Cycling Romania: Cluj-Napoca to Turda

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Putting it in the mildest terms, Romania was a massive, drastic shock after the rest of Europe.  And that was in many ways a good thing.  First of all, Romania is amazing for bicycling.  Provided you´re ready to put up with a great deal of uncertainty and lack of home comforts, you will be duly rewarded.  Romania is a sure-fire cure for the spoiled, "I´ve seen one too many cathedrals" malaise that is bound to affect most European travelers after a few non-stop, take-it-all-in-quick weeks.  Even on our bikes, we´d grown a little restless with the similarities to home, and were hungering for something different.  Well, we found it.

Deboarding the train in Hungary, just across from Romania.
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After missing our train on Sunday due to a combination of the House of Hungarian Wines and a trio of fun-loving Swedish college lads, we finally managed to get our bikes and selves on the train to the Hungary-Romania border.  Here, we had to disembark and bicycle across the border to catch an intra-Romanian train, the details about which were wholly unavailable to us until we reached the train station in Romania.  (Why?  I have no idea, and am learning on this trip that these things don´t always make sense, so it´s best just to go with it.)

wandering donkeys in the road and old village women waving to us

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Sadly, our first impression of Romania was like a packaged stereotype tour of the "dangers and annoyances" (Lonely Planet jargon) of Romania.  Peddling in, we were greeted with disastrous, potholed dirt roads as soon as we turned off the highway, stray dogs after us, black smoke billowing into the air, three drunken lunatics racing a tractor down the road (thank god we were faster than the tractor!), and TRASH EVERYWHERE.  Holy mamoly we´d never seen so much trash.  Everywhere we looked - in yards, on the roads, in ditches - there was trash.  Every once in awhile, there was a make-shift "dump" with a bigger pile of trash.  Huh?  Such a shame in such a beautiful landscape.  Thankfully, this improved along the trip, but Romania has a long way to go in this and many other respects.  That said, it is a beautiful and interesting country full of warm, kind folks.  A dream destination for those who appreciate a little adventure in their wanderings.  Yes, Romania a dream destination.  Who knew?

Village afternoon rush hour.
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So, we managed, with great difficulty and the aid of the Lonely Planet language section, to purchase a train ticket and make it to Cluj-Napoca.  English is spoken little in Romania.  A few choice phrases and a lot of gesturing can get you where you need to be, or at least to where you can try to ask someone else!  After a comical conversation with the train conductor in which he informed us the price to take our bikes on the train was more than double the price of our tickets, we paid him 10 euros and were off the hook.  (Luckily, Lonely Planet had warned us of this situation.)  We arrived very late into Cluj, were fairly taken aback by the dirtiness and weirdness of the train station area at night, then found a slightly seedy motel in town.

Turda Gorge, view from a village.
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Starving, we headed immediately to a restaurant recommended with heady fervor by the LP guide.  Um, it was not very good.  Also, we learned here that Romanian wine is well, not very good.  The "dry" kind is really sweet and weird.  (Later on the trip, we had a few tasty bottles of red Romanian wine, but the majority just ain´t be happenin´.)  Finally we hit the rack, but the night was not yet to end, as I woke up in the middle of the night with what I believe is the only night terror I have had as an adult.  I scared the crap out of both myself and Tole, and it took a long time for him to convince me no one had been in our room, as happened in my dream, as I couldn´t recall the point in time at which I had awoken.  I was talking to Tole and at some point I awoke, but I couldn´t draw the line between the dream and reality.  It was extremely weird and scary.  I worried it was a harbinger of bad things to come, but that turned out to be as silly as it sounds.  I think it was more of a result of the shock and resulting anxiety of arriving to Romania.

Clash of the centuries on the streets of a village west of Turda.
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The next morning, we set off for Turda.  After fighting our way out of town, we found ourselves on a glorious, if a little holey, road through hills and forest.  We passed wandering donkeys in the road and old village women waving to us.  This was our first taste of the villages of Romania.  Whoah.  Villages in this area seem to be stuck in a time approximately 100 years ago.  Horse carts are ubiquitous and most people over 40 are clothed in what I can only assume is more or less traditional peasant clothing.  Some people waved, others viewed us with a fair amount of surprise and/or suspicion.  Whenever we asked someone a question in broken Romanian, they persisted in responding to us with a flood of Romanian words, despite our smiling protestations of "No Romanu."  For a look at a local village "traffic jam," see the pics.  Overall, very interesting indeed.

Looking down on Turda before the descent.
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Once we arrived at the fork to Turda, we were granted a view of the impressive Turda Gorge.  We headed west toward Turda, watching the gorge along the way.  We passed through more highly interesting villages and did a little more light climbing before finally hitting the small city of Turda (about 30,000 people).  Sadly, we could only locate 2 hotels, and we were forced to spend a glorious night at the "Hotel Dracula" (yes, it's a cheesy name), which, as it turned out, had immaculate, cute rooms, HBO(!!!!!!), and a minibar with beer and swiss chocolate!  We also ate at their restaurant, and Tole dined on some bear.  Interesting.  Also on offer was the scrumptious-sounding, but cumbersomely named, "Worn Out Vampire´s Dick/Prick All In Exhausted."  Alas, we decided to pass on that.  I was feeling more like "Underdone Bat Liver," myself.  Um, yeah.  See the pics.