Drive Home Q8 - UK: Leg 05 - Bulgaria - Into Europe and the EU (with a bribe!)

18 Nov 09 (cont)

Well, Bulgaria has some surprises to offer. At the border, all the usual are looked at, then, for the first time as its Europe – “Green Card” please – yes their English is good here. That’s not a problem, in the back of the truck – this is the 3rd party compulsory insurance for Europe that came by e-mail last week. Up to now we have used the Middle Eastern equivalent the “Orange Card” which is part and parcel of the vehicle tryptique, plus cheap insurance that we’ve purchased at each border. “This is a photocopy, I need the original”. That is all I have, sent by e-mail last week. It’s from London, Lloyds of London. “Yes, but anyone could print this on a computer”. Yes I understand, but that is all I have. We to and fro for 5 min – “You have 2 choices – go back or you may be able to buy insurance here, but it will be expensive, maybe $500”. That is too expensive, I will have to go back. I am not confrontational, I discuss. We to and fro a bit more. “Wait”. He discusses with his mate then comes and takes me over to an on site insurance office. A German compnay - $500 is for European registerd cars – Middle Eastern sit over the $1000 mark. My man is very pensive and I sense there may be a chink in the armour. He enquiries how long we are in Bulgaria – 5 days – that is my only opportunity I see to get some PR in. Yes, its a shame, if we have to go back we’ll miss 2 days at least and we were looking foward to seeing your Bulgaria. He remains pensive – “Where do you go next?” Romania, we drive back to the UK. He disappears back into his office, then out again. "You can go back, or you can make a present and arrange for the original Green Card to be sent to you in your hotel." Okay, cracked it. At the point of bribe, I am given the choice of how much this present is to be. I’d decided that our last Turkish Lira will be offered as a starter, they will be able to spend it easily. So £16 in TL was presented and we are through. An expensive border as we'd only just paid our Turkish speeding fine at customs.

Driving in ex-Communist countries – I don’t know anything about this, except that they were very good at state control. So until I know the ropes we’ll just do the speed limit. We don’t want to rush anyway because all the road signs are in a different, illegible scribble. The speed limits are also low – 50kph towns, 90 open roads and 120 motorways. No sooner than Chris has asked why we are going going so slowly – “Its not like you to obey the speed limits” and I have finished such explanation than we are stopped! Policeman leaps out and flags us down. Are you “Turkish?” No English. Beckoned to his car where his partner is sitting. “You were speeding”. No. Shown meter reading 89. This was an out of town highway, a wide road to become half of a motorway, but the other carriageway is not yet complete. They do have varying speed limits and so far every ‘danger’ area has been limited, so every junction and every bend has been down to 60, 50 or even 40. There are no dangers on this stretch and it is open and almost straight. “You were speeding – 89”. No, this is a 90 limit. “No 60” So why was every other car doing 95? I am waved off. Perhaps they expected a Turk to just pay up, or weren’t used to a robust defence. I may be reserved at times, but I’ll hold my ground! So 30 min into Bulgaria (a European frontier as I was reminded at the border) and I’ve paid a bribe (only the second in my lfe) and rebuffed a fraudulent speeding offence. Well that initiated some cynical comments as we pressed on ... particularly obeying every speed limit. How can people drive at 40kph? Our cruise control even refused on a couple of occasions. To cover the 110miles total ... including the border ... took us 4½ hrs!!! Chris has just pointed out that we have 210miles to do tomorrow – we'll never make it. I suspect I’ll get bored enough to speed. In that 4½ hrs tho’ we overtook one vehicle – a tractor. We were a hinderance, indeed a danger at times ‘cos of the responses of a minority of other drivers. More frightening was the fact that most locals were cowed into doing these stupid limits as well.

It was all worth it. Plovdiv, despite its unattractive name, is a delightful old town. With history from before the b****y Romans and narrow winding streets it was a pleasure to wander around ... once we’d found how to get into the old castle area that our hotel was hidden in. This will be the fifth time we have driven this road ... I didn’t mind the old roads where the tyres are rubbing the kerb on both sides(!), but the bollards stumped me ... bollards to you as well.

Late lunch in our hotel – delightful welcome sparkling pop – the most coverted restaurant in town – please keep our sparkling rose bottle for dinner ... Dinner included live jazz, a good improvising quartet, who did a masterful version of Summertime my bestest favourite. If this blog goes out of focus it’s the local Cab Sav that is to blame ... not me ...

PS. For those intrepid readers still with me - a substantial, but not complete update and tidy has affected all the legs since Leg 01. Enjoy. In reality we are first night in Bulgaria and with probably the last good internet for 3 or 4 days.

19 Nov 09

How wrong could I be – good internet again. There’s a reason for this. Courtesy of the awfully slow roads in Bulgaria, it took us all day to do little today.

Driving here is similar to the UK 50 years ago – and yes I do remember! Average speeds are approx 30 mph. To speed things up we changed our route and took a longer, but faster motorway one. As we expect, we get lost every now and then and today it was Sofia which cost us an hour extra. That negated the time we’d saved by going by motorway. So in total to cover a planned 120 miles took 4½ hrs! Replan required. We binned the furthest monastry and dramatic mountains to drive back in the direction of Sofia. We’ll find a hotel on the road or Sofia’s outskirts – we thought. After cruising Sofia’s sprawling outskirts in the rush hour for 2 hrs and getting nowhere ... Signage awful, I’d been reading handheld GPS and inputting to Google Earth to find where we were lost to! A slow process! I wonder if the sat-nav in the netbook will be any good yet. Earlier checks had shown few roads this far east in Europe. Turkey had non. I’d thought we would need old EU countries before it would be useful, but no – brilliant (in Sofia the capital that is – as I discover tomorrow!). Being an old fashioned real navigator I’ve only played with sat-navs occasionally, but am now sold on them. Sofia coverage was good, we went straight to an LP hotel buried in little suburbs, but stayed in one just a couple of blocks away. Exhausted – just had a v sound sleep – a couple of pints sleeping draft helped tho’ Today’s replan, will cut out Belogradchik Rocks, we’ll wander Sofia and drive straight to the NE. A day saved in this process will give much easier driving and generate an extra day in sowewhere much more appealling like Budapest.

Received a text from Graham Whitehead yesterday – v supportive thank you. Tells me reading this blog is like listening to me telling the tale. That is great news as it is the feel I wanted to give, though it may make it a little verbose. Any other comments willingly received.

So, who is Mountin Goat – a Welshman or you can’t spell? The jag pic suggests my old mate Pete – confess.

20 Nov 09

This morning’s wander around Sofia v satisfying, clear blue sky and we were out before most as the shops don’t open until 10 or 11. The graffiti, rubbish and desolation of abandoned buildings and the like disappoint us. The graffiti is new, the rest we have seen continuously on this journey. Perhaps what surprises us most is that Bulgaria is in the EU, yet few signs of that are evident – only fast cars and EU financed roads (only the good ones) are seen.

Right, so that you are quite clear where I am coming from but may never go again – Bulgaria (as it shows in it’s public face) is the most tiresome and obnoxious country I have ever been to and that includes nearly 60 countries. I have not been stopped this often since I was a student, then it was just once or twice a week, here we average once a day. So you remember the bribe to get in and the bogus speeding accusation. Well every, and I think I mean every, town has a police check (a car and 2/3 policemen) at the first hidden bend/pull-in with a radar gun. They leap out with a little red/white wand to flag you down – no that’s wrong ... to flag US down. That’s the standard, but the border to Plovdiv (2 days ago) had a greater number of police check points. In fact the very first we saw was 2 miles from the border and flagged down a lorry to check his paperwork – I do wonder what the guy imagined they did at the border with immigration, customs and vehicle checks ... Today leaving Sofia – how can they pack in so many check points and still have business to spread around? – less than every 2 miles there was a check, and that was only on our side of the road. Yes, you’ve already guessed, we got stopped. Typical of the attitude – "You don’t speak Bulgarian" (spoken in scribble). As if I ever wish to speak a language from this backwater. “I speak 4 languages (rattles off 4 related local languages) but you only speak one”. (I have no desire to extend this exchange by trying to communicate in French). The monologue continues in scribble as we have no recognised common language and fills more than 5 minutes (a standard police annoyance technique – to waste your time). Though I cannot speak Bulgarian, apparently I can understand the section in their Highway Code which states that you should always drive with lights on. (Interestingly their Highway Code looks remarkably like ours (in the UK) – is that what the Cambridge Five (Burgess and his mates) were passing on as seccrets? You can tell I was bored with this waste of 10 min of my life. Politely advising me that “Sir we always drive with lights on in Bulgaria, will you please switch yours on” – I wish – requires a 10 min time waste and a check of all my documentation – “International Driving Licence?” – body language and speach to suggest that this is not acceptable – “home country licence?” “Yes that’s right.” (Well actually both are right!) And to finish off I need to be told what others have been fined for such heinous crimes. This place has not grown up from communism yet. Oh, and if you are wondering, yes we clocked another before the day was out. No. It was not for falling asleep at the wheel because 40 kph (25 mph) is soooo boring. I don’t know what it was for. Perhaps they were bored and we were the next vehicle. Certainly we were doing 50 kph – correct for a town – it was night (no the gits don’t stop at night) – perhaps we just look interesting. No even I don’t buy that one. Gut feeling – if they can turn a dollar with little hassle they will go for it. Tonight, as I lowered the window (first one to get to the car before I was out) and said Good evening, his jaw just sagged a little. A scan of the roofrack and interior told him we would be hard work. “Documents” Now apparently, the International Driving Licence is enough.

For any Bulgarian readers (but more relevantly Ivan and Sam following us from Kuwait), how you imagine that any tourist would wish to visit your police state (worse even than Saudi Arabia or Syria) when the focus seems to be abbrasive one-upmanship, hassling tourists and to slow even the best roads (normally paid for by my EU taxes) to a crawl such that no more than one tourist sight can be seen in a day, is beyond me. Sadly, and we’ve never said this before, we will probably never be back. This is not reflected in individuals we meet, for the second time we have had a friendly taxi driver take us (cost free) to our hotel, in Veliko Tarnovo, tonight.

I think I’ve said enough – I am just saddened. If you drive here, any flash of a light, however slight is indication of a police check ahead.

After our walk around Sofia, Koprivshtitsa was our other event today. Enroute we had the truck washed - a thorough job and a ray of sunshine for Bulgaria (tho' not us), the guy who did it was sharp enough to notice a half flat tyre. Well down and well picked up, something to keep an eye on; it turned out to be a slow but variable puncture over the ensuing days. Koprivshtitsa, just 20 min off our route, is a quaint village with tourist anticipated money going in. Made pretty with quality refurbished buildings (houses, shops and hotels),it has a stream running through, a series of hump-backed bridges and that quiet timeless atmosphere that is so relaxing (off season mind). I should say that we have not seen any other village like it and no village buildings painted in such tourist pastels – but it is a lovely spot and with beautiful surrounding countryside and walks it could fill the best part of a week.

That relaxation and a wrong turn delayed us enough that the second event today was missed – sunset on the national memorial sight of Shipka Pass. If I remember, this was the site of a Russian-Ottoman Turkish battle that saved the day. The view in the early evening was stunning. We are now ensconced, with a sleeping draft in Veliko Tarnovo – the hotel’s a lovely old building, we have a suite over-looking the valley, and the dinner was enough for 6. Generally the price gives away the quantity of food – here we need to halve the figures.

PS. If you see a Bulgarian with an umbrella – don’t stand-still in a bus queue. (For those not read-up on the Bulgarian secret-police, see me after)

PPS. I almost forgot, just to finish off this police state - they block Skype type internet services, just like that other police state Syria.

21 Nov 09

A day to chill in Veliko Tarnovo, almost - a jammed cubby hole in the truck needs a hefty screwdriver to force it open. (Surprising for a Japanese car, I don't expect silly things like this to fail, but it's the second time it's happened.) As we are down at the bottom of the valley near the river, it is a long walk up windy alleyways to get to the main and shopping streets. We first search for and eventually find the bridge over to the art gallery in a narrow ox-bow of the river. It's a communist era show of pictures - gosh they are unusual. There appears to have been a limited range of subjects: religious with a focus on hell and fiendishly horrific faces of anguish or crowd scenes of life under communism with the most miserable faces possible. You might think this unusual, but we had not seen a single person smile in Bulgaria, let alone laugh until dinner last night. They must have been on a good wine. Then to the shops, but lunch first. An LP recommended cafe presents itself at the ideal time, it is well positioned, outside and popular. If only our waitress had any interest in earning the wage she presumed to take home at the end of each day. I'm never impressed when someone tries to remember my complete order - we were halfway down the order list before a correct item arrived. Someone close to me is saying, don't you ruin my lunch by making a show ... This has almost capped off Bulgaria, but there is just one (I promise) more thing ...

Since the Green card bribe incident, have been chasing the UK agent to DHL an original Green Card to us. For a mere £66 DHL claim to be able to deliver within 3 days - 3 days, are they using a local pony and trap? After a squabble about there being no postcode for Veliko Tarnovo, (Bulgaria doesn't do postcodes) and they can't guarantee Friday delivery without a postcode, the package doesn't get into Bulgaria until Saturday morning (would appear that the postcode isn't that relevant then) and - the clincher - DHL in Bulgaria is closed for Saturday and Sunday. I may have the wrong idea, but I don't think DHL will be retaining my £66! Well, we are not hanging around waiting for a Green Card, as you may have noticed we are not too enamoured with the place.

22 Nov 09

Veliko Tarnovo is an attractive old town with significant development going on. Our hotel is most attractive, as is the street of similar old buildings. It is lively and has character. This morning we will visit the citadel, a large hilltop with enclosed town, just away from the modern town centre before pressing on to the border a day early than originally planned. Various money grabbers are around the citadel, but we escape unscathed. There was also a market researcher - comments on your visit - no thank you. On reflection - our visit today or to Bulgaria - "Bulgaria" - give me one of those surveys now ...

So off to the border, the potential for a Green card faff concerns us but comes to nought. Not the slightest interest is shown. To my enquiry as to whether we can have a passport stamp - "No, Europe now" - he says with a smile (Yes a SMILE). But I lied - there is just one final nail in the coffin - to get out of Bulgaria there is another tax - non-EU vehicle tax of 6 ... Bulgarian Lira you would expect, especially as it is for non-EU vehicles and Bulgaria is not in the Euro zone ... er no, we'll take that only in Euros thank you.