Istan-Bullseye!

'And the end of all exploring will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time'
T. S. Eliot

So I made it. One side of Europe to the other - the gateway to Asia, the end of the western world. And, as you may have gathered from the Eliot quote above (sorry to be so pretentious, but it's one of my favourites) it's now almost time to come home.

I've seen a few things over the last 2 months. I've been chased by angry dogs, I've been threatened by angry Romanians with large farming implements, and I've nearly been flattened by some terrifying driving on pretty much an hourly basis. Riding into Istanbul in particular was a festival of death-defying feats. If you're tired of life at any stage, get a bike and ride in and out of Istanbul until a murderous bus-driver finally finishes you off. It will definitely happen sooner or later, and you'll enjoy the adrenaline rush during your final moments. It surely beats jumping off any roof.

But anyway, I was looking back at my account of a typical day cycling in Germany, and I decided that it left a fair bit to be desired in terms of adventure. (Haribo? Fuck off!) For sure, cycling in Western Europe is very similar to cycling in Eastern Europe in some ways (you turn the pedals round, the bike moves forward, you get tired and the traffic tries to kill you). But the experience is also vastly different as well. So, for your edification, I will now recount the experiences of a typical day cycling in Romania, so you can see the difference for yourself.

7am: You wake up to the sound of a truck pulling up nearby, and frantic barking of dogs. You no longer wonder where you are upon waking - the smell tells you everything you need to know. You're sleeping in a tent next to a petrol station forecourt.

7:10am: Open the tent and climb out. Say hello to the manager of the petrol station, who is standing by one of the pumps smoking a cigarette. You recall his warning last night ("No smoking here. Benzine. BOOM!") and wonder why the basic laws of combustion don't apply to the proprietor as well. Take a piss behind the pumps and say hello to the horse, which is eating some suspect looking grass growing next to the petrol-stained concrete. You no longer question why a petrol station would need a horse. They all seem to have them. It's normal.

7:30am: You pack up your tent, while being occasionally bothered by the petrol station's five resident dogs, which only leave you alone in order to chase the cars that pull in and out of the station. When there are no cars to chase, they circle around you growling and occasionally nipping at the fabric of the tent as you try to roll it up in the breeze.

7:40am: You discover that the front tyre of the bike has gone totally flat overnight. There is no logical reason for this. Pump it up and pray that it stays inflated. It does. This is an omen that augers well for a good days riding.

8am: You're now riding. It's still quite cool but there isn't a cloud in the sky, so you know that in about an hour the temperature will be in the 30s, and rising. You press on - it's crucial to cover distance early as it'll only get harder as the heat builds. The road is quiet, but liberally garnished with large cracks and potholes, which turns the ride into an exciting slalom course.

8:20am: Overtake a horse and cart. The driver looks grimly at you until you wave, at which point his face bursts into a smile and he shouts something loudly at you. Respond with a 'Alright mate, cheers for that!' or something similarly English. When communicating here, a shared language is completely optional.

9am: It's getting hotter, and the sweat is now running freely down your face and saturating an already pretty ratty t-shirt. You pass yet another dead dog next to the road. This one is particularly grisly. It's insides are on the outside, it's mouth is open in a grimace of agony, and it smells like Satan's christmas dinner.

10am: You reach a village. There must be a circus passing through this particular village, because people are running onto the road, shouting and waving. You realise that you are the circus. A man bellows something at you that could have been an insult, a greeting or a threat - but it's doesn't matter because you're already past him and pedalling hard. Kids run out, pointing and laughing, and put their hands up so you can high-five them on the way past. A man driving an old Dacia blasts his horn as he goes past and waves out of the window. An old lady with no teeth is the only person not interested in the spectacle you're creating - she sits in the shade and observes the goings-on with a tired frown and an obvious lack of interest. You're hungry, but there's no way you're going to stop to visit a shop in the middle of this furore. You decide to press on to the next village.

10:40am: The next village is exactly the same.

11:05am: And the next one.

11:15am: It is now seriously hot. When the road doesn't pass through villages, the road cuts through vast expanses of farmland with no shade. The farmers are burning the old straw, which creates plumes of smoke that blow across the road. The temperature is maybe 37 degrees, but as you drive past the fires you can feel the heat on your face. You can't see though, because the smoke is thick and black. You try to hold your breath and cycle simultaneously. This is impossible, so you inhale deeply halfway through the smoke plume and then suffer a coughing fit that lasts the next 5 minutes.

12 noon: You run out of water. This is a problem, so you strike up a conversation with a driver of a horse and cart. The conversation is conducted in Romanian on his side and English on yours, but you say 'Apa' a few times and show him your empty bottle, and he gets the gist. 2kms down the road, he pulls in at his farm, takes your bottle and goes to fill it up. While you wait, his dog barks and growls at you. When the bottle comes back, it's full of cold water. It tastes kind of slimy, but you don't care.

12:30pm: Pop into a shop to get some lunch. Most villages have one small grocery shop, and the items the stock varies immensely. In this one, you manage to find some kind of questionable cheese, an old hard loaf of bread and an icecream that looks a bit like a cornetto from the 80s. When you leave with your treasures, there are another 2kms to pedal to get out of the village and under some shade. The days of benches are long gone - now you're just trying to find somewhere to sit that isn't a dead dog. While you look for somewhere to eat, the retro icecream turns to mush and the bread turns to stone. You improvise by shoving the gooey icecream into the middle of the bread to make an icecream sandwich. The cheese tastes salty and strange, but probably won't kill you.

2pm: The road decides that it's tired of being made of tarmac, and starts being made of sand and small rocks instead. It also decides that this is a good time to head uphill. After 3 kilometres of this, you wish the road would just sod off. You tell it this, so it does. You follow a track made out of bumps, rocks and ridges for another 3 kilometres. You start pleading with the road to come back to you, but it has taken umbrage and remains resolutely absent.

2:30pm: The road reappears, but it is mainly made of holes. The sun is like a furnace, and concentrating on the road surface becomes very difficult. While wiping the sweat from your eyes, you hit a huge pothole which almost throws you off the bike. You get off and sit under a tree, smoking a cigarette and glaring at your bike which you've left lying in the road. You pray for a truck to come and flatten it, but the only thing that goes past is an old woman driving a herd of geese.

3pm: You ride through another village. A group of teenagers run out and stick their hands out for the now standard high-fives. As you slap one of them, he graps your wrist and tries to pull you off the bike. Sadly, he's a skinny lad and he's underestimated the speed and weight of the bike, so he's jerked forward instead. He tries to let go, but you're not having that. You hang on to one of his fingers for as long as you can, because fuck him. He wriggles free and yells something. One of his mates throws a clod of mud that hits your rear panniers as you cycle off.

4pm: You've probably done about 110kms now. Approaching a cart with 3 Roma gypsy women in it, you wave politely. They respond by all sticking their middle fingers up and laughing. It's unclear whether this is a friendly gesture or not. Certainly, as you pull out to overtake the cart they suddenly stop laughing and gesture frantically at you. You pull back in just in time for a truck to hammer past with a blast of horn and a cloud of dust and fumes. The gypsy women resume their laughing and all stick their fingers up again. You grin, wave, and pedal past.

5pm: It's time to start looking for somewhere to camp. It doesn't seem to matter where you camp in Romania, but it's best to try and find somewhere nicely out of the way. There's a good spot in some tall grass just behind a small copse of trees. Get the tent up and try to find a spot to hide from the sun. You're soaked in sweat, and your knees hurt like hell, so you curl up behind the tent in the grass and wait for the sun to drop far enough for it to be bearably cool enough to walk around.

5:30pm: The dogs arrive. They come over a nearby rise and bark at you until you crawl into the tent. Then they sniff around for a while before becoming bored and racing off somewhere else.

6:30pm: Stick some food on the stove. It's tuna and pasta. Some things just don't change.

7:30pm: Make a little fire, just for fun. Nobody cares - the whole country seems to be on fire anyway, and at least it'll keep the dogs away.

8pm: Read a book, listen to some music, write up your journal. Whatever. Enjoy the fire, enjoy a cigarette, enjoy the sunset.

9:30pm: It's basically bedtime now. Watch the fire die and turn in.

2am: Wake up to footsteps and rustling outside the tent. Immediately awake and alert, and busy constructing a large poo in the depths of your bowels. Open the tent to find a large doggy face staring back at you, with a mangled tin of tuna in its mouth. Shut the tent and go back to sleep. It's normal.

Tomorrow: Do it all again.

Buried in Pomposity is brought to you by Dan, who is very sad that it's all over. For now.