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After arriving back in Istanbul from Armenia, I spent another long weekend with my friend Kaya. This time I visited the underground Roman Cistern and a part of Topkapi Palace, in particular the Harem. By trying to visit something each time I am in Istanbul I hope to eventually see most of the city.

Romania, Moldova but not Ukraine

Odv
2004-09-15 10:55:30

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One thing that you will no longer be able to experience after January 1st, 2005 in Turkey is the feeling of being a multimillionaire. As 1.7 million Turkish Lira go into 1 Euro, exchanging 100 Euros, for example, will make you the proud owner of 170.000.000 Liras!!! Unfortunately you can't get a thing for less than 1.000.000 Liras... Next year 6 zeros will be dropped.

I again tried to arrange a Ukrainian visa, but if I had applied on the Friday after I arrived in Istanbul I would have received the visa, earliest the following Thursday due to some 3 day holiday in Ukraine. This was too late even to catch the boat to Odessa. Thus I decided to take the train to Romania so as to do some of the traveling already and try my luck at the Ukrainian embassy there.

I had a cabin to myself in the overnight train from Istanbul to Bucharest, but the bed was a bit short even for me! The train arrived in Bucharest late in the afternoon. I stayed in the youth hostel where Eric, Sam and I had stayed during Sam's infamous Bachelor party in December 2002. It brought back some memories, but it was also interesting to see the contrast between winter (then) and summer (now).

Romania is starting to have some infrastructure for independent travelers, also there is no visa requirement or other ridiculous regulations or at least none that apply to West Europeans. The trains are cheap and of relatively good quality and most of the popular backpacker destinations have one or more affordable hostels to choose from.

Since my plans would now make me travel through Moldova, I headed to the Moldovan consulate first, where I got a visa on the same day after filling in a form, handing over a passport photo and depositing 60 USD plus a 5 USD bank fee on their account at a local bank.

Unfortunately the Ukrainians were going to require 2 days (as well as 110 USD), but Bucharest is not a city where you want to spend ...