Bizarre as it gets!

01-07-08
Today is the Hostel Mostels 1st birthday! This day last year it was officially opened & had it's first guest from Japan.
In the last year the Mostel has been the highest rated backpackers in the whole of Europe! it's rated on web sites like hostel bookers.com by the people who stay here who give reviews later of their stays. Pretty outstanding for a new business & competing with Western Europe's established backpackers.
That's not the bizarre bit thou.
This morning Assen took me quickly just around the corner to show what he had discovered, an aincent Roman ruin just 200 meters from the Mostel!
Well that in it's self isn't bizarre either as southern Europe is covered with this stuff. It wasn't much from the outside, all overgrown & looking like rubble, then we stooped thru this half buried arch & descended into a Turkish bath house with domed ceilings & more rooms leading off in various directions. The Turkish complex was hundreds of years old, & built or adapted from a previous Roman structure. Ok so here's where it starts to get bizarre, looking up at the roof there is the exhaust vent for a wood chip factory next door neatly plummed into the top of the dome & the floor is slowly been filled with sawdust!
Now that is bizarre right? Well it gets even more bizarre, on the other side of the ruin opposite the factory is a small house like building set up as an office by the government for the preservation of historic buildings & artifacts!
So we go into the office to find out more about the bath house & there's this rather large 60 year-ish man at his desk, Assen asks him about the place & is told that it's just an old structure & it's not any use to anyone! Crazy huh? That's Bulgaria!