Rat in the Kitchen? (No, but a mouse in the bedroom)

Into Bulgaria (Lost in Bucharest)

Veliko Tarnovo (St Cyril - what a pest)

Bulgarian Postal Service (The joys of Statism)

I awoke in the early hours of Monday morning to feel cold feet scampering across my arm. Being liable to vivid nightmares I lay in the darkness trying to decide whether the sensation was real or the remnants of my rambling unconscious. Through the silence in the room I was convinced I could hear rustling and remembered the bread wrapped in the ubiquitous Tesco's bag. More rustling and I tried to convince myself that it was merely the deer night-foraging outside the room. No...I'm afraid the sounds were definitely inside in origin and it was time to wake Pat. He humored me by looking in the array of motorcycle baggage and convinced me that it was safe. We then lay wake both pretending to sleep but instead listening it the continued faint rustle. We definitely had uninvited company. On shaking the rucksack a mouse (my fears of rats unfounded) ran into a corner and hid beneath a pile of our gear. At this point I realize that there are a million and one places that a mouse could hide in all our gear....boots...trousers...open panniers...helmets. We agreed that we'd zip up all potential bag orifices and hope the creature returned to it's home. No such luck, after 10 minutes silence more rustling. Faced with the possibility of a sleepless night we were determined to rid ourselves of Jerry. After frantic scurrying around the room we eventually frightened it off. This was our next phase on the learning curve, we resolve to be more disciplined in future and zip up baggage at night and as much as possible have gear off-ground, considering in future there will be more potential foe unsavory creatures... scorpions... cockroaches ...etc.

We slept a little from then on.

Rising fully at eight and finding our bread still intact we planned to stop into Bucharest on the way to the border. Our host had assured us that it would be easy directions as you 'just go straight'. This should have pre-warned us bearing in mind a similar instruction in a Guyanese jungle once - but that's another story. We hit the outskirts of the big 'B' no probs and then junction upon junction with a distinct lack of signposts. Not a centrum sign or town directions to be seen. For want of other instructions we went straight and got horribly lost. Without enough Romanian cash left to buy a map we were up S...T creek without out signposts. Until angel Gabriel in the form of a friendly Moldavian in an Audi came to our rescue. He led us down smaller and smaller side streets until I began to worry that this may be a scam to lead into an ambush. We emerged onto the ring road and thanked our savior without whom we would still be roaming the streets of Bucharest. Having said that we had hit the ring road, after about 1 km, all vestiges of road surface vanished and we again feared that the Audi would reappear with a gun toting Moldo at the wheel. No such luck! So no scary story to write about.

The road to the border was uneventful until the border itself appeared. We were of the belief that there was a bridge, but the only signs were for a ferry. Rounding a corner and looking puzzled, we passed a taxi driver who pointed in the opposite direction as if his sole reason in life was to redirect traffic. I am sure that he should really petition the local council to put fresh signs up. Then again, he may actually be in their employ.

Having found the beginnings of the border control, finding our way through was a different matter. Signing was terrible and we ended up proceeding on the basis that we carry on regardless until a gun toting official turned us back onto the correct course. Passage through the border posts was harmless and we managed to come by a carte verte for Bulgaria for the princely sum of twelve dollars for two months. Seemed pretty good value to me.

Lonely Planet advises that one has to pay road tax through Bulgaria based on the distance from entry point to exit point and that one has to purchase passage on the way in. No armed coppers having pointed us in the direction of the road tax office, we took it upon ourselves to check it out. Eventually, I stood in a queue with a load of truck drivers for about fifteen minutes only to be told scornfully that motos do not pay. Well, that's nice to know. We only hope that the exit border officials are of the same opinion.

Finishing off passing across the plain that separates Rom and Bulg, we entered a river cut canyon with nice sweepy roads on the way to Veliko Tarnovo. We had a few teething troubles with Cyrillic script. To be fair, neither of us had done our homework and although there are many similarities with Greek, there are so many extra letters, everything becomes something of a blur at 50 mph. To add to the confusion, some signs were in Latin script and so preparing for a signpost in Cyrillic actually made matters worse. Our strategy was to aim for a town that starts with a K etc. All well and good, but it gets a little like looking for a town that ends in ...by in Leicestershire.

Still, we got there and what a fantastic sight it was. After miles and miles of totally uninspiring modern built villages, here atop a hill was one of the largest fortifications going. The rest of the town is located on the steep sides of a series of pointy spurs created by the river in the gorge. Granted, much of the architecture in the main town is modern and uninspiring, it must be said that the situation is fantastic. The view from our twelve pounds a night room could hardly have been better as it gazed down on a highly impressive war memorial and the national art gallery nestling in the bottom of one of the river bends.

After too many days of long distance travelling we were in need of a rest now that we were far enough south to avoid snow.

Visit to the castle was a must and began with disappointment as we realized that most of it had been reconstructed and it was littered with huge lights for the purposes of light displays in the heavy tourist season.

The church in the center we felt to be an equal con until we entered and were amazed to see rather than a crude attempt to make something look original they had employed modern artists to produce spectacular paintings of contemporary suffering within Bulgaria. A triumph of good taste.

Wandering through the twisting cobbled streets on the town we found a small restaurant offering excellent bean soup. This I can assure should not be consumed if you plan to sleep in dorms as the gaseous products will label you as decidedly unpopular. Pat, of course, is a complete embarrassment in such circumstances.

We had been amassing maps that I intended to send home for reference in the future. So having found suitable envelopes we headed for the PO.

Hippy stood in the queue at the only post window in the post office. Although there were plenty of windows, it is of course foolish to think that more than one would provide the very service as labeled on the outside of the building. I people watched and then watched some more people. Hippy's nerve held and after about 20 minutes reached pole position. Her chosen words of 'mail to England' were chosen to be gibberish by Countess Dracula who replied in commentator speed Bulgarian a larch chunk of their vocabulary that was, of course, totally undecipherable. The queue now formed a threatening huddle as if this was a huge postage problem and Helen was the devil incarnate. It seemed to totally slip their reason that in fact every other person who had been in the queue had spent about 5 minutes at the window.

It became clear that the storm trouper wished to know the contents of the package. I did my best to help by saying 'maps' in every language that I know including 'carta'. At this point, a dear girl from Slovakia who was familiar with both English and Bulgar stepped in to help out. It transpired that the packet was too large to go by airmail and would need to be split into two. The planes in Bulgaria are clearly manufactured by Airfix. We retired to split the parcel and then returned to the fray with our faithful interpreter at our side. Now, the dear lady would not believe that the contents were maps and so we opened the envelopes to show her. Next, we must append a return address to the envelopes. Lenka dutifully obliged by putting her hostel address, even though I pointed out to her that there may actually be contraband included. OK, we must now have overcome all obstacles.

Not quite. Now it seems that post office counters do not actually post objects that require more than 1 pounds worth of stamps. Perish the thought. So, after all, we were directed to a different building to what was clearly the business post section. I must state that now we have two relatively thin A4 envelopes, here. The next office told us that we should have been in the main post office, of course and would not handle our request. Indeed, they phoned through to the post office counter to tell our good friend to just get on with it.

We gave up on Lenka's advice - "Post them in Greece which is a part of the EU" On reflection, this would have been perhaps the most sensible course of action. Her slating of Bulgaria seemed to be a little strong based on a Slovakian background which must share a similar number of officialdom problems. In our experience, though, she was probably right as we had had no problems sending films and the like from her country of birth.

We capped off the evening with a bit of internetting. At least, we banged our heads against a painfully slow connection that eventually gave in altogether and ditched our journal entry for a couple of days.

We managed to laugh it all off and retired jaded but not particularly surprised by the days outcome. The one communication success was the fact that the computer keyboards were not in Cyrillics. Which is nice.