Monday, Aug 27: Bucharest

I spent most of the day, in fact all of the day, buying things for my big hiking trip in the Romanian mountains. The plan is to do three different ridges. The first are Retazat Mountains (spend 4 days there), the second are Fregarasi Mountains (tallest in Romania at a little over 2500m – spend about 5 days), and then another ridge called Pietrele (spend about 2 days).

I was just about to leave and in fact even made it to the train station and the train itself when I realized that the pack was simply too heavy, and the hike might become more of a torture than fun. So, I headed back home to re-think my packing and figure things out. Tomorrow I’m leaving. Hopefully there should no further delays.

Sunday, Aug 26: Bucharest

I spent the first half of the day at home playing with the Internet so to speak.

In the afternoon I went for a good 3 hour walk with the intent of doing some reading in a park. However, the extreme heat was over and it started raining, so no reading for me. While walking I met this Dutch girl (Joanne). She was holding a map and as the gentleman that I am I offered some help. It turned out this is her 6^th visit to Romania – apparently she likes it here.

Around 21:00 we all went for some brick oven pizza dinner. Finally I hooked up with Joanne in the evening for a drink.

Saturday, Aug 25: Bucharest

I woke up at 5:38 to catch an 8:25 flight from Istanbul to Bucharest. The flight was delayed a bit on the runway due to a flock of birds.. I arrived in Bucharest at around 10:00, and was picked up by friends of my parents - Miron and Liana (how very convenient indeed).

The plan is to hook up with brother on the 8^th of Sep, and add parents to the party on the 11^th. Until then however, I plan on going to the mountains for some good hiking. Therefore, a friend of the friends, who is well familiar with the mountains, showed up around 14:00 and we discussed the various possibilities.

Once that was done I spent some time doing the usual things one does when arriving into a new country: Change some money, get a local sim card, get some maps, etc.

I need to mention that while Istanbul was really hot, there seems to be a heat wave in Bucharest that is far worse. The temperature around here is 38 degrees!

Finally, in the evening I went to check the night life and was very disappointed. Now this is either because I didn’t find the right places where all the action is (a rather likely possibilities), or because the night life does suck around here (I sure hope not).

A few words about the language – I have been used in the last 8 years or so that Romanian serves as a great private communication channel (simply put – Tudor and I have been talking about people behind their backs (or rather not) in Romanian for years). It is most bizarre to suddenly have everyone understand Romanian. Very strange indeed!

Friday, Aug 24: Istanbul

The day started with me shortening my stay in Turkey. Not that it's not an interesting place, but I this trip is not about museums.. So off I went to Turkish airlines and for only 50 USD I got to cut one day from my stay here.

Next I went to Dolmabace palace, which was built in the mid 19th century. The palace stretches 600 meters and is enormous. It has 285 rooms and among other things has a 4.5 ton chandelir with 664 lights. I suppose the palace serves to show how human ego is truly limitless. At the palace there were guards that stood motionless in the blazing sun with full uniforms. They stay like that for an entire hour. It seemed to me that it is some sort of torture.

After the palace I walked to the bridge that connects Europe and Asia and is supposedly the fifth longest in the world and the second in Europe. The walk turned out to be far longer than I had thought. Then I had some excitement. I got a taxi to take me over the bridge (one is not allowed to walk over it since someone jumped off of it). As we got to the beginning; a large traffic jam exposed itself and I got off right there. As I was walking away I hit a pole and tore my new Bilabong shorts :( But within less than 10 minutes I found a shop where I could fix them (only 2.25 USD).

Got on another cab and then the tram and I finally made it back to the old part of the city where I'm staying.

One last thing about the Turkish money. I have just noticed it today - it seems that like in Thailand all notes have the same face (in Thailand it's Mr. King and here I suppose it must be Ataturk - the dude who formed the republic) - how very convenient...

Thursday, Aug 23:Istanbul

The flight to Istanbul was 9 hours long. It wasn't too bad despite the fact that I only slept about 3 hours. For the first time ever on a long flight I was wearing shorts and flip flops. I suppose that given the Thai heat I couldn’t' have brought myself to wear long pants and shoes. I was done with luggage claim by 5:30am at which point I realized there was no one manning the supposedly 24 hours a day tourist information booth. Further, the few workers that were at the airport barely spoke any English and were neither nice nor helpful. Welcome to Turkey I suppose. In fact, I was contemplating departing later in the day straight to Romania.

Eventually I managed to get my hands on an Istanbul map and directions to an area in the old city that should have hostels. As is the case in Thailand, people here seem to solicit all the time (taxi, food, rugs, and so forth). This is one of the ultimate signs of a third world country.I say keep'em out of the union.

Anyway, after using the train and the tram I got to the relevant area and eventually found a hostel around 9:30am. Next, I got a haircut, which is ok but most certainly far from being spectacular (where is the barber from Nelson, NZ when you need him?). At11:30 I finally went to bed for a power nap.

The nap was good but from the depths of my sleep I could hear a man screaming through some speaker system. Yes, it was the Muazzin. I don't get this. Is God all mighty and deaf? Does he really need people to use speakers? I woke up at 14:30 and shortly thereafter went to tour the old city. I passed by Topkap and Ayasofya museums, and only admired them from the outside. I did go into the Blue Mosque, otherwise known as Sultanahmet, which was built between 1609 and 1616. The Mosque is most impressive and I can see the appeal of becoming Muslim. I was not let into the mosque during prayer unfortunately...

In the evening I went for a long walk along the Bosphorus straıts.

One thing about driving: for the first time in 6 months I'm back in a country that drives on the right (in more ways than one) side of the road. It was slightly confusing at first, but as I had anticipated, it took very little time to get used to it.

Wednesday, Aug 22: Bangkok

This was my last day in Bangkok. As such, it was fully dedicated towards running errands. Specifically, I did some more shopping (it probably sounds like I bought half the country - but as most of you know I'm an exceptionally slow shopper). I went to the MBK, which is a large shopping mall and got myself one of those basic MP3 players (2GB + rechargeable batteries + charger for 37USD). On my way back freom the mall I managed to crack the display...

From 18:00 till 19:00 I had my last massage, which was actually pretty good. Hopped on the airport bus at 20:00, and took off to Turkey at 23:45.

Tuesday, Aug 21: Bangkok

I spent the first part of the day shopping, which is always a painful experience for me. Mostly I bought cloths - although not too many. I met up with Anat and Shira and an American friend of theirs (Sarah) for lunch. In fact, for the last couple of days I've been eating only ion the Israeli place, since I've gotten sick of Thai food, which for the most part is noodles, noodles, and some more noodles. Furthermore, I haven't eaten meat in quite some time, since it hasn't been sitting well with me ever since my ER experience.

I didn't do too much in the afternoon/evening except for devouring a whole pizza myself for dinner...