SWEET TRANSYLVANIAN TRAVERSE
'Kiss the hand you can not bite', an old Romanian proverb of Turkish origin, is a useful phrase to remember, when negotiating the huge queues at the Hungarian side of the Romanian border. Sometimes, several kilometres back from the actual line, trucks and cars form massive queues. Taking a leaf from the London courier rule book, we skirted down the outside, at the first small wave on, from the transcontinental truckies.
Having been told of speeding infringements being paid for with a packet of Marlboros and a can of coke, we approached the guards fully stocked. Producing a New Zealand passport was all it took. That, and a current 'green card' extension, of our motor insurance.. Some rather dodgy looking 'tax collectors' were reluctant to give receipts, as I remember.
It only took us a couple of hours to be humming along Romania's quiet rural roads, past fields of hay and poppies. Clouds, at times looking thunderous and menacing hovered around the hills to the east, so with no particular place to go, we deviated north and skirted around the city Arad, in the wine growing region of Crisana and Banat.
40 kilometres north we swung east again, towards the small village of Ineu, with a petrol crisis looming. We rather stupidly hadn't filled up in Hungary. We were now forced to find a gas station, on our first day in a new country. Always a nerve racking experience with a new language, currency, and pump etiquette.
