Travelogue of our crazy hitchhiking trip through Romania – Part 1
What it's like:
- traveling from Sofia to Bucharest (Romania) by bus for just 1 lev,
- being fined in the Bucharest public transport and threatened with arrest even though you paid your ticket
- having them charge you $55 for a rental car, not give it to you, and kick you out of the office
- and finally, a guy who makes bombs takes you hitchhiking 200 kilometers deep into Romania.
For these and other adventures, read my travelogue about Romania below.
On the occasion of Flixbus (a well-known bus company with routes all over Europe at very affordable prices) setting foot on our native soil and the opening of a new bus line from Sofia to Bucharest, Flixbus's website had released a large number of tickets for 1 (one!) lev per person one-way for the Sofia – Bucharest route and back. And since the idea of traveling 340 kilometers for just one lev was very tempting to me, in the end I couldn't resist and got two round-trip tickets for the night buses, so we could have two more days of stay in Romania.
I also managed to find a rent-a-car for $5.80 for 2 days through Expedia. Why, however, never, but NEVER, would I book through Expedia again, you will learn if you keep reading the travelogue further...
THE PLAN (which turned completely upside down by 100% after only a few hours of stay in Bucharest) was simple: we go by night bus to Bucharest; from there, we rent a car to drive to Salina Slanic Prahova (which is located between Bucharest and Brașov) and then stay 2 nights in Brașov at the Casa Borgo hotel. After some time, we go to Bran to see Dracula's Castle and return by car to Bucharest, where we tour the main sights and in the evening catch the night bus back to Sofia. Everything looked good and easy to execute for hardcore travelers like us. 🙂
We had no idea what an unpleasant surprise awaited us and how this trip to nearby Romania would turn out to be one of our most exciting and adrenaline-filled experiences EVER!
And so..., setting off from Plovdiv to Sofia, we got caught in a terrible traffic jam on the highway due to an accident earlier that day between a car and a bus, as a result of which there were 6 casualties... We arrived on time in Sofia and boarded the bus that was going to take us to Bucharest. The bus departs every day from Serdika station in Sofia at 23:30 and arrives at Military station in the outskirts of Bucharest around 6:50.
The buses belong to some Romanian bus company and looked very good inside. They were exceptionally clean, there was a toilet, screens on every seat, a TV, as well as a notification board where it said, for example, to put on our seatbelts or that the toilet was occupied, and so on. There were two drivers to take turns. According to the published schedule, we were supposed to arrive at 60:50 in Bucharest. What a surprise it was for all passengers when our bus dropped us off at 5:30 at the bus station!... What on earth were we to do in Bucharest at 5:30 in the morning?!
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Later in the day, we had the commitment to pick up our rental car from the airport. So now we had about 6 hours to kill. We set off on foot and it took us about two hours to get to the center of Bucharest. We passed by the Palace of Parliament and the National Museum, which also houses the Presidential Palace.
We walked around the Old Town of Bucharest... it was barely 8:30 in the morning on a Saturday, and we saw a sight that hardly many tourists have ever seen... The Old Town was exactly what we didn't expect to see! Yes, the interesting old buildings were there, but besides them, there was filth, alcohol bottles, brothels, and still drunk people everywhere. We decided that at the first convenient opportunity we would have to visit the Old Town once more, but at a normal time of day when everything is cleaned up and the venues are expecting the tourist crowds, to get a better idea of it. Overall, these are the main sights in Bucharest as well, including the Village Museum and various lovely parks and gardens there.
From the center of Bucharest to the airport you can take a taxi. The taxis in Bucharest are driving from Piata Unirii (which has a metro station) and are traveling for about 40 minutes, so that you can get to the international airport Henri Coandă. To use the transportation system (RATB) in Bucharest, you need to buy a ticket, which costs 1.60 lei, and the trip to the airport costs 3.50 lei per person. You can also buy a ticket for 15.60 lei, which is valid for 4 trips.
THEY ALMOST ARRESTED US!
We got on the bus, validated our tickets twice on the machines provided for that purpose, and calmly took random seats on the bus. Halfway through our journey to the airport, a couple of ticket inspectors got on and started checking passengers' tickets. They reached our ticket and it turned out we had validated a ticket for only one passenger… We started arguing and explaining that we had validated twice and hadn't realized there was a problem with the validation of the second ticket, because the machine gave us a message that there was no way for us to understand, since everything was in Romanian.
Both on the ticket validation machine and on a sheet of instructions pasted on one of the bus windows – everything was in Romanian. However, the inspector didn't give up and pointed out that somewhere back there on the bus there was an English description of how to use the machine. And I ask him: “Okay, so next time I should circle the whole bus looking for the coveted instruction sheet before validating my ticket?” and he yells: “Yes.” Tempers flared so much that another female inspector came over and suggested to the other inspector, with whom we were arguing, that they arrest us!!!
At that exact moment, the whole bus turned against the inspectors in our defense. A huge ruckus broke out and we were downright ashamed… There was a young Romanian guy who repeatedly told the inspector that there was no way for us to understand there was a problem, since everywhere it was written in Romanian. Then that same guy threw 50 lei at them (how much the fine was) and said he was ashamed of the Romanian mentality. We got off at the airport bus stop with that guy, thanked him and gave him back the 50 lei.
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What is it to pay x10 times more than what you originally booked!
Having just served our arrest, we briskly walked to the airport, from where we were finally supposed to pick up our rental car. I made the car reservation through Expedia for 2 days for the price of $5.90, and the rent-a-car company was Iconomy. At the time of booking, I explicitly declined the additional insurance, which amounted to several times the entire car rental.
And so… we arrive at the airport, where we were greeted by a representative of the car rental company and driven 300 meters from the airport, where their office was located. So far so good! We enter the office and there we were greeted by a very sullen employee. We handed over the driver's license and started waiting for the person to sort out the paperwork. The employee asked me to pay the amount of 270 Romanian lei, it seemed a lot to me, but I'm telling myself that maybe I didn't calculate the exchange rate of the Romanian leu properly. My bad.
I was quite shaken by the previous incident in the city bus and wanted to get our car as soon as possible. After that, he asked to block a deposit for the car in the amount of 700 dollars or 500 euros, which is standard practice when renting a car. I put in the credit card and it turned out there wasn't enough money inside for the deposit. And I was sure I had. From there, I started asking what had happened.
Едва тогава разбрах, which is very expensive, and we will be robbed of our money, and we will have to pay for the rental car, which costs 5.90 dollars for 2 days, and the rental car company is Iconomy. On my list with the reservation, it is written that the rental car company can cancel the reservation, and we will lose our money, and we will have to pay for the rental car, and we will be robbed again. Maybe, maybe not, but the theory of probability says that we will be robbed again. Not even a comment!
The person from the agency found somewhere in the General Terms and Conditions where it says that the mandatory insurance varies between 9 and 29 dollars and the most interesting thing was that for the smallest possible car like a Renault Clio (which we had booked) the insurance was $25/day. How come the smallest car is going to have such expensive insurance?! What remains for some Mercedes?
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The biggest lie, however, I figured out a few days after our stay in Romania, when in the peace of home I repeated all the steps for booking a car from the company in question, to check if it wasn't me who had missed something... and what turns out — that actually this insurance, which the person from the agency told us was mandatory, might not be taken under certain conditions, one of which is when we have taken out insurance elsewhere, and we had — I had insured the car on the website www.worldwideinsure.com. NO COMMENT!
Right upon coming into the office, I asked the person how much deposit he would ask of me so I could gauge whether I had that much, and he said he didn't know and that the system would determine it automatically… And when did he determine it – when I had already paid a 10 times higher amount and had no funds left for the deposit. He said the same about the insurance when we asked him how such an expensive insurance could be placed on such a small car.
Meanwhile, according to the employee, we should have been charged $55.90 (5.90 + 2×25) and that equals about 210 lei. No one gave me an explanation of where the remaining 60 lei went!
After realizing the whole situation, I wanted to cancel the entire reservation and not take the car. The employee said okay. He wrote on a piece of paper that we were canceling the reservation and wished us goodbye. Literally! When I asked him when he would return my money, he told me to read my car rental agreement. Extremely rude attitude! Why, on the agreement paper, it said that the money is non-refundable. How can there be no money refund when I want to cancel on the spot a reservation that I paid a minute earlier? He couldn't, those were the terms and I had signed… After ten minutes of arguments, we saw that we were going to achieve nothing and left the office.
Реших да се обадя на Еxpedia and the situation is that Expedia has no support for crisis situations. Yes, they have a number (11-800-397-3342), but if you call, you will not be able to talk to anyone, and you will have to wait a long time, and you will be very tired, and you will be robbed again. And if you are not careful, you will be robbed again, and you will have to pay for everything, and you will be very tired, and you will be robbed again. The rental car company Iconomy will also rob us, and we will have to pay for the rental car, and we will be robbed again.
Във Second part of the trip to Romania which teaches us how to travel by car, and how to be robbed, and how to pay for everything, and how to be very tired, and how to be robbed again. 🙂