17 Hours On a Train in a Couchette (Monday – June 14)

Do you know what a “couchette” is? I didn’t. At least I did not know what the word meant. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend 17 hours in one even if it was with three of my family members. But we looked on it as an experience. Actually it was the only reasonable way to get out of Romania. Plane tickets out of Romania are incredibly expensive. So the best option: 17 hours overnight on a train.

There are some options in traveling on a train. Seats that face forward. Seats that allow you to ride backwards. And couchettes. Couchettes are those little rooms on a train where you can fold the seats down far enough so that you can sleep on them. Since we were leaving at 7 pm and were going to ride through the night, we opted for a couchette. And I would opt for one again. However, it is quite an experience.

There are 4 person and 6 person couchettes. If there are not 6 in your group, and you are in a 6 person couchette, you share this small room (and I do mean small) with people you do not know. (I guess it is a good way to get to know people but…) Since we were going to be in this room for 17 hours, since we were traveling internationally (from Romania to Hungary), and since we were sleeping, we opted for the 4 person couchette. No strangers!
There was a small unit that cooled the air. There were three seats on one side and 3 on the other. There was a place to store luggage on the top rack and there was an electrical plug. So getting to spend 17 hours together “very closely” as a family was both fun and a challenge.

The scenery for the first 3 hours as it was getting dark was great. Climbing out of Bucharest on the plains in the east of Romania where the topography is flat, to the west where the Carpathian mountain range runs is quite dramatic. Dramatic also means challenging for trains and the climb up and down the mountains is quite a challenge.
Once we conquered the “changing to get ready for sleep” challenge, Greta and Kristen climbed up to the top bunks. Sleep was welcomed and rather somber. I think I woke up a bunch throughout the night but first really remembered the knock on the window of the couchette at 5 am.

“This is the porter. Get your passports ready. Get your passports ready.”

They checked our passports at 5:34 am at the Romanian border and again at 5:54 once we were in Hungary. I still can’t tell the temperaments of the border patrols. They always ask lots of questions and never smile. At least this time they didn’t ask if I was traveling with three wives. (See earlier post!)

I never really got a straight answer but our train was 3 hours late getting into Hungary. The extra time allowed for some extra dozing, folding up the sheets, stuffing away the comforters, packing things back into our suitcases, and eating cereal out of a plastic cup.

The dictionary defines couchette as a sleeping berth in a passenger compartment that can be collapsed to form a benchlike seat for daytime use. Eric’s definition: Couchette – a very small room on a night train; an experience everyone should have, at least once!