Thursday, 10 May

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="044d4c00dduajq.gif"> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="95" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 46 WIDTH="91"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="46" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="91" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <div> <A HREF="id143.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Wednesday, 09 May"><U><IMG SRC="0450b0b0.gif" border=0 width="11" height="11" ALT="previous" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A>   <A HREF="id145.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Friday, 11 May"><U><IMG SRC="0460b0b0.gif" border=0 width="11" height="11" ALT="next" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A>       <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="11" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="11">   <A HREF="id133.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="May"><U><IMG SRC="0480b0b0.gif" border=0 width="11" height="11" ALT="up" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <div> <IMG SRC="203afc70.jpg" border=0 width="175" height="199" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Carpatian Mountains near Bran, Romania, and some 'local traffic'</div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#003333" FACE="Arial" ><B>The Gastropod's Trail</B></FONT>     |     <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Gastropods Trail"><U>home</U></A></div> <div> Thursday, 10 May</div> <div> Bran, Romania to Sibiu, Romania</div> <bR> <div> We chose to travel the back roads again. For most of the day we had the still snow capped Carpatian mountains on our left and rolling farmland on our right. The farmers were busy tilling and working their fields with tractors, horses or by hand. Here the fields are often small and fenced. The little villages all resemble each other. Along the main street the houses are joined together with a gated opening between them for the carts and horses. This is the heart of Transilvania, with the highest of the Carpatian Mountains (<2500 m / 8200 ft). </div> <bR> <div> Romania is hard at work to make up on lost time. Here one sees more late model cars (mostly Romanian produced Dacia's) than Lada's and the houses and gardens are neat and well kept. Construction work on roads and building is seen everywhere. It seems that the government is investing heavily in infrastructure and often the newest building in town is the office of RomTelecom. It is only fair to notice here that since we left Switzerland we have never been without a signal for our cellphone - even in the remotest places of any country we have visited. </div> <bR> <div> After having read the horror stories of the last years of the Ceausescu regime we were pleasantly surprised by Romania. In conversation with the Romanians we were surprised by the absence of bitterness over their recent past and the optimism in a brighter future. It is obvious that by western standards this country has a long way to go but it is equally true that it is seriously underrated. At this time it is the bargain of Europe for the traveler who is willing to put up with humbler accommodations and a general scarcity of meat. The beauty of the countryside, however, more than makes up for all that.</div> <bR> <div> We had arrived early in the afternoon in Sibiu and I started looking for a place to upload the additions to this website. At one of the local Internet Cafe's I managed to repair the problem with my Sympatico account in NS and am happy to report that eMail can again be sent to abraxas as well as ronigo. The big disappointment was that the upload to FortuneCity (host of the ronigo website) just would not work no matter what I tried.</div> <bR> <div> Very disappointed and tired from all the running around we parked the Gastropod on a quiet street in downtown Sibiu and settled down for the night.</div> </td> </tr></table></body>