Train Rides 2014 - Bucharest to Budapest via Ister Train

Date: 9th April 2014

I'm sorry if I'm sharing too much photos of the train rides to Budapest as there's so many photos that I adored during this ride. We took 6-berth couchettes which had a proper storage right on top of the upper berth. Clean sheets and blanket were already there when we stepped in, where later after it's dark we somehow managed to pull down and make our own beds. It was 1 of the best ride ever and I personally falling deep in love with taking trains for my future travel. Will definitely convince my other half to follow suit. In sha Allah. 

The EuroNight Ister runs daily between Budapest and Bucharest. The larger part of the journey goes through Romania, crossing the country from west to south-east. The most interesting stop along the way is Brasov, in the Transylvania region where the famous Dracula’s @ Bran Castle is located. It was just a journey of 3 hours from Bucharest to Brasov. The entire journey from Bucharest to Budapest easily takes about 17 hours, 2 hours short from Istanbul to Bucharest.

Choosing "bracelet from Bucharest city", happen to be in Gara de Nord station :)

Our train is “EN 472” Ister express train which departed from Bucuresti Gara De Nord stopping at limited station, i.e. Ploiesti Vest, Brasov, Teius, Arad, Curtici, Lokoshaza, Bekescsaba, Szolnok to reach Budapest Keleti. I'm sharing below the travel map covering 2 countries in 859 km of slightly less than 17 hours.

Ister express train route, 859km: Bucuresti Gara De Nord-Ploiesti Vest- Brasov-Teius-Arad-Curtici-Lokoshaza-Bekescsaba-Szolnok-Budapest Keleti

The Euro Night sleeper train Ister, was leaving Bucharest Nord at around 17:30 and arriving at Budapest Keleti station at 08:50 in the morning of  the next day.  The Ister has a modern Romanian air-conditioned sleeping-car with safe, comfortable and carpeted 1, 2 & 3-bed compartments with washbasin, plus several deluxe compartments with 1, 2 or 3 beds and private shower & toilet.  This is the recommended option, the rooms can be converted to private sitting rooms by day and there's even a shower at the end of the corridor which might work if you're lucky.  There are also ordinary seats (not recommended) and 4-berth & 6-berth couchettes (basic bunks with rug and pillow).  The Ister also has a restaurant car for dinner and breakfast. 

We had the couchette to ourselves until the next passenger gets in at Brasov

Like I said, indeed, very2 comfy

Our couchettes are fairly basic, and a proper bed in the sleeper is much more comfortable and secure yet costs very little extra, so is the recommended option.  There's a modern Romanian restaurant car serving dinner and a cooked breakfast, but taking some supplies of your own is always a good idea. In addition, there are plenty of clean toilets in the cabin that you may chose to use. There's also heater for our comfortable sleeps beside a cable plug in to charge our cameras battery and lappy. It's a very happy ending case to our long journey, the best that you can dream of beside a comfortable and most safest mode of travel on earth. There will be no incident like our sad events of flight MH370, unless America decided to create another world conspiracy by creating chaos of the European tracks. Hehehe, I'm merely making a jokes, American people!

Another traveller Philip Dyer-Perry reports to our sifu and was written in his website, "The Main in Seat 61", "Budapest to Bucharest on the Ister is an absolute pleasure. I booked online with MAV and travelled in the new sleeping car, which was comfortable, smooth, and clean. There is a shower, but obviously not intended for use as most of the hose assembly was missing.  There was a dining car, and if you ask you can get a menu, but it's better to ask the man what he's got and negotiate a price.  If you have hard (non-Romanian) currency there is a certain amount of flexibility.  In the evening it was chicken & potatoes, next morning it was a rather tasty omelette.  Just be aware that the main purpose of the dining car is as a place for the traincrew to smoke!  It's good though, and a world away from Western Europe...". 

You may book the Ister sleeper train via www.mav-start.hu (a Hungarian Railways). After choosing the language, you just enter Budapest to Bucuresti (Bucharest) or Brasov in the journey planner.  Thereafter, select 'couchette' or 'sleeping' car and do not forget to tick 'own compartment' if you are booking 2 or 3 people and want sole occupancy of a whole 2 or 3 bed compartment. After you had keyed in your personal information, click 'Tickets and prices' to select and book the train.  You can book couchettes or sleepers on the Ister online using this system, with various types of reduced-rate book-ahead ticket such as 'Fortuna', just pick the cheapest ticket.  The payment is online but the tickets can be collected from the internet ticket collection point at Budapest Keleti station with the 10-digit reference number.

In our case, we booked our tickets and couchettes from Bucharest to Budapest train online at www.raileurope.co.uk. The Singaporean staff in Eurorail was kind enough to help us checking the lowest option fare through out our journey. However it only seems to offer 6-berth couchettes or 2-bed sleepers eastbound, 3-berth & 2 berth sleepers westbound, not the full range of accommodation.  In 6-berth couchettes or 3-berth sleepers, Rail Europe's prices are similar to or slightly lower than those charged by German Railways' UK office, making online booking a good option. 

2 other passengers joined us at 2 different station. The 1st guy from Brasov station was on his way to get his medical problem attended by the specialist in Budapest. He was a bit shy when he first joined us, the 4 ladies, all in hijab. We teased him that he can get instants 4 wife's if he was Muslim. We saw how he was being teased by his family when he was checking our bunk from the platform. It was rare for European to see a hijabi's muslim in a train without male companion. The 2nd passenger was stopped at the immigration border for unknown reason and never returned to the car. It was how the 2 immigration officer asked him to step down to the office with them in below photo. 

Here come sunrise

The train stop at the Romanian border a bit too long. Maybe it was due to interrogation with the passenger that was with us. After we have done with our Fajar prayer, my sister and I stepped down from the train and walked for a short while in the track. It was horribly cold weather that forced us back to the bunk. The weather was below 10 degrees that morning.

After the train restarted, a short while later, the Hungarian immigration office stepped on the train to check our passport when we reached the Hungary border stop. He is a friendly officer who was a bit surprised to see the 4 Asian ladies without male companion traveling in the Romanian train. We thanked him for smooth and expeditious process of recognizing that travelers from Malaysia are not required to get visa when traveling in Europe.  

Can you notice the train stamped in my passport by the border's immigration check point?

The train assistant had distributed a packed breakfast comprised of 3-1 coffee pack and biscuit to all. But we had stored it away as we had our breakfast at the restaurant car that we discovered after all immigration checkpoint was cleared. The restaurant, though not many items left had offered hot coffee which we had with our own prepared foods and some biscuits. For the record, this is the only train rides that we were in the mood of wandered and co-incidentally found the restaurant car since we have our own foods that most comfortable eaten in the bunk for the rest of journey.

Close to 9am in the morning we safely arrived in Budapest Keleti station in a state where we desperately wanted to get fresh shower. We were so uncomfortable in the same cloths for more than 24 hours. Lucky that the weather was not hot and we were not sweat. If in Malaysia, we would want to have shower twice a day. Nevertheless, we still pose for the photo as that's what we know best... hahaha

Without any time to waste, we had approached the Keleti station ticketing office to purchase our ticket to Vienna and Salzburg on the next day and a day after. Rest assured that there are many options that you may get as plentiful of trains departing to Austria from Budapest, so, no worries if you are to depart even on the same day. We were a little worried in the beginning as we do not have any continuing ticket to Munich from Budapest. We only purchased online ticket for all night train including a day trip ticket to/from Paris to London. In the meantime, we had some breads and coffee again at bread shop in below photo after we exchanged some euros to local currency.

At the ticketing office, queue for our number to be called

We truly had a great time and feeling so secured and safe in arriving at Budapest City... Alhamdulillah, Yeay!!

Bucharest - Gara De Nord

Date of visit: 9th April 2014

Since our train was departing at 5.30pm, we had decided to have Subway for lunch which is located inside the Bucharest North railway station or known by many as Bucuresti Gara de Nord. Gara De Nord is the main railway station in Bucharest and the largest railway station in Romania. The vast majority of mainline trains to and from Bucharest originate from Gara de Nord. The name was initiated from Gara Targovistei, after the nearby road nearby, Calea Targovistei. After we covered all places of interest set in our itinerary in Bucharest, we check out, stored the luggages in Ibis and headed to Gara De Nord. After lunch, we went for photo shoot around the famous station.

Bucuresti Gara De Nord is the first railways in Romania that was built connecting Roman to Galati to Bucharest to Pitesti, in 1872. The station and its surroundings were heavily bombed by the Allies in April 1944, World War 2. It was bombed during a campaign aimed at the German supply lines, since Gara De Nord station played an important part in the Romanian railway network and was the main departure point for troops headed to the Eastern Front.

At present, there are currently 14 tracks and 8 platforms covered inside the main station building. As of 2009, Gara de Nord served about 200 trains, including domestic trains operated by Caile Ferate Romane (CFR), Regiotrans and Trans Feroviar calatori as well as international trains serving to and from neighborhood country and its main cities, i.e. Hungary (Budapest), Bulgaria (Sofia, Varna and Burgas), Republic of Moldova (Chisinau), Ukraine (Kiev and Chernivtsi), Austria (Vienna), Turkey (Istanbul) even to Russia (Moscow and Saratov) and to Belarus (Minsk and Dnepropetrovsk). The route seems interesting to explore.

The station is served by several bus lines as well as the Gara de Nord metro station. Also, the station is connected by CFR train to Henri Coanda International Airport. The hotel that we stayed for 2 days and 1 night, Ibis Bucharest Gara de Nord is located merely 3 minutes within walking distance from the main railway station and just 2 km away from the city center.  Hence, we just walked on arrival and departure.

Ibis Gara De Nord hotel is a place for both business or leisure. They have 250 rooms, a French bistro restaurant, a pleasant summer terrace, a lobby bar opened 24 hours a day and 8 conference rooms. Private outdoor parking also available for hotel guests. What we like most is the free WiFi which is accessible everywhere in the hotel. I would recommend for those who wishes to have a pleasant and comfortable stay in Bucuresti to choose this hotel as your first choice, value for money.

Bucharest's only railway station which visitors ever use is Gara de Nord though there are other stations, i.e. Obor, Basarab, Baneasa and Titan Sud. The station was opened in 1872, and today sees just over 200 trains arrive and depart each day from the central station. There are a number of entrances, 2 ticket offices, plenty of cashpoints, a supermarket, fast food outlets (including McDonalds, KFC and Subway), and storage for luggage chargeable at 5 lei for 24 hours. Unfortunately, just opposite the station, the park was occupied by the homeless who (I might say) ruin the city with their unkept appearances and scare us with begging furiously for money, the tourist to their beautiful city.

There is also a free Wifi throughout the station. Signage is fairly good with the main departures board being well placed in the middle of the platforms, written in English. The departure and arrival of all trains is also announced over the tannoy. While there are plenty of police and security guards around, please be careful of any shifty characters people who are trying to approach you. You may well ignore anyone trying to sell you something or telling you that their taxi is the cheapest. Queues at the ticket office can often be long, hence try a level best to buy ticket early. We bought ours through Rail Europe online via Singapore branch office.

To get to town take an honest taxi from the official taxi station outside. There are taxis from 2 reliable Bucharest companies, Meridian and Pelican, who are allowed to pick up fares here. If no taxi is waiting, use one of the two touch screens to order one. There is also a Metro hop on hop off, 1 away from Piata Victoriei, or you may want to try the bus. CFR had placed a warning, should anyone who approaches you (and if you have just got off the Budapest train and have a backpack, you will be approached) is trying to scam you: they will try and divert you from your intended destination (often by saying that the place you want to go to is closed) towards another hostel or hotel that they will recommend to you. Just ignore anything they say and wave them away". So, please take note of the advice!

Have a nice weekend everyone, Love, Peace & Compassion to all human kind....

Bucharest - Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum

Date of visit: 9th April 2014

The last place that our group visited that day was to Dimistrie Gusti National Village Museum. We took that opportunity to get some souvenirs from the local souvenirs shop seated at the entrance to the museuem. The souvenirs shop had numerous local items for the tourist to pick-up for. Our mandatory purchased from Bucharest city and the rest of the cities are the fridge magnet. I was dissapointed as the shop did not have any plate showing Romanian for me to hang at my travel wall. Nevertheless, a walk that day was pretty nice. 

The Village Museum (Muzeul Satului in Romanian) is an open-air ethnographic museum located in the Herastrau Park (Bucharest, Romania), showcasing traditional Romanian village life. The museum extends to over 100,000 m2, and contains 272 authentic peasant farms and houses from all over Romania. It was created in 1936 by Dimitrie Gusti, Victor Ion Popa, and Henri H. Stahl.

It is unanimously deemed by foreign tourists a sight not to be missed out, being rated as 1 of the best and most complete museums in the country. Enjoying a virtually central location in Bucharest, the museum stands out in sharp relief as an oasis of tranquility, clipped from a time of immemorial rural legend.

This outdoor museum fills a surface of about 10 hectares, in a park populated with examples of Romanian rural architecture. The park aims to provide a comprehensive picture of the architectural styles used in building the traditional rural homes throughout Romania, in sundry regions of the country (Moldavia, Oltenia, Transylvania, Banat, and Dobrogea, etc). The houses aside, the patrimony of the museum is complemented by churches, outhouses and mills, such as to offer visitors a thorough picture of the Romanian traditional village life. The structures (depending on their type) are furnished with authentic items (old furniture, tapestries, tools and the like), such as to render as closely as possible the atmosphere of the rural life.

In order to keep true to the purpose of the village museum, the structures were made of materials ascertained as traditional materials used in erecting the buildings by the peasants themselves in the course of history (clay, wood, thatch and stone). The perishable nature of these materials is an inexhaustible source of challenge for the museum, which is faced with the situation of preserving the structures as such, without tampering with the genuineness of the peasant set by altering the raw material of which the exhibits were made.

On top of its unchallenged inner value, the museum is located just nearby the Herastrau Park, 1 of the most beautifully landscaped public parks of Bucharest. Please take note that Arcul De Triumf is located just near the corner of the Herastrau Park, close by to the museum. I would like to suggest for you to manage your time by visiting these 3 places in 1 shot. I.e. the park, the arch and the museum at 1 go. Do not forget to stop by at the souvenir shop within the precincts of the museum next to the ticket counter, though deemed less valuable than its counterpart at the Museum of the Romanian Peasant.

As an interesting historical reference, the museum was, chronologically speaking, the third outdoor museum ever founded in Europe.