I was in Vama Veche only once, 9 years ago. Since then I always remembered this place as the best one I've ever been. For a long time I've wanted to return here to see how much it has changed. Most people told me it wasn't such a great hippie place as it used to be as by now it's packed with fancy hotels and now it's better to go somewhere else for hippies. According to other people, the place still has its spirit and it's worth visiting. From what we saw here both statements have their part of the truth but before going into details I'd like to tell about our way there.
Fram Sfantu Gheorght (the Danube delta) we took the ferry for the 80km trip to Tulcea (anyone interested in these places' locations please see our map) from where our two Romanian-Belgian friends helped us get out from the city by their car. We stood out to the road and started hitchhiking in a great competition with whole families standing near us, which is quite normal in Romania as hitchhiking is still a quite common way to get around. Anyway, we can say we won the race as after 3 minutes a minibus passed by us, turned back and started honking from the other side of the road for us to hop in. From here our journey way quite funny as in the minibus there was a full class of 10-year-olds, two teachers and a Turkish driver. They said they turned back for us because they found or "India" sign funny :) As it turned out, the children had an excursion to Tulcea and now they were heading back to Constanţa. Well, we were quite happy for our luck and company:
It was Thursday evening when we arrived, and there were only a few people at that time, but by Friday some hostels and the pubs got full with people. They were cool, open, friendly people but still, it's not the old hippie horde and although it's still possible to spot a few naked people on the beach, 95% of them are wearing clothes. 9 years ago almost everyone was naked there, not because it would have been a nudist place but because people just didn't care much abouth clothing.
The good thing is that the famous good old pub still exists on the beach with really old furniture, sand floor and some flat, low roof made of random things and straw, leaking everywhere in the rain. A litle hole it is, without walls, with the greatest atmosphere ever.
It was a big storm with strong wind Friday night but our tent held on perfectly, everything remained bone-dry in it.
One afternoon I tried to steal chicken from the gypsies so they locked me up in this chicken coop where I was squatting real sad waiting for that man called Sergei to come, of whom they were talking all the time in Romanian:
And finally, a little present from Sfantu Gheorghe: This is how a real local cowboy mows the lawn :)
