to Maramureş.

The road from Maramures to Transylvania passes some beautiful mountain passes, decked in their autumn raiment.

Death Valley

When planning a longer trip, such as this one, it is impossible to draw up a detailed itinerary. You roughly know where you want to go and some major points to hit along the way, but there are so many variables, unknowns and things that could happen along the way that anything more is a waste of effort. One thing, however, that is important to take into account is climate. Travelling in the cold, especially when camping or hitchhiking, is not much fun, and so it is important to oscillate north and south depending on the seasons. So I went to Scandinavia in June and now I'm heading south to the Mediterranean as Autumn has well and truly displaced Summer and is being hounded by Winter to get a move on. I may, indeed, have tarried a bit too long on the way as the past few days camping out in the Carpathian foothills in northern Romania have seen temperatures plunge to freezing. (The silver lining to this cold cloud is that I have to wear more clothes and so my rucksack is getting lighter.) Furthermore, days are getting ever shorter, which means that my time to explore is getting more limited as I need to find a place to pitch my tent and sleep before it gets too dark. But things should hopefully get better soon as I've reached a turning point in my travels and it's (more or less) south from here. So where am I?

Suceavita monastery. Not just a piritual centre, but also an important defensive bastion, guarding one of the passes to northern Moldova.