2022 World Tour – Chisinau, Moldova
Hello from Chisinau, my 47th stop on the trip and my 67th country.
Below is the standard summary:
– Cool Ranch Doritos: No
– Thai ATM Card Works: Didn’t try
– Thai Debit Card Works: Yes
– Thai Internet Purchase Works: Yes
– USA Credit Card Works: Didn’t try
– Worldwide Telephone/Data/SMS eSIM Works: Yes
– Spanish SIM Card Works: Didn’t try
– Magic Jack Works: Didn’t try
– VPN Works: Didn’t try
– COVID Compliance Chronicles: No Requirements
– Internet Works: Yes
– Drone Flights: Didn’t check
– Cost of Living: $$
– Currency: Leu 19.44 = USD $1.00
– Language Issues: This one time, at a kebab place…
Note: Be sure to check out the attached videos on the process to change out the train wheels as we crossed the border, fascinating!
Your Short History Lesson:
Moldova is located on a direct path between Europe and Asia, and as trade routes began flowing Moldova was caught in the middle, many different times and it never ended well. From the early days the Roman Empire led to the Byzantine Empire and then it was invaded by Goths, Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Magyars, Pechenegs, Cumans, Mongols and Tatars. By the 14th Century it had is own Principality as part of the Ottoman Empire, but was then given to the Russian Empire. As I described before it was united with Wallachia to form Romania, but Russia took over again in 1878. After the Russian Revolution it declared independence but joined up with Romania again. During World War II, it was broken apart again and given to the Soviet Union. In 1991 as the USSR fell it again declared independence, except for a small breakaway region called Transnistria. Currently it is a very small and poor country, sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine. It is a member of the UN and has recently applied as a candidate for membership in the EU.
Late in the afternoon in Bucharest I got my bags from the hotel and headed to the train station. I’m 30 minutes early and it’s not there yet, but it finally rolls in and looks very much like old Soviet hardware, musty smelling and flaking wood paneling inside. My room has two small beds at ground level and I ask the train man if the other bunk is empty and he says yes – score! There’s a lady from Glasgow in the next compartment doing a cross-Europe trip, and a couple of young Dutch guys in the next one and we chatted in the hallway for a while. More Better Call Saul videos until I fell asleep to the nice crisp outside air and a ceiling light that wouldn’t shut off…
At O-dark-30 I woke to a knock on the door, and found that somebody was moving in for the other bed. I sighed and groggily said “Is there another empty bed somewhere?” and the train man noddled and shut the door and walked away. Well, that worked, thank Buddha! We were woken again at 2am at the border with Moldova when a Romanian agent took all passports and we got stamped out. We rolled a bit then a Moldovan agent took all passports, asked some questions, looked in our bags, and we’re stamped into Moldova. All in all not bad but here’s where it gets interesting! We backed into a train maintenance yard and they raised all of the cars up with hydraulic jacks and switched to a wider wheel set! Most trains in Europe use the 1.435 meter width track but Moldova got stuck with Soviet 1.520 meter width and going from one to the other just aint gonna work, hence the switch. I got some good video and pictures before the immigration lady walked past saying this is still a border area so we can’t take any more pictures, and walked away. She conspicuously didn’t ask me to delete anything I already took, fair enough. Total time at the border and wheel change: 3 hours. Ugh. I got a little more sleep until our arrival in Chisinau at 7:30am.
Now this is where things really start sucking. Please excuse the level of detail but I need to vent and convince everyone to never use a rental service called Vrbo, it needs to go bankrupt. I booked an apartment a few days ago with Expedia, as I normally do. Unfortunately this particular booking, unbeknownst to me, was subbed out to Vrbo and then to the actual host. The host replied within 10 minutes of my booking saying the room is already booked! This triggered an avalanche of absolutely shit customer service from Vrbo. The host wouldn’t cancel the booking because it would impact his rating. I contacted Vrbo who said they could only start helping me at check-in time on the day of my arrival – there is nothing possible to do in advance, like common sense would dictate! I checked my bags into the luggage storage room at the train station and did what I could around the city until my check-in time of 4pm, including topping up my global phone plan as I used up a year’s worth of data in 6 months. Then I went to the apartment address to confirm – it’s in a large modern office/apartment tower, and I met a couple of German kids in town for a football match who are also booked into an apartment somewhere inside. I called Vrbo again from a pizza restaurant around the corner. I told my story again, and the agent said he had to “confirm with the host.” Note that this was already done 3 days ago in my first call and is shown in the chat session on their platform. He says he will work on it and puts me on hold for 30 MINUTES. He comes back on and says he’s now transferring me to the “Relocation Team.” What the fuck did he just do for 30 minutes? A new guy David comes on and reviews the case for about a minute of silence and then says “OK I see that the host hasn’t given you the check-in information.” I just lost my shit at the continuing stream of incompetence. He said OK I’ll find a new place for you tonight right now, then another team will figure out the other 2 nights of your booking. His promise of 2-3 minutes on hold becomes 15 and he comes back with one night in the Ibis Hotel, way in the north end of the city.
Frazzled, I walked back to the train station to get my bags out of the luggage hold only to find it’s closed! I spot the girl who checked me in and she went and got the room keys and let me take out my bags. What train station closes the luggage room at 5pm? My mind is spinning at this point. A patience-trying three bus journey finally gets me to the hotel. They have a laundry service, but no dryer so my clothes may still be damp in the morning as I check out and go to the new place that Vrbo will send me, I don’t care at this point.
Later that night Vrbo emailed back and blamed me for not notifying them, which I did, and then not handling my own arrangements, which I couldn’t because it was a non-refundable booking and I needed them to follow their procedures to find me a new place. They said because of this they will not relocate me for the remaining 3 days of my reservation. What the high holy fuck? I went online and found a rating site saying “VRBO has a consumer rating of 1.26 stars from 1,817 reviews indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Consumers complaining about VRBO most frequently mention customer service, credit card and property owner problems. VRBO ranks 102nd among Vacation Rentals sites.” I added my own scathing review, concurring on all points. Vrbo needs to die in a fire. Never, ever, ever use it. The nice girl at the Ibis hotel front desk referred me to their partner hotel on the western side of the city and reserved a room for 2 nights there for me. The Aria Hotel is really nice, â¬60 for the night and far higher than my original Vrbo booking but at this point I just don’t care. They let me check in early and it has the biggest bathroom I’ve seen so far – they could put another bed in there!
If there’s one thing Moldova is famous for, other than being invaded, it’s for wine. I booked a wine tour for tomorrow, finding one of the only ones still running as the tourist season is over here. There are wineries with thousands of kilometers of tunnels, so you can’t miss the experience. I walked across the street and got a chicken kebab. I think the ordering guy was fucking with me, pretending not knowing the word “chicken” but then later in the conversation he said “We don’t put onions in the kebab.” Gotcha!
My wine tour company emailed and tried to upsell me on a trip to Transnistria tomorrow. I quickly replied “No” because I’m leaving Moldova in 2 days. I had never heard about it so I did a quick search: “Transnistria, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic is an unrecognized breakaway state that is internationally recognized as part of Moldova. Transnistria controls most of the narrow strip of land between the Dniester river and the MoldovanâUkrainian border, as well as some land on the other side of the river’s bank. Its capital and largest city is Tiraspol. Transnistria has been recognized only by three other unrecognized or partially recognized breakaway states: Abkhazia, Artsakh and South Ossetia and has a Russian military presence.” What a vacation paradise! Yeah, I’ll pass.
The next morning I got ready for my 11am pickup for the winery tour. At 10am they messaged that the winery was “full” and my trip has been changed to 4pm. Ugh! I really needed to burn off some frustrations so I went for a very long walk through parks and down to the city center. Not much to see other than the Triumphant Arch, Nativity Church and Stephen The Great statue. I got a bus back to the hotel.
At 4pm, I’m picked up by a young man called Mihai in his personal car, not a tour company van like I was expecting – since I’m the only one on the tour! He drove us out to the Milestii Mici winery about an hour outside the city. A group of about 20 people got on an electric tram and drove into the winery tunnels. This winery has 217 km of them, formerly a Soviet limestone mine, very convenient to convert to wine aging and storage. They used to use massive 60,000 liter wooden tanks but now use small wooden barrels and metal tanks. They have 65 million liters of wine aging in tanks and nearly 2 million bottles in storage, holding the Guinness World Record for the largest number of stored wine bottles. The wine industry is relatively new here so the earliest bottle they have is from 1973, at â¬1500 per bottle but most are far cheaper at â¬10-18 for really high quality wine. Inside the tunnels you can see niches carved into the walls, each niche holds a single set of bottle of the same vintage. You can also rent your own niche for â¬100/year where you can store only your purchased Milestii Mici bottles. If you want to pull one out, you have to travel here and use your own key in the lock – they will not handle removal and shipping for you. The tour ended with a tasting of white, red and dessert wines paired with 3 kinds of bruschetta. I met a human rights lawyer from the Netherlands who owns a Tesla Model S! We talked about Tesla, SpaceX, Elon and Thailand, I think he might come down for his next holiday.
Is it worth a visit? It’s the capital of a small country with a long Soviet history and current Russian influence. The city is unremarkable but the big draw is the wine industry and the unique wineries and their tunnel systems.
Next Stop: Back to Bucharest, Romania
