Saturday, September 03, 2005

Overnight Cross Border Train Ride

I jumped on the 11pm train last night from Budapest, taking a 10hrs cross border train to Sighisoara (Romania). At 12.30am, ticket inspectors came... then i prepare to at least get some sleep. Blew up the travel pillow, took out the eye mask. 2am - Hungarian passport control barged into the cabin, need to give me a "leaving" stamp. 3am - Romanian customs & excise ppl came., checking bags for cigs and alcol. 3.30am - Romanian passport control ppl came - but not to stamp - but to ask questions and etc. Was then given an "ok" slip which i had to give to the ppl that will come later to stamp my passport. Doze off again - 4.30am - passport stamping ppl came and then told me I needed a visa to enter Romania. I have checked with the embassy & I dont....but no one listened - the passport control person in green army like uniform just ordered me to "get off the train now" instead. Its 4.30am - i am half asleep, dont even know where I am. But... got off the train anyhow - didnt want to argue with mean looking passport control person. Was brought into an old building where there were few men in there that looked really tired and dodgy. I was praying hard at this point & images of scenes in movies during Soviet times came to mind. Luckily, 15mins later, mean looking passport control person came back out with my passport, stamp and then told me to quickly jump on the train. Luckily my train was still there. Got to my destination at 9.30am - needless to say - didnt have any sleep. Really tired now. Spent the whole morning and afternoon exploring this very interesting medievel town. Got a 1 on 1 guided tour from a missionary volunteer - which was really good. Preparing to head to bed now.... and its only 5pm local time. Hopefully my early morning train tomorrow to Brasov will be less eventful. :)

3 comments:

mom2ashley said...

my gosh! how scary to be ordered off the train in the middle of nowhere and all alone!!!

anyway...what an adventure!!!

Corrinne said...

Tell me about it... the ppl in that room in there looked full on dodgy.

mom2ashley said...

well i'm glad that you're in one piece!!