Romanian hospitality

Despite the reputation of Romanian taxis and indeed our own experience of unsavoury types around the streets and stations of Bucharest, the Romanian people seem to demonstrate a sharp contrast. Outside of those few negatives, Romanians seem to go out of their way to help us out. Our taxi arrived to take us to Busteni a town next to Sinaia about 10km away where there was the best cable car in the area - one much nearer the hotel has less to offer. The taxi ride down was uneventful and so we arrived at the cable car station ready to queue (we'd been warned it could take 2 hours). But there was no queue. Instead we were briefly hassled by someone selling 4x4 rides up the mountains. We declined and entered the building. Unfortunately, I discovered I didn't have enough money for the whole journey (there were two cable car journeys there and two back). Outside we couldn't find any bank or cash machine but we shared the same problem briefly with a woman outside until she decided with her husband to raid their children's stash. So I entered one of the hotel lobby's nearby and asked them to order us a taxi to the nearest cash machine and back. Instead the women there asked her colleague to drive us, and he did. We got our cash and were back in a few minutes. I gave him the equivalent of £1.50 for his trouble.