Plan A..

Well, the idea is to land in Bucharest and head north to Brasov and then NW to Oradea - either that or W to Timisoara - whichever gets me to Budapest.

Hitch, train or pray.. finding myself in Romania at night with no local currency, language skills or reservations, what could go wrong?

Na, I've been in worse spots (1983, Tehran during Army Week, with no money, no language skills, no maps, no onward ticket and no contacts.. and they were at war and hated the West, so we were told)

Beware of approaching deadlines!

Buried under a mountain of paperwork I see the deadline approaching.

Jan, bless him, phoned up after my last message and earnestly advised me of the staggeringly high mortality ate amongst single foreign travellers. Romania's little secret. Well, you've got to go sometime, somewhere (isn't that a song?).

I am now giving half a thought to packing. On a 2 month trip to Asia I once took just carry-on luggage. I can't remember being inconvenienced at all. In 1983 I took 50kgs which included pretty much everything (a tent, a back-up tent and bivvy-bag, sleeping bag, clothes, shoes, flare gun with 8 rounds, cassette player, 15 cassettes, maps, books, camera, rechargeable batteries, battery recharger, voltage adapter - you get the idea) and can pretty much only remember it being a huge pain. Got me fit though!

So I favour the eclectic minimalist approach now:

Camera. Okay it's a target for thieves but it includes a video function and takes nice pictures. When I stop adding pictures you'll know it's been ripped off.

USB flash drive. Or whatever you want to call it - 1Gb of storage for freeing up my camera memory and bringing with me the tools of my trade. How many of you can say they can fit their tools into something the size of a packet of chewing gum?

Jandals, or flip flops. It's hot in Romania and Hungary: real hot! And wet in the UK: real wet. What copes better than jandals? Plus Diana is hoping I'll lose them and the stores here never stock them again. Not their number one fan, that girl. One of her favourite pastimes is throwing away my crappy clothes. Full time job though.

Clothes, 2 sets. One for walking in, one for being respectable in, all things being relative. Two sets, five weeks. Too many sets?

Flag. Not that I'm one for flag waving, but it may pique curiosity and lead to more lifts. NZ flag that is. UK flag is sadly now with the US flag in attracting a kick to the nadgers, I suspect.

Toilet paper. Say no more.

Rucksack. Of course

Wallet. Cheap one for pickpockets, normal one for me. Why am I doing this - I'm sure Romanians and Hungarians are nice people? Um, that's it.. any suggestions?

Jan bails

Seems Jan isn't quite the action hero I thought he was..

Mike. You are crazy. The moral in Romania is zero, Police is not working at all, you can be killed for 10 $. Mike you need 3 days for Prague and 3 days for Mountains. Remember they are stealing via train windows. Other system is a 3-6 gypsies make a circle and take a knife on you, sorry don’t be idiot. Muslims have better moral then Romanians. Your chance to survive in Romania is 40% if you are going through country by slow train. People are killing for food cans. Sorry I am not willing to take this risk, is too high and in Hungary is totally nothing, totally flat country, only Budapest is OK. you are not pissing me off, but you are crazy, you have not idea what are you doing, that is like walk through Bronx in midnight. Save the time for CR and France. If you have problem I can give you some money in CR. CR is free, you are my guest. In Europe is not a difference between normal train and express, only extra pay is for luxuries express and TGW-Pendolino. Probably best is to meet you in Budapest if you don’t like something more secure. Jan

Well.. Diana did tell me to avoid Gypsies, but I think they are over-concerned. Do 60% of single travellers really disappear from the Romanian Railways system? I guess I'll have to find out..

OK, I've trawled the internet, starting with a Google search for "Romania unsafe" and, when all that appeared unsafe was abortions, "Romania unsafe -abortions". That still left an awful lot of medical entries and, after two pages, I gave up looking.

I did find http://www.travelpod.com/ and many entries asserting how safe Romania was (of course they may have been written by the 40% who made it..) so I sent Jan this raspberry:

You giant girl with whiskers! OK, just to make you happy I will NOT travel by train! I shall hitch-hike. See you in Budapest.