I don’t think either of us have ever been so relieved to enter (or leave!) a country. The border control getting out of Turkey was stressful.
It seems that the Turkish Border control in the southern town of Tasuçu had forgotten to stamp Dad’s passport. As a result, the border staff in Edirne seemed to think he might be an illegal immigrant. They repeatedly wanted to know if he had a second passport and why we weren’t showing it to them. They asked numerous times how we had entered Turkey – and seemed not to believe us. Various staff members were involved, and the entire conversation was held using Google translate.
Eventually, we were able to persuade them, using the paperwork for the car, that he had entered via the port of Tasuçu with me and the car. As soon as we’d achieved this, he jumped in the car and said “let’s get out of here before they change their mind!” and with that we left. Quickly.
Living in the UK and having spent much of my life in the EU, I’ve never been through land border crossings before this trip. But in a few seconds we were in “no mans land” between Turkey and Bulgaria and waiting to enter an EU country where we we’d feel safer.
We were back in an area where some people spoke English. Somewhere we could communicate a little better. In the queue, a lovely lady walked up to us to tell us in fluent English what a lovely car the MG was and how she loved Roadsters. We talked whilst waiting and she explained she lived between Turkey and Bulgaria. She suggested we take great care in Bulgaria. It seems already that Turkey might have been a safer place to be than Bulgaria.
One of the great things about Turkey was it’s roads. The motorways were amongst the best I’ve ever driven on. Four lane highways with little or no traffic. The investment into infrastructure in Turkey is phenomenal. I would not be surprised to find Turkey as an economic powerhouse in the next few years. They are investing in a way that we in the UK simply are not.
We entered the EU at Bulgaria to find a massive lack of investment. The roads were awful. We learned when we entered Turkey we had an exhaust problem – and every pothole and speedbump hurt as the exhaust scraped. I sometimes wonder how we made it back without losing that exhaust. But luckily we did.
But back in the EU in the country of Bulgaria we needed to learn a new skill – pothole dodging! The motorway was so bad in places we found ourselves in the ruts left by heavy lorries so deep the exhaust would scrape the road. This was not a pleasant place to drive.
We did finally have our phones and data working again though. So we made contact with Pete and Lauren who had flown into Sofia that morning and arranged to meet them for lunch in the ancient city of Plovdiv. As we got there and approached the city, we quickly realised the local roads were no place for our classic MG. if we thought the motorways were bad, we’d seen nothing yet. The local roads were so bad we quickly concluded it would do too much damage to the car – we turned round and got back on the motorway.
We found a motorway services and met Lauren and Pete for some lunch. Finally, we were able to empty the luggage we had squeezed into the small MG into the VW Camper – we suddenly had space! After the woman at the border’s words of advice, we parked the car where we could see it, and enjoyed a nice break. I was so pleased to see Lauren and Pete. Turkey had been great, but hard.
We decided to clear Bulgaria as fast as we could. The roads were poor and it was about to rain. It seems a 1968 MGC Roadster isn’t ideal for the rain. For the first time we would have to test our windscreen wipers and they weren’t great.
We booked a stop just inside the Serbian border in the town of Dimitrovgrad. The Happy Hotel – yes it really is called that – lived up to it’s name. This may not have been a cultural experience like our previous night in the Turkish town of Düzce, but it was a relaxing welcome break. The cultural experience of Serbia would have to come tomorrow in the city of Belgrade.
But the happy Hotel did offer some stunning views, good food & Serbian beer and the opportunity to catch up with Lauren and Pete on the first on the first week of our journey.