Jan and Yvette's wedding: Day 2 in photos

The wedding of my cousin Jan and his fiancee Yvette in Rwanda was one of the great travel experiences of my life. It'll be months before I can properly sort through the photos from four days of dancing, drumming, eating, speeches and ritual, but here's a small sample from day 2, the traditional Rwandan wedding ceremony. Photos from day 3 (the church wedding and reception) and day 4 (the milk ceremony) will come later. If you're wondering what happened to day 1 (the legal wedding and dinner at Aunt Violette's home), I missed it because I was travelling around Rwanda at the time. There are plenty of stories to come but for now I'll let the pictures do the talking...

 

Cousins Julia, Anna, Sophie and Renee in traditional Rwandan dress

 

Jan (the tall guy in the middle) with cousins and classmates from Singapore

The groom's entourage

Drummers from Burundi

The bride arrives, escorted by her aunts and brothers

Anita, a close friend of Yvette's, was one of the key organisers of the wedding

Rwandan dancers

More Rwandan dancers

Jan (with dance teacher Fabrice) impressed the locals with his performance of a traditional dance

The invasion begins

 

I think I was the first of the de Graaf invasion to arrive in Kigali but I was quickly followed by Jan's sister Anna and her partner Sjoerd - fresh from a trip to South Africa - and, later that evening, by Jan's parents Pim and El and youngest sister Julia. All up 80 guests are expected from overseas and 300 from Africa (mostly Rwanda and Kenya). I can't even claim to be the only Kiwi - I'll be sharing the honour with Alex Hooft. The photo is of the groom, Jan de Graaf, with his sisters Julia (left) and Anna, at the apartments we're taking over in Kigali. More rellies arrived today but I'm on a brief foray into the Rwandan countryside so I'll meet them when I get back to the city on Thursday night.

It's a small world

So I'd been in Kigali for a few hours and had no way of contacting Jan (my cousin who's getting married here next week) so I decided to wander around and get oriented until I found some working wi-fi. I was walking down a busy street when I heard someone shout "Hey Peter!" from a passing car. It was Jan, freshly arrived in Kigali and on his way to check out the apartments he'd booked for the de Graaf invasion. It's a small world eh? 

I joined Jan and Yvette's cousin Anto as they picked up various family members from the airport and gate-crashed someone else's wedding - an uncle of Yvette's - at the flashest hotel in Kigali as a sort of practice run for next Friday. The photo is of Jan and Yvette at her uncle's wedding. Jan told me his wedding won't be as fancy but they'll have more drummers. Lots more drummers. That sounds good to me.

Hello Kigali!

A few hours in Kigali was enough to shatter any stereotypes I had about Africa. I'd been told it was the cleanest and safest city on the continent but it still took me by surprise. The streets are spotless, the traffic is orderly, and stuff actually works. You can walk anywhere day and night without fear (I have tested this. The huge number of soldiers, security guards and police on the streets certainly helps.)
In some ways - I'm thinking environmental policy - it's more advanced than New Zealand. While I was waiting in line for a visa I used the time to repack my bag; an official noticed I'd wrapped some of my stuff in plastic bags and came over to give me a gentle scolding. Yes, the plastic bag is not just banned from supermarkets here, it's a form of illegal contraband. I had to promise to take my evil plastic bags back with me to New Zealand after my visit.
Kigali is also an attractive city, if not terribly exciting. It's mostly low-rise and sprawls over a series of hills sprinkled liberally with trees. Going anywhere involves going up and down a lot of hills so walking loses its appeal pretty quickly. At least the altitude and cloudy skies so far have kept the temperature pleasant, which makes a nice change from the energy-sapping heat of Moldova.
As for the people, they are friendly, unhurried, calm and softly spoken. Sometimes you have to lean in to hear what they're saying. It was a real novelty to arrive at Kigali airport and not be immediately surrounded by taxi touts trying to drag me in different directions. Instead, I was left alone for about half an hour; eventually someone politely enquired whether I needed assistance, then came back ten minutes later with a taxi driver.
There's no obvious poverty but I'm assured there's still plenty in the countryside and hidden away on the fringes of the city. And, like most capitals, Kigali gets more than its share of government cash and foreign investment so people here are etter off than in the rest of Rwanda.
All the same it's remarkable what Rwanda has achieved when you consider that just over 20 years ago the country was in ruins and a million people were dead, murdered by the army and militiamen in just 100 days. The transformation seems almost miraculous.

It's a long way to Kigali

Getting to Kigali wasn't exactly quick or straightforward. My flight left from Prague in the morning so I had to find somewhere to stay overnight; my former student Jakub, bless him, put me up at his home in a village outside Prague after treating me to a few beers in the city. The next morning I had to get up at 5am and walk to the railway station in a raging thunderstorm, catch a train, then a tram, then the metro and finally a bus to get to the airport. The first flight to Istanbul took less than two hours but then I had to hang around for five. The only sign of last week's coup attempt was the even greater than usual number of Turkish flags hanging everywhere. The flight to Kigali was delayed but eventually landed about 12.30am; getting a visa and helping the taxi driver find my guest house (luckily I'd downloaded a map of Kigali before I left Prague) took another hour, so it was almost 2am before I got to bed. Phew. The way back promises to be even longer because it includes a landing in Entebbe, Uganda.
I managed to snag window seat for both legs. The photo was taken during take-off from Istanbul.

Dracula's pretty home town

Alas I ran out of time to do much exploring in Transylvania, but I did stop for a night in this ridiculously pretty town. Sighisoara is famous as the birthplace of the medieval Romanian prince Vlad ''The Impaler" Tepes, the inspiration for the Dracula story. 

The final countdown

Just over a week to go until my cousin Jan and the lovely Yvette get married in Kigali, Rwanda. Can't wait! 

My favourite hostel

This detour to Romania and Moldova has been short, but I've slept in all sorts of places - backpacker hostels, haybarns, a loft above a chicken coop, a Soviet-era hotel, even an eco-resort with a pool... but my favourite was this place, IQ Hostel in Chisinau, Moldova. The hostel itself is pretty cramped and there's nothing special about the facilities - but the young guys who own it and their relatives who help run it are some of the kindest, most helpful and caring hosts I've met. After a four-day stay, leaving Chisinau felt like leaving my family. To everyone at IQ, thanks for a lovely stay!
Pictured from left, IQ staff Alex, Dana and Daniel (?).

Cheers, Transdniestr!

One of the attractions of visiting Transdniestr (see the previous post for more info about this extraordinary state within a state) is Kvint. This distillery in Tiraspol, the capital, makes some of eastern Europe's best cognac for next to nothing. This bottle cost all of 21 Transdniestr roubles, about NZ$2 or less than 2 euros. If only I could fit a few more bottles in my backpack...

A Soviet time capsule

A bust of Lenin outside the House of Soviets in the capital, Tiraspol. 

Transdniestr is one of the strangest places I've visited. It's a kind of time capsule - the guidebook calls it a Soviet theme park - where you feel like you're stepping back into the Soviet Union. It's a self-proclaimed independent republic (also called Transnistria, or Pridnestrovie in Russian) occupying a narrow strip of land on the eastern edge of Moldova, along the Dniestr River. It's a Russian-speaking area that wasn't happy about ending up in mostly Romanian-speaking Moldova when the USSR fell apart, and broke away in a bloody civil war in 1992. An uneasy truce, watched over by Russian peacekeepers, has held ever since. 

What's fascinating is the way Transdniestr has held on to the symbols and some of the habits of the Soviet Union. Statues of Lenin still glower over its main street; its coins and propaganda billboards still display the hammer and sickle; and its streets are quiet and orderly, in stark contrast to the chaos of Moldova. I got a permit to stay for 24 hours and slept in a hotel that hasn't changed since Soviet days. Anyone who says time travel is impossible hasn't been to Transdniestr.

Another Lenin statue, this time outside Parliament...

The coat of arms features the hammer and sickle. 

Monuments to the 1992 war are everywhere. 

13 years in a cave

Moldova doesn't have a lot in the way of sights. The few must-sees include the sprawling, chaotic market in the capital, Chisinau; the world's biggest wine cellars; and the cave monastery at Orheiul Vechi. Sometime in the 13th century a band of monks carved a monastery into the cliffs overlooking a river in a remote corner of Moldova. The monks left more than a century ago and the Soviets closed down the nearby church in the 1940s. Now, however, both the church and the underground monastery are in use again. I had a chat to the monk, Brother Ifiemi, who has spent the past 13 years living in the cave and asked him how he survives the winter - he told me he just wraps up more. Brrrr.

Inside the cave monastery. 

There isn't much headroom in the monks' quarters. 

A church has been built atop the cliff, above the monastery.

The monastery overlooks the River Raut and fertile farmland. The soil here in Moldova is rich and the fruit - especially the peaches and watermelons - is the best I've tasted.

Funny money

No, it's not Monopoly money, it's the currency of Moldova. The smallest coin, 5 bani, is less than half a New Zealand cent. The exchange rate is about 13 lei to the NZ$. 

But if you think that's funny money, check out these roubles from the breakaway state of Transdniestr (below). The higher value coins are made of coloured plastic...

A 120km-long wine cellar

You need wheels to get around Moldova's vast wine cellars

Back in the glory days of the Soviet Union every second bottle of wine drunk in the USSR was made in Moldova. The Moldovan wine industry was hard hit by the break-up of the Soviet Union but wine-making is still a big industry. I took a tour of the cellars at Cricova Winery, just outside the capital, Chisinau, which are so vast you need an electric buggy to get around. If you add all the tunnels together the wine cellar stretches 120km, though "only" 80km is in use. Russian president Vladimir Putin celebrated his 50th birthday here; cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin got lost in the cellar for two days in 1966. 

Vita explains how Moldovan champagne is made

Amazingly Cricova is not Europe's biggest wine cellar. That honour goes to a winery called Milestii Mici, also in Moldova, which has 200km of tunnels.

The national wine collection at Cricova Winery has about two million bottles going back to 1902

Who stole Aotearoa?

During a tour of Moldova's most famous winery, Cricova, I was disturbed to discover that New Zealand had vanished from the face of the Earth. Please,  if you have seen New Zealand, could you please return it to Cricova Winery?

Welcome to Moldova

A few days ago I ticked off another item that's been on my bucket list for a long time: the Republic of Moldova. A country of four million sandwiched awkwardly between Romania and Ukraine, it gained independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s but only scrapped visa requirements for Kiwis earlier this year. That was all the encouragement I needed. Getting to the capital, Chisinau, was a four-hour minibus ride from the nearest city in Romania (Iasi); crossing the border was a breeze and the guards even smiled. Things have changed a lot since I last travelled in this part of the world. More to come soon about this little-known, poor but welcoming country...

The hat brothers

I'd been walking for a few days in northern Romania and was getting a bit tired and footsore - but before I could even stick my thumb out for a ride a couple of Polish brothers, Jacek and Marcin, pulled over and offered me a lift. They ended up driving me all the way to Suceava, over a mountain pass and almost to the other side of the country. As well as giving me some fine company they saved me a couple of days of gruelling bus travel. Here we are trying out the wares at a hat stall atop Prislop Pass - it turns out Jacek is a headwear collector who will be going home happy thanks to a Romanian shepherd's hat.

Mountain accommodation, Romanian style

The beauty of hiking in the mountains in Romania is that there's always somewhere dry and warm to sleep. With a hay barn every few hundred metres there's no need to carry a tent or even a mattress. This was my accommodation during a walk between villages in the Maramures region. Perfect!

Meet Irina, my 70-year-old tour guide

The other day I was in a pretty little village in northern Romania called Ieud, asking for directions to another pretty village called Botiza. To get there by road would have involved a long trek out to the main highway and back down the next valley, though I could see on my map the villages were only a few kilometres apart with just a range of hills between. The first person I asked wasn't sure how to find the footpath between the villages, but Irina, who I guess is about 70, overheard my request and insisted on showing me the way. She set a cracking pace and wouldn't leave me till we reached a point where there was no chance I'd get lost. For a while I was worried she'd insist on walking me all the way to Botiza. She spoke no English and I only know a few words of Romanian, but that didn't matter. Thanks for your kindness Irina!

The place where time stood still

To my list of favourite places in Europe I can now add Maramures, in the northwestern corner of Romania. I spent a few days wandering around in this very traditional, and very pretty, part of the country. Life still revolves around going to church and growing food; right now everyone's busy cutting hay (mostly by hand) in the he mountain meadows. Old ladies still wear traditional costumes and the tractor has yet to replace the horse and cart. But I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking...

A family on their way to cut hay in a mountain pasture

Hay drying in the hills

Competing churches in Botiza village

A monastery near Botiza village

Lunch with the shepherds

Yesterday I rented a bike for a ride up the Iza Valley, which more or less follows the border between Romania and Ukraine. The ride was a bit of a let-down - the bike seat resembled a medieval torture instrument, and the standard of driving makes Northland look civilised - but I had a great experience on the way back when I hit a traffic jam on the highway into Sighetu Maramatiei. It turned out the traffic jam was caused by a flock of sheep. I followed the shepherds for a few kilometres, having strange scrambled conversations in a mish-mash of languages while they offered me swigs from a bottle of tuica (the local firewater made from plums). When they reached their pastures they shared their lunch with me and demonstrated their shepherds' bugle, which they seem to use to rouse the dogs. It certainly did that. A lovely bunch of fellows. They graze their sheep in the hills along the border, mostly for milk and cheese but also for wool.