Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night's sleep, and strangers' monologues framed like Russian short stories.

This is a story about taking the wrong train and how it sometimes turns out to be the right train. It's also the second part of my journey to Brasov. Thus far, I have not yet taken the wrong train.

What I have done is found myself in a compartment on a train bound for Ploesti and beyond with an older man and his younger but still middle-aged female companion. His daughter? Out came the phrasebook again. They had snacks and homemade wine which they offered me but I demurred. The man proudly informed me that he was a veteran and showed me a pin to prove it. They were amazed that I had come there at all, visited a friend in Moldova, and was now on my way to Brasov. They were so amazed that they told anyone who came by the compartment, including the conductor, a fat stern lady who joined us along the way and clearly didn’t care, and several local press outfits. That last is an exaggeration. But they would have, if we'd stopped someplace long enough.

They waved me off happily when I arrived at Ploesti for the change of trains. It was hot in Ploesti, but less grim than the Galati train station. There were Romanys here in full dress, not like I’d seen before in the Czech Republic, where they looked like anyone else. These were like Gypsies you see in books, all vivid colors and scarves and bangles. I managed to interpret the timetable posted on the outside wall of the station for the next train. All the same, when it arrived, I made certain to ask a woman if it was the train to Brasov. I did, after all, want to take the right train.

This train didn’t have compartments like the previous one I’d been on. It was painted green. I settled into my seat and began to read when a young man sat down across from me and introduced himself. His English was excellent. It had been his mother I’d asked about the train. They were returning to his Transylvanian village from a funeral. It was about this time I began to realize I’d boarded the wrong train, a local instead of the express. The word local in tandem with transportation ought to strike some degree of fear and loathing into any traveller worth his salt. It was going to take me a lot longer to get to Brasov. We would make every stop possible (and some of those would be quite improbable, mind you) along the way.

And indeed, the local train was leisurely, winding through gorgeous mountain scenery and past villages locked in a much older time and the longer we travelled the less it seemed to matter when I arrived in Brasov. We discussed the possibility of my new friend's studying in America. I warned him it was very expensive there. "How much is a loaf of bread?" he asked. It’s always interesting to see what the base for comparison is in a country; in Nepal everyone asked me the cost of a kilo of rice. I did some quick math converting the $2.50 I paid for a loaf of whole wheat bread at the grocery store in my neighborhood into lei. The figure shocked him.

He told me about his village, remote and north of Sinai. There would be still more travel ahead when they got off the train. He and his parents were thinking of renting out a room to foreigners. It would be interesting, he said, for people to see what life in a Romanian village is really like. I agreed.

At last we slipped into the Brasov station, exchanging email addresses and farewells. I never heard from him. I hope that things are going well for him.

The moral of this story is that sometimes you should take the wrong train. The other morals are that you ought not to travel with a tight itinerary--it's the only time I ever have, and I won't do it again--and you should always, always, allow extra time for the haunting and extraordinary country of Romania, so you can go where the wrong train takes you.