# Bulgarian saga



## Bagshanty (Jul 24, 2005)

Following a successful and very enjoyable trip to Romania in 2004, we travelled further east in 2005, to Bulgaria. This proved to be Tilly's last trip. Tilly is a 1992 Autosleeper Talisman which has taken our family around Europe for over 11 years, and we had planned to keep her for several more years.

Travelling in Romania can be a challenge, because of the terrible state of many of the roads. You haven't seen potholes until you've seen Romanian potholes! But the country is spectacular and unspoilt, the people very friendly, and we were no more concerned about safety & security than we are in the UK. Borders have never proved a problem, although the introduction of a requirement to buy Romanian road tax, complete with presentation of vehicle registration papers, came as a surprise. (I think it cost €20)

So Bulgaria came as a surprise! All but one of the entry points require a ferry, as the Danube forms the border with Romania. First, there were 2 separate fees to enter the Romanian port area. Then there was a ferry fee - almost as expensive as the Isle of Wight rip off. They refuse to take Romanian Lei, Bulgarian Lev, or Sterling. Only Euros will do. Cash.

A very leisure crossing of the Danube - a slow and boring river that's not a patch on the Rhine, and we were on Bulgarian soil. Then it was "pay, pay, pay" as a Romanian lady put it. First, we had to pay to be "disinfected" - a light sprinkling of water that I am certain contained no chemicals, and which was so desultory it would not have disinfected anything even if did contain disinfectant. Euros were demanded but they accepted Levs. Then into the Customs area. Passports, green cards, vehicle registrations were taken away for inspection. Half an hour later they were returned, and we were on our way - but only to the next opportunity to hand over cash. A series of little booths, all demanding Euros for something or other. This tax, that tax, insurance. I lost count of how many and how much, mostly 10 or 20 Euros. They all accepted Levs instead of Euros when pushed. I only got receipts when I insisted.

Inside Bulgaria, and the scenery, people and food were all lovely. Very friendly, very helpful, the antithesis of the border area. There are some spectacular sights - the Turkish fort at Belogradcic, built into the rocks, and the monastery at Rila, in the Rila mountains. For some time we had been considering an organised motor caravan tour, particularly the overland trip to Singapore. An experience at Camping Zodiac, near the Rila monastery put us off of that. One of the joys of motor caravanning is meeting new friends as you travel. At Zodiac there was a small international community, all chatting and getting on well. Then a German motor caravan convoy arrived, an organised trip complete with Romanian guide. They arrived in a group, they stayed as a group, and apart from a few friendly nods, didn't interact with anybody else at all. Following that experience, we changed our mind about organised tours.

From Rila we headed to he old city of Plovdiv. Plovdiv would have been the Bulgarian capital, but when Bulgaria was created Plovdiv was still under Turkish rule. We stayed at Camping 4 Kilometre, rather tacky site on the outskirts of the city, but with easy and cheap transport into the city. We rather liked Plovdiv, and there were some excellent restaurants.

Because of the layout of the site, we had not realised we were camped right beside the River Maritsa. We returned to the site on the afternoon of 6th August to discover the river had burst its banks, the first time in 47 years, and the site was under 4 feet of water. We could see Tilly in the distance, with water up to the windscreen. This is not a sight I wish to see again!

The site manager took us to a hotel in Plovdiv, Hotel Leipzig. Apparently it is owned by the same people that own the campsite, and we were put up free. The Leipzig is a real throw back to the Communist days, even down to the complete absence of sink plug! The lift was remarkable. The only door was the door in the lift lobbies, the lift itself had no door. As you went up you could touch the walls and doors as they went past. When it stopped, there was a 2 inch step up or step down (it varied) to get in or out. The restaurant was fairly dismal, and we didn't feel like eating much. However, the food we did order was very well cooked, and quite tasty. The room itself was fairly dismal, too. Two single beds placed end to end, no air conditioning, so we had to have windows open, to let in incredible noise from the road and mosquitoes. All through the night there was a an intermittent very loud roar from a nearby compressor, so not a lot of sleep was undertaken. On top of that, I'm not convinced there weren't bed bugs, judging by the numbers of bites that didn't look like mozzy bites. And to make matters worse, the whole town's water supply was cut off, meaning no water to flush loos, wash etc.

We needed to get in touch with our travel insurance, the Caravan Club's Red Pennant. However we found we didn't have the direct number for this, (the paperwork was still in the 'van) and calls to the Caravan Club were met with a message "The Caravan Club is closed until Monday morning". Similarly, Direct Line vehicle insurance. VERY helpful! Many calls to our son, and other caravanning friends, only succeeded when our son rang the chairman of Wiltshire DA. When finally we got through to Red Pennant, they couldn't find us on the system because we didn't have our RP number (the documents are in Tilly) and they didn't recognise our Caravan Club number (we have a very old number!). Eventually they located us, and we were told they couldn't/wouldn't do anything until we had got into the vehicle to see if it was drivable! With water up to the windscreen, is that likely?

Sunday 7th August. 
Rosemary's birthday. We decided to put this on hold! We checked out of Hotel Leipzig, deciding there had to be something better. The only charge was the phone bill, over £14. Given the numbers of phone calls to UK that wasn't bad, but I don't think the receptionist had ever seen a phone bill that high. Lonely Planet gave a number of recommendations, and we went for Hotel Avion. This was quite convenient for the city, was very pleasant and clean, and all the staff spoke excellent English. It had an attached restaurant - Cafe Rose. We had a nice room with air conditioning on 5th floor, unfortunately the lift was out of order because of the floods.
Another visit to the campsite - and the water is still too deep to get to Tilly. So we are still wearing the clothes we stood up in yesterday.

Monday 8th August
Hotel Avion is an easy walk into Plovdiv, so we took in some more sightseeing. The city is completely unthreatening, at any time of day or night. There are several Internet cafes, only 50 ban for an hour (15p).

Tuesday 9th August
Red Pennant organised us a local hire car, which was useful. We bought various supplies at a large, new DIY store, including wellies, overalls, suitcases. Late afternoon the water had subsided sufficiently to be able to wade out to Tilly, and reclaim some clothes and other items, although the water still came over my wellies. The water had reached the level of the seat cushions. Everything was covered with an oily silt. Doors were jammed where the wood had swollen. The fridge and food lockers were full of rotten food. The new laptop computer was still under water, as was the vehicle documentation and Red Pennant information. Not a good experience! Luckily, clothes were dry, and even the wardrobe clothes were dry. Boots and shoes were sodden, but at least my walking sandals were salvageable after a good hose down.

Wednesday 10th August
We had hoped to get out and about in the hire car, but we needed to keep going to the campsite to sort things out. Eventually we got to a monastery at Bachkovo , very pleasant, but we were called back to the site by a text, a salvage vehicle had arrived to pick up Tilly. The salvage driver extricated Tilly from the mud with some difficulty, but we had to admire his skill. After an hour so, she was on the back of a low loader, and leaving the site. I wept. She has been a faithful friend for 11 years, and taken us and our children round almost all of Europe.

Thursday 11th August
Checked out of Hotel Avion, and took taxi to Sofia Airport. Having got through airline check-in, we got to Customs. Here they demanded to know where our motor caravan was. "You came in with a vehicle, you must go out with a vehicle!" Photographic evidence of the vehicle in 4 feet of water, and on the back of a transporter, cut no ice. Our luggage was retrieved from the plane, and we found ourselves back in the airport lounge, (A brand new airport, and there were just 2 small toilets!) A phone call to Red Pennant, who said they would arrange a hotel, and sort out how to handle the situation, which was new to them, and they would call back. Several hours later we were still waiting for news of the hotel. On ringing Red Pennant, our contact had gone home, and would we find our own hotel. They could have said that hours ago! Meanwhile, we have to collect Tilly on a low loader, and deliver her to Customs at Sofia Airport! Austrian Airlines have kindly rearranged our flight for 1730 tomorrow. So a taxi ride back to Sofia, and a trawl around hotels to find one with room. We ended up at a Soviet style "Hotel Serdika", complete with no sink plug. Moderately grim, but adequate.

Fri 12th Aug 
Picked up by a young man in a car at 0745. We drove for about an hour to be met by a low loader, with driver and mate. We all squeezed in, with our luggage, and chugged off to Plovdiv. Here we located the storage compound and loaded Tilly. Then quickly back on the Sofia road - luckily this is one of the reasonable roads. By 4pm we were back in Sofia airport, trying to find where to take Tilly. Luckily, we were met by Simeon, a young man from Bulgarian Assistance who spoke very good English. He also knew his way round Customs. There followed a circuitous route around various offices, obtaining papers here, depositing them there. Then getting Tilly checked into a customs compound, obtaining more papers, reclaiming my passport which now has some handwritten Bulgarian in it removing Tilly. Then we were free to check in for our flight, now retimed to 1805. Rosemary danced a little jig after we made it through Customs control! I said to wait until we were out of Bulgarian airspace!

Then we were in the air, arriving in Vienna less than 2 hours later. At the accommodation bureau we sought a cheap hotel within the Vienna ring road, with parking. Pension Reidl sounded nice, at €80 per night, and indeed it was nice. Our hire car, arranged in advance by Red Pennant, was a diesel Skoda estate, my first ever left hand drive car - and I never did get used to LH drive cars, even after 1000 miles. That has settled the question of whether to buy a LH drive motor caravan.

But we were out of Bulgaria, and were under way again. Despite being accused of passing a dud £10 note in Austria (later returned to us as OK, but contaminated by washing powder which made it glow under UV light) we eventually made it to Calais. We had to return the car to a firm at the ferry terminal, but collect our next car at the tunnel terminal. This required a fair bit of shuffling around! We had expected this last car to be right hand drive, but no, it was again LHD. This caused some confusion when we returned it to Hertz in Salisbury.

Direct Line, our insurance company, were mostly very helpful. We wanted them to say that they would write the vehicle off, so we could set about replacing it. This they refused to do until they had inspected it. However, they instructed a salvage company to arrange for Tilly's return to the UK. Worley Auto Salvage of Worley in Essex were the stars of the whole saga. This small family run business kept us constantly informed of what was happening, even when nothing was happening. On Tilly's return to the UK they opened their premises on a Sunday so we could reclaim the remainder of our belongings. Direct Line moved fairly quickly once Tilly was back in the UK, decided she was a write off, and made us a very fair offer.

A call to Lloyds-TSB, our contents insurer, about our belongings that were damaged beyond repair, particularly the laptop, brought the response "we do not cover flood damage". This does not appear in their document "significant exclusions", and that appears to me to be a significant exclusion! However, it is in their voluminous small print. Insurance that excludes flood is as useful as a chocolate fireguard! We shall be pursuing this through the ombudsman, the Small Claims Court, and the Internet, primarily on principle. Meanwhile, we have transferred our household insurance to Direct Line. You only find out how good an insurance company is when you make a claim. We now have the measure of Lloyds-TSB - it's c**p.

As I write this (9th December) we are still waiting for a final settlement from Red Pennant.

More information, and photos, are available on www.pippins.me.uk/2005/2005_bulgaria.htm, which also has our holiday diaries and photos from earlier (and less traumatic) holidays.

So as we near the end of 2005, what are our considered views?

Travel insurance. Red Pennant provides a potentially very useful emergency service. They have contacts all over Europe, and their assistance was invaluable. This was our 1st claim in 13 years, so we have probably paid them more than this years claim cost. There is a great deal they can do to improve their service, not least, making it easier for their customers to contact them by making their telephone number more widely available. Their "call me free" service is a complete waste of time. A pity, because all Red Pennant's records are manual. This meant that every time we rang they had to locate the file, usually involving a wait of quite a few minutes. When you're on a mobile in Bulgaria that seems a very long time!

Contents insurance. Lloyds-TSB is as useful as a chocolate fireguard. We have transferred our household insurance to Direct Line.

Vehicle insurance. Direct Line was pretty good, although we were disappointed they wouldn't at least write the vehicle off before it was repatriated, even if they wouldn't say what they would offer us. This led to a 3 month delay in ordering a replacement van. However, they did give us a fair settlement. We will in future use a vehicle insurer that covers contents as well as the vehicle, and this is likely to be Safeguard.

Bulgaria is a lovely country, with lovely people, and great food. It's government thinks it is joining the EU at the end of 2007, but it is nowhere near ready - its officials are still in the Soviet era. The free flow of goods and trade is inconceivable - the job of Bulgarian officials is to stop this! It is impossible to hire a vehicle to take out of the country. We shall certainly return, but not until Bulgarian officials recognise that tourists are a Good Thing, not dangerous foreign agents. For a start, we want to find out why there were so many dead dogs on the roads!


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## Don_Madge (May 1, 2005)

Andy,

This is our worst nightmare come true. This is often in the back of my mind when we venture to the out of the way places.

I've come across a couple of similar cases in Greece and Morocco. We spend a lot of time in Turkey so it could happen to us there. We wanted to leave the Timberland in customs bond at Izmir to do a short trip to Samos and the Turkish customs wanted £33.000 (Thirty three thousand) bond.

We are planning to return from Turkey next April via the Balkans so the info on your site will be very useful. If you enter Bulgaria in a less touristy area (Turkey) it seems you get "stung" less.

I hope you get sorted soon and are back up and running again.

Merry Christmas ans a Peaceful New Year.

Don


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