Days 1 - 3

Yallingup to Perth to KL to Istanbul to Bucharest – Thursday 8^th – Saturday 10^th October

We’ve been “on the road”, so to speak, for almost 2 days. Actually on the road only from home a little after 6pm on Thursday to Perth, where we dropped off the car at Helen’s place around 10-ish, caught an Uber to the airport, and then two flights – one Malaysian and one Turkish – to Istanbul. About 16 hours in the air in total, plus a couple of hours at KLIA.

The Malaysian A330 was nice; the Turkish A350 brilliant. Fully enclosed suites with plenty of room and a very comfy bed. From the 2am start at Perth to the 5pm (plus 5 hours) arrival in Istanbul I probably got about 6 hours sleep, which isn’t too bad, and then last night at the airport hotel in Istanbul I got a solid 8+ hours. Up early this morning (5am) for 7am ride to the airport and our 10am flight, which was delayed. After only about one hour in the air we arrived into Bucharest a little after midday, and through immigration and the like and into our car for the next week by 1pm. Into the hotel (Hotel Cișmigiu, with wonderful architecture and a fascinating history) and by 2:30 out and about wandering around/exploring the streets of Bucharest.

So that’s the timeline. Now for a couple of the highlights.

Perhaps my memory is dimming, but my thinking is that the Turkish flight was one of the best I’ve ever taken. Not only was the plane layout very comfortable, but the whole service offering was also excellent. I’d heard good things about Turkish Airlines in the past and the high expectations were well and truly met. The food offering was first class, as I’m sure were the drinks (we didn’t have any other than tea or coffee). The service from the crew was very good. Jumping forward to the arrival at Istanbul Airport, that would have to be one of the smoothest ever. It is supposedly the largest privately owned airport in the world and one of the biggest in Europe, serving well over 80 million passengers each year. It’s a mega city, but smooth. When we left Istanbul this morning for Bucharest we went exploring the airport, visiting Tiffany and Bulgari (as you do) to check out some sparkly things, then spent some time in the business lounge, which to my mind rivals anything I’ve seen elsewhere, including some of the flash ones in the middle east. It certainly leaves the much-lauded Qantas First lounge in Singapore for dead.

Which brings us to our actual arrival into Istanbul town. Because we were only briefly overnighting in Istanbul prior to heading off to Romania, I had booked an “airport” hotel. I only put that in inverted commas because apart from a very few all the airport hotels are located in the district of Arnavutköy, a suburb of Istanbul about 40 klms from the city centre. Arnavutköy itself is about 20 minutes from the airport, and so requires transport to/from. Lady luck was on my side (she very nearly always is) and the place I had chosen was excellent. They arranged a car (at extra cost, obviously) which worked very well. The room was comfortable, the immediate district pleasant to walk around, and the local mosque, the Taşoluk Yeşil Cami, quite magnificent from the outside. We strolled past a local café and the owner was very friendly, so after a bit more exploring we returned to his place for dinner. Early to bed in preparation for our 7am departure back to the airport.

I mentioned the Istanbul Airport above. The journey back through check-in and immigration was once again easy (once we’d oriented ourselves including a slight misstep by me when I ended up at the wrong counter heading to the wrong destination). The delayed flight to Bucharest was a quick <1 hour journey. Immigration was not as smooth as the previous day, but not too painful (compared to our last entry into the Schengen zone at Helsinki only 4 months previously). Our driver for the week, Victor Zamfir, was easy to find and after all the introductions and car collection he took us to our hotel and left us to our own devices for the afternoon.

Bucharest is more tired looking than I expected, but as I’ve started to understand the recent history (in brief the Russian occupation from 1944-1958, the Ceaușescu dictatorship, and the post-Soviet era from 1989) the appearance is understandable.

This afternoon and evening we explored the old city in a wandery sort of a way. Many of the buildings have a sort of Paris/Madrid feel about them, but as I said, in a tired sort of way. Victor talks about the endemic corruption in the system left over from the Soviet days and the resultant lack of maintenance of buildings and facilities. That said, some of the little backstreet laneways in the old town were absolutely buzzing with bars and restaurants and people. After dinner at a close by recommended Romanian restaurant we walked into the Spotlight Festival – hard to judge how many people were crowded just into the main corner we visited; tens of thousands would be my wild guess.

Not that I expected otherwise, but everyone we've met and interacted with - Turkish and Romanian - has been wonderfully welcoming. Sure, they want our tourist dollars, but it's way more than that - if it was simply a currency grab I think I'd see the cynicism in that, and there's been none.

Standby for some more detailed comments (even insightful, maybe??) over coming days. I don’t have time to isolate and post photos, so for the moment words will have to suffice, and even they might be a bit thin on the ground. I’ll have to figure a way to address both of those.