Crooked little streets and houses in Sighisoara.

There was that time I travelled to Transylvania with my friend, Josephine, and we stayed the night in the Central Transylvanian town of Sighisoara. Sighisoara was a town with true character; crooked cobblestone streets, uneven little houses in multiple colours, old fashioned street lanters giving a gloomy light to the streets after dark (if only they had been lit by candle light and not electricity!), and a hill-top gothic castle lit from beneath at night, accompanied by - you guessed it - a creepy graveyard! This little town also happened to be the birth place of Vlad Dracul, daddy of the infamous Vlad Tepes, the historic figure who inspired the legend of Dracula.

Having explored the castle and graveyard by day, we went out for dinner at night. We stayed out late, and by the time we were headed back to the hostel, it was dark and the crooked streets were completely deserted, only dimly lit by the street lanterns. As we walked home, we looked up at the gothic castle and graveyard. There wasn't a soul to be seen anywhere, nor a single sound in the air. And then the city clock struck midnight, and it suddently seemed like something out of a romantic horror fiction story. Vampires were coming, I could feel it - and it was ensnaring!

There was that time Josephine and I hitchhiked around Transylvania. This was our first time hitchhiking, but I had been wanting to try it out as a method of transportation during my travels for years. I didn't come to Transylvania planning to hitchhike, although I had read about this being common practice before my trip. But when they guys at our first hostel in the northern Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca assured us that this was in fact perfectly safe for us to do, any prior concerns were quickly forgotten.

For our first hitch we decided to go all the way from Cluj to Brasov in the south. Brasov is a stonethrow away from the infamous castle of Dracula, the Bran Castle; an absolute must-see on any Transylvanian itinerary! The two of us teamed up with a guy we met at the hostel, Thomas from Leeds, England, and then headed for the road to attempt to thumb down a ride for the 300+ K trip to Brasov.

We weren't the only ones trying to hitch a ride by the side of that road, and picking a good spot to stand was essential. You need to find a place to thumb down a car that is likely already going in the direction you want to go, and the car needs to be able to see you and have the time and the space to pull over, hassle-free. With other hitchers waiting, it was naturally first come, first served, but fortunately, in Transylvania, this might cost you a delay of, say, five or ten minutes. Being three of us, it eventually took us around 45 minutes to hitch a ride, and as I would come to realise over the course of the week, this was actually the longest we had to wait for a ride - ever!

We weren't able to hitch the entire ride from Cluj to Brasov in one go, and this gave us the oppertunity to explore some in-between destinations along the way. Our first ride was with an nice and very chatty old guy, who we learned - mostly via hand gestures and one syllable words, since he spoke almost no English and we didn't speak Romanian - was a university teacher and an amature artist!

This our virgin ride as hicthhikers ended in the small fortified city of Biertan, a few kilomentres outside of the city of Sighisoara. Unfortunately, this was also the time when I, the supposed veteran of backpacking who was currently travelling with a backpacking newbie, discovered that I had been so brilliant as to leave behind my wallet and all of my money for the entire trip in our hostel in Cluj. Naturally, this caused great panic (in me, mainly), as I first thought that my wallet had been stolen. A short phone call to our hostel in Cluj assured me though that I had merely left it behind. Having complete trust in the all around lovely owners of the hostel, we decided not to return to Cluj and instead move on towards Brasov, planning to pick up my wallet and money when the trip was over. This meant that we had to live off Josephine's money for the remainder of the trip. But at least we wouldn't waste an entire day by having to go back to Cluj.

We caught a ride to Sighisoara in no time, and once there, we explored the city a bit before moving on toward Brasov. We debated whether to split up in order to make it easier to get a ride, but found it unnecessary, when suddently, two cars were offering to take all of us at the same time. We later learned that the guy who became our ride hadn't been planning to go to Brasov at all. In fact, he lived near Sighisoara and was just out on an afternoon drive, and his wife was waiting for him back home. But when he saw us standing by the side of the road holding our sign that read "Brasov", he apparently though "sure, why not, I'll take them to Brasov, 150 K from here - let's go!". And then he would drive those 150 K back to Sighisoara aftewards, because, you know, his wife was still waiting for him and all. And then he wouldn't even accept money for gas from us! Some people are just amazing!

Hitchhiking Transylvania

During the remainder of our trip, we would go on the thumb just about anywhere. A few times we hopped on a public bus since it was so cheap and very convenient for short distances, but mostly, we just took place by the side of the road and waited for someone to pick us up. It never failed, and we never had to wait more than 30-40 minutes tops. We met so many amazing people, ranging from young guys desperately trying to impress us with all the show-off features in their car (wow, the roof comes up - impressive...I guess) to the three middle aged men who squeezed really close together to fit all five of us into a tiny car going all the way from Brasov and back to Sighisoara. We even got a ride from a Lorry driver at one point (they are slow, but maaaan, the view!). Most of these people wouldn't take any money for their help whatsoever! To our surprise we learned over the course of the trip that Hitchhiking around Transylvania felt very safe, and it lost us any concern that we might get stuck somewhere unable to get back to the city - it's just the way of life in central Romania!

Inside Bran Castle.

There was that time we went to visit Bran Castle, know as the Caste of Dracula. At first we expected this to be a bit too much of a tourist trap, since it was so famous and all. Afterall, they had set up a whole bunch of souvenir stands in front of it, and also created a "Haunted Forest" attraction similar to the ones you find in travelling fun fair parks (which, if like us, you are really just a child trapped in an adult's body, is awesome!). But the castle itself turned out to be really charming and definitely worth a visit.

More intriguing to us though was the hills behind the castle, which gave a weak signal of being out of bounds for tourists. To us it seemed like a half-hearted attempt to keep people out, with a tiny garden gate blocking the path acting as the only "fence" signaling to people not to go beyond this point. They couldn't possibly be serious, we thought, and climbing over a few rocks to land ourselves on the "forbidden" path (which meant that we teqnically didn't have to go through the gate), turned out to be piece of cake. So up the hills we climbed. Eventually we landed on a hill top that presented us with an astonishing view of the snow clad mountains of the region. A perfect place for a picknick (if only we had brought food and blankets!).

On our way down we stumbled upon something interesting; a dug-out empty grave hidden behind the trees. Balancing against the side of the grave was a big wooden cross that read "Unknown. Death by hanging", accompanied by the year, which was 1500-something. A little creepy, really...

There was that time we went trekking in the Capathian Mountains, looking for a mountain hut to spent then night in...because we had been told there would be one up there...somewhere...

Given instructions from our Brasov hostel receptionist to "just follow the path", we started out taking the bus from Brasov out to the small town of Zarnesti, where we got off and then started walking towards the mountains. Having got off the bus way too early, because apparently Zarnesti is a sleepy, sparsely inhabited, but very LONG town (!), meant that at least the first hour or so of our walk took place inside the city itself. As a result, before we even reached the edge of the nationale park, we were a bit thirsty (hint: the bus end station is at the end of the town!), so it was a nice surprise that the town had water pumps that you could drink from right in the middle of the streets!

Once we finally reached the national park itself, it wasn't long until the path took us upwards - steeply! I have to say that I quite enjoyed trekking through the mountains just the two of us without a guide, and I had much fun searching for branches to turn into perfect walking sticks. After a few hours we came out of the forest and landed on a high open plateau. We started searching for the hut, thinking this was the end of the trek. We thought we had found it when we spotted a little shack in the distance (afterall, how luxurious could a little mountain hut out in the middle of nowhere in the Capathian Mountains be?). We turned out to be quite wrong though, as this little shack was really just...a shack. Unfortunately, following the shack on the horizon had made us lose our way on the path, which meant that we were now lost. We crossed one hill after another, not spotting a single sign or anything else to indicate the right direction. Eventually, I sat Josephine down with our backpacks, saying I would climb to the top of a hill to see if I could see something. But nothing still. Then I took a look behind the next hill. Still nothing. By then I figured that I better come back with the solution as to where we were going, so instead of turning back, I decided to keep looking, and did eventually find a sign pointing in the right direction. We were back on the right track! Unfortunately by the time I got back to Josephine, she was really concerned, because I had been gone for about twenty minutes "just checking behind this hill", and she had started to worry I had gotten lost completely or fallen down with a broken leg somewhere. Rookie guide mistake...

Back on the path, we passed three little huts before finally finding the right one - the cosiest little mountain hut, tucked away behind trees, but with the most amazing view of the mountains in front of it! There was no water inside, but the hut was heated and had food! Here we spent the evening playing God-knows-what-that-board-game-was-called with a sweet Romanian family. This was an adventure in itself since we didn't speak the language and didn't know the rules to the game! The night we spent in bunk beds, sharing the room with this family and their dog, Maya (cutest little thing ever!). In the morning the guys in the reception/kitchen (!) made os lunch packs for the trek down. The trek down seemed to me much quicker than the trek up (but okay, we didn't get lost on the way down), and soon we were back at our lovely hostel in Brasov, feeling like we had faced the Capathian Mountain head on!

There was that time we decided to spend our last night in Transylvania in what was - apparently - the most haunted place on earth. Turns out that right outside the Northern Transylvanian city of Cluj, you find the Hoia Baciu Forest, which is famously known for a vast variety of paranormal activity and all around spooky occurances.

We were to fly out from Cluj at 6 in the morning, which we figured gave us just enough time to spend our last night in Transylvania inside this haunted wonder of a forest. Sounds reasonable, right? Never miss an oppertunity to explore! So a bunch of us from our hostel got together, bought tourches (real tources, with flames and stuff, not those phony flashlights!), and then we took the car out to the edge of the forest at around 11 at night.

We had done research on the place during the day and learned what kind of effects people usually experience when going into the forest (we demonstratively ignored that NEVER RETURNING was one of them, of course...). We walked for a while along the edge of the forest, spotting moving lights and (probably imagined) shadows between the trees, entertaining ourselves with theories on who would be the first of the group to die inside the forest (apparently I was safe, the group agreed, because it is never the blond white girl who goes first...guess I haven't watched enough Hollywood horror movies to be aware of that little bit of racism). Our main theory was that the guide (in our case the guy who owned the car and knew where the forest was) would go first, since that is apparently also a rule in horror movies. Although my friend Josephine proposed that she would probably be the one to go first, since she had just been so tacky as to use the word "hashtag" in an argument - which we all know means that you have no class left and so you had it come. Well, that escalated quickly...

Once deep inside the forest, we headed for a clearing which was famous for being a near perfect circle and the only place inside the forest where NOTHING would grow - for no apparent reason, scientific research would suggest. This was also where most ghost sightings were reported to happen. This was of course the perfect place for a midnight picknick (the picnick basket consisted of beer only, of course, but you get the picture). So there we sat, drinking Transylvanian beer (with elderflower? Really?!), the torches forming a circle around us, us staring into the darkness hoping to spot something exciting. Now, because this was real life and not some ghost hunting show on the National Geographic Channel, not much actually happened. Admittedly, we all heard, saw, or felt something during the hours we spent inside the forest, but it was all along the lines of "if we had been anywhere else but the world's most haunted place, we wouldn't have given these things any thought at all".

Little noises or (imagined) movements in the forest are enough to get your mind going inside a place like that though. On our way out, walking through a slightly foggy forest ground, Ashley from Canada, whom we had met at the hostel, stated that she felt like a little ghost boy was walking beside her. Josephine, on the other hand, was obsessing over the idea that whatever might grab her in the darkness better be something sexy! Of course, with her luck, it was me who suddently, out of the blue (or black, in this case) felt a very varm touch to my lower lip - which for the sake of romance and adventure, I am going to interpret was a kiss from a sexy ghost (because why not?). Not everyone was as excited about the spooky stuff going on inside the forest though. Following the trail toward the edge of the forest, the guide suddentlig stopped, like frozen, then pointed to a plastic bag on the ground, exclaiming in a panicking voice "was that bag there when we came?!!!". Yup, that's really all it takes inside a place like that.