My big fat gypsy mansion

Hungary was fast becoming our favourite country and Szeged, our last stop, was putting in a very strong bid for favourite city. For a start our campsite, an old 1950s holiday camp with concrete chalets on stilts, was right next to the mighty River Tisza and had a 36° natural spring swimming pool to wallow in. Szeged itself is lovely – lots of amazing Art Nouveau buildings, stunning fountains and impressive plazas – a real unexpected gem that we only found after a recommendation by someone at our last campsite. I also had my second haircut of the trip. I had to mime what I wanted to the non-English-speaking Hungarian woman attending to my hair. She nodded, scalped me and then gave me a nice head massage to help me forget. After a great couple of lazy days we headed for Romania.

At the daunting border crossing we had to find and show our passports for the first time in eight weeks. We were interrogated as to our destination and what it was we were up to. We then had to "queue" for a compulsory road tax vignette at a little booth by the side of the road where queuing seemed to be an unknown sport. After being barged around by some burly Italian tourists, intimidated by some local touts and finally working out what it was the woman in the booth wanted me to give her (our registration document and €10) we entered Romania with a certain amount of trepidation.

On this trip we have had a lot of our preconceptions about certain countries shattered. Our preconception of Romania was of lots of gypsies, farmers driving horse and carts, old women in headscarfs sat outside their houses and livestock roaming the streets. Well, guess what? For once, every stereotype gets a tick. We'd only been in the country five minutes and we'd seen the lot. Our first campsite, run by a Dutch couple, was in a little village that didn't exist as far as our satnav or road map were concerned. In the morning, just to ram it home, I went for a bike ride and immediately met a man with a stick chasing a huge pig down the lane. We've driven from Arad to Orastie on a major road and seen hens, geese, goats, sheep and a cow grazing on the verge as trucks thunder by.

We went to a city called Deva, and there was a sort of folk festival (another country, another festival) where the gypsy community were in their element – and looking the most stereotypical they could. They looked like they'd been dressed by someone who'd seen pictures of gypsies in a children's book. There were some kids in traditional dress half-heartedly dancing on stage to folk music played by what looked like the Cantina Band from Star Wars. There were also beer tents and food stalls that all seemed to be selling sausages on a plate with a dollop of mustard and a slice of bread – a sort of build-your-own hotdog. It must be a national dish. We saw one guy who seemed to be cooking his sausages using a hair dryer – that can't be traditional. There was a brilliant drunk man dancing to the music blaring out from a fairground ride and occasionally rubbing his crotch. When he saw me taking a photo of him he started to take his belt off! We weren't sure if he was intending to beat us with it or just expose himself but, either way, we didn't hang around to find out.

As we drove the major roads of Romania we noticed that springing up among the run-down cottages and crumbling farmhouses are massive, gaudy mansions. Just as you've finished saying "wow!" at one, the next one appears, each seeming bigger, brighter and more extravagant than the last. They are painted extraordinarily bright colours, have very shiny roofs, ornate silver guttering and magisterial gates. We asked our Dutch campsite boss what the deal was and his reply was that they are gypsy mansions. He explained that they go to the UK or other western European countries (the cars on the drives mostly have GB number plates), make their money, then come back home to pimp their palace. He told us that they build a bit, make more money, then build a bit more – which is why people are even living in the half built ones. He also added, "They seem to make more money than you would at a normal job!"

Our second campsite, also run by a Dutch guy, was a bit tricky to get into. We had to drive our large American motorhome through a hole in the shower block that was approximately the same height and width as a large American motorhome. It was a very snug fit. The whole campsite came out to watch us inch our way in, taking bets on whether we'd get stuck as they winced and sucked air through their teeth. We some how made it with literally millimetres to spare. It was a tense time. Especially for the guy sat in the loo wondering how he'd get out if we got stuck.

Dennis, the Dutch owner, asked us if we wanted to join a night-time horse and cart ride he was organising. We said yes, that all sounded rather jolly. The horse and cart turned up around 7pm driven by a man wearing a Juventus tracksuit top and a promotional Budweiser cowboy hat. His cart was a home-made affair – basically a trough with a car wheel on each corner. We shared this cart with Dennis, two Romanian kids and a couple of pigeons in a cardboard box. These, he explained, were for a mate of his and we were to deliver them en route. Off we went through the fields of sweetcorn (they seem to grow little else in Romania) along back-breakingly bumpy tracks (there was no suspension on this thing) for about half an hour. We were deposited at a footbridge across a fast-flowing river and told to walk across while the driver dropped the pigeons off with his mate. The bridge we were invited to traverse would have given Indiana Jones second thoughts. It was a rusty suspension bridge, of sorts, though a lot of the suspending bits seemed to be snapped and hanging loose. We were told not to worry as the bridge had been renovated a couple of years ago – after it had collapsed sending a local woman into the river below. We stopped at little bar in a village on the other side and had a beer to calm our nerves while we waited for the horse and cart to pick us up again. While we were sat there by the road we were passed by a cart load of hay, three cows and a toothless man in a Wimbledon t-shirt brandishing a scythe. He came over to say hello, went to shake Claire's hand and almost scalped her as the scythe swung round in his paw. Our ride arrived and we set off back to the river. This time we crossed – horse, cart and all – by means of a "ferry". This was a bit of rusty pontoon attached to a cable that was dragged across by the current. Quite ingenious really. It was getting dark now and we set off at a faster pace (the driver's wife had been on the mobile) which meant the cart banged along like it was going down steps. The driver handed us a small jar of home-made alcohol that he'd been swigging on. I couldn't tell you what it was but it smelled a bit like petrol and burnt my throat when I drank it. It helped numb the pain of the bumpy ride home though. Maybe that was the idea.