Budapest and a bit of Romania

I had a bit of a delay in adding the Vienna post and only managed to get it on line today (Monday the 16th) after visiting Budapest on the 13th and 14th.

The campsite we stayed at in Budapest was lovely and shaded. (The weather has been fantastic!!!) It was the end of an old tram line and still had the old station which had been renovated and was now the restaurant/bar for the campsite. I chilled out with everyone before dinner; some of us went to the camp pub for a cold pint of Hungarian beer! Dinner was a traditional goulash with plenty of paprika! (Native to Hungary) At dinner no one had any plans of what to do but the majority of us ended up going to the pub about 9.30pm for a drink (the beer was really nice). The pub was due to close at 10pm but the landlord let us stay till 12.30pm when he kicked us out in the most polite fashion ever, "you may or may not have noticed that today is now tomorrow" he started with. This was after ½ before when he'd offered to drive into the city to buy another keg of beer! It actually turned into one of the best evenings I've had so far with everyone having lots of fun!

The next day I was quite knackered (We stayed up until 4am chatting after the pub closed) and so I stayed at the campsite on "truck security" duty. People came back in the afternoon so I took a cable car up to the top of the city and overlooked Budapest. There was amazing views and I climbed to the top of the viewing tower. (The evening before a few people had climbed the mountain/hill completely, I was dead impressed because just the final bit after getting off of the cable car to the viewing tower knackered me out!!!)

We then made the move to Romania on Sunday 15th stopping at a supermarket to buy lunch for the next three days (we had been warned by Hungarians to take food with us to Romania!) We crossed the boarder with ease (it took the truck 2 hours last year!) and noticed the difference straight away. Romania really is as it's described in the tour books, you feel as if you have taken a step back 100 years with everyone seeming to have chickens and cattle in their gardens! And it's quite normal for people to have a horse and carts! (In fact as I type this on the truck we're behind one now!!!)

We pitched our tents in a valley with amazing views it really was gorgeous, the fact that we had no loos or showers really was not a concern at all! (I'm actually getting quite good at popping a squat!) The couple who's land we were camping on were very pleasant and happy for us to stay. The farmer at the other end of the field walked past shouting hello and after chatting to Rachel for a few moments we were all invited for drinks down at the farm after dinner! I am truly amazed at the hospitality and generosity offered buy the farmer and his family! About 20 of us went down to the farm and it was fantastic! We drank homemade Kerplinka (strong stuff!!!, The Kerplinka had a pear in the bottle which had actually grown in the bottle on the trees before the Kerplinka was added!), homemade cheese, pickles, and other Romanian snacks including roasted pork fat on an open fire which you then spread onto bread with tomato chutney! (This was all after a tasty truck dinner of bangers and mash!) They kept on bringing out food, it was astounding, we were in the middle of nowhere with very little understanding of Romanian and were made to feel so welcome! It was a wicked night and a fantastic introduction to Romania.

I woke up late this morning not hearing my alarm (4 minutes before breakfast) so had a mad dash to get everything packed up! Dan brought me a cup of tea noticing that I hadn't surfaced! And I managed to get everything sorted but did miss breakfast, hey ho! We had a few a problems with the truck because we had parked on a hill the diesel had run to the back so were slightly delayed (it turned out to be a good thing because the farmer's wife turned up with 5litres of fresh milk for us! It was still warm!)

We travelled for a couple of hours this morning stopping at the biggest town/city we'd seen so far in Romania. With only an hour to stop the cook group raced of to the market and the rest of us were free to do what we wanted. As I hadn't been able to get to Internet since Prague and had not put on my Vienna update yet Martin and I raced off to the Internet café (having taken a picture of the map on a digital camera to follow!). I was so chuffed to see all of your messages on the board! Especially you Granmum I am impressed!!! I am going to do my best to keep in touch but it may be that I only have ½ hour in an Internet café so I am going to do my best to write my blogs on Stuart's laptop on the truck (how clever of him to have brought one and very nice of him to let me borrow it) so I should be able to let you know as much as possible!!!

Tonight we are bush camping again and tomorrow visiting the city of Brasov, then Wednesday Bran Castle (Dracula's castle), Thursday we're in Bucarest then I think we're heading to Bulgaria and are due to be in Istanbul on Saturday. (I'll try to write another update in Istanbul).

Just to let you know I really have settled in well to truck life and am so happy! I'm sleeping well and the only problem has been that my cough is still hanging around a bit but I think I'm shifting it. The rest of the folk on the truck are lovely and great company! Oh and I'm not the youngest, I beat Martin by one month!!

Oh and the looks we get from people we pass are still so funny, they've never seen a massive orange truck filled with 32 mad English, Scottish, Kiwi, Irish, Dutch and Australian people pass though their village

So anyway…….I'm on my way to Australia!!!

Love from Nicole xxx