Bucharest – Oltenita – 98 kilometres
The next morning, I arrived at the Hungarian Embassy promptly at
ten o’clock, only to find a crowd of people milling about. There
seemed to be no rhyme or reason in the procedures. After a while, an
official singled me out and ushered me to the front of the queue,
where I was handed my visa — a 15-day permit. Eddie and I were on
our way to the border by noon.
Instead of taking the highway to Giurgiu, we continued to Oltenita via
a much smaller path. Still, we found no immigration office as
indicated on our map. It seemed we couldn’t get out of Romania.
In the process, we met Peter, a friendly Romanian, who invited us to
stay at his humble two-room wooden shack, which lacked a bathroom
and kitchen. However, there was a garden where one could use the
toilet — though the bathroom situation for bowel movements
remained unclear.