Off roading in the Carpathian mountains of Romania

After a longer hiatus here on the blog (visited Japan again for snowboarding, did some sailing (call me skipper baby!) and even went on a golfing holiday) I want to tell you about our journey through the Carpathian mountains this summer. 

To go off-roading in Romania has been on our (okok my) mind for a while. So when Nik and Vidli agreed to join, the group was complete and we started making plans. As Melanie and I had more time to spare we left earlier and spent some time in the Dolomites 🇮🇹 and in Maribor 🇸🇮 until lake Balaton 🇭🇺 where the other two finally caught up with us. 

Two of my friends have been to Romania by motor bike in the spring and lent me their off-road guide book. So we followed one of the tracks until we found a nice place to camp for the night. During the day we had to use our (electric) chainsaw the first time as a fallen tree blocked the road. And in the evening we all had a go cutting up fire wood 😊 

Our first night wild camping got us all excited/scared about all the bear stories... But alas no bears, only a pack of (wild or shepherd?) dogs encircling us in the night and keeping us awake with their barking.

Continuing further south we headed to lake Marul where we planned to do some hiking. Sadly the weather had other plans, we barely setup camp when the torrent started. After almost 24h of constant rain we were fed up with it and decided to head to the Danube for warmer and drier weather! The shortest way was obviously over the mountains 😁

On the top of the mountain was a winter resort village, derelict hotels and restaurants. Eerie scenery with everything closed and only dogs and horses! on the street. 

At the Danube we found a little side arm and set up camp, enjoying the sun and warmth. The next day we headed north again, but quickly stopping at the Danube to snap a picture of the last Dacian king Decebalus.

To plan our route we used OsmAnd with the "Prefer Unpaved" road feature, which led us onto some wild trails:

We were lookin forward to a lovely night at Vidra lake, sadly the locals had other plans in mind.

During the entire night there was very! very!! loud!!! music playing from different groups around us, with the occasional gun shot mixed in. The next morning when driving past them nobody was outside the tents but the beats were still pumping, maybe their way of scaring away the bears?!? 

Once again the "shortest" (but very steep) way was directly over the mountain, with the guests stepping out of the chair lift looking strangely at us 😂

The "road" was quite overgrown but we had our chainsaw at hand 😏

Also worth mentioning are that horse drawn carriages haven't gone out of fashion here, even with license plate 👮‍♂️

The following day we stopped at some neolithic graves, the mounds of Sona.

And for the night we camped at lake Sfanta Ana, a popular tourist spot in the middle of bear country. Weird when the electric fence is around the campsite and not the animals... Anyway, somewhere we read that the best time to spot bears is during dusk, so when everybody left we descended to the crater lake. The view was faboulus and we were the only people around...

This is where we started to wonder if this had been a good decision 😂 We saw no bear but were still happy to be back at camp 😉

Having all but given up on seeing any bears, we again took the "scenic" route the day after. After having missed our turn, we got out of the cars to discuss our options and then drive 50m back. And there it was, just beside the road in a field teeming with butterflies. It was almost a bit too much to take in 🤩

Then it was more off-roading with some timber works 😎 If there is a hip high tree growing in the middle of the road, you can assume it hasn't been used much.

Also did I mention the heaps and heaps of storks? Storks everywhere!

Time was running out and we were already heading back west but made a quick stop at the old salt mine of Turda. The huge excavated cavern was impressive, the gaudy circus like attractions they placed inside them not so much. Also was quite a shock of two weeks with next to no human interaction to see the huge crowds...

At least we found some little creek nearby to setup camp.

Did I mention that we were off-roading? 😝

With some spectacular sceneries!

And some more technical parts ☺️ Needed a counter „weight“ to avoid scratching the awning on the tree 😅

A quick dip in the Crisul Pietros and that was it with Romania.

On the way home we stopped for a night on Neusiedlersee (even shallower than lake Balaton!), a night besides Kitzbühl and then already back in Switzerland we camped in Scuol. Where somebody had to break a leg... 🤦‍♂️

Beside this downer the trip was awesome, off-roading as we haven't seen it since Mongolia 🥰 Huge shout out to our Ryobi Chainsaw and OsmAnd, without which this would not have been possible!

Ho Chi Minh City

The final destination on our two months trip and from where we fly home is also the largest and busiest city in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City. 

Old and new

To get acquinted with the city we decided to do a street food tour. Best decision ever as the two guides showed us around and gave us ample of ideas for the coming days 😋

Starter

Beef stew, Bo Kho Ganh

Housings originally built for the GIs

Flower street, 24/7 flower sale

Coconut ice cream

Flan

Matching helmets 😆

Before selling our motorbikes we decided to visit the Cu Chi tunnels. An extensive tunnel network of up to 250km the Vietcong built to hide from American bombs. This way they could transport people and material from the Ho Chi Minh trail to the doorstep of Saigon. 

There are two tunnels accessible to the public, the one closer to the city is where most tours go. Here the tunnels have been enlarged for „plus sized bodies“ as they call it on their website. Having our own transportation allowed us to visit Ben Duoc where the tunnels have only been slightly enlarged but we still had to almost crawl to get through 😳

The guide showed us the different rooms, traps and entrances which was interesting. 

Original entrance, tight fit 

Squeezing through 

Afterwards we decided to give the shooting range a try. We just opted for some rounds with the AK47, M16 and a pistol.

Kicked more than the Swiss army rifle 😆

Marksman 😂

One night we spent at the walking street and while sipping our beer it dawned on me that I’ve been here before 😆 It had changed a bit, but see for yourself:

The place in the corner now sells overpriced beer and has girls dancing on a podium…

Speaking of girls, we also visited little Tokyo which is full of girls trying to sell you beer or a „massage“… But besides the massage parlors and shady bars are heaps of super authentic Japanese restaurants 🤤

Little alleys 

Lovely eel ☺️

Sashimi

Sake!

Sake, Soju and Umeshu for us 😊

The girls did not want to get photographed, best way to get rid of them 

Some impressions from the city:

We missed reunification day by a day, flags everywhere and will be a great party

Motorbikes as far you can see

Some temple 🤷‍♂️

Fancy coffee place

The opera

Visiting the Ben Thanh market hall

Best Banh Mi in town!

Hanging out with the chicks 🐥 

BNE still here

Many public places have some kind of barrier otherwise it would be overrun by motorbikes 🤣

What ever you need made out of plastic is on sale in China town

We gave our motos a last wash, took of the decoration and threw away the completely sat trough cushions 🤣

Sponge bath 

Took some pictures and contacted some rental shops

And sold our bikes

With the cash of the sale we then went to pickup Aaron’s phone. He had found a shop which took the phone apart, checked what was broken, replaced a computer chip 🤯 and the screen. As good as new! 

Repairing what would be a total loss in Switzerland 

This had to be celebrated so we returned to the sea food street which we visited on our tour. We had some kind of snails, oysters and then wanted to check out one of the fancy bars. 

Wasn’t that good 😕

But on the way we saw a Bia Hoi place and we couldn’t resist 😛 We ended up meeting some dudes and kept talking (and drinking) late into the night. Bia Hoi comes from the north of Vietnam (rare in HCMC), it’s freshly brewed beer (Zwickel) sold from the tap or in large containers. It’s super tasty and dirt cheap 😍

Only picture I took 😁

On our last day we then visited the Jade Emperor pagoda, rather underwhelming. It’s main feature are ugly dolls/statues but you aren’t allowed to take pictures inside the temple building 😔

Mandatory face mask

Ugly what ever 🤷‍♂️😂

Taking the water bus home

One last Ramen in little Tokyo 

And that was it, off to the airport with a last Banh Mi and flying home