Romanıa 1

Your knee and mobıle phone are both fıne, Mr Cartney...

As I cross into Romania it proves to be unrelentingly cold, grey and grim. The people seem hard faced and unfriendly. The streets are dirty and the surrounding countryside wears an abused, uncared for, air. The houses in the villages are shuttered, doors bolted, like they’ve been mothballed. The towns are worse, endless crumbling blocks of flats that make Leiths’ Fort look like millionaires’ apartments. I stop in a half completed ‘Pensiun’ about 100km over the border, run by an unsmiling teenager and surrounded by ankle deep mud.

Next day I head for Sinaia. Described in my ‘Lovely Planet’ guidebook as ‘The pearl of the Carpathians…Sinaia seems to have sprouted naturally from its wooded nest.’ Confidently expecting a kind of Eastern European Eden of smiling locals (possibly doffing their caps and offering me swigs from earthenware beer mugs) and quaint Transylvanian lodges huddled in leafy glades I am surprised to arrive in a grubby dump where shabby 70s hotels vie for space with even more decrepit older buildings, where the fashion in garden ornaments appears to be old plastic drinks bottles and food wrappings. I book into a guesthouse which is run by a frightful old crone who demands money at every opportunity but nevertheless has satellite TV.
The TV doesn’t make me feel much better however, CNN tells me that not only are there riots in Kathmandu and escalating tensions between the UK and Iran, but massive floods are devastating huge tracts of the country south of where I am.
Between downpours I go to the Tourist Information office where an excitable wee man tells me that I cannot go to Bulgaria for 30 days and the only way in is through Greece.
I spend two days in Sinaia trying to find accurate information on the situation and hiding in my room drinking Ursus beer and watching the National Geographic Channel.

Finally I head off towards Bucharest, hoping to get better info. nearer the Danube. It’s cold, wet and I’m tired. I feel like I’ve lost interest in the journey. If I can’t get into Iran (where it starts getting really interesting) what’s the point at all? It’s typical that in all the years I’ve been planning this trip I don’t remember there ever being a problem in UK citizens getting visas. Now, just as I’m heading for the area, the politicians decide the world needs a little more tension to make it interesting and searches on the internet seem to suggest I ain’t got a cat in hell’s chance of getting one.

Coming into Ploiesti it’s wet and I’m riding fairly cautiously, leaving what I think is a good stopping distance between me and the van in front. But then I’m not expecting him to slam his brakes on.
The red lights flash on. The screech of tyres warns me he’s not easing to a halt. I can’t think why, there’s nothing in front as far as I can see. I slam my brakes on but it’s quickly clear in the conditions, heavily loaded as I am, I’m going to hit the van quite hard.
Then the front wheel locks up, dumping me onto the road and I’m sliding on my left side, but apparently still not slowing down.
‘WHUMP!’
I hit the van and that brings me to a halt. There’s a sudden explosion of pain in my left leg and I’m clutching my knee and breathing hard, eyes screwed shut, when the van suddenly pulls away and drives off. I’m gobsmacked. How could he possibly have failed to notice the collision?
I stagger slowly to my feet and limp to the side of the road to get my breath and the man in the car behind eventually gets out and asks me if I’m OK.
"Yeah…yeah, I think so."
He helps me lift my bike upright. By the time I’ve pushed it to the side of the road he’s got back in his car and driven off.
As I sit on the crash barrier, holding my knee and staring at my crumpled bike, the Romanian traffic streaming by, it’s a solitary a feeling as I’ve ever had, and I’ve spent a week skiing alone across the Hardangervidda in Norway.
Limping over to the bike I push the starter but nothing happens. ‘Too much to expect I suppose,’ and I’m about to start looking for telltale damage when I notice the ignition is off. I must have turned it off and forgotten. I try again. ‘Chug..chug..BRUMMM!’ It starts first time.
As I stand painfully next to my poor, battered XT as it rumbles happily away, I feel just a little less alone. I ride into Ploiesti in holed Goretex and Wax Cotton, gouges in my precious Acerbis tank, the left side of my handlebars pointing straight back at my stomach and a knee screaming at me, but no other apparent damage.

By the next morning the knee is twice the size of my right one and I limp to a Hospital I noticed on the way in the day before. It’s a children’s hospital but the Doctor has a quick look.
"I think you might have broken something." she says, "it might need…er…"
"Plaster?"
"Yes, I’ll send you to adult hospital."
The Doctors at the Adult Hospital are efficient and friendly, apart from the consultant, which is the prerogative of consultants worldwide. They x-ray me on a machine that looks like it’s been rescued from a 1960s airport, tell me my knee is fine, give me a prescription for pain killers and anti-inflammatories (I think) and say goodbye. No, no charge.
It’s funny because the leg doesn’t feel fine. My top speed is about one and a half knots and the slightest twist or knock sends a wide burst of pain surging through my knee. However, by that evening the leg is very slightly better. I spend two days in Ploiesti with my leg on a pillow, surrounded by snacks and in front of the Discovery Channel, before my leg feels like it will hold me while I swing the other one over the bike.
Next I wıll have to go to Bucharest to get some new handlebars.