The last time I visited Romania and Bulgaria was 35 years ago – in late July and early August of 1987 to be precise.
At the time I was Head of Geography at a school in Australia and half-way through a year’s overseas teaching exchange at a school in northern England. During the long summer break, I leased a car and travelled with my wife and three children through 12 countries in Europe, three of which no longer exist (West Germany, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia).
Much of our time was spent travelling in what was then Communist Eastern Europe, mainly because the socialist countries were cheaper destinations for our young family than Western Europe. In hindsight, it was a significant time for such travel because two years later the Berlin Wall fell, leading to the collapse of Communism across Eastern Europe and then, just a few years later, the collapse of the Soviet Union. You can read my travel diary of that trip HERE.
35 years ago, I remember being fascinated by the differences – indeed weirdness – of those countries. Frustratingly, it has taken me until now to return to two of them – Romania and Bulgaria. My aims in returning were to experience the transformation from Communism to capitalism since my previous trip (including re-visiting several specific places I had seen in 1987) as well as exploring these countries in greater depth than had been possible for us back in 1987 when the constraints of time limited our capacity to wander and explore.
My journey from home in Australia to Romania required three flights. I boarded the first aircraft for my trip to Bucharest in Sydney this afternoon – a Malaysia Airlines Airbus A330-300 (registration 9M-MTG) bound for Kuala Lumpur. As an aviation enthusiast, I was even more than usually excited as 9M-MTG carried a unique paint job known as the “Malaysian Golden Tiger” livery, which I thought was an appropriate metaphor for my tiger-like feeling of being released from a cage to travel once again after the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 global pandemic. It felt SO good to be travelling internationally once again to explore some faraway places.
The photo here shows my view of the aircraft parked in its bay (Gate 56) at Sydney Airport. As the front half of the plane is obscured by the airbridge, I have posted an additional photo courtesy of Airliners.net, plus an image I managed to get after landing at Kuala Lumpur in the dark.
Take-off was delayed by about 35 minutes until 2:00pm because many of the passengers had been delayed in the long lines for security clearance at Sydney Airport, which stretched to about 1,000 people waiting in line when I (eventually) passed through. Short-staffing during the post-COVID recovery period seems to be a major ongoing problem. Nonetheless, the flight arrived in Kuala Lumpur 37 minutes late at 8:52pm, making a flight time of 8 hours and 52 minutes. Sadly, there are no photos of this flight as I had a centre seat without access to a window.
The second flight was the longest of the journey. It was an 8,390 kilometre flight from Kuala Lumpur to Istanbul on a Turkish Airlines Boeing 777-300, registration TC-LJK. The flight took off just 5 minutes late at 11:10pm, and landed in Istanbul 50 minutes early at 4:25am. The entire flight was at night time, and although I had a window seat this time, the only sight of note was a beautiful view of the lights of Kirkuk in Iraq as we flew overhead.
My transit at Istanbul’s new airport was a real eye opener. The new airport (which replaced the airport I had used on all my previous visits) is HUGE, and despite using the moving footways wherever possible, my step count during the transit stop was almost 4,700 steps – not bad for 6:20am. Despite the impression this may give, the airport is very well planned and the facilities are truly world class – I would rate it with Singapore (Changi), Seoul (Incheon) and Hong Kong (Chek Lap Kok) as one of the world’s best large airports.
My third and final leg into Bucharest was actually flown “tomorrow”, 8th September, but to preserve the theme of the day’s travel I’ll include it here. The flight was on a Turkish Airlines Airbus A330-200, registration TC-LOH. The flight was relatively short, being just 425 kilometres, taking off at 7:00am and pulling into the terminal at Bucharest’s Henri Coandă International Airport on time at 8:15am. Despite the short duration of the flight, a lovely hot meal was served, and my window seat provided good views of the north-western Turkish coastline, the Danube River at the international border crossing between Bulgaria and Romania at the twin cities of Ruse and Giugiu, and the farmlands on the north-western outskirts of Bucharest.
Distance travelled. = 16,081 kilometres.
