Diary, 23rd of July, 2009 - The road of death, Romania

This morning we awoke early to the dulcet tones of six or seven barking dogs accompanied by the steady drone of trucks on the highway. I'm not sure if they ever stopped during the night. It had been a warm night and was already shaping up to be another hot, humid day, so feeling particularly seedy and probably quite smelly, we packed up the tent and hit the road for another long day of driving - destination: Bucharest.

An hour or so into the day's drive, we dropped in to a service station to check the tyres and water. I also really wanted a coffee to prevent the inevitable caffeine withdrawal headache. Since we were able to pay for dinner last night with Euros and weren't planning on staying in Hungary for long, we weren't carrying any local currency. I asked if I could buy a coffee with Euros, but rather than having to deal with changing my 2 Euro coin, the attendant gave me the coffee for free. Score.

Driving through the Hungarian countryside by day was a completely different experience to Budapest by night. Last night, Budapest was a beautiful, clean and distinctive city, but the Hungarian countryside shows much more of the country's

For the first time since the channel tunnel, we needed to stop for passport control as we crossed over into Romania. After a few quick checks our passports were stamped and we were on our way, and almost immediately it became very clear that we were leaving western Europe.

The roads and drivers in Romania are absolutely insane. Almost the entire distance from the border to Bucharest consisted of winding, single lane mountain roads, rising and falling with the contours of the land. Just to make things interesting though these roads are completely overflowing with trucks struggling to make 80km/h up the hills, and cars with psychotic drivers intent on maintaining no less than 130km/h.

Naturally, this results in lots of hairy overtaking. Three abreast with the overtaker straddling the centerline around a blind bend is commonplace. And if that isn't enough to get your blood flowing, the roadside is littered with absolutely lethal objects on or near the while line at the edge of your lane. For example; car sized drainage ditches with concrete separations each 15m, concrete parapets stepping in and out, random piles of dirt and bricks, and the occasional pedestrian walking directly on the lane in the middle of the night.

Around 9pm we bought dinner at a small roadside grill restaurant. The staff for some reason weren't very friendly, but the mechanic sitting behind us spoke flawless english and was very interested in the car and where we were going. I think we almost convinced him to change one of our CV joints for us!

After dinner, we returned to the highway for another couple of hours of Romanian Roulette. On the way we encountered more deadly roadside furniture than you can poke a stick at, a stoppage caused by a truck that had dropped it's entire rear axle on the road, and a stray dog that held a solid 45km/h for 200m beside our car as we entered Bucharest. After rolling around town for a while we eventually found a hotel for the night at around 2am. Completely exhausted, we cranked the aircon to full and hit the sack, with another long, hot day ahead of us.