Monday August 4

AFTER the enjoyment of my trip to Hong Kong it was back to earth and a delayed trip to Romania. I have been to Bucharest on numerous trips, but this trip was the reason I had to return from Hong Kong. I had not been looking forward to this visit, expecting the worst and I was not to be disappointed.

As a city I find it has huge potential with many fine buildings but the place is unkempt and grubby. Roads and pavements are often broken.

A lot of buildings have great architecture but no one has looked after them or takes an interest in them. Romania has great scenery so I’m told but I’ve never seen anything outside of Bucharest.

I normally take the afternoon BA flight but this time it was going to be a 6.20 Monday morning flight out of Terminal 5.  So after dragging myself out of bed at 3.45am it was an early taxi ride to the airport. The flight was uneventful and we landed a little early at 11.35am Romanian time, two hours ahead of UK.

As usual there are a host of taxi drivers touting for business as soon as you come out from the baggage hall. I never take these taxis as they never give receipts and you are not certain what you will be charged. 

I think I need to just spend a little time here to explain the taxis in Bucharest. The cars are all yellow, as per New York cabs, but vary in model, age and road-worthiness.

The actual charge per kilometer can vary greatly from Lei1.44/km to Lei7.00/km (£1= Lei4). The taxis carry the travel rate on the side of the front door, so it’s a matter of looking at the door to find the rate you can expect to pay.

Anything under 4 Lei/Km is OK, however the cheaper cars tend not to be interested if you just want to go two miles down the road. A word of warning, I heard on this trip of some drivers who have made the Lei 1.70/km charge on the side of the door into Lei 17.0/km simply by moving the decimal point.

There are a number of licensed (to operate from the airport) taxis at the taxi rank outside the arrival hall so it is not necessary to risk one of the unlicensed taxis. I have a regular driver, Paul, who meets me at the airport.

A short SMS message one or two days before flying and he can be at the terminal to meet me. Paul charges me around Lei100 for the trip from the airport which is around the expected price, maybe a little over, but I know who is meeting me and, as on this trip, he will wait for me if I need to go via the hotel.

The heat (36C) was unbearable on arriving and even with the windows down it was very sticky. I got Paul, to take me to my hotel to check in and allow me to change before heading down town to the customer site.

My hotel (Residence Oliviers) initially could not find my reservation but did eventually. It was my first visit to this small 4 star hotel tucked away near the diplomatic quarter. The building was a four storey detached house, dating from early last century, with a terrace bar/cafe at the front and a restaurant on the first floor overlooking the front terrace.

My first floor rear room was spacious with large pieces of wooden furniture and wrought iron framed smaller pieces giving a more manor house feel than a contemporary main stream hotel.

At the customer site I had a chance to make a start prior to what was planned to be an all night software upgrade to two servers the following night and the installation of two new rack mounted servers. Needless to say problems developed immediately with a very serious issue putting the whole trip in jeopardy.

A series of phone calls with the customer, project managers et al, had us on the verge of abandoning the work until the problem could be resolved which may be a week. That evening the plan was now, if on Tuesday morning there was no immediate resolution available then I was to reschedule my return flight and leave.

Leaving the windows open in my room, due to the heat, I had the almost deafening sound of cicadas from the trees at the rear of the hotel as well as the sound of chattering in Romanian as the hotel’s staff smoking area seemed to be below my room. I slept soundly enough anticipating that on Tuesday morning I would be checking out two days early.

Tuesday August 5

GETTING up the next morning I came across one of the design flaws in the hotel. The bathroom had a glass shelf in a wrought iron frame below the bathroom mirror over the sink. It was too low to duck under and as soon as you bent over to wash your face you risked cracking your forehead on the shelf. More than once I was close to banging my head.

Pulling back the bedroom curtains I was met by a view of a plastic corrugated roof of some form of extension protruding from the rear of the hotel. Add that to the air-conditioning unit that did not work and a power socket that was held in place by the wiring.

Breakfast was served in the first floor restaurant. On entering the restaurant you pass through a sort of dimly lit alcove area. As I walked in I was surprised by a young female employee who was seated behind the door in the dimly lit area. On my entrance she immediately stood up, appearing out of the darkness less than three feet from me. She apologised for startling me, but I explained it was no big deal.

The actual restaurant was nice with large glass windows enclosing what was formerly a veranda overlooking the front terrace. I decided to stay at the back as I could imagine it would be very hot sat behind the glass even in the early morning. There were only a few other guests eating, one man and an English couple.

I checked out and headed for the customer site expecting to rearrange my Thursday flight to Tuesday afternoon. Once in the office there were a series of messages indicating that attempts were in hand to resolve the issues identified the previous day.

Checking with my office the costs of changing the flight was more than the cost of two nights in the hotel. While ever there was a chance of a resolution then I couldn’t leave. In the late afternoon a faulty server was fixed and even later I had a confirmation from US-based colleagues that the upgrade will work OK on the changed device. Game on!

A meal around 8pm set me up for a long night. Some preliminary work around 10 left me with an hour or so to kill before I started the serious work after midnight. The work proceeded quickly and I was quite positive by 2am. Shortly afterwards I ran into a small problem which soon escalated to a bigger problem.

The planned upgrade window had been due to end around 6am but the serious problems saw me with a little chance of achieving that. By 7am I had a couple of software experts trying to get to the bottom of the problem but with no immediate resolution insight and the customer needing the system working again I rolled the system back to it’s pre-upgrade state. Everything was up by 9.30 much to the customer’s, and my, relief.

I stayed on-site for the remainder of the day ensuring there were no more issues.

Eventually around 5pm on Wednesday, almost 33 hours since I had got up on Tuesday morning, I headed to the Crowne Plaza hotel. I had booked into the Crowne Plaza as it was near to the route to the airport and also operates a shuttle bus service to the airport. Once in my room I was glad to get a few hours of desperately needed sleep.

It now looks as though I will be back next week, hopefully with a happier outcome. After having a number of concerns about this trip, I’m more positive about next week’s.

Tuesday August 12

MY return to Bucharest was to be on a flight from the local airline, TAROM, from Heathrow T2.  Rather than take a taxi to the airport I decided to put my car in the long stay car park on this trip. The trip was uneventful and I had a seat just behind business class which gave me an extra couple of inches to stretch out.

The international airport in Bucharest is small in comparison to other major cities with only 10 gates. Only gates 1 to 6 have gantries, with gates 7 to 10 needing a bus ride to the plane. The TAROM plane was parked at gate 6 and it’s a short walk to the immigration control.

There were no problems getting through immigration and then a walk of 150 metres to collect my bags. The flight arrived a little earlier than the scheduled 17.50 so I waited in my normal meeting place by the coffee bar for my taxi driver Paul.

My mobile phone rang and I recognised the number of the project manager calling me, presumably to check everything was set for tonight.

On answering the phone he asked if I had got his message. Having just landed, I responded “No”. His next comment stunned me for a moment: “Tonight’s upgrade is cancelled, can you fly home”. He explained the background, and after some discussion I asked for a double check before I made any alternative travel arrangements.

Well after a number of phone calls my work was definitely off, so it’s a quiet night at the Ramada Plaza Hotel, near to the Crowne Plaza which didn’t have a room for tonight, then back to the airport first thing in the morning.

In the taxi to the hotel I spoke with my office and arranged for a flight out the next day. The TAROM flight to the UK leaves at 09.55 so I needed to be back in the airport by 08.30.

The Ramada Plaza has only re-opened this year after a total refit. It was very nice as one would expect with a new hotel, however it didn’t bowl me over. The styling was very contemporary with large stencil images of flower heads on the walls and doors. The furniture in the lobby and bar area was rectangular or square seats with very low or no backs. Against the walls there were a couple of similarly styled sofas.

My problem was that I didn’t get any feeling of warmth in the place, it seemed to be a very minimalistic, clinical feel.

Maybe that was due to not being a busy hotel yet as it tries to draw customers from the Crowne Plaza, and the Best Western Parc which sits between them.

I still feel the Crowne Plaza has a bit more life and warmth, but can I justify an additional £35/night when I just need a bed for the night?