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[Roadtrip] Where East Meets West - Part 3
January 12, 2015
First of all, I can't say how many parts will be for this roadtrip :) Hehe, feel free to read, hopefully this can inspire you to try travelling somewhere by car :) Just like when I shared few experiences with my parents, they even asked me if is it possible to travel by car when they come here. They are interested to apply for international license too! :D
Enough for introduction. Let's proceed! ;)
Bucharest-Sofia
approximately 390km, in 6 hours (non stop driving)
ETA - 7am Wednesday
Route to Sofia with its own challenge when half of it has only one road for each direction. So, we need to carefully cross another car, make sure, no cars from opposite direction. The road was really dark! Seriously, like I mentioned sometime before, we can just depend on our car's light, and of course play around with the high beam. I think, most of time I was using high beam. It was not a straight road, so, need to know how to balance your gear and brake along the hilly roads.
Phewww, I guess, I have improved my driving skills drastically from this road trip. Manual car is not a problem, anymore. Alhamdulillah.
Well, I can relate this one quote by Robert Ricciardelli I read before. It was like;
The road to success is NEVER a straight road, right? There are always loops of challenges, speed bumps of friends, red lights of enemies, caution lights like family, weather changes that can fog your vision - some may complicated your journey, but some may be a booster for you to go further :) Keep determined and have faith!
Since the view was most of times dark, I found it tiring to strain my eyes to keep my focus. Tried to open the playlist and sing along. Eat a lot, chew gums a lot, Drink a lot. But bad moment was when you need to go to the toilet in the middle of forest where petrol stations were not so many. And even, they were conserving lights too T_T
My urinary bladder, himnae! keep strong!
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| Image - credit |
The border of Romania and Bulgaria is Giurgiu (Romania side) and Ruse (Bulgaria side) where here, we need to use a bridge to cross Danube river that form mostly the border between Romania and Bulgaria. Still remember I said in previous part, Danube river in Budapest? Yeah this is its continuation :)
The bridge is called Giurgiu-Rousse Friendship Bridge. The age of the bridge is more than our Independence Day. Hoho. It was opened in 1954. Even though we need to pay (~ 6 Euro) to use the bridge, but it is really NOT in good condition!.There were holes everywhere, cracks along the road.
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| This was taken on our way back. |
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| See the bridge :p |
The customs was nice, they even had a conversation with us while getting our passports checked. Basically, customs will ask you where are you heading to (like the final destination). What are the reasons of your trip? Just answer; holidays :)
Yeah, he was wondering why we chose to travel in this cold weather, why not in summer? We just said that summer is the only opportunity to go home for a long holiday. He just nodded, showing face of understanding. "It must be hard for you. Okay, everything done! May you have good trip to Sofia and managed to catch the new year in Istanbul". Smile :)
But, Sofia is not that close to the border T__T
We need to drive for another 300km! Hahahaha.
Thats mean, Bucharest to the border was only 90km!
Alhamdulillah, there is highway to drive faster and safer (of course, not for whole 300km) :)
I stopped by at many petrol stations to take a 10 minutes nap. :) It helped!
In the middle of the journey, suddenly it was raining/snowing heavily. Fuh, luckily the road was not slippery and I can still maintained with 130km/h. Getting close to Sofia, about 150km, the roads pass through mountains (again), and it was really beautiful to watch lots of wooden houses, covered with snow. And there were I guess, at least 4 tunnels, each about 800 meters :)
Pardon me if I mentioned about the beauty of mountains a lot. T__T I'm so into nature, I can say :)
Pardon me if I mentioned about the beauty of mountains a lot. T__T I'm so into nature, I can say :)
We arrived at Sofia, Bulgaria; about 9am Wednesday. And as planned, we will walk around the city, maybe at least to 2 places of attractions :)
More stories? Want to know something about Sofia?
Till next post, bye!
Assalamualaikum.
v Khaulah,
150108
[Roadtrip] Where East Meets West - Part 2
January 9, 2015
Where were we?
Ahaa, arrived in Budapest. :) Okay, let's continue!
We didn't walk around Budapest this time, as we planned to do so on our way back home. Budapest is a very nice city to travel in; with its preserved heritage too and I love the Chain Bridge that connect the two parts of Budapest - Buda and Pest. Will talk about it soon. :)
After filling the petrol tank, we drove along Danube river while looking at the beautiful morning scenery and started to head into highways; approximately at 9am Tuesday
I took the shift of driving to Bucharest, Romania. Fuh, I was quite nervous as I felt kind of responsible with the lives of other people too. If you are like me, what I did was; keep calm, and recite Allah's names most of the times okay?
Before I forget, the speed limit here, commonly as follows;
Village - 50km/h
City - 90km/h
Highway - 130km/h
Budapest - Bucharest
approximately 830 km, in 9-10 hours (if drive non stop)
Estimated time of arrival (ETA) - 9pm Tuesday.
We stopped at this RnR, aiming to have proper breakfast with cups of hot drinks (coffee, hot chocolate, or tea). There are a petrol station, a restaurant and a cafe there. So, 2 of us stepped into the cafe while the others went first to the toilets. We didn't order yet as we thought we would order together with the rest. Ouch, unfortunately the cafe didn't accept debit cards and she didn't like us to stay in her cafe. Hmphh.
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| That cafe - building on the left |
Aha, we didn't changed money to Hungarian Forint (HUF) that time. Most of time, we paid for the petrol by debit card (we have in Euro currency). And the rest, we didn't need money to buy any food. Why? Because we brought along 2 full bags of food; name it - nasi goreng, kuewtiaw goreng, cucur, cookies, snacks, hot coffee in flask, bottles of mineral water, bars of chocolates, fruits etc. Yeah, before the trip we had last minute discussion to separate the duty - AJK Makanan, AJK Kereta & Petrol, AJK Kelengkapan and most important one, the treasurer (to keep on track all expenses). Our AJK Makanan took care of all food during the journey on road.
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| Somewhere in Romania. I guess, Arad :) |
Roads connecting countries here are not always highways. Sometime, the highways end somewhere and you need to continue driving along the small towns/villages to get into another highways. And this can prolong the duration of driving; there can be people walking ON the road (as their pavements are covered with thick snow), there can be lots of lorries in front of you. There can also be police cars patrolling around - so, you can not exceed the speed limit. Duh.
By the way, when we passed through customs and passport controls at every borders, we got our passports stamped! Weheeee, that's excited to hear, right? But, no stamps or clear border between Czech and Slovakia, maybe because both were used to combine before as Czechoslovakia :)
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| Border of Hungary - Romania |
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| While waiting for passport control. Ignore the dirty screen; the weather was not that good. |
Vignette for Romania = 5 Euro (for a week) - if I'm not mistaken
If you drive a rented car, make sure you have the car's identity card and the contract/paper of renting. Some countries, they ask for this before selling the vignette or letting you pass the passport control.
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| Cards we need to have - International Driving License, Passport, Debit/credit card, Biomatric card (this is only for us as we stayed in Czech more than 90 days - customs wanted to see this as they wonder why are we still in Europe after 90 days :)) |
I can say I love Romania for its beautiful scenery of nature! There are not much of tall buildings and the countryside looks so peaceful to live in. Driving along the hills, with white mountains and hills along the way, sometimes we can see sheep and horses. Sometimes, we can drive along the road with nothing at the both sides - everything covered with snow (I expect maybe those are wheat field) how can not I fall in love with it :)
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| Countryside of Romania. |
We changed drivers nearly half way; my friend is more skillful to drive when it gets darker. As you know, winter has shorter day and longer night. I guess, my melatonin was secreted a lot when it came to night T_T
The road for the rest of the journey to Bucharest was challenging! The route, I can say; similar to the combination of hilly road from Gerik - Jeli and Simpang Pulai to Cameron Highlands. But, as I say Romania is beautiful with its nature; you can expect beautiful views too even at night! With beautiful sky with the shiny moon and stars, you can see reflections of mountains on the river you drove along.
After making sure that we entered another highway (the A1 highway from Pite?ti), I asked excuse to sleep. When I woke up, we already arrived in Bucharest, at 11pm Tuesday! (total of 14 hours) :D
Stopped by the petrol station again, try to continue to places in Bucharest. It was really cold to walk outside, so, we decided to visit anything interesting only by car. When I recheck on Internet about Bucharest, I learnt to know that there was a snow storm before we arrived! And of course we can see most cars were fully covered with white snow.
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| Not a good picture of Bucharest. I'm sorry. |
Basic information on Bucharest;- it is the capital and largest city in Romania, located south of the country. The buildings are quite a mixture of old and modern architecture. It is getting more trendy (maybe like Warsaw, Poland). Was known as "little Paris" before (maybe can be seen in the Arch de Triumph it has in one of the roundabouts :) Ahaa, we need to change our time zone here, by adding up an hour. (12am in Bucharest means 11pm in Czech).
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| Another picture of Bucharest :) |
Till next part!
Weee :D
Weee :D
v Khaulah,
150108
[Roadtrip] Where East Meets West
January 5, 2015
Alhamdulillah :)
Finally, after about a week of travelling by car, we safely arrived home! Yeah, it was a road trip, and literally we were in car most of times. ;) The car itself was like our house; it was the kitchen to prepare food and eat; it was the bedroom to sleep. Not to forget, our favorite pit-stops; the petrol stations T_T
Guess where we went?
It is the place where the east meets the west! :D
You are correct!
Istanbul, Turkey.
It was kind of a sudden plan for the winter break; despite of going by plane with expensive tickets, we tried to look for alternative way to travel. So, here we go; by car.
Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic
Bratislava, Slovakia
Budapest, Hungary
Bucharest, Romania
Sofia, Bulgaria
Istanbul, Turkey.
Overall, the journey was safe and we encountered so many new experiences. Will share about it soon, insyAllah.
Say, [O Muhammad], "Travel through the land and observe how He began creation. Then Allah will produce the final creation. Indeed Allah , over all things, is competent." Al-Ankabut 29;20
Observe and think :)
Assalamualaikum.
v Khaulah,
150105
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