Exploring Romania

Romania is one of those countries we always think of traveling back to. It seems like there's so much to explore. It is a big and versatile country, probably best for those who seek for something that you really can't find in central or western Europe anymore. The nature is beyond beautiful but you also have lots of history to explore and fantastic food and wines to enjoy.

Palace of the Parliament

Bucharest, Romania

Our trip started off from Bucharest where we spent one full day. I'm sure we could have spent a little longer there, but not necessarily more than a couple of days maximum. It's a huge city with a beautiful, yet small old town, which was our favorite. We loved the little shops, cafes and restaurants. The city does need a bit of renovation but nothing out of the ordinary.

The shopping possibilities seemed quite decent as there are a couple of huge malls in Bucharest. They have a good selection of western brands but what's way more interesting is actually the selection of eastern European (and beyond) brands that's still as modern and fashionable but you probably can't get the items in your country. 

Bucharest Old Town

Holocaust memorial, Bucharest

After strolling through the capital, we drove off to Brasov, a famous small town about a three hour drive from Bucharest that served as a base when exploring the Transylvania region. It's a very lovely, charming little city near the mountains. The drive itself is magnificent as the scenery is breathtaking. It could also be a great country for hiking.

On the road to Brasov

On the misty road..

While driving in Romania is definitely recommended for the views, it definitely requires some good driving skills. Even though there wasn't that much traffic, it was one of the worst places to be on the road because of the local driving culture. I can't even count how many times we had to beware of a crazy driver on the road either overtaking other cars in a total blind spot or just stopping on the road without any prior warning.

..still driving..

This aside, the drive to Brasov was so great, it took us about two hours extra time as we were constantly stopping to admire the Carpathian mountains. 

A sight you don't see too other anymore

Brasov, Romania

Brasov is a delightful small town, even when the weather is not on your side as there's plenty of museums, cafe's, bar's, restaurant's and shop's to escape the rain. It's also a beautiful place to spend a couple of days when in the region. While it might not be big enough to really offer you new corners to explore, you can easily pass a couple of days in there. Also, like mentioned before, it's a great base to explore the nearby regions.

One of the main streets of Brasov, Romania

Our intention wasn't to drive the Transfagarasan (which we didn't) but we did drive nearby trying to find the beginning of this famous, scenic route. And still we didn't find it but instead we did get to see some beautiful small villages and amazing scenery. We have a habit of driving around almost aimlessly exploring every little corner we find and Romania was another great country to do this. The food was very delicious no matter where we went and it's easy to find nice restaurants serving traditional, local food.


Sadly, Romanian wines are surprisingly underrated as they would definitely deserve more acknowledgement than what they currently get. Try and taste as many as you can. They totally blew us away.

Driving aimlessly

Stunning Romanian countryside

Bran Castle, Bran, Romania

Bran castle is, of course, a sight not to be missed. It's pretty interesting to take a step in. Again, the scenery around it is stunning.

Brasov

Brasov, Romania

Next time we will definitely pack along our hiking gear and explore the nature a little closer. We can only imagine what amazing trails this country has to offer. Also, we'll definitely drive the Transfagarasan. The food in Romania is simply great so make sure to try mămăligă (polenta with cheese and sour cream), cârnați (pork sausages) and, well, just try everything you can get your hands on. It's delicious! Save time for shopping, if that's your thing, and keep your eyes on the road when driving.

Hualien - The City of Earthquakes

Hiking in Taroko Gorge

Hualien is a small city located about two hours by train from Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. It's in between the Central Mountain range and on the coast of Pacific ocean which makes it a great location for different purposes as you can enjoy the city life but also go hiking, whale watching and more. We had two reasons to go there, the Taroko Gorge and frequent earthquakes.

Amazing Taroko, Hualien

Hualien is known for it's notorious location being prone to earthquakes. By frequent we mean daily. On our four day stay we experienced at least two earthquakes per day, every day, three on average and the biggest being 5.6M. I guess it was some sort of a small peak which seems to happen every now and then. You can see a list of most recent earthquakes in Taiwan here.

Earthquakes in Hualien, Taiwan

Scootering away 

For the locals it's not a big deal. They seemed to go on with their daily activities as per usual even when we were having lunch and the whole restaurant started shaking. The locals only seemed to raise their heads to calmly observe the situation. For us, staying on the 15th floor of our hotel and waking up around 4 in the night was quite intense. Interesting, once-in a lifetime intense kind of a way. I had been hoping to experience a small earthquake already for a very long time starting from our trip to Iceland, where nothing happened at all to Bali where I think I woke up to a tiny quake during the night but am not sure. In Hualien it finally happened up to the point that eventually, on our departure day, we were actually quite happy to leave and return to more stable grounds.

Apparently there has been sun in Taroko

We ended up staying in Hualien for a little longer than expected. Initially the plan was to drive from Taipei to Hualien where we wanted to stay two days and then continue to Sun Moon Lake. However, we didn't know we needed The International Driving Permit which lead to the cancellation of the car rental. It all went quite smooth, though. The local Avis Car Rental employees, who were already used to a situation like this, helped us make other travel arrangements so  it only took us less than an hour to get ourselves on a train to Hualien. We had a nice hotel booked in Hualien so staying there was no issue at all, although we would have loved to stay in the mountains also.

Taroko Gorge, Hualien, Taiwan

The highlights of the area, aside the earthquakes, was the Taroko Gorge, the Pacific Ocean and the food. Hualien city itself is quite small so a day or two is enough. We had all sorts of hikes planned for the time we stayed in Hualien but due to the weather and the earthquakes we decided to skip most the longer and more demanding trails. We did hike some shorter, less demanding paths that were nice but not particularly challenging.

Taroko Gorge

There are a few things we didn't realize to consider but should have, when planning hiking trips in Taroko Gorge.

• Some hiking trails were recently closed due to recent land slides

Frequent earthquakes and rain causes landslides. A few of the trails we planned to hike were closed very recently as there had been many earthquakes lately. Have a few back-up trails in case you can't hike the one you originally planned. 

• Land slides are very frequent

Taroko has been the only location where we decided to skip hiking for safety reasons. We had rented a scooter to drive around the Taroko National Park and on our way back we saw several fresh landslides or huge fallen rocks on the road that were not there when we drove by only less than an hour earlier. Maybe, if we hadn't experienced all the earthquakes during these days we would have gone hiking but with the trembling ground beneath our feet and the closed hiking paths (due to land slides) we had to turn back from were enough to convince us to reconsider.

• Some trails also required a permit which was surprisingly difficult to obtain without a local guide.

Try and find a local to help you out getting a permit to hike some of the most interesting trails. Do this well in advance as it takes time to arrange everything. Also, note that you need a local phone number as the park ranger will try and contact you to verify the permit. If you don't have a local contact or a guide,  you can try and get a prepaid SIM card once you arrive. For this you need to pay a visit to a mobile dealer (don't forget to take your passport). Note that it's quite a hassle to get the hiking permit if you don't speak the local language. You might want to start the permit process before you depart to Taiwan or latest the first day you arrive.

Taroko is an amazing place to hike, just be well prepared and careful. There are also lots of easy trails that are accessible and much less dangerous. 

Hualien city, Taiwan

Cityscape, Hualien

Eventually with all the changes in our plans we had lots of time to spare. We enjoyed the spa at our hotel, rented a scooter to explore Hualien and surroundings, cycled around the area and definitely didn't skip a chance to eat at one of the many restaurants.

One of the temples in Hualien

..and more temples..

and another one.

We hired a scooter and drove around the area exploring and taking pictures. Technically the International Driving Permit is required also for two wheelers but some shops might overlook this, like they did in our case.

View from Parkview Hotel, Hualien, Taiwan

Hualien, Taiwan

Hiking on a Volcano, Kaaha and Hilina Pali trails

Hilina Pali Overlook, Kaaha trail, Hilina Pali trail

The Big Island on Hawaii has some amazing hiking trails. We picked Kaaha trail because it's crossing an old lava field and you get to walk by the ocean, also the length and level of difficulty were all key factors for us. The hike was a little more demanding compared to what we expected even knowing it was categorized as intermediate / hard. We were tremendously happy we didn't pick a longer trail because by the end of the day we were absolutely exhausted. Happy but exhausted. 

We chose this trail at the Backcounty office near the Kilauea Visitor Center. We had a quick chat with one of the employees who registered us for the hike. I'm not sure if registering is necessary for a day hike but they do prefer to keep track of hikers in the region in case something happens. For overnight hiking and camping registering and permits are necessary. For more infomation see https://www.nps.gov/havo/planyourvisit/hike_kaaha2.htm.

Ka'aha

Hilina Pali overlook on Hawai'i

Hilina Pali overlook

This 12km trail starts at the Hilina Pali overlook where you can see the entire lava field and the pacific ocean. There are some signs pointing out the trails at the beginning of the trail but you do need a good map to be able to follow the trails as there are no marks or signs elsewhere. There are two trails starting from the overlook, Hilina Pali and Kaaha trail and by combining these two trails you get a nice loop trail. This hike took us about 8 hours (started around 10.00 and were back at the parking lot around 18.00) as we stopped to take photos and had a longer lunch & swim break by the ocean. You could probably walk it faster with shorter breaks.

Trails on Google maps

The trail starts with a deep descent which takes much longer than you probably expect. The path is basically just small rocks, all downhill, switching back 24 times.


Be aware that even though it might not be very hot elsewhere on the island, it was extremely hot on the lava field. Not sure what caused it but we definitely underestimated the heat. The lava field is basically all rocks and you should pay attention to hollow lava tubes beneath the ground and try and follow the trail. Keep your eyes open and do peek inside the caves and tubes. Super interesting!

 

After descend

Lava tubes from past eruptions

Made it to Kaaha! Time for lunch and a dip in the ocean!

The hike gets slightly easier when you see the reward in front of you in the shape of a shed (finally some shade from the sun!), a toilet and tide pools! We had a long break here having lunch and swimming. It was such a refreshing experience! I've read about people having seen turtles here. We didn't have such luck but do bring your snorkels, if possible!

Swimming in a tide pool!

After returning to the trail, you walk along a trail with hay up to your knees. At this point we really missed long pants. Shorts were a bad idea. The heat, humidity and the hay were a bad combination. This was also the toughest part of the hike as it was afternoon and the sun was at it's hottest, we lost the trail and were running out of water. We had about four liters of water in total, which was way too little in that heat. Looking at several trails in the hay we obviously were not the only ones who had lost the way. I'm not even completely sure if we eventually found the Hilina Pali trail or if we just walked towards the hill in front of us, but we did make it back and started the ascend, the never-ending zigzag from hell. 

We were incredibly exhausted, taking breaks every five minutes. The sun was setting and we were in a hurry to make it back to the car before it set completely. There is literally no light anywhere and the Hawaiian nights are pitch black. We often record short video clips along our travels, and I must say that on the clip we shot somewhere along the ascend we sound like two exhausted three-years old's. Looking back, it's funny, at that moment it was far from it. 

When we finally got up the hill and saw our car (and remembered we had a big bottle of water in the trunk) we just started laughing, it was truly a moment of happiness. Don't get me wrong, looking back at the hike, I would do it again anytime but next time we'll bring more water, long pants and hiking sticks. 

Volcano Village

Embarrassing traveler moments, part: One

As a foreigner you sometimes end up in strange situations worth a good laugh.

The Spa

Ultimately the best way to embarras yourself is to visit a spa abroad. You'd think that Scandinavians and people from the Baltics are as pro spa and sauna goers as it gets. Guess again! Even though us, the nordic folks, do enjoy to sit bare naked in a steaming hot room with our friends and families all gathered around (while hitting ourselves with a bunch of twigs!), we do tend to cover ourselves on all other times. A quick glanse into a German spa will make even a Finn blush (ask Tony). One of his 30-something birthdays was celebrated in a beautiful town of Wiesbaden and one of the preplanned activites was a relaxing visit to a local spa. Little did we know that in Germany most people, men and women mixed, tend to bathe naked at a spa. Naked in the pools, naked in the sauna, naturally also naked in the hallways and the relaxation rooms. Towels are not worn either. Anywhere.

However, it does get worse. Luckily we didn't take our newly learnt German/Dutch bathing habits to a spa in Taiwan, where not only do you cover yourself in a 50's style bathing overall and wear a hat (preferably matching the rest of your outfit), you also change into your bathing outfit in a shower cabin or toilet. This would have been nice to know before I was standing there, bare naked, getting into my bikini while watching Asian ladies peeking into the dressing room, then getting all red and embarrassed, covering their eyes from seeing my naked butt and running to a shower cabin as fast as they could. After this happened for a couple of times, I realized I got something wrong here. Explains why I was the only person in the dressing room. Naked.

Squeaky clean in Turkey

Other good places to embarras yourself (or feel embarrassed for co-bathers) are spa's in Netherlands and hamams in Turkey.

The trolley bus

It was a horribly cold and windy afternoon in Tallinn when we were planning to go shopping. Having lost sight of the last available taxi, Tony spotted a trolley bus approaching. We ran as fast as we could and hopped on. Before we even got thinking about buying a ticket, the trolley driver pushes the break pedal in between two stops and the controllers step in. We had two options; either just walk up to the driver and buy a ticket or panic and pretend to be confused foreigners. Kris chose the latter options, not because we didn't want to pay, that was definitely our intention but out of pure panic. Instead of explaining the controllers in clear Estonian that we had just stepped in and were about to buy the ticket, I asked them in English; " What's going on!? I don't understand! " Tony gave a dirty look - wtf? However, he played along, you just cannot save your wife from every embarrassing moment, can you? Well, we were escorted into their vehicle to discuss it further but by that time we were already in a deep web of foreign deception. We probably would have gotten away with this but our facial expressions to the discussion between the controllers gave us away as Kris did follow their conversation the whole time.

This was our movie moment. You know the moment when things go so embarrassingly wrong that even you, as a viewer, feel embarrassed?

It ended in a fine of 30 euro's and almost got us another one of those because Kris did object loudly - in fluent Estonian. 

Medieval Tallinn

The last one didn't happen to us, unfortunately. I sort of hope it did. This story must be shared!

The fish and the bowl

This happened during a very upscale Christmas dinner at a Portuguese holiday destination. Our friends haven't visited too many seafood restaurants. I'm guessing this was the first one. With beautiful classical music in the background, people cheerfully enjoying their dinner it did come as a slight surprise to them when a bowl of luke warm lemon water was brought to the table shortly after they had finished their appetiser. For a while they tried to gaze around, looking for a hint on what to do with the bowl of water and slices of lemon in it yet no help was in sight. The only logical way to deal with this was a logical one. Our friend took the bowl in his hands, raised it to his mouth and took a good big sip. Who knows what kind of habits the friendly Portuguese have! He then caught a glimpse of a waiter nearby laughing and showing him to put the bowl away and waving his hands. In a split second our friend realized that you're supposed to clean your hands in this bowl, not drink it!

They all got a good laugh and our fiends were happy for professional waiters who quickly saved their faces!

No seafood was embarrassed during the writing of this article.

Days in Buenos Aires

Destination: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Time of travel: December 2013
Duration: 10 days
Travel plan: City trip to Buenos Aires


A beautiful, green city. European inspired architecture and wide streets. Warm people with lots of attitude. Opinionated, proud of their origins. Political turmoil. Wealth inequality. Steak restaurants. Dry leaves on the road in afternoon heat. Poverty. Strenght. Political Demonstration. We didn't expect tango blasting out of the windows but the steaks we did assume to be extraordinary, which they were.

These are a few things we expected to experience in Buenos Aires. Nothing fancy but nothing overly negative either. We were aware of the poverty issues, more so related to the wealth inequality aspects. Also the politics as the Argentinians do like to strike. Maybe we did rely a little too much on our romanticized idea which was based on various media sources. We were prepared to experience even negative surprizes but shallowness was not one of them, which turned out to be what we experienced the most. Experienced travellers as we are, we were prepared to watch our belongings.


It was beautiful. It was green. And it was also European inspired. In the matter of fact it looked like Paris, Madrid, Barcelona and Rome all combined. Imagine that!


On the other hand, throw in some greedy hands reaching for your handbag. Several pairs of eyes following your every step. Don't you dare taking out your camera or be prepared to find a safe spot to hide. Don't get confused by the occasional friendliness you meet as there are plenty of those who will show you your spot. You know, smack down your wealthy European ass, since you can buy another camera, mobile phone, watch - all of it. Anytime. Can't you? So why not try to rob you. On almost every step you take.


You might try and play it safe. You don't wear any jewellery, not even the plastic bracelet you bought from H&M. You know, not to attract any attention. You take off your wedding ring and try to store it somewhere safe. The safe deposit box in your hotel room is not the place to store it so you try to hide it. You also hide your passport - just in case. You don't walk with your camera, you keep it hidden and covered. You feel uncomfortable. You are stressed and you want to go home. Eventually you just book daytrips via travel agent, sit by the hotel pool and hope you will not get robbed on your way back from the restaurant in the evening. Not that you would have anything to rob off anyway but they would probably still give it a try, you European scumbag.


You are safe! You made it! You only had to file one police report after you forgot to take off that golden necklace and it was ripped off you in the middle of a crowded street on a sunny afternoon. You made it! 


Actually, you didn't. It was the staff at your 5 star designer hotel that got you by arranging someone to steal your belongings. Their faces gave them away. Their behaviour gave them away. The police who didn't care to watch the surveillance tape gave them away. They didn't care. Just file a report, they said. Your insurance will cover it, they said.