Bulgaria

Before I even got to Bulgaria I thought I might not be allowed into Bulgaria.

I caught the bus from Istanbul to a place called Plovdiv in central Bulgaria. At the Turkish-Bulgarian border I agreed with an old lady on the bus (after a lot of sign language, me speaking English which she didn't understand, her speaking something (presumably Turkish or Bulgarian) which I didn't understand and the intervention of another passenger who spoke a little English) to buy duty free cigarettes so that she could sell them once we got to Bulgaria.

Buying them was fine. She even tried to give me a few packets as a thank you for doing it, but I had to explain (using charades) that I didn't smoke. After immigration (where the guy looked at my passport for about 10 minutes before he let me across the border) we had to go through customs. Everyone had to get off the bus and was searched by an offical. Everyone was ok. Everyone, that is, apart from the old lady whom I bought the cigarettes for - she had to go inside for another search and questioning.

At this stage my imagination got a little wild and I started to think that she'd be busted for bringing in more cigarettes than she's allowed to and that she'd crack under the pressure of interrogation and squeal that I bought them for her and that I'd be questioned and I'd probably crack under the pressure and say something stupid so that they'd refuse me entry.

After a 10 minute wait (which seemed much longer to me) she got back on the bus and it was allowed to leave with me on it.

So now I am officially part of the black market for cigarettes in Bulgaria - good on me.

When I stepped off the bus in Plovdiv I had no idea what to do. I had some vague instructions on how to get to the hostel I was staying at but I couldn't find where I was supposed to go so they weren't really any help. I had a map but it wasn't too detailed and anyway, all the signs are in the Cyrillic alphabet so it wouldn't have been any good if I had the most detailed map in the world. I just started walking and luckily it turned out to be the right direction. Eventually I found someone who could help me a little bit and finally I made it to my hostel where I had one of the best showers of my life. Nothing to do with the facilites but all to do with the fact that I had worn the same clothes for 3 days and hadn't showered for a day and a half because I'd been in a rush.

See here for the Cyrillic alphabet to see what I was faced with.

Plovdiv has a beautiful old town with cobblestone streets everywhere (nice on the eyes, less so the feet when I was walking around in thongs). There is an ancient theatre left over from the Roman era which is remarkably well preserved and looks cool. There is a museum there about Bulgarian culture which I really wanted to see but, by chance, the two days I chose to go there were both public holidays and it was shut.

The next day and a half was quite strange. I wanted to visit a small village called Koprivshtitsa to see some traditional homes that Lonely Planet recommended. I had a very interesting bus trip from Plovdiv to Koprivshtitsa. I was stretching my arms by grabbing onto the luggage rack above the seats and the bus driver pulled over on the side of a main road and came up to me and told me off in Bulgarian for doing it. Through out the rest of the trip he kept looking at me in mirror to try and catch me doing it again. This is the same driver who had a couple of porno ads on his sun visor! See here for an example of what I mean. There were sections of the bus trip where we couldn't go above 10 km/h because of the condition of the road, and not small sections - some of them were kilometres long. Also, the bus driver would sometimes drive along with the door open for no apparent reason. We also had to slow down sometimes while we overtook carts being pulled along by donkeys!

Once I arrived in town I tried to find a hostel that was written up in Lonely Planet. I'm sure I found the place (I translated the cyrillic name of it) but they weren't interested in having me there. I think the lady spoke one word of English "NO" - at least that's the only word she used with me. I found a bed and breakfast around the corner. The lady here didn't speak a word of English - the only thing she 'said' which I understood was when it was time to pay and she rubbed her thumb and two fingers together.

My plan the next morning was to get up early, go to the tourist information, leave my pack there, get a map and go and visit the traditional houses I wanted to see. I got to the tourist information office at 9:15 but found out it didn't open until 9:30, I waited until 10:00 before a homeless guy told me I was waiting outside the wrong shop (after pulling a marujana leaf out of his pocket and asking if I wanted to buy it). I went to the real tourist information but it was closed too.

After giving them half an hour I decided that they were never going to come so I went off and tried to find the first of the homes. I managed this fairly easily and picked up a map to help me find the others. I spent the morning looking at the houses but I had to carry my pack with me the whole time which is not fun because it weighed about 24 kg last time I flew with it.

Anyway, once I finished looking at the homes I had to try to get to Sofia, but because the tourist information was closed I had no idea what time the buses and trains went. I was getting the shits with everything so I sat down for a while where the bus had dropped me off the night before in the hope that another one might come that would magically take me to Sofia.

After half an hour or so I got the shits with waiting and walked back to the tourist information which was still closed. I walked around aimlessly for a while and found a bus. I asked the driver if he went to the train station, he said no, he's going to Sofia. So I thought great and just to double check I said to him "Sofia" but he shook his head so I got off and started waiting again. I was looking at the timetables on the wall (using my Lonely Planet to translate) and it looked like a bus was supposed to go to Sofia in 10 minutes and then I looked at the front of the bus and it said Sofia so I asked the driver again. Again, he shook his head.

I got off the bus and was completely confused. I sat there and watched the driver shut the luggage doors and then I remembered something I had read somewhere: that Bulgarians shake their head for yes and nod their head for no. So for the third time I asked him "Sofia" and he shook his head, I quickly chucked my bag underneath the bus and got on. I don't know what he must have thought of me. After that it was easy. I arrived in Sofia safe and sound with no further hassles.

While I was in Sofia I went on a day trip to a place called the Rila Monastery. This was set up ages ago by some Monk who wanted to be isolated from the world and all it's temptations (why anyone would want that is beyond me...) so he built it up a hill in the middle of nowhere. The setting is beautiful: lush green mountains, a stream flowing down the mountain side to power their mill and snow capped mountains in the background.

But the setting is overshadowed by the Monastery itself. The main church inside is covered with bright religious paintings. Normally churches and their paintings don't do too much for me (I've discovered that I'm a castle man) but this one was really really nice. I will put some photos of the monastery and the paintings up in my photo section.

That night I went out with heaps of people from the hostel which was good fun. Drank a lot of Bulgarian beer which is sooooo cheap - 75 euro cents or about 1 aussie dollar.

From Sofia I moved on to Veliko Tarnovo in the north. There I visited a huge fortress they have. It was pretty cool but I think it was also the lizard capital of the world - they were everywhere! Walking around the fort you'd hear/see lizards scurrying away every step you took. There were a couple of them which were bright green and shiny but unfortunately they were too quick (or I was too slow) for me to be able to take a photo of them.

The fort also did a sound and light show each night if enough people paid for it. I don't know where you watched it from if you paid but I'm sure that where ever it was didn't have as good a view as the one from the hostel balcony. The show was really cool, the whole fortress (it's about 500 metres long and 250 metres wide) gets lit up with multi colour lights and looks amazing.

Veliko Tarnovo was really good. That night I had some drinks with the people in the hostel, I wasn't planning on going out but I ended up in some Bulgarian pub with a very multicultural group (Aussies, English, Welsh, Irish, Bulgarian, Belgium) and had a pretty good night.

I ended up catching the train to Bucharest in Romania with some of them the next morning. Which was lucky because the train was an hour and a half late and then it took 6 hours to get there. Bucharest is definitely not is the race to become my favourite city but I'll leave that for the next post.

Verdict on Bulgaria: fantastic! Cheap as chips, the people are friendly, can be a bit hard to get around cause they use a different alphabet but that was part of the fun. Highly recommended.