The land of Nod

Bulgaria has been very confusing. Not least because a shake of the head in Bulgaria means Yes , and a nod No. This has taken me some time to discover, after constantly asking locals for reassurance we are heading int he  right direction and being given a shake of the head in reply. Now we have deciphered the locals strange form of non verbal communication ,we are really enjoying the place. The beer is good and cheap (80p a pint of Becks) good quality hotels charge on average about £30 a night for a standard double room. The food is really good and fresh, we’ve just polished off a 3 course meal complete with beers and coffees for  less than £10 each. The only downside to the place is the amount of  long straight busy roads that take you through the barren hilly landscape from town to town.  We have on occaission crossed the Danube into Romania, just for a change of scenery,. Romania and Bulgaria are really worlds apart , yet only separated by a river.

Romania around the Danube is flat. and the dusty main road follows the Danube through countless small villages, where children cycle alongside you and all the locals wave and greet you. The villages and their inhabitants look so poor and yet are so friendly. The roads are also congested with dark skinned gypsies driving their melon laden horse driven carts. Turkeys and chickens scratch around on the road verges and sheep herders lie asleep with their flocks in the shade of roadside trees. On entering the big towns or cities, you cannot help but notice how delapidated they  are . The outskirts seem littered with rusting dissused factories, accomodation is stark and you really have to take what you can get , which is usually an old hotel who’s heyday was in the days of communism. These places seem to have had little attention for decades and seem only to be opend up when the occaisional visitor passes through. Bulgaria in comparison has a sense of much more infrastructure ,  hotels are common and of a much higher standard though gone are the villages of waving children and roads of  horse driven carts. So I guess it has been nice to be able to sample these 2 different countries and literally decide  in the  morning which side of the river to travel for the day and what to experience.

Our next few days will take us towards Constanta and the Black sea. It has been such a long time since I have seen the sea and I really miss it.  There just remains the small matter of crossing the really hilly terain of the next couple of hundred miles, so we are gathering our strength at the moment and loading up with carbs for the pending journey, talking of which I am off to the bar for another pint of  Becks.  bye for now.

crossing the Danube

Melon sale

bustling city centre Romania

What the !

4 star hotel Romania (shower)

bad road

taking a break

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