I mentioned in my last blog post that I did an overnight trip to Kulata. I thought I would explain a bit more about it and why I did it in this post.
The idea of my journey came to me when I was in Florianopolis Brazil. I was thinking about how I had got there which was via planes from London to Paris to Sao Paulo to the city and the weird thought came to me about whether it would be possible to do this in the opposite direction and without flying. This was back in 2003 so it has taken a long time for the thought to germinate and sadly the political landscape has changed a lot since then. Originally my idea was to go via the Trans-Siberian Railway which would have made the journey much quicker (though perhaps less interesting) but it soon became apparently that Putin’s regime was too extreme for me, so my next plan was to go via Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and India … Obviously that one got thrown out with the tensions between the west and Iran and besides it would probably be impossible to get insurance for the journey. The next idea was taking a repositioning cruise through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea … as per this video – but again political events have proved to be a deal breaker and no ships are travelling that way at the moment. So now I am down to only one option which is to go via Georgia, Azerbaijan and across the Caspian Sea. The only issue is that the land border between Georgia and Azerbaijan is closed … so it may not be possible anyway – but we shall see.
But I am digressing. Much as I have in my journey. As you know I started it in the North West of Ireland and have made it as far as Türkiye where I have left Europe. But to my mind the route had to be continuous and I had a gap. I left Thessaloniki Greece in March this year to fly back to England for a Co-counselling conference and to check in with friends. I knew I wanted to see Romania, Moldova and Bulgaria … even though it wasn’t strictly on my route (much the same as Spain, Portugal and Italy wasn’t) but I had decided I didn’t want to go back to Greece so the only option was to visit Bulgaria briefly as I knew I would be back there later in the year and the circle would be complete.
But when I arrived in Thessaloniki I realised that the situation was not so simple. There was a train up as far as the border and in theory there was a connecting train or shuttle bus from this little village (Stryamos) and Bulgaria, but I could find NO mention of this service on any of the official transport sites in Greece, so I decided to take a train up there and see for myself.
I took a train from Thessaloniki station at around 3pm and arrived at about 5.30 There was no sign of any shuttle bus – not surprising really as I was the only one who had got off the train. I was expecting a small place but even I was surprised at how little was there. Apart from the railway and a few farms there was just a Cash and Carry on top of a hill. I had a couple of hours to kill before the same train back, so I walked up to the shop and bought a few bits to eat on the return journey (there was no buffet or anything) and then waited in the gloom as it was getting dark. I returned to Thessaloniki about 10pm and I think towards the end I was the only one in the carriage.
So that all happened when I was in Greece in early March. After a flight to the UK, a flight over to Romania – journeys to various cities including Chisinau in Moldova and a stay in Sofia, Bulgaria … I was ready to join the dots and take the train and whatever means I could muster to get back to Stryamos from the Bulgarian side.
There are no direct trains to Kulata but the transfer is quite close to the town at a station called General Todorov and it was an easy (across the platform) from there for the 20 minute journey south.
One of the fun things to do is to look up the stations en route on the website and then click on the English translation. It gives the English translation of the place names as well! Some of them are quite intriguing … would anyone like to visit Pillow Case for example?
On arrival at Kulata I was one of about 6 people to get off. There were a couple of border police officers there and having said hello to the other 5 passengers, they of course stopped me and asked for my passport. They seems quite surprised that it was Irish and even more surprised when they saw the stamp inside from Moldova. For some reason I got brownie points for that and they noticeably warmed to me – but not enough to give me a lift with my bags to the hotel. Luckily it was only about 10 minutes away and I trotted down the dirt track that Google maps had helpfully pointed out to me.
On arrival at the hotel I was greeted by the owner and I am pretty sure that I was the only guest staying that night. He helped me with my case up to my room on the first floor and after I had freshened up I went downstairs to ask the important question. Is it possible to get to Stryamos and back this evening. There was a bit of humming and haaing – mainly because the owner did not speak much English so a lot of the conversation was through Google translate, but I got to understand that he had a taxi driver friend who could do this for about 30 Euros. That seemed a good enough price as I know how difficult crossing national borders can be (see this post) so I agreed to come back down in 30 minutes when his friend would be waiting for me.
The taxi driver seemed a nice enough bloke, although his English was pretty limited as well. He quizzed me on where in Stryamos I wanted to go (there wasn’t a lot of choice in that!) and how long I would be there for (10 minutes) and then we set off.
The trip out was easy enough although there was some premonitions of what was to come when we looked at the traffic going in the opposite direction – ie going from Greece into Bulgaria. It was quite a queue and I wondered whether it would be better or worse when we were to tackle it later in the day. We got through the border easy enough, as I have an EU passport there was no stamp needed and then onto Stryamos which was much further on than I was led to believe from the maps I had seen, but we got there before dark and I got out of the car at the railway station. To say it’s an isolated spot is putting it mildly, there is nothing there but 3 dogs (I think were there when I was at the station last year.) There was no sign of the station master, so I took a few pictures, including one of the shrine on the platform and then got back in the car.
At first the journey back went smoothly, but it soon became apparent that the hold up hadn’t gone away and we joined the queue. Obviously the driver wasn’t happy because he had agreed a fixed price for the journey and the longer it took the less cost effective things would be. After about 30 minutes of repeatedly changing lane and what I imagined were Bulgarian curses, he took his phone out and start speaking rapidly to someone. He explained to me something about the mafia which didn’t feel me with any confidence and then when we got to a certain point and it was clear, he started to drive down the hard shoulder and came off the main road altogether. I assume he knew a short cut, but a bit like my taxi ride in Rouse, I was getting more and more worried as the road we were on started to peter out into a dirt track.
When we got to a sort of dirt carpark in the middle of nowhere and he stopped the car altogether I was really worried. The thought of being kidnapped or robbed and left hadn’t really occurred to me before … but not understanding anything he was saying other than mafia had made me think it could be a real possibility.
After about 4 or 5 minutes stopped there with nothing happening, the phone rang and it was obviously the call he was waiting for. He smiled at me and said – mafia again and drove the car forwards and up a bank. On the other side was a metal barrier which had been pushed open by someone still there holding it who waved my driver through. After a short drive it became obvious that we were in the lorry park / holding area for the customs point and had by-passed the main road in. The “mafia” were the people who could bribe someone to open the barrier for him to pass through!
After this it was plain sailing again and I was back at the hotel within about 3 hours of leaving it. Mission accomplished. I gave my driver a tip and thanked him for all he had done … and now the next job was to get something to eat and preferably some beer.
. It was obvious that there was nothing in the village – but on the main road in both sides of the highway, there were lots of small eating places and souvenir shops for those coming into Bulgaria after a long drive. Several buses were parked up and the passengers were queuing for the few public toilets.
I decided to get into somewhere quickly to beat the inevitable rush and looked for something more “mom and pop” than the garish fast-food places. I chose somewhere and walked in and all the small tables (for 2 and 4) had been taken, so I wandered about to see if there was one I hadn’t spotted and a man at one of the tables started to shout at me in Bulgarian. I was a bit taken aback and explained that I couldn’t understand him and was about to walk out when the server (a middle-aged woman) called me back and in halting English said it was fine to sit at one of the tables for 8. She took my order whilst the man in question went back to his friends who were drinking and watching football on the TV. After a while it became apparent that the man was in fact the owner of the café and his mission was to turn people back from using the toilets when they were not customers. My innocently looking for a smaller table had been mis-interpreted. Fed and watered I went back to my hotel and slept the deep sleep of a satisfied traveller. The next day I took the train back to Sofia. This was an uneventful journey, but my overnight trip out had made a nice interlude from the busy-ness of the city and is something I may try to do more of as my journey continues.
