Lo and behold, according to their site, Malaysians do require visa. The copy of our residents permit in the UK most probably saved our day and after being kept waiting in the hot sun we were finally given the clearance to enter at 2.30 pm. We paid our Romanian road tax of €4.00 and gratefully went on our way taking note that 2 German bikes did not have to pay the road tax.

Lunch was cheese sandwich and an apple at a lay-by. The first large town we came to, Timisoara has nothing to offer apart from an old interesting looking church and a couple of other buildings. We stopped to ask for information and were advised that we were better off in the mountains and took that advice to head for Resita.

On arrival at Resita we passed a collection of old train engines and stumbled upon the camping/Hotel Tourist sign and it was in the directions of the mountains. The road was awful and I told Alison that the next time I drive on the road would be on the way out. After what seemed a long drive we got to the Hotel Tourist but could not see any tents or campers. We were told that there is no camping site as such but we were free to camp anywhere along the river! The 2 German bikers were there drowning their sorrows, after having been told the same thing.

We were not prepared to go out in the dark looking for a pitch for Tuah and reluctantly took a room instead. The room would have cost us RM20 in KL! On the funny side though I nearly ended up with some wild bird for dinner as my sign language which was meant to be fish was interpreted as some kind of bird while Alison’s vegetarian spaghetti turned out to contain some suspicious looking thing which could be meat underneath.

The only consolation for me was to be able to watch part of the Euro 2008 final between Spain and Germany with Spain taking the championship. I went to sleep cursing the Romanians for conning us into a situation. After all we could have stayed in town!