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September 2006 – 03. the excursion

Locations

motorbikes on the coastal road

What a tsunami looks like, after almost two years

One of the easiest, yet most impressive, trips one can make from Banda Aceh, is to drive out of town in southern direction, along the coastal road to Meulaboh. There is no need to go all the way to Meulaboh, and in any case that would have taken well over 8 hours in the days we lived here, no, just half-an-hour is sufficient. This was the road that was completely wiped out by the tsunami, and the main reason why it took the best of two weeks to assess the damage and estimate total number of casualties. Nobody could reach the worst affected areas.

You can see the road on the satelite images, one from before and one from after the tsunami. By now, things have improved somewhat, of course, but there is still not much. The initial stretch of road passes several TLCs, temporary living quarters that consist of long barracks with individual rooms, often housing a family per room. Beyond the TLCs, the road follows the coast line, past pristine sandy beaches, the occasional palm trees, and so once in a while a number of colourful fishing boats, either moored offshore or pulled up onto the beach.

The only other feature in the landscape are the foundations. Nothing else, only the foundations of the houses that had been here before Boxing Day 2004, are left. In fact, there is not a single building in sight anymore, except for the TLCs. Everything, everything has been wiped out, washed away, literally razed to the ground. And if you then look a little further land inwards, you note the hills, in fact steep, almost vertical mountain sides that rise out of the coastal strip, some 100 to 500 m away from the coast. With a little imagination, you can also see what happened here, when the tsunami stuck. People running away from the water, but with no place to go; they were certainly not getting up those vertical mountain walls, impossible. They had no place to go. They all died. All of them.

most of the road washed away

foundations, nothing else

the beach, and the stumps of palm trees

more beach, and note the steep mountains in the back

Everywhere in Aceh, and especially in Banda Aceh, there are visual reminders of the tsunami, almost two years afterwards. But there is no other place where one is confronted so directly with the absolute hopelessness of the victims, than on that coastal road to Meulaboh. And there is no need to go all the way…

Next: 04. the field trip

another beach photo

August 2006 – 02. the arrival

Blog entries

aquatic life in a lake behind our house

Our first challenges, those related to housing and shopping, we managed to overcome fairly easily, despite bringing a dog to a devout Muslim area

The biggest challenge we faced coming to Banda Aceh was that we were traveling with a dog. A dog is ‘haram’, unclean, in Islamic societies, and as I mentioned above, Aceh, with its Sharia law, was clearly a devout Islamic society.

So for the first few days my wife stayed back in Jakarta, with the dog in a kennel, to give me some time to identify a place to live. And indeed, I managed to locate a temporary place for us to stay, from the Wednesday onwards. But when wife and dog traveled to Banda Aceh on Wednesday, the rental contract got canceled again, and we had to find an alternative. This proved difficult, but in the end we did locate a guest house ready to welcome us for a night, with dog and all, but only if we would be arriving after dark – so that the neighbours wouldn’t see that we brought a dog into the house! Yet, they had dogs themselves, who stayed outside, and they did care for the dogs. One was hurt, at one of his legs, and the son of the owner was trying to bandage the cut, but without touching the poor animal – who obviously had other ideas about being bandaged in! My helping hand was well appreciated, and was the least I could do to repay the kindness of the family to allow us to stay for the night.

our neighbourhood

woman looking from her balcony

Dogs in houses proved to be a touchy issue all the time. At one stage we had identified a nice house, perfectly located, good security, good water and electricity infrastructure, ground floor only (safer in case of earthquakes), spacious garden, and we had already agreed on the – rather hefty – rent, when the owner realized we would bring the dog inside, upon which the deal fell through. Having learned from the experience, we now mentioned the dog upfront, which turned out to be a frequent deal blocker, but at least saved us lengthy negotiations for nothing. Ultimately, we found a place where the dog was allowed in the garage, which was connected to the house by a door that didn’t close – a suitably face-saving solution for the house owner, who also perfectly well knew that the dog wouldn’t be confined to the garage.

colourful sweets shop

The first shopping expeditions were another adventure with a steep learning curve. Initially we focused on the Chinese supermarkets. These shops have everything one needs to survive, really, although sometimes one needs to look hard to find it. Quite soon we learned that by smoothing up to the cashier when there is nobody around, and whispering that you would like ‘two bottles of white, please’, a good five minutes later a small boy turns up with a brown paper bag with something in it, which he insists on putting directly in your car. Back home this turns out to be, indeed, two bottles of white wine, of completely random origin – French, Chilean, most often Australian – and always the same price, 15 US$. The same cashier also turned out to be able to deliver red wine, gin, whisky, and even beer, once again random brand: could be Budweiser, Foster’s or Mexican Corona, for instance, or anything else. A major step forwards came when my wife started a conversation in Chinese – she speaks quite a few words in Mandarin -, which obviously improved the confidence level such that she was from then on allowed to accompany the boy into the warehouse, and select her own beer and wine, reducing the ‘random’ factor of our alcohol shopping significantly.

the lake behind our house

Later on we found the shops that specialize in imported goods, several ‘French’ cheeses from Australia, luxury condiments for pastas, Haagen Dasz ice cream etc. Dogfood, not unimportant, although a dog is also perfectly happy with rice and left-overs. And we found the millions of pirated DVDs, in the market stalls along the streets. And the cheap electronics, like the US$ 15 DVD player to watch all those illegal copies – imagine your DVD player for the cost of a bottle of wine! And the department store, the only one, with all the nylon and lycra cloths, totally unsuited for the tropical climate here, but nevertheless incredibly popular. In any case, the largest XXL size shirts didn’t even come to more than three-quarters of my torso, so for me Indonesian fashion wasn’t an option, anyhow.

And we increasingly found our way in town, to the main square with food stalls, serving various types of sates (charcoal-grilled skewers) and martabaks (well-filled omelets). To the various restaurants with excellent food, Chinese and Indonesian; to the covered bazaar, to the main mosque. And to the fishing boat that had landed on top of several houses, hundreds of meters from the coast, a reminder of the force of the water that ravaged much of this city on Boxing Day 2004.

However comfortable our life was, you couldn’t escape the reality of recent disaster, there were traces of it everywhere. And one wonders whether this will ever completely disappear.

Next: 03. the excursion

libella balancing

July 2006 – 01. the introduction

Blog entries

Acehnese man

Why I went to Banda Aceh in the first place, and what I found there: a comfortable hardship posting

In July 2006 I arrived in Banda Aceh, on a one-year contract with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). My job was to lead the rehabilitation program that had been established following the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami of Boxing Day 2004, that had wrecked havoc along much of the coast of the province of Aceh (Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, in full), part of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. IOM was new to me, and so was the disaster response work, the self-inflicted adrenaline-pumping atmosphere where everybody was in a hurry to run projects, cutting corners in their haste to save lives, without time to record and reflect on what was being done, and without realizing that 18 months after a disaster there are no lives to be saved anymore.

Banda Aceh had been flooded a second time, so much was clear. The first flood, of an unprecedented amount of water, had been followed by a flood of international aid workers of equally unprecedented proportions. Quite apart from the intentions, which were invariably good, and the commitment, which was truly incredible, the effect of this second flood on Banda Aceh was perhaps as profound as the first one, the actual tsunami.

Aceh has a long history of not wanting to belong to Indonesia, or its colonial precursor, the Dutch East Indies. Independent-minded, the Acehnese have been fighting domination by others for centuries, most notably the Dutch, of course, but since Indonesian independence the central government in Jakarta, symbol of Javanese domination of the archipelago, too. As a result, Indonesia may have had as much difficulty subduing Aceh as the Dutch colonial regime had.

in the middle of the rice paddies

Like the Dutch before them, Indonesia has been adamant that Aceh is an integrated and indivisible part of the Republik, and like the Dutch, they had their ways to make their point. For many years Aceh had been closed off for outsiders, certainly for almost all foreigners, who would anyhow have been just a pain pointing out human rights and the lot, but also for those Indonesians who had no specific role in the province. No, only the Indonesian military was the institution to solve Indonesia’s problems with Aceh, and as militaries do, around the world, they have so their own way of dealing with real, or perceived, challenges. In order not to be a burden on the national budget, the military – again, like militaries do in several other parts of the world (think China, Egypt) -, the military had established several lucrative businesses in Aceh; they controlled the oil winning, for instance, and the hardwood monopoly, and quite likely lots of other large scale business, like palm oil. Handy, in case a plantation needs to be expanded at the expense of the local farm land, or forest reserve, or against the wishes of the community. A community that was increasingly being diluted with migrants from overpopulated Java, as a result of Indonesia’s transmigration policies; migrants who were more pliable than the locals, and thus received preferential treatment from the army – which created a whole new set of tensions in Aceh.

Anyhow, because of the foregoing, Aceh was very much a no-go area, carefully guarded by the army. Also, therefore very much an area with no infrastructure to receive outsiders, no hotels, no restaurants, no car rental companies, no quality rental accommodation. Until the tsunami hit, on Boxing Day of 2004. Somewhere, somebody in the Indonesian government sensibly recognized that this disaster was far too big to handle for the army alone, or the government alone, and somehow, that somebody managed to convince power brokers to open up the province. Resulting in a second tsunami, that of humanitarian aid workers.

My employer, IOM, happened to be the first on the ground, because they had, through careful negotiations with the government, already set up office in Banda Aceh several months before the tsunami, to initiate a small-scale development aid project. So when the tsunami hit, and the international disaster rescue, recovery and rehabilitation community mobilized itself, IOM was the only foreign organization with an office and limited accommodation in Banda Aceh. So IOM got flooded, too – the stories from those who came first are fabulously touching, of collegiality and companionship of aid workers who face not only a daunting situation because of what had just happened, but also because of the lack of any form of modern infrastructure necessary to support a large scale humanitarian operation.

characteristic Acehnese wooden house

the smallest village will have its own mosque, in conservative Aceh

Enter the logistics specialists. Next to food and shelter for the survivors of the tsunami, the aid workers needed food and shelter, too. Acehnese whose houses had not, or not that badly, been affected by earthquake and tsunami quickly saw the opportunity, and many moved in with relatives, in order to rent out their own large houses to the expat community. And make good money in the process, of course, nothing wrong with a well-working market mechanism. With the increasing number of foreign experts, foreign goods were also required, and on the truck convoys that frequently drove between Medan, Sumatra’s large and well-equipped capital, and Banda Aceh to mobilize construction materials, blankets and food rations, some space was reserved for the things expats cannot do without. The few Chinese supermarkets in town were especially apt at adjusting to the new reality. As a gesture to the population of the province, who was not only more independence-minded but somehow seems to be stricter Muslim that those in the rest of Indonesia, the Indonesian president had agreed to introducing Sharia law in Aceh several years earlier. As a consequence, there was no alcohol available (or at least not openly available, quite a few Acehnese claim that the local rich and famous had always had access to alcohol, and used it, too). But soon after the flood of foreigners, Chinese supermarkets started to sell alcohol to foreigners, somewhat concealed, but obviously tolerated by the officials. And several entrepreneurs opened restaurants, where on the first floor beer and wine was available, either openly or hidden in teapots. Others started specialist shops, importing Western goods, mostly from Australia, or serving club sandwiches and hamburgers, to cater for the needs of the large expat community.

fishing equipment on the beach

The streets had changed, too. Where earlier the only vehicles had been old, battered sedans, occasionally blown off the road by an army convoy, now half of the cars were new 4x4s, the favourite transport mechanism of the aid agency. And there were even mild traffic jams, previously unheard of.

So by the time I arrived in Banda Aceh, a good one-and-a-half years after the tsunami, most of the logistics had been sorted out, and life had actually become fairly comfortable. And I found that there was actually little truth in the carefully crafted aura of hardship that surrounded an expatriate posting to Banda Aceh.

next: 02. the arrival

fishing boats

Gemeentemuseum in The Hague

Gallery, Locations

Mondriaan’s Mill in Sunlight (1908), an early work

One of the nicest, yet perhaps most underrated, museums in The Netherlands is the Gemeentemuseum (Municipal Museum) in The Hague, and not only for the beautiful building itself, designed by famous Dutch architect H.P.Berlage in 1934. The art collection of the Gemeentemuseum definitely warrants a visit if you like modern art, say from late 19^th/early last century onwards. It gives an excellent overview of some of the better Dutch artists of this period, complemented with works of renowned international artists of the same period.

the entry of the Gemeentemuseum

the main building of the Gemeentemuseum, lit by a combination of low sunlight outside and artificial light inside

an early Mondriaan, depicting the inside of a barn (ca. 1904)

this is an early abstract Mondriaan, Composition Trees II (1912-13)

The museum has a few main focus areas, and one of my personal favourites is De Stijl, a movement that originated in The Netherlands during the First World War through the efforts of Theo van Doesburg. De Stijl, influenced by the ideas of architect Berlage, but also by cubism and futurism, developed in an increasingly abstract direction. The best-known representative of De Stijl is no doubt Piet Mondriaan, from whom the museum owns the largest collection of works in the world. And I have said elsewhere, the nice thing of a large collection is that it gives you an overview through time: Mondriaan didn’t start with his coloured fields and lines, and some of his early works are, at least in my view, equally interesting. I have reproduced a few here, from, admittedly, poor-quality photos I took in the museum – his later work, I assume, is sufficiently well-known.

Theo van Doesburg’s Composition (Seated Figure), 1918

and another Van Doesburg, Composition XVII from 1919

Vilmos Huszar’s Couple Dancing (1938-39)

Composition with White Head, also a Huszar painting from 1917

and the third one from 1917, Huszar’s Composition II (Skaters)

Theo van Doesburg’s work is also exposed, but the revelation of De Stijl, for me, is Vilmos Huszar, a Hungarian-born artist who settled in The Netherlands in 1907 or thereabouts. Fabulous works, or so I think.

another of Huszar’s paintings, Composition (Hammer and Saw), from ca.1917

It is not only paintings in the Gemeentemuseum. Outside is a sculpture garden, and also inside certain rooms are dedicated to sculpture and installations. This example is, if I am not mistaken, from Dutch Cobra-artist Constant, who also gets a lot of floor- and wall space.

a sculpture, or an installation, what do you call this, from (I think) Constant

same sculpture. different angle

and same sculpture, close-up

Last time I was in the Gemeentemuseum, the large Rothko exhibition was on, until 1 March 2015.

Mark Rothko Exhibition in The Hague

Gallery, Paintings

unlike the others, this is acrylic on paper

one of my favorites

Although the American artist Mark Rothko always claimed not to be an abstract painter, his wall-size paintings certainly look like abstract works. Especially his post-war compositions are dominated by roughly rectangular shapes of certain colour painted on a contrasting base, essentially depicting nothing else. The exhibition (Sept. 2014 – March 2015) in the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, The Netherlands, brings together a number of works, mostly on loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington – an excellent opportunity to see some Rothko on this side of the Atlantic. I have always been somewhat skeptical about this form of expression – perhaps I am not modern enough -, yet I have to admit that I came away impressed. The Rothko paintings invite you to walk from a distance slowly towards the canvas, which creates the experience as if you are actually walking straight into the painting.

Yet, the paintings are best viewed from a distance: to the left here, I show one of the paintings as a whole, as well as a close-up of the centre part (“untitled”, 1948). It is amazing how it takes a much smoother shape from further away

Others know much more about Rothko than I do, so I limit myself to posting a couple of photos from the paintings, taken in the museum. Poor quality, and in any case there is no way you can catch the impression of standing in front of a Rothko-work in a photo, but it gives you an idea, at least.

another early one: phalanx of mind, 1946

and a thrid one: personage two, 1949 - just before he started with his larger shapes, I suppose

and this one: personage two, 1949 – just before he started with his larger shapes, I suppose

underground phantasy, ca 1940 (one of the early paintings)

The other good thing about this type of exhibitions is that they also contain some early works, works I would never have identified as a Rothko, but are quite nice, nevertheless. I include three of those here, too. If you haven’t been yet, go and see the exhibition, even if you are initially as skeptical as I was…

Click on the gallery below, and you’ll see the full paintings.

the Icons Museum

Blog entries, Gallery

Not normally my favourite form of art, the religeous icons on display in the Crypt of the Alexander Nevski Church is Sofia, Bulgaria, are quite special, indeed.

The Alexander Nevski church in Sofia is impressive enough in its own right to warrant a visit, but there is more than the church alone. In the crypt, entered through a door left of the main entrance, a collection of Bulgaria’s best religious icons has been brought together, from places all over the country. I am not normally a great fan of icons, or of religious art in general, but the pieces on display here are special, quite beautiful in fact. The vivid colours and the exquisite details are incredible, especially given the age of many of these, some dating back to the 5^th Century – although the majority is 15-18^th Century, still from some time ago. Most have been painted anonymously, as was customary for religeous art.

I have selected a few, in the gallery below, to give you an impression, but should you have the chance, do go and see them for yourself. Even if you are not normally an icon fan.

another one-armed crab

Uncategorized

The origin of the one-armed crab lies in a relatively thin rock layer in the Spanish Pyrenees, which contains abundant fossils of crabs distinguishing themselves by having just one arm. Anyhow, long story, not very relevant, but since then I have gone out of my way to find one-armed crabs, real ones, living ones. See the Sumba entries, for instance. I didn’t have to be so picky, I now realise: there is a much easier way to create a one-armed crab. Lindy did so, for my last birthday! Life is so easy!!

Athene Palace

Reviews

A classic on Romania is “Athene Palace” (1942), written by the German-American journalist R.G.Waldeck (alias of Rosa Goldschmidt). Ms Waldeck describes from her hotel – the still-existing Athene Palace – the pre-war intrigues of representatives of all powers, except Russia, who meet and still easily mix in Bucharest during the last half of 1940. An excellent, and very well informed account of how Romania increasingly lost territory, to Russia and then to Hungary and Bulgaria, and how this forced the then-king, Carol II, to abdicate, whilst Romania slipped into the embrace of Nazi-Germany.

The topics range from historical analysis of how Romania became the country it was, at the beginning of the Second World War, of how Carol II quite successfully manipulated the Romanian elite, but then overplayed his hand in trying to manipulate the international powers to be, Germany and Russia, and of the months after Carol’s abdication, and the rivalry between the facist Iron Guardists (also called The Legion of the Archangel Michael) and the military leaning towards a dictatorship, which in the end is completely overshadowed by the increasing German influence, and physical presence, in Romania. In the process Ms Waldeck, herself of German-Jewish descent although this never affects her writing, sketches quite convincingly a rather anti-Semitic people who nevertheless would be prepared to reject Nazi overtures because the loss of territory – and especially Transylvania, at the instructions of Hitler – more traumatizes them than the potential of linking up with fellow anti-Semites. At the same time she paints a German diplomatic offensive – an offensive that it is never going to lose -, that is focused on the economic importance of Romania for the German war machine, with as side issue the care for ethnic Germans in Transylvania, and Soviet-occupied Bessarabia (present-day Republic of Moldova), without ever paying the slightest attention to the sensitivities of Romanians, anti-Semitic or not. The story culminates with the self-destruction of the Iron Guards, who initiate an unbelievably cruel pogrom in January 1941, and thereby completely overplay their hand in local politics. Shortly afterwards, Ms Waldeck leaves Bucharest, which is now firmly German-dominated, and no longer the town where the powers mingle.

Besides the general message, the book contains several fabulous descriptions, for instance of the Old Excellencies, Romanians who once had some form of power as minister of diplomat, and now comment on the clientele of the Athene Palace: “That every lady had a price was a foregone conclusion (…), but only from 20,000 leis upwards did they consider her a lady. It was the same with the politicians; they also had a price, and if they were expensive enough they could be considered statesmen”. The same men also conclude that “things written on paper (…) had a shorter life in Romania than anywhere else. After a few weeks the best laws were forgotten (…) because everybody had learned to get around them”, something I heard several times from Romanians myself during my recent visit to Romania. And Ms Waldeck finds a French historian who concludes that “the friendship of Russia has been more unfortunate to the Romanians than the enmity of all other peoples combined”. With hindsight, what a foresight that has been!

For those interested in Romanian history from a non-Romanian point of view, and those interested in the dynamics in Eastern Europe in the early years of WWII, read it!

Reading list for Romania and Bulgaria

Reviews

One of the things that makes traveling fun is reading up on the countr, or countries, you are going to visit, before, during, even after your visit. Prepares you for what to expect, and it helps you to focus on certain issues, places, habits, and see if you agree with the author, or if things may have changed – or not – in the years in between. As usual, not all of the books on the list below I have read yet, but as soon as I do, I will underline the title (and likely expand on the description).

01. A fairly recent overview of Romania’s history was written by Lucian Boia and is called “Romania: Borderland of Europe” (2001). Mr Boia is not uncontroversial, but that makes the book even more attractive.

02. Another Romanian historian, Neaga Djuvara, wrote “A Brief Illustrated History of Romanians” (2014), which was published when he was 98 years old – so Mr Djuvara speaks from experience, having fought in WW II, and lived through the communist years. The book is very accessible, and the illustrations add to the appreciation. Yet, reading his book I cannot get away from the impression that it is a rather rosy, uncritical view of Romanian history. Vlad Tepes was perhaps cruel, but so were other European rulers, at the time. Carol II may have robbed the country of its gold, but he wasn’t too bad, after all. And don’t forget all the injustice done to the Romanian people by everybody else. Tiring, after a while.

03. My library contains many books on the interface between travel and history, and one of my favourite authors in this genre is Robert Kaplan, who wrote “Balkan Ghosts” (1993). The book contains several parts, one of which deals with Kaplan’s trip through Romania in 1990, just after the overthrow of Ceausescu. The author takes you on an almost playful journey through Romania’s history, meanwhile traveling from Bucharest to the Danube Delta, to Iasi in Moldavia, to the painted monasteries in Bucovina, and then into Transylvania. Everywhere he meets interesting people who share not only their hospitality, but also their often differing views, which Kaplan manages to put in the relevant context. The picture he sketches is of a country full of past issues, from ethnic conflicts and peasant exploitation to war crimes and communist-party power abuse. Issues that, by 1990, obviously had not yet been dealt with. It will be interesting to see whether that has changed at all, in the past 25 years. The Bulgaria part, the result of several short visits in the 1980s and -90s, is less coherent, and as such less illustrative for a country in change. Kaplan’s contribution covers a number of Bulgaria-specific issues without being able to sketch the overall context. Still, a good book, from the time Kaplan was young, and not yet famous.

04. The Balkans, and Romania and Bulgaria, come back in another Robert Kaplan book, “Eastwards to Tartary” (2000). I have referred to this book earlier, in the context of Lebanon, where I was rather disappointed by the lack of depth, and lack of detail – perhaps inevitable, as this book, touted as Kaplan’s first book since Balkan Ghosts to focus on a single region again, in fact takes the author from Hungary via Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey into Armenia and Azerbijan to end in Turkmenistan, meanwhile taking a sidetrip to Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel. So much for a ‘single region’… Like Lebanon, Romania and Bulgaria are also covered somewhat hastily in this book. The story is low on travel observations and experiences, and heavy on interviews, whereby Mr. Kaplan has, in the meantime, acquired sufficient international fame to get access to presidents, mayors and professors, which leaves less time for discussions with the common people he so effectively used to paint a picture of a country in transition, in his earlier book. I can also not escape the impression that hope has been replaced by despair, as far as Romania and Bulgaria are concerned.

05. A classic on Romania, and my favourite in the list so far, is “Athene Palace” (1942), written by the German-American journalist R.G.Waldeck (alias for Rosa Goldschmidt). Ms Waldeck describes from her hotel – the still-existing Athene Palace – the pre-war intrigues of representatives of all powers, except Russia, who meet and still easily mix in Bucharest during the last half of 1940. Hers appears to be a very well-informed account of how Romania increasingly lost territory, to Russia and then to Hungary and Bulgaria, and how this forced the then-king, Carol II, to abdicate, whilst Romania slipped into the embrace of Nazi-Germany. A great book, recommended (by me..).

06. An early traveler was Patrick Leigh Fermor, who in 1936 went from Hook of Holland in the Netherlands to Istanbul in Turkey. He wrote up his experiences in three volumes, the middle one, “Between the Woods and the Water” (1986), describes his journey through Hungary and Romania (and was published 50 years after the trip).

07. Andrew Eames retraces the steps of Leigh Fermor, and wrote “Blue River, Black Sea” (2009), his account of his trip from the source of the Danube all the way to the Black Sea, and including a journey away from the river in Romania. Mr. Eames’ book covers a lot of ground, literally, but it gets stuck somewhat in descriptions, and lacks a little on personal contacts. Even where he meets people, whether shepherds or princes, the interaction sometimes lacks depth. Still, a nice enough read, and an easy one.

08. Another Danube traveler is Claudio Magris, an Italian. His book is simply called “Danubio” (1986), written before the collapse of communism. The English translation, “Danube” was published in 1989.

09. To stay with the topic, Simon Winder wrote “Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe” (2013), not exactly Romania, but its history, and especially its Transylvanian border, is closely related to the Habsburg Empire.

10. A little lighter is “Never Mind the Balkans, Here ‘s Romania” (2008), by Mike Ormsby. His is a series of short sketches, based on personal experience, sometimes funny, at others frightening, sad, unbelievable, or just very recognizable. By its very nature, the books lacks structure, and it lacks a general message, too – or it must be that Romanians react differently from Western Europeans. It is a nice book, for a while, but I didn’t finish it. (Incidentally, if you come across “Grand Bazaar Romania”, same author, it is the translation in Romanian.)

11. At opposite ends to Ormsby is William Blacker, another recent Romania traveler, and author of “Along the Enchanted Way: A Story of Love and Life in Romania” (2008).

12. Patrick McGuiness’ novel, “The Last Hundred Days” (2011), is a bit of a misnomer, as it creates an expectation of the run up to the overthrow of the Ceausescu regime and the Romanian revolution of December 1989, whilst in fact it describes life in Bucharest through the eyes of young English student, who came to live there in Spring 1989, and stayed up to the day after the overtrow. The fact is, of course, that, say, for 95 of the last 100 days nothing pointed towards a revolution in Romania, and the few pages dedicated to the actual revolution are rather disappointing. The plot itself is rather thin, the happenings and the role of the main character rather unbelievable, and the story does take a while to get underway. Still, the description of life in Bucharest in the last days of the regime, the deceit and conspiracy, the double-crossings and the half-truths pervasive throughout Romanian society at the time, probably gives a very good picture of the contorted reality of those days; as only a well-connected and observant outsider can provide. Mr McGuiness has been there, so much is clear, and his everyday life experiences of the time match well with those described elsewhere, but are all the more realistic from the details he provides. Pity the story isn’t – or at least, so I think, but then, I wasn’t there, of course.

13. The fictional “Rates of Exchange” (1982), by Malcomb Bradbury, deals with the country Slaka, which apparently closely resembles Romania, but way before the last hundred days.

14. Another fiction, world famous and unfortunately still dominating the impression people have about Romania, is Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, first published in 1897. Say no more!

15. The Dracula legend is further explored by Elizabeth Kostova, who wrote “The Historian” (2008), a thrilling novel that links the discovery of a series of books book to the secret location of the tomb of Vlad Tepes, the real-life, 15^th Century Wallachian ruler that is widely believed to have been the model for Dracula. Great novel, effortlessly merging mysterious characters, vampire-like treats, and dusty libraries and dark castles, without adhering to a specific genre – most certainly not a horror story, much more an adventure, spanning three generations and switching between the US and Easter Europe and Turkey. Worthwhile reading, enjoyable.

16. In Dutch, I am afraid, and not translated as far as I know: Volkskrant correspondent Olaf Tempelman’s “Roemeense Lente” (2007) is het verhaal van de grote desillusie die de post-communistische revolutie in de ogen van vele van Tempelman’s gesprekspartners heeft opgeleverd. Natuurlijk, communisme was slecht, maar in het post-communisme is het leven voor de oudere flatbewoner duur, en moeilijk vanwege de vele gebreken aan de huizen waar de staat niet meer voor op draait, lopen de dorpen leeg, als de jongeren ongebreideld naar de grote stad kunnen verkassen, of nog verder weg, naar andere Europese landen om te ontsnappen aan de werkeloosheid en de verveling. In het post-communisme is er ook steeds minder interesse voor de ouderwetse cultuurfilms in de staatsbioscoop, worden er steeds minder literaire boeken en tijdschriften gelezen, en doen er steeds minder ensembles mee aan het volksdansfestival. En dit alles leidt dan ook nog eens tot een knetterende generatiekloof, tussen slome, ontwijkende ouderen die nog van lezen houden en egoïstische, individualistische, luidruchtige jongeren met mobiele telefoons. Tempelman’s boek is bij vlagen wel aardig, vooral in de anecdotes, en leest makkelijk weg, maar is vrij chaotisch opgezet, en zijn bespiegelingen zijn soms eindeloos. En dat van die generatiekloof, is dat niet van alle tijden, en van overal?

17. Also in Dutch, and not translated: “Mijn Roemenie” (2011), een serie korte, en gevarieerde hoofdstukken over Roemeense onderwerpen, geschreven door Jan Willem Bos. Bos weet waar hij over praat, en combineert een enorme kennis over het land en haar geschiedenis met persoonlijke ervaringen, wat een heel leesbaar geheel oplevert. Al is ook hier, net als by Mike Ormsby, de boodschap onduidelijk. En komt de nadruk af en toe, vooral op het einde van het boek, soms wel wat te veel op meneer Bos zelf te liggen.

18. And the third one in Dutch only: “Kameraad Baron” (2010), van Jaap Scholten, schrijver en reisreporter. In dit boek gaat hij op zoek naar de nazaten van de Transylvanische adel, om terug te blikken naar het verleden, maar ook om te kijken hoe het nu verder moet.

19. Bulgaria is a lot less well covered in literature. Bulgarian emigré Kapka Kassabova has written “Street without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria” (2008), both moving and funny. Ms Kassabova, who studied French, left shortly after the end of communism, to the UK and then to New Zealand, where her French was of little use. This flash-back gives a really good impression of life under communist rule, in the one- or two-room apartment blocks, in the educational system, in the factories. Particularly touching is her description of her scientist father, who has to receive a Dutch delegation. Particularly sad is the part where her father comes back from a congress in The Netherlands, realizing just how far behind the communist block has fallen.

20. Another one about Bulgaria is “East of the West: a Country in Stories” (2011), in which Bulgarian author Miroslav Penkov tries to sketch a picture of his native country.

The travel guide: “The Lonely Planet for Romania & Bulgaria“. OK, nothing special, and perhaps there are guides available that, even though lighter on the mundane aspects of traveling, have more to offer in terms of historical background and detailed information on the sights. After all, the mundane aspects – hotels, restaurants – are equally well, if not better, covered by internet-based resources.

36. looking back

Blog entries

there is always light at the end of the tunnel…

After some four weeks traveling through Romania, we come to the conclusion that this is just another European country, and like every other country, unique in its people, in its history and in what is left to see of this history; in the Romanian case, quite attractive.

Romania is something unique, in South Eastern Europe. Not because of its Latin origins, what Romanians will want you to believe sets them apart from other Balkan people. A tenacious claim, at best, really. And not because it represents an old culture that other Balkan countries didn’t have. Every Balkan country has its own, specific background, Bulgaria quite different but equally rich as Romania, for instance. But they are united in 500 years of Ottoman occupation, or domination, which has left its traces. And by 50 years of subsequent communism thereafter, which has caused not only stagnation, but also the breeding of cronyism in the absence of an independent, trustworthy legal system.

Dacia is the Romanian precursur empire; not much left right now, except a small village in Transylvania

But Romania is unique in that every Balkan country aspires, in one way or another, to return to its former greatness, in terms of geographical coverage, yet, for a Greater Albania, a Greater Macedonia, a Greater Serbia, a Greater Bulgaria and a Greater Romania one needs significantly more territory than exists. And only Romania is a country that geographically approaches it maximum historical territorial extent, largely because it mostly doesn’t dispute its territory with the other Balkan countries (except for a sliver of Bulgaria), but only with Hungary – now-Romanian Transylvania, Maramures and Banat provinces, for instance -, and with the former Soviet Union – to which it lost parts of Bucovina and Maramures, now in Ukraine, and Bessarabia, now predominantly the Republic of Moldova. But by-and-large, Romanians are quite pleased with that; occasionally, one sees graffiti claiming Bessarabia is Romanian – a bit like The Malvinas are Argentinean -, but I think, having seen Moldova, that most Romanians are in fact quite happy not to have the responsibility for this part. It is unlikely that Romania now has the same capacity to absorb Moldova as West Germany had 25 years ago absorbing East Germany.

Apple store

The resultant present-day Romania is a country with a lot of variation: different areas have a different atmosphere, different people, starting in the Banat , home toTimisoara. Even though nowadays the vast majority of the population is Romanian – and 6% Hungarian; ethnic Germans have all but disappeared, deported after WWII and re-migrated to Germany after the 1989 revolution, and Jews have a broadly similar history -, even though they are almost all Romanian, people in different areas have their own characteristics. And history has almost certainly a lot to do with that, the people in the Banat and in Transylvania cannot, in less than a century, have undone the (Austro-) Hungarian influence of hundreds of years. If only because they are still used to go to massively big churches, where in the rest of the country the churches are small, humble.

I have hardly mentioned the Gypsies, or Roma, as you like (Romanians have something against the use of the term Roma, it is too close to Romanian, and they dislike the claim of a small, and controversial, part of the population to this term). I haven’t talked about Gypsies, because I don’t know what to say about them. They are hated by the rest of the Romanian population, who thinks they are unadjusted, aggressive and unwilling to compromise, yet, from the Gypsy point-of-view this is an understandable position, after years and years of discrimination and exploitation by non-Gypsies. Nobody seems to be able to come up with a solution for this conflict. Neither am I.

gypsy houses, you’ll pick them out straight away, different taste

progress of sorts: mobile phone on the cart

progress of sorts: multiple horse power in front of the cart

But back to the four weeks Romania experience. Certain things reminded me of Albania, where we live 20 years ago. The countryside, the villages which seem to be stuck well in the previous century. But Albania was 20 years ago; I suppose some things just don’t change that easily, or are not necessarily that visible. My friend on top of his hay cart, he had seen a lot more of the world than the average Albanian 20 years ago, yet, for the casual observer it doesn’t look that different. In many villages new houses have been built, large houses, obviously expensive. And some horse-drawn carts have been replaced by 4WD-drawn carts! Perhaps progress has most definitely arrived, but is not evenly distributed. Transylvania, Bucovina, Maramures, they look richer, as do certain areas like Curte de Arges, not too far from Bucharest. Other parts of Wallachia, and certainly large parts of Moldavia, seem poorer. We had the opportunity to visit several villages around Iasi, which were further away from the main roads, and where progress looked a little further away, too.

popular transport

wine country

The towns show a different picture. Once again, Transylvanian towns seem to lead the way, old centers nicely restored, clear tourist attractions, but at the same moment also plenty of signs of affluence not related to tourism. Smart shops, upmarket restaurants and cafés. People well-dressed – well, mostly the women, Romanian men will predominantly go over street in shorts and T-shirts and on flip-flops. Yet, there are still the palatis everywhere – a word I picked up in Albania, here they call them blocks; the palatis, or at least some of them, are even more run-down then the ones I saw in Albania 20 years ago. But those in Albania will now also be 20 years older. And some of the Romanian palatis have been patched up, newly painted, perhaps even refurbished into multiple-room apartment buildings.

factory building, broken windows

factory building, fire escape

The factories are another story, I have commented earlier on the smashed up buildings which will never be used again: total destruction of capital, apparently sold out in the years immediately after the revolution. And some of the people we talked to commented, worryingly, on the lack of production, in Romania, there is little being made except its agricultural produce. And yet, in Iasi we also saw the signs of an emerging entrepreneurship. And in every town the fringes are populated by the foreign car dealers, including expensive German brands, so there seems to be sufficient market, and thus sufficient money around.

Construction is everywhere, infrastructure mostly. And European money, mostly, the European Union is prominently present in Romania. There are fewer examples of local investment, Romanian money that is made to work, and boost the economy. Sure, there are the new pensiunes, the bed-and-breakfasts, everywhere, but the majority of these seem aimed at improving people’s houses, with a business on the side. A climate for real business development is still some way off, due to hard-to-erase uncertainty around the political climate and the legal processes. In R.G.Waldeck’s classic on Romania at the beginning of WWII, ‘Athene Palace’, published in 1942, she observes that “things written on paper (…) had a shorter life in Romania than anywhere else. After a few weeks the best laws were forgotten (…) because everybody had learned to get around them”. Many Romanians I talked to expressed the same feeling now, and in that respect little seems to have changed in 70 years!

Grandpa

market seller in Iasi

The prejudice? All those Romanians and Bulgarians that steal our jobs, and our wallets? I already commented on Bulgaria, and the Bulgarians, earlier, and for Romania it is not different. Romanians are very friendly people, they are not threatening, on the contrary, most are extremely helpful, proud to show off their country. Never did we encounter problems, never were we asked for bribes, never were we cheated, never was my wallet, or anything else, stolen during our time here (and in my case, having had my wallet stolen all over the world, that says something, doesn’t it?).

they learn to drive young, them boys! (just like any other country?)

You know, Romania, like Bulgaria, is just another European country, with its own characteristics, like every other country has its particular characteristics, too. Nothing exotically different. Nothing uncomfortably different. Actually, quite a nice place to come to. Great hiking, apparently (well, if you are fit enough). Beautiful old towns, fortified churches, painted monasteries, wooden churches, lots of castles. A wine route. And, in the month of September, two half days of rain. Could be worse, no?

Would we come back, one day? Quite likely.

progress of sorts: old ways of transport, new roads

looking back!

first-hand travel experiences and impressions of travel destinations

September 2006 – 03. the excursion

What a tsunami looks like, after almost two years

August 2006 – 02. the arrival

Our first challenges, those related to housing and shopping, we managed to overcome fairly easily, despite bringing a dog to a devout Muslim area

July 2006 – 01. the introduction

Why I went to Banda Aceh in the first place, and what I found there: a comfortable hardship posting

Gemeentemuseum in The Hague

Mark Rothko Exhibition in The Hague

the Icons Museum

Not normally my favourite form of art, the religeous icons on display in the Crypt of the Alexander Nevski Church is Sofia, Bulgaria, are quite special, indeed.

another one-armed crab

Athene Palace

Reading list for Romania and Bulgaria

36. looking back

After some four weeks traveling through Romania, we come to the conclusion that this is just another European country, and like every other country, unique in its people, in its history and in what is left to see of this history; in the Romanian case, quite attractive.

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What a tsunami looks like, after almost two years

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Our first challenges, those related to housing and shopping, we managed to overcome fairly easily, despite bringing a dog to a devout Muslim area

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Why I went to Banda Aceh in the first place, and what I found there: a comfortable hardship posting

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Not normally my favourite form of art, the religeous icons on display in the Crypt of the Alexander Nevski Church is Sofia, Bulgaria, are quite special, indeed.

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After some four weeks traveling through Romania, we come to the conclusion that this is just another European country, and like every other country, unique in its people, in its history and in what is left to see of this history; in the Romanian case, quite attractive.

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