The Nedelciuc's Apartment, Chisnau, Moldova

Today we left the orphanage feeling almost entirely successful. We were able to see the teachers from the orphanage, talk with the director and explain the sports and craft equipment we had brought to the respective persons. The Physical Education teacher especially seemed very happy with the various goals and rackets and nets and balls he (and the children!) now had to play with.

We also managed to leave without too many gifts being given the other way, although we have a huge number of fresh walnuts off the trees, and bags of apples and pears. The director also presented us with an amazing cross-stitch picture that the children had made. It is beautifully intricate - I thought at first it was a photograph of a painting!

We then drove to Chisnau, the capital, and have looked around quickly. It is an entirely different place to the northern villages like Vascauti. The large (communist-built) buildings tower over lovely parks - it is reminicent of a small-scale New York or a London, but the poverty here is still evident. Many houses are run down, and there is an obvious well-off / poverty-stricken divide still.

For most of the afternoon we visited Milesti Mici, the largest wine cellar in the entire world. It is just outside the city, it is owned by the state, and there are over 1.5 million bottles stored underground there. We tasted some of the wines (we had different favourites) and ate lunch before leaving for the city.

We have penned a letter to the Compudava Foundation regarding the pump motors for the boiler system. We feel this is a pressing issue and so are hoping to set the wheels in motion as soon as possible.

I must sleep. My eyes are heavy and there is much driving and customs and driving tomorrow.

The Orphanage, Vascauti (Part Two)

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It has taken three days for the customs officers to finish the declarations on our giving. We have not been the ones going into the two nearby towns (to be ignored, have the power fail of us, or be told to return tomorrow) because of the language barrier, etc. but we have today finished painting the orphanage gate. So that is good news.

It is sad in many ways that it has been so complex to give to the orphanage this time around, because apparently it has been very stress-free when we have given through Compudava, the company with have links with through Norman Fraser, and Silvia’s husband, Vassily. Silvia has been a great force in getting things done, and she has worn herself out completely. All this being said, the director of the orphanage seems very pleased with the gifts and the assistant heads of the school seems excited about the craft materials.

Yesterday we saw about 30 of the children from the orphanage at their holiday camp. The camp itself is reminiscent of American summer camps that appear in Hollywood films, although the accommodation far more fun and quirky (small A-frame lodges) and the facilities, like everything are more or less run down. The children seemed pleased to see their assistant head of school. We told them that we had come from England in a big van (the younger children said they didn’t know where the UK would be on a map – we told them that most English people would not know where Moldova was!) and that we had brought them some sports equipment.

However, we later found out that the children had said to their teacher that they were unhappy and that they were not being treated the same as the other children on the camp. They asked her to take them home (to the orphanage) and asked “How big is these people’s van?” We only found this out much later, and it was so tragic as we had thought that the camp looked very good, and were positive about our look around. The director’s response was, I think very sage: “Whenever they go away they always say they want to come back.” Luckily, the vast majority of the children do have a place to go; to relatives, to friends, etc. over the break.

We also saw the boiler room, which, after much pressing, the director singled out as an area for great concern. Two of the three pumps that supply hot water to all the buildings in the orphanage are broken and sit on the floor. Two of the three boilers leak. There is a possibility of a gas pipe reaching Vascauti in the foreseeable future, but there is this winter to consider with what is now a failing heating system.

We leave tomorrow for Chisnau (“Kish-now”), the capital of Moldova with Silvia and Horia, to stay with them for an evening and see the city.

The Orphanage, Vascauti, Moldova

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We arrived at the orphanage 17 hours after leaving Cluj, having spent four and a half hours at customs! Our friend Norman Fraser suggests that it is all about patience. Prove that you are more patient than the custom officer and they give up. As it turned out, Silvia's advocacy of us won out, and we arrived here around midnight last night, had a late dinner/tea here in the school dining room, and as we settled in to sleep (in the caravan – we may sleep in a dormitory tonight) a tiny dog began to bark; a high pitched yap that did not cease until the early hours.

Today we have eaten breakfast and lunch courtesy of the orphanage with Horia and Silvia. We have been the only ones eating, and they have prepared beautiful meals for us in an extremely basic kitchen. Our mumbled thank yous (mes-u-mescht) don’t seem to do the hospitality justice.

We have brought a smattering of rain with us, but no one seems to mind – it has not rained here for a long time, unlike home! Unfortunately, that has slowed our first work – repainting the orphanage’s gates brown and white, because the brown and white paint is rather tired. This morning we attacked the gate with scrapers, screwdrivers and hacksaw blades to smooth it out after many previous coats of paint. Now we are setting to applying the paint.

During the rain we befriended the beast of barking from last night, a cute little bag of bones that everyone on site seems to have soft spot for – its excursions into the dining hall are lightly reprimanded, and then someone takes it some scraps. We have also learnt how to shell walnuts straight from the branch; for someone who can’t stand the dried nuts, I found these delightfully watery and gentle tasting. In general the food here has been delicious; the vegetables are really gorgeous.

Sadly, the customs debacle is not over. The head of the orphanage is off today in town trying to finish the declarations that will allow us to donate the sports equipment. Also sad is the fact that we see the orphanage so empty of children, but we are reassured; they are on holiday camp, mixing with other Moldovan children from all backgrounds. Hopefully they will return to some great new equipment.

Meantime, I should be painting!

Moldovan Romanian Border

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We’re out of Romania, we have just now to get into Moldova. The issue, apart from our leaving the EU with all the custom troubles it brings, is that we have had to declare the sports and craft equipment we have brought from the UK.

Our friends, Silvia and her son Horia are gallantly defending us to the border officials as ‘friends of Moldova’, and to some degree the officials are happy about our entering the country – once they have catalogued exactly what we have brought into their country. The bureaucracy is a huge factor here, although the officials do seem impressed by our multi-stamped and stickered letters which are quasi-official at best!

After this is the three hour drive to Soroca, and the orphanage, in convoy with our new friends. The roads have got dramatically worse since Cluj Napoca (the main town near last night’s campsite), so much so that I was awakened by the bumping before noon, a first for several days. Sadly, we do not expect any better from here on in.

The internet could drop out at any point. If and when we lose a connection, I will update you on the return journey.

We arrive at the orphanage tonight (hopefully!) and we leave Saturday.

Near Cluj, Romania

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…which is a huge shame because today we found in Romania a land that is completely different in almost every way from home. And we've taken loads of photos. Whereas in France, or Germany, or Austria the countries are so developed as to remind you of the UK, and the Hungarian countryside is somewhat reminiscent of home (apart from the huge sunflower fields that mother reminds me to mention) – here everything seems strange and foreign.

Hungary bears the scars of its communist past but hides them well – on the Romanian border, we were thankful that the armed guards were relaxed, but still took more notice of our passports than any other foreign officials since Britain.

We have singularly failed to buy a road tax sticker for Romania – the Austrian and Hungarian stickers are still on our windshield, but no one wishes to sell us one here. We have been on one road since entering Romania, the E60. It passes directly through the towns, which consist only of this one main road – houses on either side of the road open onto the street. The villagers are rural people; they sit and talk – the children wave at us in the van as we pass, and hitchhikers try to flag us down along emptier stretches of road. There really are aged, wrinkled ladies who wear black cowls and walk along the sides of the road. We passed a village which had lined its street (singular) with rows and rows of woven baskets with intent to sell. We passed a bare-chested man hacking at his crop with a scythe, whilst 50m away his horse waited patiently, still harnessed to its cart. Indeed, not far into the country we had to brake suddenly to avoid a family of horses (with two small foals) galloping into the road in front of us, a small boy with a stick following fast behind them.

Rising above the ramshackle houses are the impressive church spires of infinite variety often coated with shiny metal (tin?) and in the richer towns, where the houses are more substantial – the churches are fantastic.

However, we were confronted by rather pushy beggars not long into the country – of the windscreen-washer variety – banging on the side of the van when we refused to pay, and shouting. And the drivers! Almost half of the road signs in this country are NO OVERTAKING signs (you know, with the red car and the black car; symbols are universal) and you can see why after five minutes of driving. Our maintaining the speed limit (in most places) causes absolute outrage, and elicits the most outrageous overtaking manoeuvres; not just from cars and bikes, but from huge coaches, at frightening speed, and proximity to cars coming the other way, not to mention proximity to our van…

Now we are at ‘Camping Eldorado’, a haven of organised and seemingly safe camping. Guarded by an Alsatian with a lead the runs all around the site, everyone seems to speak English, and we arrived early enough to play Swingball, and having eaten and showered, are getting ready to play some matchstick poker.

Near Mesokoveshden, Hungary

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Left Germany, crossed into Austria. Claire and Mark decided to leave Germany as they found the Mercedes advertising just too much. Then Stephen and I woke up. This was around 12pm. (We know the local time, hurrah!) We are informed (and there is photo evidence to prove it) that we missed quite beautiful scenery as we left Germany. Lunch on the go – this we knew would be a heavy driving day, and so we have kept moving. Almost directly through Austria, stopping only to refuel and swap drivers, we hit a traffic jam leading out of the country, into Hungary. We believe that this is due to the Hungarian Grand Prix scheduled for tomorrow – I’m sure Mark would really like to be watching tomorrow, but Claire would never allow it!

The first bad weather hit us after we trawled through Budapest, Hungary’s capital – a quick but torrential burst of rain. We saw one nasty car wreck during this time but no one appeared to have been hurt. Not much later the rain was gone.

The most important in-car achievements were a three-hundred point win at Scrabble by Claire against Stephen and my completion of Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I’m glad both Joyce and I got that out of our systems.

We are now looking for our campsite which is near Mesokoveshden. The place name has vowel accents all over it – I have not attempted them. Our Hungarian friends, the Tőroks informed us that it was pronounced thus: Me-su-ku-ve-sh-t.

Bettingen (near Frankfurt), Germany

We are well established in our first real campsite – although our ETA of late morning was woefully ambitious! We arrived early this evening, after a relaxed journey consisting of a short time in the Netherlands, and then most of the day on the Autobahns. We met a lovely administrator at this campsite, who rules with a benevolent air from atop his electric scooter. After a beautiful meal previously cooked by Claire (and now reheated by her fair hand) we navigated the shower arrangements and now look forward to an evening of film and Scrabble entertainment.

Funny sights on the road today; various pretty churches including a motorway stop chapel, a lovely Honda motorbike (with sidecar!), the Rhine and Mum at the wheel!

We’re very sad to hear about the Eurotunnel accident and subsequent delays, but thank God we didn’t suffer too badly at such an early stage in the journey!

It’s not as if we can report a huge change in lifestyle between here on the continent and back home as we sit in our furnished campervan replete with Sony Vaio laptop computer and 3G internet courtesy of Vodafone, a microwave, a gas hob and more music than the average HMV which allows us to experience all the joys of home with none of the space!

However it is truly incredible to watch the countryside and the roads change before one’s eyes through the windows between impromptu naps and Monty Python watching, (although each service station looks depressingly similar to the last!)

Thanks to everyone who is in touch with us, today's friend being Norman, for his heads-up about the Tunnel. On the left: the Rhine