What an ordeal this trip to Bulgaria turned out to be. I thought I was being clever by purchasing a nighttime bus ride to Sofia as I hoped that nine-hour transit would allow me to arrive here refreshed and ready to hit the city. Every bit of the process was unnecessarily complicated from the bus station to my first hostel.
When first arriving at the bus station I was absolutely blown away by the size and complexity of the operation. Picture this: a 300-store strip mall wrapped in a circle with the stores on the inside. Contained therein are honking cars, trash blowing like tumbleweeds, and Turks screaming and gesticulating with double the intensity of Grand Bazaar negotiations. And one of those arguments actually degraded into a 30-Turk brawl in which brain-busting sticks and pipes made a spontaneous appearance. That brawl lasted for about five minutes until the Poliz appeared with bigger sticks.
The bus ride itself was no place to sleep. We hit the Turkey/Bulgaria border control in about four hours then had stops shortly after that. That border control was the worst I’ve ever seen in my life.
My travel partners for that trip, Aussies Andrew and Anna, needed a stamp at the Turkish side of process to claim their taxes back. However, we didn’t know that he was supposed to get the stamp at step 1 of 9 in the ridiculously long control process. When we found this out at step 3, Andrew had to run back about 1/4 mile to get the stamp. It was that time that our English-averse bus driver ordered us back on the bus. When we gave him international gestures for “stamp”, “money”, “Turkey”, and “guy gone that way” he just raised his voice and started screaming more Bulgarian at us. After 30 minutes of this Anna and I were giving up the wait, but Andrew arrived with the stamp.
My first hostel experience has thus-far been lackluster. It is ridiculously cheap to sleep this way and guarantees instant introductions to many other eager travellers. However, the type of people in a hostel are a little different than the type of people that I’d like to have as travel partners. They are cheap and don’t necessarily like to drink. We’ll see if this changes in subsequent days here or locations in other towns. But, if it doesn’t, this is going to be a long five weeks.
I didn’t know that there were young people who stayed in hostels who DIDN’T drink. I thought that was the whole point. I hope that changes for you; I am sure it will. Glad to hear you are having adventures, and some fun. That massage story was painful. Remind me of that if I ever speak of getting a Turkish massage.
Take care!
Love,
Nicole
Be Vigilant. Risa caught fleas from a hostel in Italy.
I stayed in hostels many, many years ago. They were not places to rub shoulder to shoulder with other travellors…just bare bones places to lay your head. Tell us about Bulgaria, wherever that is and what is your next stop?
Do we need to wire you money to come home? HA! HA! HA!
If you need it, a mother is always here……..
I, unlike your mother, know what Bulgaria is, I just am so geographically challenged I don’t know where it is. I love following you travels. Have fun and be safe.
Uh… no drinks? This could be trouble – they’ll need some liquor to sleep through my beer-induced snoring. I’m working on (i.e., thinking about it but not really doing much) the hotels in Amsterdam and Germany. The Paris hotel stay may be difficult as they want all my Marriott points for a short stay.