I woke up in Romania today on a rickety old train being bounced around six feet in the air on the top bunk of my sleeper carriage. It was about 6am and there was no need to get up just yet, but I had to go to the bathroom and couldn't be bothered doing my monkey impersonation to get back into bed for another hour or so sleep.

All my passengers were now getting up and commenting on the passing scenery and taking pictures out the train window of a much poorer looking country than we had previously been to. We pulled into Brasov in the heart of Transylvania at about 8:30am, as we arrived I was a giant while sign in the hills displaying the city's name, not unlike the Hollywood sign. I had a bit of a giggle about that.

We got off the train, which then went on its merry way to Bucharest and entered the main station area of what was a tiny station. I now had to get some Romanian money and acquire our seat reservations for tomorrow while the passengers waited. Something that made me totally uncomfortable, as passengers should never have to bear witness to the internal workings of the tour, its just unprofessional. Unfortunately, this part of the tour is so rushed, I had zero time to do it in other than right at that second.

Having never been to Romania before it was now my job to get my twelve passengers to a hotel I'd never been to on the other side of town in and city I'd never visited, on a public bus. Screw that, I thought. I'm putting them all in taxi's and the company can pay for it. I refuse to lead these people on a wild goose chase after a ride on the night train and on their only day in this city.

I decided we would need five cabs and assigned a taxi captain for each cab and then made them get into groups. I gave the captains the address of the hotel written on a slip of paper and told them their additional duty was to make sure they used their meters and weren't over charged.

I got into my cab with Pauline and Jan and headed off first, so I could pay the drivers at the other end. All the drivers knew exactly where the hotel was and didn't overcharge us. When we arrived they started flogging excursions to Bran castle which we all wanted to go to for 140 Romanian per cab.

I insisted on checking in first and Bill got one of the cabbie's phone numbers. I checked us all in at Flamingo's, which was one of the strangest establishments think I've ever seen and went up to my room. My room was possibly the creepiest room I'd ever stayed in. The bed was a deep blood red and was in front of what looked like an indoor wooden balcony, whose step up was held in place by chains. There were mirrored panels on the walls, so it always looked like there was someone behind me, although it was of course, only my reflection. There was a cupboard at the end of the balcony, which looked as though a vampire may come bursting out of it at any moment and the bathroom was small and tiled with black and green tiles and very dimly lit. I loved the creepiness and in Transylvania, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

I'd given the crew about an hour to freshen up and get the night train germs off themselves, so I went down to the lobby to wait for them. Once they had all arrived it was universally decided that we would go into town to get money and food and then come back to the hotel and call the taxi's back and go to Bran Castle, the supposed home of Count Dracula.

I led the group into town, which even though I hadn't been there before was pretty easy, it such a small place that you couldn't really go wrong. We changed money, which seemed to take forever and then went off to find food. I ate in the company recommended restaurant, something I don't ever do as they are usually rubbish. This one wasn't too bad, its just that they were recommended for breakfast and they didn't serve breakfast!

It was nearly lunch time anyway so we ate in there and had lunch, which took absolutely ages to arrive. The restaurant was like a big hall and they had traditional music playing, which was repetitive and tinny and quite honestly I couldn't wait to get out of there, even though the food, when it finally arrived was delicious.

We walked back to the hotel, collected the rest of the group and I called the taxi's to come and collect us. The taxi's arrived and off we went, the taxi I was in got stopped by the police for a paperwork check. The driver keep trying to reassure me everything was ok in his limited English, but I wasn't worried, I'd been through worse. At least there weren't firearms involved this time.

The countryside we drive through for a little under an hour was beautiful and we arrived at Bran Castle and the drivers pointed us in the direction to get up to it. We walked through some markets, at which point I nearly lost the group, and if I'm honest myself. The markets were filled with all sorts of souvenirs about the castle, as well as Dracula memorabilia and all sorts of other monster associated items. One of the drivers actually saw what was happening and herded us towards the entrance to the castle grounds.

We paid to get in and the first thing we came across was a small wooden house whose roof was totally covered in moss. Must have been the caretakers house, I thought. It was then quite a steep climb up to the white castle, I'd always pictured Dracula's pad being black. On the way up there was a stone crucifix, which basically stood at the castles front door step, again, creepy.

We climbed up the steps into the castle, which was full of small rooms containing their original furniture. There were also panels about the place explaining the history of the castle, vampirism and giving profiles on people like Bram Stoker and Vlad the Impaler. The inside of the castle was amazing, all the fittings were in wrought iron and the walls were white washed. The furniture was in dark mahogany and all the soft furnishings were in blood red. The higher floors were connected by narrow stone tunnels containing either winding or straight stairs.

The central courtyard was quite pretty, you could look back to view the upper area of the castle which was all red roof shingles. We spent about an hour looking around the castle, with everyone making vampire jokes at every twist and turn and then left to go shopping at the markets. I ended up buying two T-shirts and a funny old clock. We then went back to the taxi's for the ride back to Brasov. My driver and I chatted all the way home in his broken English/sign language way. It was an interesting conversation, the bits I understood. I love those sort of social interactions.

We were dropped in town, in front of the Black church, which I hadn't yet seen. I paid the cab driver the agreed fare and off I went. Before we had left Bran I had also organized with one of the drivers to collect us tomorrow morning for our trip to the train station, its not often you find honest taxi drivers in countries like Romania.

At the Black Church, we decided to go our separate ways for the rest of the day, well I decided the passengers should have free time and meet up for happy hour later. This meant that I was now also on my own. I decided to go in the gothic masterpiece behind me. I paid my six Romanian lei to get into the church, which was possibly the most odd church I had ever been into. All the walls were lined with Turkish carpets and in the back they had a collection of old gravestones written in Latin.

After the church, I went for a look around the old town and went about poking in shops, before deciding I was exhausted and going back for a nap. I managed to do my accounts first and then drifted off with the intention of only sleeping for about an hour. I woke up hungry at 8pm and had to walk back into town to find food. I sat in a café and waited for about twenty minutes to even be given a menu, which I eventually had to ask for anyway. I ordered and then sat and watched the world go by until my food came.

After dinner I sat in the square for about an hour and watched the people of this little town just go about their business. There were a few street performers, the most interesting of which was an older man in an lion cloth who was playing with fire and walking on broken glass. There were a few people wandering around wearing traditional dress and I felt like I had actually gone back to medieval times for a second.

I left the square and walked back to the hotel, where I packed up and went to bed, I spent a rather sleepless night in my hot stuffy room, which actually had no windows that connected it with the outside. I wished I hadn't had my nap, as by now I would have been exhausted and fallen asleep straight away.