Varnal Knowledge

November 2024

I woke very early in my hostel in Istanbul. It'd been a super noisy night. For some reason people seemed to be coming and going the whole time. Every half an hour or so the door opened and closed, and someone would come in or out, grab something, or do whatever. I really had no idea what they were actually doing, but they did a lot of it.

And there was a guy in there who had a cold, and for the whole night he was snorting his snot into his belly. Every few seconds. I even postulated for awhile that maybe it was a deliberate revenge snore, maybe even against me. It was grinding. I was tempted to anonymously slip a packet of tissues under his curtain so he'd blow his fucking nose!!!, but he was a super quiet Korean guy and he'd probably be embarrassed, so I refrained.

So, after little sleep, I got up, packed up, and walked to the metro station.

Soon I was on my bus from Istanbul Bayrampaşa coach station, and heading west, to the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna.

It took awhile to get out of Istanbul, which was absolutely no surprise to me, but it was way quicker than trying to get in to the city a couple of days ago. Luckily we were heading in the opposite direction to the peak hour traffic.

The bus was actually pretty empty, and I had a window seat, but it was wet outside and the windows weren't too clear, so my pics were a bit blurry, unfortunately.

The endless burbs

Finally in the countryside, in the far west of Turkey.

Random towns on the way.

The route was actually quite beautiful, we passed through farmland for awhile, and then through amazingly beautiful forests, with the trees radiating in striking fiery autumn colours.

I'm already leaving Turkey. It's weird, because I just got here.

But I'll be back. It's a huge country, and there's so much to explore.

And anyway, my bike's here innit.

This was my route through Turkey, heading east to west.

Eventually we got to the Bulgarian border. It's the quietest and smallest EU border I've ever crossed, and the few of us from the nearly empty bus were the only people crossing there. We didn't even need to leave the bus, they just grabbed our passports and did all their checking.

Ferocious guard at the sleepy border crossing.

Eastern Europe

Yay! Bulgaria!

I've never been to this country, and was very keen to see what it's actually like.

It was strange at first, because crossing into the EU from Turkey I expected more wealth, and more economic development. But actually it felt the opposite. Turkey feels richer and more modern than Bulgaria.

At least the eastern part of Bulgaria.

Chatting at the border I met Andrew and Debbie, a lovely English couple from the Isle of Wight, who've both been living in Turkey on and off for decades. They used to teach English, and are fluent Turkish speakers, and now travel around giving lectures about the Bible and various theological and spiritual topics, to Turkish Christians.

Christians make up only 0.01% of the Turkish population, there's only about 8,000 of them in total. That's an incredibly small number in a country of 85 million.

Andrew and Debbie were on their way to a place called Silap, in central eastern Bulgaria, to teach at a Christian workshop.

It was great talking to them, because they could give me some real insight into how Turkey was changing, and what it was like to live there.

They said there's a lot of sheep on the Isle of Wight too.

We stopped for lunch, beans and rice for me. Yum.

Then the scenery became even more beautiful, as we hit the Black Sea again, and made our way to the city of Burgas, where Andrew and Debbie got out, and the rest of us travelled along the beautiful coast, heading north.

Debbie accidentally left one of her bags on the bus, I picked it up for her, and left it at an office in Varna, my destination. She was happy when she collected it a few days later.

Maybe I'll see those guys in Istanbul too, when I get back there, at some point.

Varna

It was dark and rainy when we finally arrived in Varna. It seemed to take forever to get into the city, but luckily the rain lightened up as I started to walk to my hostel, about a 30 minute walk, and I didn't get too wet.

My first glimpse of the Dormition of the Mother of God Cathedral, an absolute architectural delight, and the third largest church in Bulgaria.

The Yo-Ho Hostel was great. All of the guys who run it love music, and visiting bands who have gigs in the city often stay there. The owners know all the musicians in town, there were three guitars sitting around the hostel, and I got to jam with some cool players while I stayed there. Perfect!

I immediately met Chris, a super interesting and very cool guy who's originally from Syracuse in upstate New York, but now lives in San Diego. He's on a long trip around the world, a trip which only began about 6 weeks ago, and he plans to be away for five years or so. He has a list of 64 countries he wants to visit, and wants to spend at least 30 days in each of them. What a plan.

I'm sure it'll change, plans always do.

We immediately went out for food, and found a local buffet place that one of our hosts had recommended. The food was good, it had loads of veg options, but, weirdly, it was cold - or lukewarm at best.

Chris and I immediately had an easy and warm connection. He's extremely well read, and knows a lot about a lot of things, and has had a hugely varied working life. He's now discovering new life philosophies from an audio book he's been listening to, based on a guy's experiences of living with Buddhist monks somewhere in the Himalaya.

Of course we had lots to talk about, as I'd had some of those experiences myself in the past, including staying with Tibetan monks in India, doing Vipassana meditation retreats in a monastery in southern Thailand, or on silent meditation retreats in a number of countries, in the Goenka tradition.

We had a super interesting discussion, and he became particularly interested when I told him about the meditation retreat which is open to foreigners in English at Wat Suan Mokkh, in southern Thailand.

Chris and his cat friend. She was the cutest ever, and eventually came over for cuddles from me too.

The moon was fulling

We went for a long walk to the seafront, looking for a cool bar to see some live music (it was Friday night), but it was more restauranty down there, and the one  venue with live music was booked out.

This turned out to be a stroke of luck, as we then wandered through some backstreets and found a great bar called the Three Lions, where we had a beer and chatted, and then eventually met up with the local barman Libo, a strapping 22 year old super friendly and, as it turned out, very hot tempered and passionate lad, and Stacey, a 30 year old English teacher from London, who's working here for three months.

Libo at his bar. The owner loves Liverpool.

Serious Shit

Unfortunately Stacey had a really traumatic and troubling story to tell.

The night before, she'd been out drinking with friends, one of whom is her work colleague, Dave, also from England. They met some guys at the bar, one of whom was a Ukrainian guy that Stacey thought was a friend of one of her other friends. When the guys asked them back to their own bar, Dave and Stacey and another friend went along.

After awhile Dave and the other guys went off to get cigarettes, leaving Stacey and the Ukrainian guy alone. As soon as the others left the Ukrainian guy locked the door of the bar and immediately started to assault Stacey, and actually attempted to rape her.

When the other guys got back and eventually got back in Dave tried to protect Stacey, and got totally beaten up in the process. The Ukrainian is a big guy, and another Russian guy got in on the bashing action too.

They eventually got away, but their phones and bags etc were still in the bar, and they were both injured and traumatised.

Stacey said she cried for a hour afterwards, hugging Dave the whole time. Chris and I were really not sure what actually happened to her, she didn't go into too many details, but she was injured and showed us bruises on her arms, and a huge lump on her head, where the guy threw her against the wall.

She was obviously really shaken up, but was trying to hold it together.

Of course Stacey's friend (and one-time lover) Libo, the barman, was absolutely determined for revenge, and had already contracted a whole army of friends to beat the shit out of the Ukrainian guy. I guess that's how things are done around here.

Wouldn't read about it would you.

Anyway, it turns out (we found out later) that the Ukrainian guy is connected to the mafia here, so beating the shit out of him would be dangerous and rather unwise. We also found out that Stacey got her bag back from the bar somehow, but not her phone.

Poor woman.

The next day she did go to the police however, and to the hospital, to document her injuries and make some statements about what happened.

But with the guy's mafia connections it's unlikely that the police will do anything about it whatsoever, as they're probably on the mafia payroll.

As it turns out Chris, Stacey, Libo and I stayed up drinking and chatting for hours that first night, and ended up having a really good time, considering what had happened.

Libo eventually pulled out his boss's Stratocaster electric guitar, which I was very happy to play, and I got to pretend I was a rockstar for awhile.

Libo, Stacey and I rockin out. Chris was doing the same.

Chris and I strolled home just before daylight. I'd only had a couple of beers over many hours, watered down with a couple of shots of raki, a local grape-based liquor, compliments of Libo and Stacey. I was feeling pretty lucid, but we were obviously both pretty freaked out about what had happened to Stacey and Dave.

Chris being poetic, whilst wandering the backstreets of Varna.

Body shaping tools

I practised my shapeshifting again.

Beautiful theatre

The next day I felt absolutely crap, and I think that was because I'd been in a fully smoked out bar with poor ventilation for many hours, breathing in loads of toxic cigarette smoke, which I'm completely not used to. My clothes reeked of it when I got home, and I felt nauseous and headachey pretty much all day.

I even vomited a couple of times, and I noticed black specks in my puke, I guess thanks to many hours of breathing in poison. That's actually true.

Chris and I went out for a beautiful walk that next eve, and had a meal and some coffee. Later I chilled in the hostel, while he went out, back to the bar, party animal that he is.

The Beautiful Black Sea Coast

The view from my room

I e-squiggled on my curtain. The green line is my very rough route from Indonesia, so far.

Look how big Russia is.

Chris and I went for another long stroll.

The cathedral looking rather stunning.

The Bulgarian, EU and Varna flags. Varna is spelt Варна in Bulgarian (they use Russian Cyrillic script here, like most ex-Soviet countries).

Chris told me an interesting fact about statues of gals/guys on horses:

1. If the horse is rearing, the rider died in battle

2. If one of the horse's front legs is raised, the rider was wounded in battle

3. If all four hooves are on the ground, the rider died outside battle.

I never knew that they had global standards for such things.

I had no idea these existed anywhere anymore. I remember them from Kings Cross, the red light district of Sydney, when I was a teenager. Chris told me that apparently you pay money, then you go into a room on your own, a window blind is raised, and a naked woman does her thing for a minute or two while you spank the monkey, using the sandpapery paper towels that are provided for your use. When your time is up the window blind goes down, until you pay again.

Life can be so crass sometimes.

Snack attack food, Bulgarian style. I had the little spinach and cheese ones, Chris went for the big chocolate version.

Trying to make sense of the local coinage.

There's a hugely long and beautiful park that stretches right along the Black Sea coast in Varna. Chris and I walked through it for ages.

Classic brutalist art

Chris really wanted to go on the Jumping Castle thingy, but he'd been a naughty boy so I didn't let him. Of course his punishment hurt me more than it hurt him.

Fence made from pencil pine

Typical classical skimp

Varna is close to the most westerly point of the Black Sea

Olympic heroes are honoured on plaques along the seafront. Bulgarian athletes win lots of medals at Olympic Games, especially in weightlifting and wrestling.

Cute white swans

Kiddie ride

We passed a simple café

And an artificial waterfall

There's an amazing hot spring right on the sea. And it's not the only one either. This region is well known for its thermal springs.

And yes, that's right. There's nutcases actually going swimming in the sea, while the temperature was probably less than 10 degrees C outside.

We stopped for a coffee at the best place ever

There were lots of cool cats around

No surf lifesavers today

My Orthodox Christ! The woman on the left is reading a book!

Beautiful old ship, now a restaurant

Oh no, is that the Russian navy coming back?

This is the actual inscription ...

Petrov was a famous Bulgarian poet and writer

Varna railway station

Chris and I finally went inside the Dormition of the Mother of God Cathedral. It was stunning.

It was completed in 1886, and was entirely built of materials collected in the local area, including stone from the old Varna city walls.

The artwork in there is mindblowing.

Women have to cover their heads in churches around here, and men have to take off their hats. Go figure.

We went out for cheap food (Mexican, believe it or not), and then Chris went out, while I jammed with some local musicians in the hostel till it was time to walk to the overnight bus station.

A Russian guy and a Kazakh guy really tried to drown me in vodka in the hostel chill out room (they were already going under when they started on me), but I managed to deflect the offers and had a couple of their small beers instead.

They couldn't stop telling me how much they loved the music I was playing, but, of course, they were blind drunk, so it doesn't count. If fact, not long after, one of them collapsed on the sofa, and the hostel manager spent a lot of time trying to get him up and off to bed.

Eventually I walked to the bus station in the freezing cold, to catch my bus to Bucharest, the capital of Romania.

Another country to visit!

I'm still on the road to Germany for work, and am taking the chance to briefly visit some countries I've never been to before.

My overnight minibus left at 10.30pm, and because of the border crossing, I didn't get much sleep.

That's the sort of border crossing I like. Two offices side by side.

But unfortunately it wasn't that straightforward. Despite Bulgaria and Romania both being part of the EU, and, from March 31st this year, being included in the Schengen EU area (citizens from Schengen countries can travel to and from all other Schengen countries without passport checks), for the time being passport controls still remain between Romania and Bulgaria for land and sea crossings (but not air crossings).

But at least we didn't have to get off the bus - we just handed over our passports at either end. EU passports are not stamped here, just checked.

So that was that, I'm now off to Romania!

A Land Of Contrasts

Well, I wasn't in Bulgaria very long, but it was interesting, and quite revealing.

I've had a tiny taste of what this place is about, but haven't been here anywhere near long enough to really know too much. So here are some random observations I've made, supplemented by some quite enlightening conversations with locals that have given me a better picture of the place.

From my observations, Bulgaria appears to be a country of real contrasts, and one that appears to struggle to modernise, due to deep and entrenched corruption that's been built into the system. The status quo is very beneficial to the elite, thank you very much, so why would you want to change it.

Varna, nestled right on the vast Black Sea, is blessed with huge natural beauty, and is packed full of delicious thermal springs, waterfalls, ancient Roman sites, and a grand city centre of wide pedestrian boulevardes, ornate and stunning historic buildings, museums, huge parks, and some beautiful cafés restaurants and bars, many on the seafront.

The place is laid back. People are friendly, and will chat easily, if you can find a common language. Many young people here speak more than a spattering of English. There's a classiness about many people here, they take pride in their appearance, and every night you can see a hugely fashionable collection of fur coats and hats and stylish woollen clothes and coiffures parading along the streets.

This place has a long history, and the locals know about it and are proud of it.

Yes, I'm definitely in Europe now.

But then there's the other side of this country, the darker side.

Bulgaria has an alcohol problem, like many countries I've visited on this trip, particularly since I entered the territory of the ex-Soviet Union. Cheap and nasty alcohol, particularly vodka, is everywhere. You regularly see men stumbling along the streets, drunk and dishevelled.

And in case you still have money left, you can gamble it away at the many casinos and betting halls that line the streets, and that provide their owners and the government (often the same people) with huge revenue streams, and allow gambling addicts to piss all their family's money up the wall.

The musicians at the hostel and other young people I chatted with told me that it's pretty tough to really make a living here - you can scrape by, but you can never really save much. That's why a huge proportion of them leave the country to make their money elsewhere. But those that stay contribute to a small but vibrant art and music scene.

Many Bulgarians are racist, and, most commonly, the targets of their angry racism are the Roma people, the gypsies. Libo became visibly angry when talking about them, working himself up as he went. "They're not Bulgarians, these people!" When Stacey (or me, I can't remember who) reminded him that, in fact, many Roma families have been settled in Bulgaria for generations, he again angrily exclaimed, "but they're NOT Bulgarians!! They don't respect Bulgarians, our Bulgarian language, our Bulgarian culture!" etc etc.

It's hard to logically argue with someone when they're that worked up. I mean, Libo is young and fiery, and I met other young people at the hostel who didn't feel the same way as him, but generally speaking, the Roma people are hugely discrimated against in Bulgaria (and in Romania, for that matter). It's a big problem, and one that many people are completely oblivious to.

And then of course there's the crime underbelly in Bulgaria, organised crime and the mafia, which is involved in things like sex trafficking, prostitution, protection rackets, the narcotics industry, and other wholesome things. What happened to Stacey was horrible, and the perpetrator was a mafia guy who owned a bar. You can imagine how often he does that sort of thing, and the police aren't gonna do a damn thing about it, because they're probably paid off.

But, of course, those problems are only one part of the picture.

And my impressions only very fleeting.

I'd love to come back to Bulgaria one day, and explore more of the many incredible places here.

This has been my route through the country, from south to north.

But for now I have other vegetarian sausages to fry.

It's time to visit the Land of Dracula🩸

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