We Go to Transylvania, Yes?

We left Budapest and headed due east, across the Romanian border, and into the heart of the Carpathian Mountains. The border crossing was a bit unsettling since we didn't know the language and had heard horror stories about the Romanian government from our friendly and very knowledgeable guide, Levente. His stories were very vague which made them somewhat more chilling. One might be: "One time they kept me for questioning for three days. That was bad time. Yes?" But other than being a long wait the border crossing was fairly uneventful. Levente changed some Hungarian money into Romanian Leis and announced he was now a millionaire because Hungarian Forints were worth millions of Romanian Leis.

When we entered the mountains, we were treated to a little slice of America...the Restaurant Vegas, which advertised Coca-Cola. Mike, of course, insisted we stop and see if their Coke was any different than our Coke. He announced that it was a little "fizzier."

The Transylvanian countryside was very peaceful and pleasant. Farms and small villages passed by the window as we made a thirteen-hour journey from Budapest to the town of Torocko. We also saw lots of horse-drawn wagons on modern tires loaded with hay riding along the side of the road. All the roads were two lanes, and when Levente would pass the wagons, the van would swerve a bit and sometimes oncoming cars would honk. It made for stressful riding.

Most of the telepone poles were made of concrete, like the one in this picture. Lots of the homes were concrete and stucco with wooden gates. As we got into Transylania there were some towns that were all Romanians and some that were all Hungarians. Transylvania had been part of the Austro-Hungarian empire before World War I, and there different ethnic groups in the region including the Saxons and others that I can't remember. Many of the Saxon settlers went back to Germany after the Communist takeover at the end of World War II. At any rate, some towns display the Romanian flag like the one on the telephone pole in the picture on the left. Those villages tended to be all Romanians, which meant they spoke Romanian and were more patriotic to the Romanian nation. Other villages like the Hungarian villages we visited, were all Hungarians for whom Romanian was a second language that they were forced to learn when they went to school.