He'd risked his life for us and he could just as easily have mugged us and we were, and are, extremely grateful. John took it a bit far. John asked if, just between the two of them, George wanted to stay in Britain after the holiday there. George misunderstood this and was really happy as he thought it was an offer. I felt really sad that John had offered this that we couldn't give. I think to a certain extent though John did believe that he could offer this to George. We would willingly have paid for his travel, and would have to as otherwise he could never afford it. John said that at the time it wasn't practical as we had nowhere to put them up but George and Goby should spend the next few months working hard on learning to speak English and then we would bring them over. Someone asked us for money. People were watching us. We went back to the garden and then to the embassy.
We met a Romanian woman outside the Brittanic Embassy who brings things over from Britain with a charity. She said that money is safe (only send 20 quid though) to send but that mail gets read. But if we contact the following we will get help: 'British Airways, Captain L W Gruber, B747 Senior Training Captain, Crew Report Centre, PO Box 747, Crawley - West Sussex RH6 0FH. The woman said we could send the invitation fro George at any time so we agreed to leave it at that for now and concentrate on getting ourselves out of the country. They said that we could see the vice consul, but that George couldn't come in. They searched us and put a metal detector thing around us to look for guns and we went in. George waited outside so that he could take us the the airport. We met someone called James who had also been waiting outside and came in with us. The people inside weren't as helpful as we'd hoped for. I think they looked down on us because of the way we looked, which is silly because if we hadn't;t been in such a state we wouldn't have needed to go there. The vice consul had lived in Romania for two years and she had never had any trouble travel- ling in her chauffeur-driven limousine. She said that she would try to get us a plane but it would be very hard. She said that we couldn't be taken to the airport as they were understaffed. She did seem to be busy but all the other staff wandered around bored. They moaned about the air conditioning. They moaned about how hard it was to get a decent cricket pitch in Romania, and they talked about places to buy cheap porcelain. They had really old fashioned pure British accents. It was just like a James Bond film. I never thought people really spoke like that. She said that she had got us a plane, to England at 10:15 the next day. John wasn't too pleased, he didn't want to go home, he was still talking about carrying on to Istanbul or anywhere really rather than cut his holiday short, but I thought he should have his head seen to. She sent us, and James who's passport and ticket had been stolen, down the road to a hotel to buy a ticket. She said how great she was and how lucky we were to get this booking.
Outside George was busy helping someone fill in a form. We went and bought the ticket without him. I paid for mine and John's using travellers cheques. They were one hundred and fifty pounds each. James paid for his with dollars which he retrieved from his shoe. On the way back I saw two people walk past one another, in opposite directions, in the street. Their hands brushed together and a small knife passed between them.
When we got back we bade farewell to George. George kissed us on both cheeks, our bristles scratching, and shook us each firmly by the hand. John said that he'd get him out and he left the happiest man in the world. When John realised we hadn't given him any money, and I pointed out that in England he still wouldn't be free if he was an illegal immigrant John wasn't so happy, but we'll send him money and we'll do our best for him. The vice consul woman said that there was a doctor but she was too busy to help John who may have a cracked open head. She gave him a plaster and told him to have a wash. We didn't want to go out on the streets so we stayed there for the next four hours, reading the papers, waiting for James. He was sent all over town to get a passport. He spent all his reserve money. He had to pay three bribes, one into someone's personal bank account, one on his second visit to a police station just for them to stamp a statement prepared by the vice-consul. He had a permanently booked taxi driver who turned out, he said, to be an undercover cop. In the embassy we met a guy who worked for the South African embassy. He said 'this is not Europe'. 'It is the wild east, like the wild west, come to South Africa, it is much safer, except maybe the train to Soweto.' He said 'I always travel by plane and taxi in Romania. You should never use the trains.' When the person he was waiting for arrived he told him he'd been talking to us and how nice we were but the British person completely ignored us. When one couple working at the embassy met another guy working there they talked about their planned weekend. She smiled a massive smile and he told her where you could get the bargain price porcelain near there. As soon as he left her fake smile totally disappeared. She did this again to someone else.
When the Embassy shut at 14:00 (John says 13:00 but he didn't have a watch). we went with James. He was far too loud, speaking English on the street and carrying his enormous rucksack. He'd been working with Romanians in an orphanage for 3 weeks and they were OK, and taxi drivers are great. John took the map and pretended to be George weaving about and going the wrong way. John was getting neurotic. It was very hot and he was wearing a jumper. I put my dirty shirt back on as it covered my money belt. We had looked like dirt in the embassy but that was what our disguise was for. We passed a really big queue of people waiting to buy bread from a bakers. We passed people selling grapes and other things out of car boots. We went to the French embassy. I wish I could remember exactly why. We were told to go and pay some money somewhere, I think into the French embassy guy's account and be back at the French embassy by 3pm. To do this, and the other transactions necessary to get James' passport in time we had to get a taxi to drive us around, he was OK.
We went to a Bureau de Change but it took far too long and people started to build up around us. We left. For some reason we went back to the hotel where we had bought our tickets. I think it was probably to change some money. We met the girl who'd sold us the plane tickets as she was leaving for home. She was really pleased to see us. Something was wrong with the money James had given her I think it was five pounds short or something negligible like that (I also remember Scottish money being involved, maybe he tried to give her that but she wouldn't accept it.) I think she had cancelled his ticket because of this so it was lucky that we bumped into her. We tried to give her the rest of the money and she shuffled James into her boyfriend's car and we all stood around it so that no-one on the street could see money being exchanged.
We checked in to the hotel that the vice consul had arranged. The receptionist asked to see our Bureau de Change receipt as the Romanian money was down, and he took our passports. There is a lot of forged money around so you should never change money on the street. The three of us got a room and brought some beer up. It was 4pm. James gave us some clothes. A top, socks that fitted and at last some jeans. We told our stories. James had been working at an orphanage up in the hills. The Romanians who he worked with had taken him on a couple of trips into some towns, I think Brasov was one, but basically he had spent all of his time in the coun- tryside and when he had been in towns he had been in a very big group with Romanians who knew the area. He said that the orphanage at the start of the three months was a horrible place, many children were virtually dead from starvation. Basically he had to teach the Romanians running it how to treat children, that you shouldn't hit them with sticks or starve them or lock them up. In par- ticular it was the violence that bothered him. He had had to pay for his fare there and hadn't been paid any- thing and had been living in a very basic way. It didn't sound very appealing. He said that he wanted to do it again. He found the change in the kids over the time very satisfying. John says that he would like to do it too. James was planning to use up all his leave from work the following February and go again just for a couple of weeks.
at about 19:00 we went for a meal in the restaurant oppo- site the hotel. It was a secluded and safe courtyard out the back of the restaurant. There were some rich British people there eating and drinking wine who talked as though they were on a package holiday and were seeing a very different Romania to what we saw. We had a good meal. Steak again. John had alcoholic ice cream and we had a couple of beers. At 21:00 we went to bed.
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My alarm got us up at 06:00. We had been warned to book taxis rather than just get in any car who's driver said he was a taxi. We may even have booked one but I can't think how. We got in the first taxi in the rank outside our hotel. John and I were nervous all the way to the airport but James said that he recognised the route. The airport was a really basic place. Just a concrete building next to a runway in a field in the middle of nowhere. We waited a while and drank coffee. There were a few undesirable people hanging around in the foyer. Even- tually we Walked through customs which was embarrassing. James' passport had been stolen. John and I both held our arms up to indicate that baggage had been stolen and we had nothing to be searched. They laughed. Once in the departure lounge people were OK. We drank a beer.
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10:15 Plane Bucharest to London Heathrow. Tarom airline.
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(clock back 2 hrs)
We got the plane, Cost 342,250 lei? (&Lsterling.155). It all went well. Once we got our feet on firm ground and through customs we finally relaxed, although the people that know me will tell you that I didn't really relax for another six months afterwards. I knew that these organised crime groups were very organised. Some are very far reaching but I don't know which ones we came across. To help us in the event of losing tickets or passports or other documentation we had had copies of each everything in one another's rucksacks, unfortunately these had all been stolen, so these people knew where I lived.
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I've since read the following extract from from a U.S. Department of State Advisory dated March 5, 1992:
'Travellers to Poland are advised that while business and pleasure travel is generally safe, reported incidents of crime against foreign visitors and local residents have increased. Travellers are advised to exercise particular caution against thieves when traveling by train, public tram and buses. Street crime in Poznan and Krakow is not as prevalent as in Warsaw, but travellers using the train stations in all three cities should exercise caution.
Trains, Trams and Buses - Organised groups of thieves and pickpockets appear to be operating in the train stations, trains, trams and buses of Warsaw, Poznan, Krakow and other major cities. The groups operate by surrounding the traveller to distract his/her attention while boarding or exiting the train and then picking their pockets. Such incidents can be avoided by alert trav- elers who safeguard their valuables.'
Since then we've sent money and letters to George and he hasn't received any of them. He has sent us letters asking why we haven't been in touch since the telegram. We also got a letter and photograph from Catilin which we've ignored. The charity lady that we met outside the British Embassy got in touch with us. We went to see her in Worthing and gave her some money to give to George. She later came back to us asking what to do with the money as she had failed to find him. In November he sent us a letter saying that he was going to work in Hungary for three months. So we've now lost touch with him.
I've tried to get various forms of this published to warn travellers of what they might be getting involved in, but no journalist was interested in writing an article. The Independent and The Guardian asked me to write a 1200 word version (this version is 24600 words) which I did but it wasn't good enough because it contained just a few basic facts and the basic facts are that very little actually happened to us. Because we managed to avoid getting into serious trouble it is virtually impossible to get people to believe that we didn't just imagine the trouble that we avoided.
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The Rec.Travel Library
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