was entirely ignorant about Bulgaria apart from reading about it in the ‘Crap Holidays’ section of the Observer on the day I was leaving. The web revealed that it has the unhappiest people in the world, so it was our job to cheer them up a bit, and Bulgaria has a cuisine which has only two cheeses named unimaginatively after their colour – yellow and white, so no Bulgarian Stinking Bishop. I had no idea of the land that geographically (and in terms of judicial corruption) lies under Romania, which we visited for the last solar eclipse visible from Europe. We almost visited Bulgaria accidentally during that trip, which we were deported from for videoing a military installation, but turned back at the intimidating border – they may have had advanced warning of what we were like.
Bulgaria is a pre-accession state for the EU (well delayed for a year once we visited) which like Lithuania, where I was attacked and returned with typhoid, has Scottish trade missionaries which would provide us with intelligence, hopefully without being deported. Bulgaria also boasts vast exports of its wines (second only to France) and an impressive and lengthy history (although they did make the mistake of not being on our side during the war). They nod their head for No and shake for Yes, although confusingly well travelled Bulgarians do the reverse to fit in with international conventions.
I decided to spend the night at the airport rather than risk sleeping through the Prince CD that normally wakes me up for early flights at 3:30am. I stayed at the sterile Hilton Hotel which seemed to be run entirely by the Indian branch of Hilton International (one wonders if the Scots were all in the Calcutta branch). It had the side entertainment of a bed that leans which provided hours of fun in waking up as I almost fell off when rolling over in my sleep and the strange experience of imagining that I had an Indian call me up with my alarm call only to find out it was 1am (I finally got woken up by the real automated call at the correct time).
Espressoing through Prague airport, only to be ejected from my seat and stuffed into a lonely corner with only clouds as company, they obviously didn’t enjoy my company as Bulgaria was more or less cloud free for our entire visit (25 degrees of temperature and six degrees of separation as it turns out with the remarkable coincidences in the inter connectivity with us missionaries).
The ambassadors reception at his residence was outside thanks to the wonderful weather on the vine strewn terrace, and then it was ‘Under The Linden Tree’ to listen to Bulgarian music and eat anything that was not Avian Flu compatible which included Mashed Nettles and Pike on a Tile (although the pike was replaced by ‘Troot’ on a strong recommendation from the gypsy waiter).
The next day was an endurance walk through soviet architecture, Russian churches, moved on by a guard from resting on their National monument and a delightful stroll through an autumnal park to an obelisk with russian figures posed in dramatic scenes. The icon museum was filled with priceless objects ripe for plucking with minimal security – all one would require was a good screwdriver, a very large coat and absolutely no ethics and the prizes of Eisenstein films could be hanging on my wall.
We all met for dinner at what the guide books describe as the best restaurant in Sofia in the room labelled VIP suite, whilst the others had gone on the embassy minibus (described as on its last legs by the girl at the embassy) for a 5 hour journey to an area that had been devastated in a flood last month and for a press attack asking what they were going to do about the area.
Cocktails in the world famous Buddha bar with live fish in bowls on the glass tables and watching mermaids dancing in a night club at someones wedding and so to bed.
Next morning I wanted to see more of Bulgaria so jumped on a Russian train through the autumn coated hills to Plovdiv in Thrace, home to Orpheus, who got the return ticket to Hell, and Spartacus – I was terribly disappointed that no-one asks for your name when travelling by train as I would have surely answered ‘I am Spartacus’. I did have to learn the Cyrillic alphabet, as invented by Cyril the monk, which is somewhat confusing with familar letters representing entirely different characters (i.e. c is s, y is u, backward n is i) – mikeforsyth.com becomes микефорÑÑŠÑ‚Ñ….цом
Plovdiv was built upon seven hills, one hill was demolished by the Soviets, and captured by Alexander the Great’s dad who promptly renamed it Philipopolis. It has a magnificent amphitheatre discovered after a landslide. I climbed one of the seven hills over the angle twisting random cobbles to reach the roman fort.
Plovdiv is an absolute joy, beautiful houses, cobbled streets and the museum of Bulgarian Wine where the fine Mavrud, a Thracian red wine, was quaffed.
Returning on the train was more challenging as Plovdiv station planners in their rush for digital information boards omitted to actually provide English speaking guards or numbered platforms to back them up. There was also the amazing linguistic barrier between the word ‘beer’ pronounced in ever desperately random frequencies and increasing volume (which always increases understanding) and the attractive waitress expecting ‘beera’ as the only solution.
Dinner was at a tourist restaurant in the mountains which had the added delight of a theatrical dancing on coals scene. Since I knew (well sort of hoped) that I wouldn’t get burnt when prancing across the coals after their performance, I kicked off the shoes and socks and went firewalking with my trousers rolled up as one doesn’t really want to have ‘fiery breeks’.
The evening panned out with drinks in a piano bar (with my private lift to the night club from my room), dramatic music signalled the start of a live lesbian sex show (a very vulgar bulgar) at the Kama Sutra night club but this was relatively dull compared to some very acrobatic inverted pole-dancing which certainly put my efforts in Lithuania into perspective. A piano bar with Beatles songs around 4am sung by a jolly clientele denied the rumour that Bulgaria was the unhappiest country in the world and was a perfect end to the day, well technically at 4am pretty much the start of the next day as breakfast followed only a few hours later.
The final day was spent wandering around the speed chess players in the park, Bulgaria being the Grand Master and the trophy proudly displayed in the hotel, buying a crystal ball in a nazi ephemera flea market and admiring the chicken paintings hidden behind closed shops possibly in an attempt to prevent the spread of H5N1.
Not forgetting the traditional Czech Beer and Chips with mayonnaise in Wenceslas Square watching the sunset over the silhouetted buildings in Prague whilst cutting CDROMs of everyones photographs – a nice stop over in between flights. Unpacking at home we unearthed the treasures of brochures and hotel shampoos and the unusual complementary banana flavoured condom branded with Grand Hotel Sofia.
