18 Wheels of Steel Across Romania

Hitchhiking is a fairly normal way to get around in Romania, though not for tourists. But when it's the only option you have, it's one of those things you just have to do. We had no idea how or where to hitchhike, since there was no one else standing on the side of the road. We tried waiting at a bus stop with our thumbs out for a good 15-20 minutes. Clearly everyone saw us, but no one stopped. We decided to walk a little further down the road. Some Romanians with maps asked us if that was the road to Lacu Rosu, and as I answered affirmatively, I asked if they were going there, hoping we could catch a ride with them. They didn't have space. But just then a nice car pulled up, and rolled down the window.

We got a ride with a Moldavian man who is some sort of agricultural engineer. From our conversation I understood that he works with tractors, updating them or programming them. He also told us about his family—I think his wife is Hungarian. Meanwhile, outside the car was the winding road going up into the mountains, surrounded by tree-filled cliffs jutting out over rolling hills. We saw at least one group pulled over at a shoulder to have a roadside BBQ.

As the road reached its climax we started descending into the Lacu Rosu area. Romanians and Hungarians ran around parking lots and down the road, while we got stuck in the traffic caused by attempts to slowly swerve around the potholes that filled every stretch of this road through the mountains. Our new friend asked us where we wanted to be dropped off, and of course we had no clue, so he left us on the side of the road. He refused any payment, even gas money, though I knew this was special treatment for us as it's usual for hitchhikers to give a few lei, so roughly one dollar.

So, we made it to Lacu Rosu despite the holiday. But, it was still a holiday and every hotel and pensiune was booked! Not to mention the steady drizzle. We got lucky and finally found one place with a room, and a heater. Our hostess didn't speak any English, except for the word "money," of which she was very fond. Our next door neighbors had the music pumping in the afternoon, and we joked about getting to know them so we could get invited to the party. Little did we know...

It was very cold and wet outside, but we went to the outdoor food market by the lake to get some grilled (or fried, in the case of my french fries) food and beer, search for a set of playing cards, and be in the midst of all the vacationers. The lake, it turns out, is not red, but green. It gets its name from a myth about a landslide that killed a number of people, thus filling the lake with their red blood. This is why I was happy to see that it was not red.

Back at the hotel, we tried to ask our hostess if she knew when there was a bus east to Piatra Neamt. She understood us but was apparently afraid of answering us in Romanian, so she found some other guests who could speak some English. She showed up at our door a few minutes later with two sweaty, young, fat, and clearly drunk Romanian men. These were our next door neighbors. They spat out a few words in English and informed us that they would take us to Piatra Neamt the next morning at 7 (it was already nearing midnight at this point). Then they invited us over to their room for some drinks.

Their room held a large boom box with speakers, a laptop, a nearly empty 2 liter bottle of wine, some dirty cups, and in 2 corners, beds with a wife under the sheets. One of the women (Caty) was pregnant. The husbands (Dan and Marius) had a microphone attached to the laptop and sound system, not so much for singing as for announcing things, like dedications such including "For my American friends from Seattle..." The men spent the next hour or so drinking and dancing, trying to sing, showing us photos, and making fun of each other with the same repetitive dialogue:

Dan: "He is drinking."
Marius: "It is joke."

This was the explanation for everything that they said.


The next day Marius paid the price for his drinking. We left at 7 a.m. sharp as promised, but as we wound our way through Bicaz Gorges, aka "The Neck of Hell," we had to pull over three or four times for Marius to vomit or pee on the roadside. It was kind of gross, but at least I got a chance to take some pictures of the mountains and valleys.


In Piatra Neamt, we said goodbye, as we were heading north to Suceava and they back home to Galati. We caught the bus to Suceava, and there eventually found our overpriced hostel. Getting ready for the tour of the monasteries, I was a little sad to realize I had re-entered Tourist Romania (evidenced by attempts to make money at every turn), having left the Romanian playground in the mountains.

Car ride through The Neck of Hell: