Killing Batteries

Bucharest was pretty dreadful, but I’ve had worse. Naples comes to mind - and that hellhole Andorra la Vella. Or that time in Los Angeles, when I drove from UCLA to Orange County… Nevertheless, I won’t be buying property in Bucharest soon or even investing in a 10-ride metro card. In many ways Bucharest is like a port town, but without the port. People arrive by plane and train, then promptly flee for more agreeable destinations.

I’ll grudgingly admit that there are worthwhile things to see here, but having visited every notable patch of grass in Romania, I can say with complete authority that anything and everything in Bucharest exists in much better form and surroundings at several other places in the country. If you’ve only got four days, fine, stay in Bucharest, if not, you’re doing yourself a disservice by lingering here.

Though not nearly as demoralizing as driving in Bucharest - which has unbelievably gotten worse in the past three years - five days on foot in Bucharest could break the patience and love of Gandhi himself. Hell, just sitting on a street corner can drain the hardest man’s will to live. The incessant car horns, the dense pollution, people screaming at each other, half-dead dogs and filth… Vlad Tepeş wouldn’t last 10 seconds in modern Bucharest. The first time someone drove by with a cigarette in one hand and a mobile phone in the other, splashing him with a totally avoidable puddle, he’d completely lose his shit. If only skewering wrongdoers from asshole to neck was still legal, people would probably have better manners around here. (more…)

Actually, I don’t really have anything else to say to you guys. I board a flight in just over 24 hours and as soon as I touch the ground in Bucharest, I’ll be a blur of over-Red Bulled, under-rested, stress-addled, bilingual jabbering motion for the next four weeks. I could promise to submit trip reports here at least once a week, but I really have no idea if that’ll be possible. On the surface, this research trip appears to be a cakewalk, but this is a Romania and Lonely Planet perfect storm we’re talking about here. Two entities that on their own virtually guarantee unpredictable chaos. When put together, be terrified (on my behalf). Be very terrified (on my behalf).

For you guidebook groupies, this research trip is only to update the chapters on Romania and Moldova for Lonely Planet’s Eastern Europe and Europe on a Shoestring books. So while the total number of pages that I’m writing/updating is far less than if I were also researching for the Romania & Moldova book, the geographic area that I’m covering has nearly doubled (I didn’t cover Bucharest or Transylvania last time, that was Robert’s job). So, while there’ll be less facts to check in each city and therefore less time spent pounding the pavement, there’ll be more time driving and as I’ve already testified, despite improvements in road conditions and driving behavior, driving in Romania and Moldova largely remains white knuckle, ass-tightening anarchy.

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Although it breaks all the rules of travel writing – I say that like I ever learned them in the first place - I’m going to start this destination report on a negative note, so I can get the bad juju out of the way and spend the rest of this space talking about fun stuff like white beaches and Happy Ending massages.

The fact is that I’ve been struggling with an awkward ethical dilemma while writing nice things about Saipan. I liken it to writing nice things about breast implants. Saipan is really nice to look when it’s under clothes or in a scandalously small bikini, but when viewed up close and naked, laying hands on the real estate if you will, it suddenly becomes less sexy.

Why am I being so helplessly judgmental about beautiful, interesting, affordable, gangs-of-fun Saipan? Mainly because I’m still a little web-shocked after having read Saipan Sucks from top to bottom. Talk about an ass-flogging smear campaign… I thought I was pissed off about stuff. I don’t have anything on that Saipan Sucks guy (or guys as they want us to believe).

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