A Day Full of Uncertainty: Crossing into Romania on Foot

I have roamed all over the Balkans and a lot of Europe in general and crossed a lot of borders in the process. The procedure is fairly simple: you move across in a bus or train, as most travelers do, show the authorities your passport, and move along into the next country. However, the border between Serbia and Romania is an outlier because there is no public transport across any of its border checkpoints. I could never figure out why, and the question still bothers me.

Serbia and Romania have had wonderful relations with each other for generations, which is why everyone I asked in Belgrade was just as surprised as I was to hear the news. Even though Timisoara is less than three hours away, I found that it’s not a place that people there really ever think about, let alone travel to. I may have been unsuccessful in my attempts to find a ride across, but I was determined to get to Timisoara, even if it meant walking a bit.

Although Romania had been a bucket-list country of mine, my final destination on this trip was Chisinau, Moldova. Since the objective was to traverse the country as fast as possible, I contacted someone on Couchsurfing – a popular community of travelers and hosts who are kind enough to open their doors for free to wayward travelers – and told him that I would keep him informed on my situation whenever I could find an internet connection along the way.

I took a bus from Belgrade to Vršac, a surprisingly large but relaxed town that sits about ten kilometers from the Romanian border. We all got dropped off in front of an impressive gated building in the middle of town that wasn’t the bus station. Luckily, I was able to connect to a local’s wifi hotspot, but Google Maps couldn’t find it, either, and people would just point in the same general direction when asked. So far I’m off to a solid start.

I walked into a pharmacy on the main street with an exasperated look on my face, hoping for someone to help and provide me with a wifi connection so I could figure out my next move. The cute pharmacist named Angela spoke much better English than she gave herself credit for and let me connect to her wifi hotspot while I was telling her my predicament. Apparently, Romania isn’t a popular destination with Serbs in general because neither she nor the few others I spoke with had ever spent much time there if they had been there at all.

She called a taxi for me and explained that I was probably going to have to walk across, as did the cab driver. When we got about 20 meters from the Serbian frontier, he assured me that there would be taxis waiting on the Romanian end once I walked through the neutral zone. My cynicism told me that he was most likely wrong given that there were just a few cars in line at the first checkpoint and zero backpackers.

I got out, got my passport stamped, and headed toward the Romanian side with no idea what to expect on the other end. About 550 meters later, I reach a dilapidated border crossing. The guard barely looked at me before stamping my passport and letting me go on my merry way. All of the cab drivers must have taken off just before I crossed over because there were none, so I had no choice but to walk three kilometers to the small village of Moravita and hope I could find someone to help.

This was in the middle of June, so it was hot. About 33 degrees Celcius (91 Fahrenheit). I had about 14 kilograms on my back (30 pounds) and a tote bag that weights half of what my backpack did. I kept switching arms while carrying the bag before stopping about halfway to town and tying it to my backpack so I could give myself a little break. Hitchhiking attempts were useless. It was going to be a long and arduous afternoon, but I was determined to make it to Timisoara.

I prudently set my Google Map on the location of Moravita’s train station while in Vršac so I could take a train from there to Timisoara, but the station seemed to have disappeared when I got there because it took me to an old church building. There was a playground next to it where a few kids were playing, and I noticed they had cell phones. One of the girls there let me connect to her wifi hotspot so I could figure out where I was and message my Couchsurfing host that I had made it across and I was ok, at least for the time being. After resting for a few minutes, I noticed a few of the older crowd outside of a small coffee shop adjacent to the playground, so I hurried over there with a new sense of optimism. Sure enough, one older gentleman offered to drive me another 4 kilometers to Stamora Germana where the train station actually existed.

The station was large but desolate. The only worker there at the time was sitting shirtless behind the desk in his office. He decided to put on his shirt after he had printed my ticket to Timisoara to get ready for the train to arrive in a couple of hours. Since I had some time to spare, I followed the shortcut trail through a field that took me to Stamora, hoping to connect to wifi again. There were no restaurants or coffee shops but there was a single small grocery store that had a connection, which seemed to be the only business in operation. I informed my Couchsurfing host about my new itinerary and went back to the station after having a translated conversation with the friendly store clerk.

The train and its cars were quite old, but the slow top speed never caused any safety concerns. I would later be relieved to find out that the rest of the country’s railways systems were modernized and updated, I just happened to be on one that wasn’t. It took a couple of hours to cover 60 kilometers and I arrived in Timisoara around 21:00 (9:00 pm). I was starving, the stores were closing, and I had trouble accessing working wifi, but luckily there was a kiosk at the station where I could buy a SIM card for my phone. I was glad to finally have a constant internet connection, but the girl was having trouble activating it despite following the instructions. Very symbolic of the course of events from that day.

I hopped on the city bus and took the risk that there wouldn’t be a city employee validating tickets that late at night. Luckily the bus was pretty baren, and I was able to find my host waiting outside luckily without much problem. A few minutes later, my SIM card started working and things seemed to be on track for normalcy again. My host was a bit of an eccentric guy in his forties, who had lived in that same apartment since childhood. He was a photography enthusiast and had stacks and stacks of old records around his quiet apartment and didn’t seem to get out much. But he was kind and accommodating and had some delicious food waiting for me to end the night. I was exhausted by this point and happy that the day filled with uncertainty was coming to an end. After a much-needed shower, I covered up on the couch and went to sleep.