Off to Kazanlak
Up at ten to six to get to the train to Kazanlak.
Is the English-speaking world that much more musical than the rest of the world?! How come where-ever you go the radio is full of English pop-songs? Well it's not true everywhere but it certainly seems to be in Bulgaria. Not that there was much Australian music to be heard on Australian radio 40 years ago - hence the local content laws. It must be a phase that most countries go through.
Wow, the $55 taxi fare from the day before yesterday turned out to be $4.10 in the other direction. If I'd known, I would have gone down to the station yesterday and looked for the bloke that tried to rip me off.
The railway station is huge and full of dodgy characters that look like they're out to rip someone off, or they might live there permanently. I suspect these are the gypsies that give the rest of them a bad name. If Bulgaria's supposed to be in the EEC next year, surely they need to clean the place up a bit. Honestly, I have never seen such a bunch of shady characters.
Here's my Bulgarian host seeing me off on the train to Kazanlak
The train to Kazanlak is a bit on the dilapidated side but the compartment's nice and roomy.
Kazanlak. Town in the middle of nowhere but full of cafes and lots of girls walking around with a great sense of what to wear. Great pedestrian mall.
The square looks quite quiet and I suppose it is as all the activity is in all the streets leading off it which are are pedestrian. Great atmosphere.
A photo can't begin to convey the atmosphere of the place. Especially as a lot of the ambience has to do with the people walking up and down the street.
The local Esperantists are lovely.Just met the two that met me at the train station so far but they and very nice and very intelligent.
I'm staying in the best hotel in town. Its a bit under AU$60 per night and really is pretty classy. The best hotel I've been in by far this trip. The great advantage of going to smaller cities. It feels like a palace after what I've been through.
Went for a wander around town. They even have a casino. Just slots, video poker and an automatic roulette table. Won $60 at one of the vdeo poker games. I'd be tempted to play more but I can't believe with the pay-table it has that it's a random deal.
Met up with the Esperantists again in the evening. We headed off to church where the old bloke in the black vestments (the local priest of course), gave me a bit of a shock by coming up to me and saying 'Ho, vi estas de Tasmanio - la insulo de Auxstralio'. Yes, he's a very good Esperantist. Now known to me as Pastro Pablo.
While I was in church two young blokes walked in in t-shirt and jeans. I thought they were going to rob the place or something. Well, they ended up getting up onto the lecturn in the middle of the church but instead of running out the door with the book they found there, they started chanting. Then from behind the altar a priest started singing and they sang back-up. Quite remarkable. It turned out these two are students in a seminary. I liked it when in the middle of the chanting one of the students took the sun-glasses off the other's head. He rather rakishly had been wearing them back-to-front in church.
Yes, the priest at the back is an Esperantist and the two young fellows in jeans are student priests.
It seemed that this was in the middle of a service or something but my Esperantist said we'd better say good-bye so we wandered up to the lecturn where the Esperantist priest was singing, got his attention and waved good-bye. Also a rather strange experience.
Later on the other Esperantists turned up, including a very good-looking girl. She's not an Esperantist yet but we'll have a go at her tomorrow.
Sarajevo, Nis, Skopje are big cities so you expect some night-life but the small size of Kazanlak and the huge amount of pedestrian streets and cafes is mind-boggling. This town might be the best yet.
Five kilometres from here, just after the war, they found the remains of some important Thracian city. But very soon afterwards a dam was built and the city was submerged. Well, apparently there's a plan to reconstruct the city, or part of it, on some sort of high-tech island in the middle of the man-made lake. Well, not really an island. They want to build a wall around the Thracian city and pump out the water to create something for which I'm not sure there's a name it's so unusual. I'm predicting that if that plan goes ahead, Kazanlak will become famous.
Is the English-speaking world that much more musical than the rest of the world?! How come where-ever you go the radio is full of English pop-songs? Well it's not true everywhere but it certainly seems to be in Bulgaria. Not that there was much Australian music to be heard on Australian radio 40 years ago - hence the local content laws. It must be a phase that most countries go through.
Wow, the $55 taxi fare from the day before yesterday turned out to be $4.10 in the other direction. If I'd known, I would have gone down to the station yesterday and looked for the bloke that tried to rip me off.
The railway station is huge and full of dodgy characters that look like they're out to rip someone off, or they might live there permanently. I suspect these are the gypsies that give the rest of them a bad name. If Bulgaria's supposed to be in the EEC next year, surely they need to clean the place up a bit. Honestly, I have never seen such a bunch of shady characters.
Here's my Bulgarian host seeing me off on the train to Kazanlak
The train to Kazanlak is a bit on the dilapidated side but the compartment's nice and roomy.
Kazanlak. Town in the middle of nowhere but full of cafes and lots of girls walking around with a great sense of what to wear. Great pedestrian mall.
The square looks quite quiet and I suppose it is as all the activity is in all the streets leading off it which are are pedestrian. Great atmosphere.
A photo can't begin to convey the atmosphere of the place. Especially as a lot of the ambience has to do with the people walking up and down the street.
The local Esperantists are lovely.Just met the two that met me at the train station so far but they and very nice and very intelligent.
I'm staying in the best hotel in town. Its a bit under AU$60 per night and really is pretty classy. The best hotel I've been in by far this trip. The great advantage of going to smaller cities. It feels like a palace after what I've been through.
Went for a wander around town. They even have a casino. Just slots, video poker and an automatic roulette table. Won $60 at one of the vdeo poker games. I'd be tempted to play more but I can't believe with the pay-table it has that it's a random deal.
Met up with the Esperantists again in the evening. We headed off to church where the old bloke in the black vestments (the local priest of course), gave me a bit of a shock by coming up to me and saying 'Ho, vi estas de Tasmanio - la insulo de Auxstralio'. Yes, he's a very good Esperantist. Now known to me as Pastro Pablo.
While I was in church two young blokes walked in in t-shirt and jeans. I thought they were going to rob the place or something. Well, they ended up getting up onto the lecturn in the middle of the church but instead of running out the door with the book they found there, they started chanting. Then from behind the altar a priest started singing and they sang back-up. Quite remarkable. It turned out these two are students in a seminary. I liked it when in the middle of the chanting one of the students took the sun-glasses off the other's head. He rather rakishly had been wearing them back-to-front in church.
Yes, the priest at the back is an Esperantist and the two young fellows in jeans are student priests.
It seemed that this was in the middle of a service or something but my Esperantist said we'd better say good-bye so we wandered up to the lecturn where the Esperantist priest was singing, got his attention and waved good-bye. Also a rather strange experience.
Later on the other Esperantists turned up, including a very good-looking girl. She's not an Esperantist yet but we'll have a go at her tomorrow.
Sarajevo, Nis, Skopje are big cities so you expect some night-life but the small size of Kazanlak and the huge amount of pedestrian streets and cafes is mind-boggling. This town might be the best yet.
Five kilometres from here, just after the war, they found the remains of some important Thracian city. But very soon afterwards a dam was built and the city was submerged. Well, apparently there's a plan to reconstruct the city, or part of it, on some sort of high-tech island in the middle of the man-made lake. Well, not really an island. They want to build a wall around the Thracian city and pump out the water to create something for which I'm not sure there's a name it's so unusual. I'm predicting that if that plan goes ahead, Kazanlak will become famous.
posted by Budz at 9:09 PM
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