Saturday 10th July

 10/07/04 Day 7... The early hours...

I think the whole overnight train episode was one of the scariest things I've ever done. Very James Bond. And having to run around a Turkish station to get my passport stamped for customs... in my pyjamas... anything could have happened. I felt like an illegal immigrant.

I think the whole overnight train episode was one of the coolest things I've everdone. Very James Bond. And having to run around a Turkish station to get my passport stamped for customs... in my pyjamas... anything could have happened. I felt like a proper traveller.

Some times I feel that Heather takes the wrong 'slant' on things. Hopefully the next one will be better as she did calm down, manage to sleep and stop hyperventilating - eventually

As for me, it really was santalulous. Falling asleep to the rocking/chugging/rattling/clanging motion... heavenly! And the stream of guards knocking at our door and shining flash-lights in our faces - excellent. (I might add at this point that we knew we would like Bulgaria when the kind customs-man came onto the train and didn't make us prowl around the station.

So, all that, windows that need tying open, carriage attendants who ran off with our tickets and a (kind of) fulfilled fantasy - and we were in Plovdiv.

Heather will cover the factual aspects of Plovdiv in a later chapter - I shall just ramble aimlessly about not much.

Plovdiv was representative of Bulgaria (so far) - it was difficult, bordering on impossible, to % % pinpoint exactly what it was like. The town and people, seemed to lack... identity, I suppose.But it can be safely said that it was bustling and the outdoor cafe culture was in full swing. Yet this existed side-by-side with a large MacDonalds (providing toilet!) and huge Coca cola signs. A large busy road ran straight under the 'impressive' roman stadium, and the old town was dwarfed by 1960's communist-style apartment blocks.

To be fair, the extreme heat, the extreme failure to read a map (I blame the confounded bulgarian alphabet!) and our extreme tiredness from two days with full packs and little sleep inbetween all combined to dampen the experience - but still, Plovdiv was nice, I wouldn't go there again.

Coming into Plovdiv was strange - lots of fields and farmers again - and old people. If I hadn't known we were in Plovdiv, we could well have got on the wrong train as I wouldn't have known it was Bulgaria. From walking down the street I got the impression that they wanted to be in on the whole Europe thing ie. fashions and music but they weren't really interested in welcoming it or working for it. The town seemed empty - it was a weekend, granted but there were no business types and next to nobody spoke English or even made a half-hearted attempt to help us. We ended up translating English to German to Bulgarian, back to German and to English, an operation involving 4 people and a mad woman shouting random German words. And all to find a map of the town or a tourist info, which didn't exist. The streets reminded me of pop art and an obsession with americanism and a desire to be big, but the size of the advertising wasn't alone big enough to completely hide the fact that Plovdiv is an Eastern European town which relies on (it's) old building, hot weather, water fountains andcafe culture. It's not an American city which aims to run at the pace of the working world. In short there was nothing to do in Plovdiv - a town for eating, drinking, shopping and getting hot - i.e. a Saturday shopping town for locals. We seemed to be the only backpackers there, and you could see that written on the faces of the locals, as their eyes followed us down the street.

It should be noted that my expectation that Heather would be fawned was clearly wrong. (And some random Chinese takeaway owner has just started whistling Single bells, choros and verses, right out side our window).

The old town, don't get me wrong, was cute/quaint and nicely unfouristyish - it was sticky hot and with our bags it was tiring. Still lunch proved to us how cheap eating out in Bulgaria is (£2 for main (hot) meal and drink). And I bought some sunglasses. This might be going a bit far but I think the beggars sum up the mentality of the country (or Plovdiv at least) - They come up to you and non and have dirty feet and wave a glass at you and then follows you when you leave. I'm not quite sure what that says about the mentality of the country but it sounded good at the time. So anyway we got in a smelly, hot (why don't they just invent air conditioning round here?), ancient train to Sofia. And we were thankfully pleasantly surprised at the welcome as two people in the tram helped us out without us having to ask and many people speak adequate English.

Every bit his Youth hostel - great place - very like home - woke dished rice so far and great shower, breakfast included, and most importantly a comfortable andfully satisfying night's sleep. When we went out to buy food the town seemed to be dead - for a capital city on a Saturday night, nobody seemed to want to leave their houses and be sociable. Odd. We saw many theories as to why. They're probably all wrong.

The shower, actually, is stunning - the best I've ever seen. And the hostel one of (if not the) most homeliest as well. As I cannot be bothered to re-read this diary to see how well it follows our travels, I shall just summarise: we left Jonathans and lugged our packs around Istanbul for 12 hours. We slept (lmestly) on a train, we lugged our bags around Plovdiv for 6 hours, and the we had a sizzling 2 hr train journey. To finally shower at a good hostel was beyond words.

For memory aid: the hostel is decorated with play school decorations and authentic Bulgarian ornaments.