Dracula once asked me if I wanted a selfie with him

I went to the hometown of the ancient prince that inspired the famous vampire tale, and found peace there in a beautiful graveyard

"In Romania, people say this forest is the original Sherwood Forest. We had a hero who would take the money from the rich and give to the poor and needy - but as with all tales rooted in real history, the real-life version was probably a little more violent in practice," said Mihai, my Romanian travel guide who had, in the span of one day, started feeling like an old friend that I was positive I'd known in another lifetime. The rain was pelting down, and the forests we were driving past were pitch black.

(You can read part one of my Transylvania adventure here)

Sighișoara, Transylvania, Romania. Photo by Yi-Hwa Hanna.

Although it was only just past 9pm by the time we got to Sighișoara, the streets were already so dark and quiet that felt like it was 2am. My guest house, the Casa Saseasca, was in the center of the walled-off Old Town of the small Saxon town, and there wasn't a single light in any of the windows. I knocked on the only door that didn't look boarded up, but nobody answered. The building next door - which hosted a whimsical horror show by day, that was designed to scare its clientele in good fun - had a wrought-iron gate, with just one eldrich long-nailed mannequin hand creeping over the bars. Mihai looked as concerned as I felt. "If they don't answer I'm doomed," I thought. A touch dramatic, but the atmosphere brought it out of me.

Thankfully, after many phone calls that we made back from the warmth of Mihai's car, someone from the guesthouse answered. I couldn't understand a word, until Mihai deduced that the entrance was, in fact, on the other side of the building. No wonder it looked so sinister and as though it were shut down. I said a heartfelt thank you and goodbye to Mihai, promising to stay in touch, and went up to my room. I wasn't sure if the paintings on the wall in my chamber truly displayed fruit with a touch of rot for atmosphere, or if it was simply my imagination. I crawled into bed after a hot shower, putting on a cheerful movie on my laptop so that the silence outside would feel less eerie - but not too loud, so I that didn't disturb the spirits.

An autumnal street scene in Sighișoara, Transylvania, Romania. Photo by Yi-Hwa Hanna.

I woke to the sounds of birdsong and sunlight streaming into the windows. The town was completely different by day: Bustling with tourists and colour - and even a local bride and groom getting some wedding photos taken - the church bells rang as I sipped on a hot cup of coffee in a little pastry shop overlooking the square. My hotel, the Casa Saseasca, was utterly charming, with quaint, hand-painted traditional elements on everything from the furniture to the bathroom mirrors. The guesthouse owner had been so friendly that, when warning me of rain, she'd even given me her own personal umbrella. "You take it, I don’t need it. I'll be dry inside here all day. Go on, we don't want you getting sick from the cold and wet," she insisted. I took it, then pored over a map and realized that I could probably explore the entire town in just a few hours at a leisurely pace. Perfect, since I needed to catch the last train for the long ride back to Bucharest that afternoon.

A guest room at the beautiful Casa Saseasca in Sighișoara, Transylvania, Romania. Photo from transylvaniabnb.com.

The further I walked up the hill, the quieter the other footsteps and voices grew, until the only clip-clop on the cobblestones was my own. I found myself at a wrought-iron gate, and when I pushed it open, with the wind and dry autumn leaves rustling around my feet, I realized it was the cemetery. The view was beautiful, and I sat on a bench that had been inscribed with a loving memory to enjoy it. I felt strangely at peace there, around the gravestones holding memories of loved ones long gone, until a large crow came out of nowhere, making me almost jump out of my skin. I headed on down the road and paused in a thicket of fiery gold and red leaves, trying to read the inscription on a large tombstone that stood alone at its top. I sat by it for a while, a song I’d never heard starting to play in my head. I lost track of time, until I realised that the music I'd heard wasn't imagined but, in fact, came from the long tunnel around the corner. It was a local musician playing traditional folk songs. The music lingered in my head as I explored the little shops in town. I bought some homemade sea buckthorn jams for my mum, a recreated parchment map of ancient Transylvania for a friend's vampire-loving kid, and a hand-woven folk dress that I couldn't refuse after the elderly shop hostess insisted I try on to "bring out my feminine charms."

A hauntingly beautiful Saxon Cemetery at the top of a hill, outside a medieval citadel, in Sighișoara, Transylvania, Romania. Photo by Yi-Hwa Hanna.

Finally, it was time to visit what many of Sighisoara's guests come for: the Dracula house. The real Dracula, not the fictional character created by Bram Stoker, was born here in 1431, and his real story is as curious and haunting as Stoker's tale. In 1448, Vlad Tepes became the Prince of Wallachia, taking over from his father, Vlad Dracul. During his years of plundering villages and battles with the Ottomans, he developed a penchant for impalement. It was his method of choice for torture and killing, and stories of his cruelty began to spread throughout elsewhere in Europe. He became known as Vlad the Impaler. Legends say that he would invite guests over for dinner, only to impale them at the table if they either lied to, offended, or displeased him - before continuing to eat his dinner unaffected as their blood dripped onto the table, mopping it up with a sickening contentedness.

A mural featuring Vlad The Impaler, and the town of Sighișoara, at the Casa Vlad Dracul in Transylvania, Romania. Photo by Yi-Hwa Hanna.

Yet while he was known as a cruel leader elsewhere, at home, he was mostly known as one who was harsh but fair. Vlad The Impaler valued honesty above all else, and one of my favourite rumoured stories of him centers around a farmer who was robbed and left penniless with a family to feed. The farmer's troubles had reached the ears of the king, and Prince Vlad hunted down the thief and had him killed, demanding that the robbed farmer come and stand before him. "Here is your money returned," the royal said, offering him a bag of gold coins. "Thank you very much, my kind ruler - but this money is not mine, since I only had 50 gold coins stolen and this bag contains 60," the farmer said. Vlad chuckled and said, "You are an honest man. I placed the extra 10 coins in there. Had you quietly taken the money, I would have known that you were no better than that thief, and the same punishment would have awaited you. Your honesty deserves to be rewarded." Prince Vlad valued honesty so much that he was also said to have placed a cup of pure gold next to one of the main wells in town. Anyone and everyone could use it to drink from the well, but woe betide the person who would dare steal it. No matter how desperately poor they were, nobody ever dared to steal the cup, so strong was the fear or respect - or both - of Vlad's rule.

It was this reputation for cruelty - he relished killing those who he felt deserved it, and in truly bloodthirsty ways - that earned him the link to Stoker's Count Dracula. The name? His father, Vlad Dracul, was part of the Order of the Dragon. In Romanian, the word "Dracul" did not just mean dragon, but it also meant "devil." Little was known about his mother.

I had been warned that his house of birth had become a cheesy relegation of the vampire myth. I headed up the stairs to the lair through the medieval restaurant housed on its ground floor - a surprisingly cozy spot that apparently had decent food and a generous bar - pushing past faux cobwebs and plastic spiders. The sounds of doomsday-esque, gothic-vibes organ music swelled as I got closer to the velvet curtain.

The coffin room, upstairs, at Casa Vlad Dracul, aka the Vlad Dracul House, in Sighișoara, Romania. Photo by Yi-Hwa Hanna.

I pushed it back, one hand on my camera shutter, and just as a dark shape began rising out of the coffin in the centre of the back of the room, I cried out, "Wait! Please let me adjust the light so I can film you for my blog first!" In retrospect, I guess did ruin "Dracula's" entrance moment of glory a little bit. Whoops. The actor who had been laying in the coffin looked flummoxed, and paused, uncertain at what to do next. "Rawwwrrr!" he growled at me a moment later. Then he paused. The jig was up. "Do you want a selfie?" Dracula asked me. "Where are you from? Please stay and chat a bit - it's so boring lying here in this coffin all day. I've been up here for hours and hardly anyone has come by - slow season, you know," he said. I couldn't remember the actor's name.

When I returned from the dining room next door - which houses a painting of the only known image of Vlad the Impaler - he tried to scare me again. I tried to look scared for his sake. As I walked out, I surmised that he must either have severe back pain or abs of steel from sitting up like that on repeat every time a new victim came in. I wasn't sure if the real Vlad the Impaler would have wanted to impale Bram Stoker for what the author inadvertently turned his historical birth house into, or laugh at it. I did figure he would have wanted to impale me for not having properly played along in faux Dracula’s game.

Me, at the graveyard at the top of the hill in  Sighișoara, Romania. Photo by Yi-Hwa Hanna (I used a self-timer!)

The experience left me more thirsty than bloodthirsty, so I found a nice restaurant and tucked into one last local beer with a hearty bowl of pasta before heading to the station. That place was creepier than anything I'd seen in Sighișoara. I couldn’t communicate with anyone since hardly anyone spoke a word of English (not that they should, since not everyone in the world has to speak English), but more importantly, nobody - from the security guard to the ticket officer - seemed to be able to give me a clear answer on what platform my train was leaving from.

Graffitied train after graffitied train passed by, and I started worrying that I was at the wrong station or track. My train was meant to arrive an hour before, and it was quickly growing dark outside. I was pretty sure that returning to Sighișoara's medieval centre without a place to sleep in the cold, dark night would be pretty different on the scariness front. Just then, a timid voice came from behind me. "Excuse me, do you speak English?" it asked. Two American college students exploring Romania during their gap year in Europe were also trying to get on the same train. I shoved my scared little vampire victim mentality aside and a protector role kicked in, as I stormed back to the ticket officer demanding explanations. Turns out in Transylvania, sometimes the trains are just late. Really frikkin late. Nearly two hours after its original due time, our ride finally pulled up.

II stepped out of the train in Bucharest just before midnight. As the American students waved goodbye, a man in a leather jacket sidled up to me, flicking a cigarette under the reddish light. The dusty floors looked seedy and he smelled like old, sour, whiskey. "Wanna ride in my Uber?" he said, leering a little. "No thanks," I said, tightening my grip in my pocket, only to realise the keys that would usually be in my pocket weren’t there. I took a quiet breath, and reminded myself that I'd done fights in the boxing ring, just in case. "Pretty young girl like you shouldn't be walking alone so late at night," he said. I noticed with relief that the exit was just steps away. "Creepy old man like you shouldn't be saying things like that to a young woman walking alone late at night," I retorted, making a hasty bolt into a taxi outside. Dracula and Bram Stoker’s mythical tales of dark romance felt like a fairytale in comparison to the dark corners of the real world.