Bulgaria 2nd time around

26-06-08

Hooray!
I made it to Bulgaria, landed (by train) in Sofia last night about 9pm with a new German friend called Andreas.Montenegro was a good decision to go to, originally I was going to continue down the coast to Greece but the budget was starting to get out of hand & time was slipping by, also it was sooooo hot! & it makes traveling seem more like hard work then fun.

I caught the overnight train from Podgorica in Montenegro to Belgrade, then the day train to Sofia. (click on the Google Earth map below to see where I'm talking about)
On heading for the train from the bus I met up with a American girl called Bridgette, who had pulled a ligament in Croatia & was hauling TWO backpacks & a on a crutch as well! Nuts if you ask me & her main pack she had on her back was as heavy as my entire possessions, then she had a smaller, but not that small pack on her front! So I gave her a bit of a hand to get around, we caught a taxi into town, her crutch lost it's pin for height adjustment & I made a fix for it out of plastic packing tape. Finally at 11pm we were loaded onto the night train to find our tickets weren't for the bunk beds, so had to do a deal with a guard to get a bed each. "6 Euro!" says guard, "ok we reply" & are loaded into a 6 bunk cabin all of 3 by 3 meters, 5 adults & one baby, roasting hot still! The guard turns up later... "20 Euro!" Ummm we look at each other, Bridgett says "12 Euro" we hand him the 12 euro & he's happy! No prizes for guessing where the $$ will end up...
The train was from another past era & was loaded with locals & backpackers. We tried to make our selves as comfortable as possible stacked on the top bunks (3 high either side) & as soon as the train got under way the locals in the lower bunks closed the cabin door & window! Great! we're going to melt to death in here.
Eastern Europeans have a phobia that drafts will make them sick & they will die or something, so they would rather sweat to death as an alternative.... Later on once they were asleep I managed to sneak the window open to avoid complete asphyxiation. A few cabins down there were a group of guys with an accordion (& rakia I dare say) singing old folk songs, quite enjoyable & helped keep my mind of the heat, lying there on the bunk staring at the old yellowed paint on the ceiling it was easy to imagine I was in the 1950's as the train clattered along through the night, the singing drowned out by the train until it slowed to a crawl or stop, seemed like theme music in a old time movie or something.
Finally we arrived in Belgrade, about 9am, sweaty,damp, smelly & hungry. Shook hands with Bridgett & parted our separate ways. I hope she didn't have too much trouble crossing the rest of Serbia.....

The trek through Serbia for me was relatively uneventful compared to some of the stories I had heard last year.
I didn't have any trouble but Andreas (young 20's guy) couldn't say the same. We had met briefly on the platform at Belgrade before boarding the train, I had found my own compartment & about an hour later Andreas turned up asking if he could join me. Reason been that one of the Guards on the train decided to befriend him in a more personal way then most guys would be happy (if you get my drift) & he felt a lot more comfortable sharing with someone else. Well the guards hadn't finished with their sleazy game & decided to hit on a couple of young European backpacker girls a few compartments down. The poor girls were totally freaked out with two guards sitting with them in their compartment, quite alarming to see especially after hearing one story an Australian girl told me last year of her experience trying to cross Serbia on a train. She actually ended up in a cell on the Serbian border & that was the better part of her experience. Well a couple of us knew what the plot was & stood in the corridor within eyesight of the compartment with the unwanted hosts just to make it more difficult for the guards to play their game. Sadly the Serbian railway service has a reputation for dodgy hospitality & really slow trains which probably explains why the train was nearly empty.
It turns out that Andreas was staying at the Hostel which I'm at, & he was a Godsend for me because I forgot to buy sufficient water for the trip & only had a 500ml bottle for what turned out to be a 12hr journey, the heat was once again stifling & I would have been in serious trouble without water (nothing drinkable on the train, no cafe etc)

The landscape in Serbia was interesting to see, not a lot of features or dramatic for the greater part of the journey but much more fertile then the coast of the Adriatic / Croatia & Montenegro. Looking at Google Earth reveals that I did a huge 600km (as the crow flys) dog leg to go from the capital of Montenegro (Podgorica) North to Belgrade then South again to Sofia, when the distance from Podgorica to Sofia is only 330k in a straight line!
I definitely prefer Montenegro & Serbia to Croatia. They are poorer countries, similar in character to Bulgaria & it always seems that as poverty increases so does the hospitality of the people.
Croatia was pretty, Debrovnik with it's walled city was amazing, but the locals have seen millions of tourists over eons & are probably sick of the sight of them.
I stayed in Debrovnik with a little old lady in her house & she was great, I have to say. It's quite common for the local folk to let out their spare rooms to tourists, they can be basic or flash, depends what you want to spend. Mine was basic but with air con.


These are some pics of Debrovnic. The cat one is especially for "MR G" I hope you like it, sorta sums up what the place would feel like minus all the tourists.


That's the walled city on the right there >
I was staying in a little old house with a little ol lady just to the left of the pic. There's thousands more photos I could clog the net with, maybe later I'll put a ton of them on here.




Back here in Sofia, Assen the owner of the Hostel was stoked that I made it & is giving me a lift to Veliko Tarnovo tonight with his wife Ira & the little one. Tod who I worked with at the hostel in VT was here in Sofia too & came around at 11pm to catch up & is coming to Veliko with the rest of us for the weekend. Was so good to see him, he's a great bloke & a lot of fun to hang out with.