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Danube The fog was so thick that I could hardly see the morning. On Friday I woke up in a cheap hotel in the Romanian city of Galați, which is near the point where the country meets Ukraine and Ukraine. moldovaI was headed for the latter – specifically an 8am bus to the city of Comrat, capital of the strange autonomous regional unit of Gagauzia. After sightseeing and lunch spot, I will head towards the national capital Chisinau On the 1.05pm bus just in time for some exploring. What could possibly go wrong – and right? I was about to find out.
at 8 am: The only Mir Trans Express departure of the day for Komrat is going to be from an unlikely location: on a suburban street right next to a student pub named Student Pub, with no evidence that it is an international departure point. I arrive well in time, as any bus option is guaranteed to be expensive and awkward. I don’t have any actual tickets, only reservations. Furthermore, I have neither Romanian nor Moldovan currency: only two €50 notes.
8.25 am: Had the express bus slipped into the fog without my notice? The two other people who were waiting for it look even more disappointed. As I run through the possible options of a shared taxi to the border, walking across no man’s land and hoping to find some kind of transportation on the other side, the express arrives with a few other passengers already aboard.
I was half-expecting a proper, 50-seat coach. But no: it’s a marshrutka These are powerful minibuses equipped with 20 seats, including a fun fold-down seat right next to the driver, which serve as public transportation in much of Eastern Europe. There is carpet on the roof, legroom is minimal.
8.30 am: The driver has one phone on the dashboard for guidance, and another in his left hand. As he passes through the mist, he calls out the names of the passengers. He and I are both surprised that I’m not on the list, and he asks for my phone so he can check the reservation. In a feat of multitasking, he continues driving while using his phone to take a picture of me. Then his eyes fall on the police car and he lets the bus move on its own, while he puts on his seat belt as per the law. Health and safety gone mad.
8.40 am: With the help of other passengers, the driver reveals the fact that he needs 400 Moldovan lei from me. I reply that although I would love to oblige, I only have euros. If I had not made the schoolboy mistake of only carrying large denomination notes, he would have taken €20 right there. We agree to postpone the problem.
9.15 am: On the border. we are moving out romaniaThe European Union and the wider Schengen Area. The entry-exit system is definitely not operational, but by next April border guards will be required to collect biometrics from departing passengers.
9.30 am: After the drive across the no-man’s-bridge, it takes another 15 minutes to check-in into Moldova. Once through, I noticed that the roads are very rough and bumpy. We stop at the first village for a smoke break.
10:30: The fog has melted to reveal the brightness of the Moldovan autumn. We’re wandering through forests and vineyards turned to gold in the south-east European summer.
11 am: The driver stops at a set of traffic lights in the middle of Comrat, causing traffic chaos while I speed away to the Bureau de Change and back. He doesn’t feel any sadness about my leaving.
The population of Komrat is unusual: Turkic people who speak Russian and Orthodox Christians. I visit St. John’s Cathedral, whose silver domes survived Soviet times, and have a sumptuous lunch on sausage, eggs, avocado and tomatoes at Pronto (slogan, “All your favorites in one place”).
1 pm: The city’s bus station, called “Modern”, is full of advertisements (in Russian) showing how much one can earn in a month by working in Europe. The top three salaries quoted are Germany (€1,800), Ireland (€1,900) and France (€2,000). I invest the equivalent of £3 in a bus ticket leaving for Chisinau five minutes later. One marshrutka is ready. I show the driver my ticket and move on.
1.30 pm: The bus moved. There are a total of 29 passengers on board so far, and I’m happy to have a seat. But not for long. It is moving away from the capital. I establish that I am on the wrong vehicle. Someone yells at the driver to stop. I fight my way through the crowd and get out of the bus. “At three-thirty,” the driver says as I leave – apparently the time of the next departure.
1.45 pm: As soon as I walk back to the bus station, another minibus arrives – with its destination clearly declared as “Chisinau”. The driver takes one look at my ticket and tells me it’s from a different company. He then walks over to the ticket desk and demands I get a refund so I can pay him instead. “All sales are final” was the nature of the response. He then invited me to somehow board a bus for a 90-minute trip to the capital, thwarting my attempt to pay.
The payload (and freeload) is less than the number of seats, the views are spectacular, and my mood is pleased by the prospect of reaching the bus station in the center of Chisinau.
3.20 pm: The journey ends abruptly at Autogara Sud (Southern Bus Station), about five miles from the city. The driver poses for a selfie with me. Then I try to figure out how to reach my goal. The only road from the bus station is one-way, in the wrong direction. A passerby, Lauren, takes me under her wing. “I could tell you were a foreigner and needed help because of your watch,” he explains. “In Moldova, no adult would ever wear an Apple Watch.” He leads me through an alley to an underpass that leads to the other side of the highway, and explains that I need trolleybus 9.
3.40 pm: Number 9 is impossibly crowded. I board the train without knowing that I need a pre-paid ticket or an app to travel. On a vehicle with perhaps 100 passengers, a conductor struggles to reach me through the crowd. Will she take my money? Yes, actually, that would be 6 lei (£0.27).
4 pm: I head to the slowly decaying Hotel Chisinau, a Soviet relic, where €45 buys you a “Standart bed” and “a bathroom with essential sanitary ware.” lenin There is a monument still on public display in the capital.
After spending eight hours on (and off) the road, I’ve been reminded that people are kind to strangers and that often, a difficult journey can be enjoyable. And less deeply, I learned that my trolleybus fare to Chisinau airport for my flight home on Sunday evening would be the cheapest airport link in Europe.