The first passport bods arrive at 6:30. The Bulgarian bloke fumbles with his bag of bits, trying to turn it into a stable surface to stamp passports on and finally succeeding. Shortly afterwards, another bod knocks on the door, demands our passports and then buggers off having learnt nothing other than their existence and their purpleness.

While we're preparing for our sleep to the next customs place, a third bod knocks on the door and enquires whether we have anything to declare. Cathy decides we haven't - she's wrong. The bod takes a symbolic look behind a curtain and we proceed to smuggle about £5 in Bulgarian Leva out of the country.

The Romanian guards get on the train and reach us before the station, which confuses us. Their customs procedure consists of taking passports and disappearing off down the train with them.

[Romania, where cars share the road with horses and carts.]

We still don't have them half an hour later, when the train leaves the station. This I find slightly worrying, so I go and consult the conductor, who does some handwaving which I interpret as "Don't worry". I look up the address of the British Embassy in Bucharest (closed on Fridays) to prove I'm not worried. Passports finally arrive about 20 minutes later.

We arrive in Bucharest station, which is dead nice, and wander about looking for international tickets, eventually finding the right bit, down a corridor. Mrs. Woman tells us to come back at 2, or 2 hours before departure - we're not sure which. We ask the price and are quoted loadsamoney. A bunch of Brits use a tame Romanian to ask the price and get less.

The next job is sorting out left-luggage. I try to get back into the main station, only to find that it bizarrely requires money. This is unfortunate - we don't have any Romanian cash, and in a splendidly Catch 22 situation, the exchange is in the main station. In the end,we tag along with the Brits and their Romanian, and saunter through in a confident manner.

We find out the exchange rate by the tried and tested method of waving a tenner at the exchange place, asking the rate and buggering off. We use a decrepid-looking cash machine for funds, then give our bags to left-luggage.

We then step out of the station to be confronted by the traditional public transport crisis. We invest in a public transport map. A taxi driver comes up and informs us that we want to see Revolution Square and Ceausescu. We're faintly surprised to hear Ceausescu's name - we weren't sure the natives would feel about these things.

[Bucharest's palace, as built by Ceaucescu, who thought nothing of spending Western aid money ripping up one-fifth of the city. He also built tower blocks in the arial formation of his name.]

Our first stop is Ceausescu's "People's Palace". We manage to find the right bus, thanks to kiosk woman, the next problem is where to get off. The natives are astonishingly helpful - we subsequently award Romania our "Friendliest people" gong

We get off at the stop indicated by the newly-formed bus committee, and find ourselves by the park outside the palace. The park is looking a bit neglected, like most of Eastern Europe, but the palace is well cared for. It's also quite large. We walk across the park, looking for a tour of the palace - a couple of soldiers point the way. We then head off in a different direction, towards the University Square, where the revolution occurred, and looking for food on the way.

We stop at a supermarket for some liquid refreshment, then at a somewhat ethnic-looking café. The proprietor speaks no English, so we pull the phrase book out. Cathy gets the full horror of her diet across and I settle for a hamburger. Unfortunately, it appears that the Romanians haven't quite grasped the entomology of the word `hamburger'. I get a big pink slice of pig between two halves of a

[Doesn't look like much, but this is Revolution Square, where students laid down their lives to overthrow the government in 1989.]

bun, surrounded by somewhat suspect-looking cabbage. I actually manage to stomach most of it, and then run away.

We then find the University Square, where tens of thousands of students decided that Ceausescu was BnR, between lectures. There's very little left now to indicate a war zone, except the wee shrine on one side, still with candles burning - Romanians obviously don't forget.

An attempt to phone home reveals the country's lack of international phone capacity, and I idly wonder if I'll be involved in remedying this. After this, we head around to the other side of the palace. This is the quarter that Ceausescu bulldozed, and now consists

[This boulevard with the palace at the end shows just how much Ceaucescu dominated the city with his plans.]

of a big wide concrete boulevard with defunct fountains leading up to the palace.

We then decide to brave the metro, in order to reach the infamous TV station which was attacked during the revolution. The metro's quite nice. Well, the stations are, the train are fairly functional people carriers with few seats. We find our way across to the right station and ask a punter how to get there. We find it surrounded by an evil-looking fence, complete with soldiers. They refuse to let us in, so we wander around looking for bullet holes. There's a memorial outside, which we look at before wandering off.

[Opposite view.]

We head off into the park towards the Village Museum, pausing momentarily to look at Bucharest's copy of the Arc de Triomphe, as a big scary motor cavalcade goes past. The museum is a collection of peasant-type homes from throughout Romania. It was put together by after Ceausescu decided to show the Romanians how much better off they were with him running the country. We wander around, along with a coachload of Germans. until we decide to head back to the station.

[Church in the Village Museum in Bucharest.]

We get back to the station to find a departure board full of delays. Every train on there has a delay, and ours doesn't even fit onto the board. We've arrived about 2 hours early, and in that time, not a single train reaches the station. Still, we manage to buy our ticket (for the Romanian price) and reclaim our bags.

We get talking to a Dutch bloke who's been comprehensively conned. He hadn't bothered checking the exchange rate and was told that 2 million lei is approximately equal to $20. He pulled $200 worth of lei out of a cash machine and handed it over for accommodation, then bought a rail ticket for $100. Meet up with Dan the mad bloke again, as well. Against all odds, our train arrives on time, and we leave on it.