Adventures in Transylvannia - Part II

Took us 3 hours to drive 112 kilometers today on the windy, narrow highway to Brasov. After two days of heavy drinking in Sibui we take a break and relax.

• Took a gondola up a neighbouring mountain to a viewpoint that offered almost no view due to being surrounded by trees.
• Watched Reece flee for the hotel at a run after being struck with a violent bout of diarrhea. Diarrhea is funny when it's happening to someone else.

We arrive in the little Transylvanian mountain village of Bran in the afternoon - excitement is running high as we finally reach the place that we all (well, most of us) had really come to see. Bran, which sits in a valley in the Carpathian Mountains, is home to the famous Bran castle, which is also known as Castle Dracula because it was the castle that inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula (along with the legends of Vlad Tepish who had the castle built). We take a tour of the castle while thunder rumbles in the distance. Naturally we think that there would be nothing cooler than creeping around castle Dracula in the middle of the night, so we go back that night. There are guards at all the gates but we manage to bribe them to let us onto the castle grounds.

We all head over to the castle - everyone is a little worried about the guards (who are pretty drunk) and whether we can really trust them - plus there are more guards in other areas of the grounds and we don't know if they are in on it. We aren't allowed to go into the castle but we wander over to the base of the castle where there is an old tunnel that runs underneath it. The entrance is blocked off but you can get past the barricade and we have two flashlights between the eight of us so we head in. Stu is last in - he protests loudly about what a stupid idea it is to go into the tunnel but is ignored and, not wanting to be left behind on the grounds of Dracula's castle, Stu follows reluctantly. We head up the tunnel, Skip and Mike have flashlights and we make our way up this old tunnel carved in the rock - Bran Castle lies directly above, and somewhere off to the sides of our little tunnel, deep in the ancient rock, lie the dungeons. The dungeons, hundreds of years old, were most recently used as a political prison by the secret police as late as the 80s and after the overthrow of the Dictator Ceausescu the dungeons were just sealed off as is. They're somewhere very close by in the Transylvanian night.

The tunnel ends at an old well shaft that drops into blackness. We peer into it for a few seconds and then Skip and Mike turn off the flashlights and roll out their best Dracula laugh. There is a little bit of laughter and then Stu loudly (but not very convincingly) yells, "You guys turn those lights back on right now! You're scaring Monica!" Strangely, Monica seems fine. With Stu rattled but trying hard to blame it on others we head back out of the tunnel and decided to head back to the hotel before the guards do something unpredictable. The castle grounds are eerie and empty and the guards watch silently as we leave. We go back to the hotel (which sits nearby in plain view of the castle). Mike, on a dare, dives into the unlit, outdoor hotel swimming pool and touches the bottom.

I share a room with Stu and Mike that night. We are all fast asleep (I'm dreaming of walking around dark, abandoned castles) - when at 4am we are awoken after a couple of hours of sleep, by Stu (who evidently isn't fast asleep) yelling "who's there? Who's in this room?" A moment of silence and then Stu, again trying to sound intimidating but not quite pulling it off, "Shaggy and Mike are you guys moving around in here!?"

It's really dark and I can't make out anything but I'm definitely in my bed so I say, "nope - what's going on Stu?"

"I can see guys moving around in here!" Stu is getting close to losing composure and the only light switch is over at the door close to Mike so I say "Mike, Stu's got some kind of problem, can you turn the light on." (Later Stu would tell me that he could hear how worried I was when I said that - Stu is funny).

Mike got up and turned on the light. There is no one in the room. Stu claims that there were three guys moving around the room and that one of them had shone a light in his eyes. He isn't happy. The light is turned off and everyone tries to go back to sleep.