Tuesday 9th September Day 5

Well as expected today has been very different to everything that has gone before.

We left our hotel at about 8.00am and for the first hour headed towards the Romanian border on some of the best motorways we have driven on all trip. Brand new tarmac, no surface noise and very little traffic. It was all just lulling us into a false sense of security.

About 30kms before the Hungarian/Romanian border the motorway came to a sudden end. As we came off the slip road we came straight onto single lane roads with deep ruts in them. It was slow progress all the way to the border through a town called Szeged (or something like that) and on to the border at Mako. All the vehicles had to go over a weighbridge - thankfully none were overweight and then we had to show our passports for the first time on the whole trip.

As we came through passport control we were immediately surrounded by women trying to sell us stuff and asking for the teddies on our dashboards. We pulled out and onto the Romanian roads and headed for Arad. Single lane traffic and absolutely crazy drivers overtaking and cutting in seconds before having a head on collision with Arctic’s coming the other way. It took us a long time to get through Arad due to very heavy traffic and then we headed on into the Romanian countryside for the first time. It is very noticeable how much poorer it is here compared to Hungary. We have already seen a few farmers with their horse drawn carts and passing through villages we look down side streets which are just dirt tracks.

Weather is hot and sunny and we have now travelled just short of 2000kms. Tomorrow we hope to make the Bulgarian border. Check in tomorrow to see if we make it through wacky races territory !!

P