Hi Bob and others, I'm pleasantly surprised that an enjoyable train travel did happen to you in Romania. It must have been with the narrow gauged local train in Maramures. These diminutive, slow trains look as if were specially conceived for touristic purposes. Unfortunately they are almost an extinguished breed and the sad truth is that regular trains makes for one of the less civilized sides of life in Romania. More, what may seem a cheap fee to you, makes the country - for the vast majority of the population - large as a continent. For those of you forseeing a trip around here, do not pick anything less than the intercity variety. Best option is a car, as roads are on the acceptable side (hope it remains so). :o/
Servus, Alin Bob wrote: BW> when I was in Romania a couple of years ago I travelled around by BW> train - much shorter distances than India of course, but some of the BW> journeys were just as long. Train travel in Romania is a real BW> pleasure, especially on the 'personal' trains, which move at walking BW> speed (honestly). In Maramures County I had a very pleasant time BW> sharing the train, and their local produce, with the farmers who hopped BW> on and off at the little village halts. BW> Anyway, for the final leg on the way back to Bucharest I took a night BW> train and booked myself into a 1st-class carriage (non sleeper), which BW> is extremely cheap by British standards. I had assumed that I would BW> probably have the carriage mostly to myself, and that I could stretch BW> out and sleep for most of the trip. How very wrong. I ended up crushed BW> in a corner, sharing the carriage with 5 other people. Right next BW> to me was the largest, most obnoxious woman in Europe. The heating BW> system was jammed on the 'Hellfire' setting so that I (and Miss Piggy BW> too) was sweating buckets. Then of course somebody decided to force BW> the window open, so that as we rattled through the September night a BW> freezing gale blew in. Of course, Miss P. then almost wet-marshmallowed BW> me to death by leaning over and slamming the window shut again, so BW> that we were back in the fiery pit. This naturally led to a heated debate BW> between the icy-chill protagonist, and sizzling Miss Bacon, which BW> rumbled on as low-grade guerrilla warfare with occasional outbursts of BW> window-opening, window-slamming and (no doubt) earthy Romanian BW> lamguage lessons for several dreary, dark, sleepless hours. BW> I hope my fellow travellers in India will be a little more civilised. - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
