I take the overnight BOSFOR express train from Istanbul, Turkey to Bucharest, Romania - though 'express' apparently means something different in eastern Europe. The first leg of the track isn't complete yet so we are to be bussed a few hours to the border of Bulgaria. Our bus is due to leave at 10 pm. It arrives on time and we get on but then a clipboard is handed round on which each of us must, one by one, write out our nationality, passport number, destination, etc. etc. after which the driver does a thorough ticket inspection, and, then, after 20 minutes of driving, we stop for a 20 minute meal break! When we get to the border, late, the train isn't there yet, there was an accident on the track last night, and a train might show up at 2 am or at 4 am or maybe a bus instead. Who knows? We will see.
Eventually a train arrives - looking like something left over from pre-war Russia - and we get on. It stops, frequently, for unknown reasons. At 5:30 a.m. I am woken by someone shining a bright light in my eyes demanding to see my passport and he takes off with it for ages, so long so that I worry the train will start up and I will be left without it. I take a picture of the train hallway, which, in the early morning looks just about as drab as I feel. A slim sliver of dull orange is just beginning to creep up over the horizon and I feel that I 'ought' to start to look at the landscape. Instead I think to get out my sleeping bag and curl up in it and go back to sleep.
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| Waiting for a train at the first border... |
Eventually a train arrives - looking like something left over from pre-war Russia - and we get on. It stops, frequently, for unknown reasons. At 5:30 a.m. I am woken by someone shining a bright light in my eyes demanding to see my passport and he takes off with it for ages, so long so that I worry the train will start up and I will be left without it. I take a picture of the train hallway, which, in the early morning looks just about as drab as I feel. A slim sliver of dull orange is just beginning to creep up over the horizon and I feel that I 'ought' to start to look at the landscape. Instead I think to get out my sleeping bag and curl up in it and go back to sleep.
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Later I do get up, am more horrified by the twine holding the back door closed than by the toilets, and marvel that the scenery out the window - rolling hills and trees - could just as easily be northern Ontario.
I try to follow where we are on the map but station names are written in an indecipherable (to me) alphabet which adds significantly to the challenge.
The landscape becomes flatter, farmland mostly, though occasional towns pass by characterized primarily by depressingly forlorn run-down apartment buildings looking for all the world as if they belong in Cuba. I have to assume it is possible to build happy lives living in such accommodation but from a completely uninformed outsider's perspective it seems unlikely. (Yesterday a Turkish man was telling me about how democracy has eroded in Turkey over the past decade and how so many of the Turkish people are currently just modern day slaves with no hope of bettering their lot.) I watch many more sad apartment complexes pass by and am glad that my financial circumstances do not have me trapped in such a dwelling.
At one stop - surprise - we change trains and there are suddenly a lot more people on board. I am drawn, as usual, to English speaking voices and spend several companionable hours chatting with fellow travellers, some of whom have been traveling continuously for years. We pass a nuclear plant, cross a wide river, and the train stops again for over an hour as we get to the border into Romania. It is well over 30 degrees, there is no AC on the train, and no breeze. We are all hot and sweaty and the slightly more modern seats on this newer train are less comfortable for lying down on. I had started to wonder in the past few days just how crazy I am to have made the choice to be here but being surrounded by others who have made the same choice makes me feel, if not less insane, then a little less alone at any rate. Soon I have pulled out my note book and started to take down suggestions of places to add to my list of possible future destinations and before I know it we are moving again and then it is 6 pm and the 20 hour trip is over.
