ROMANIA – Kerk Boon Leng Photographs & Notes

love in the time of grapes

We reached Lungesti on a steely grey morning after a short ride from Barlad on the local train. Alex promised his mum and dad who had stayed over in their weekend farm we would spend the day helping them with grape picking.

Alex’s family on his mother’s side comes from this village. Tincuta, Alex’s mother, was born and raised here until she moved to the city to work and marry. Some of their relatives still lived in this rural settlement of around 3,000 people surrounded by timeless but unspectacular countryside.

This is the part of Romania called Moldavia (culturally and historically similar to Moldova the country on the other side of the Prut – the river that marks the international boundary between the two). It is the region that produces a third of Romania’s wines.

Our pre-planned day of labour turned out to be one of mostly leisure, laughter and home made liqueur.

The gentle but persistent rain kept us away from the vines after our lunch of boiled delta fish dipped in horseradish sauce, soup with herbs, cabbage salad and pig brain omelette eaten with mamaliga.

Instead of picking fruits I walked with Alex to a house of a relative over the hill at the back to help strengthen family bonds and drink more distilled spirits.

All images copyright Kerk Boon Leng October 2014

Dec 6, 2014Dec 14, 2014 by dkwts Categories: ROMANIATags: Lungesti Moldavia, Lungesti Photos, Lungesti Romania, Lungesti Village, Romania Travel Blog, Romanian Village Travel Leave a comment

bucharest

If Bucharest were located anywhere in the world but Europe, I am sure planeloads of people would travel all the way there to see it and find reasons to describe it as interesting, grand and maybe beautiful.

Many would no doubt delight in its hectares of parklands and lakes and architecture that is an eclectic mix of styles, madness and concrete.

But Bucharest belongs these days in Europe. As a poor new member of an elite club in a continent brimming with magnificent historic cities, it is seldom given the respect and praise it deserves.

In fact, Romanians have grown used to their capital city being from time to time mistaken for a famous Hungarian city further up the Danube and overlooked by tourists eagerly rushing to Transylvania to see Dracula and his doubtful castle.

Most tourists spend hardly any time in Bucharest fearing that the city is destitute, dangerous or too drab a place to linger.

Quite remarkable for a people with a not so distant memory of deprivation, schizophrenia and collective trauma, Romanians especially the citizens of Bucharest are an honest, hardy and heartwarming lot with a noticeable fondness for large canines.

Bucharest’s love affair with animals especially dogs may be linked to the city’s legendary founding by a shepherd named Bucur. The city’s streets had a reputation for its stray dogs that made rare front news for biting their victim occasionally to death. Even so, all the dogs I saw there were happy hounds either tugging on a leash or busy retrieving a stick in the park.

Bucharest ( population 2 million ) is the biggest city in the formerly communist part of Europe, an area roughly between Berlin and Istanbul, known at one time as the Eastern Bloc.

In greatness size matters but what makes Bucharest a great European metropolis is its raw spirit and authentic atmosphere.

It is self-deprecating but hopeful. It is a real place where people have faces, food tastes like it should and young people eloquently share their views with total strangers in flawless English. It is a city that doesn’t see the need to put on any make up for visitors.

For this reason Bucharest is less a city to sightsee than one to fall seriously in love with and to return to even during its cold snowy winters.

Nov 17, 2014Nov 25, 2014 by dkwts Categories: ROMANIATags: Bucharest Photograph Blog, Bucharest Travel, Bucharest Travel Advice 3 Comments

priponesti

A few hours of sleep after we arrived by train in Barlad we put on old overalls and went with Alex’s parents to Priponesti. It is a village 24 km to the south west where the family keeps a small vineyard for both commerce and consumption. It was wine harvesting time. The mainly white and some red grapes must be hand picked before rain, cold and frost arrive later in the month.