24 Hours of Traveling

9.00am

I’m writing this from the train, eleven hours into the journey. We had some trouble trying to get quickly and easily from Istanbul to anywhere, so we ended up with a night (and day) train to Bucharest. We had thought about stopping in Bulgaria, but unfortunately that would involve two night trains, or possibly even the same train only split into two parts. Our other options were plane or bus. Plane would cost 3 times as much, but we would be there in a fraction of the time. Bus would take 3 hours fewer and cost the same. So why are we on this 18 hour train? We got couchettes (minibeds). On night trains, you can usually pay for a seat that turns into a bed, which is exactly what we did. I’ll try to update later, but for now, it’s a bit after 9am and I am wanting breakfast.

2.52 pm

After endless hours of entertaining myself, we are now at the Bulgaria/Romania border. So close… only 2 more hours. Earlier I failed to mention the Turkey/Bulgaria border crossing. That was definitely an interesting experience. I’ve never gotten off the train or bus to get my passport checked. The passport guy always comes to me. But for some reason unbeknownst to me, I found myself standing in a short line at the passport office in an almost deserted train station at 2 or 3 in the morning. Strangely enough, after getting my Turkish stamp and back onto the train, the Turkish officials checked on me 4 more times. Once to make sure I got my passport stamped, once to make sure I had a ticket, and twice for customs (who checked my ticket and passport). It all just seemed so redundant.

The Bulgarian border was much easier. Since they became part of the EU, apparently the border has eased up. I remember sitting on a train at 4 or 5 am as my passport was taken from me and waiting an hour or two before I got my at-the-border visa. The stamp is different now, the normal EU stamp. There isn’t even any Cyrillic on the stamp! Only Roman characters. How boring!

I’ll update a bit later if I can. From Bucharest we are traveling to Brasov (an additional 3 hours).