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I’d gone to great lengths to print out my bus ticket since the confirmation email warned that only paper tickets would be accepted. Instead, the driver asked my name, checked it off his list and told me to get on. He never looked at the printed ticket.
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The bus had started at the Istanbul city bus terminal and was already 80 percent full when it reached my stop at the airport. As I made the Walk of Scrutiny down the aisle, I spotted two empty seats side by side. I settled in and checked my watch as the bus pulled away from the curb. 9:31.
Soon after the bus left the airport, we entered rolling hills and farmland. Waves of amber grain. Sunflowers to the horizon. The backup driver handed out sealed cups of water and wrapped packages of cakes.
Service on board the bus
I thought about the foreboding message my Bulgarian host had written to me: “It will be like traveling the caravan routes along the Black Sea. You’ll understand why the initial Orient Express’s final section was Varna-Istanbul by steamboat instead of by land.”
It was going to be a long day.
I’d previously taken only two bus trips of this duration. Both were overnight. Each offered a distinct memory.
On an overnight bus ride in Mexico some years ago, from Chiapas to the Yucatan, I woke up to a slight dampness to my travel pillow–and my right ear. I turned around to the seat behind me and saw a toddler sleeping on his mother’s lap–and sucking on my travel pillow. My eyes and the mother’s met, and she gave me a “What was I supposed to do” look. I handed her the pillow with a smile and then dug into my pack for a Wet Nap to sanitize my ear.
Traveling overnight from Vienna to Split some years later, we had to cross from Austria into Slovenia and from Slovenia into Croatia. At the first border crossing, the driver turned on the light and directed us to leave the bus with our passports and form a line at the passport control booth. Apparently, my friend Jenni thought this was just a bathroom break. In a mid-sleep haze, she walked past the passport line in search of a bathroom–and crossed into Slovenia. The guards with the semi-automatic weapons were not pleased and loudly made their displeasure known to her.
Her haze lifted quickly, and she got into line.
Meanwhile, back in Turkey, in the row ahead of me, a young boy and slightly older girl pointed at the clouds and said what I imagined was something like, “The one looks like a cat.” “No, a fish.” “No way. A clown face.” “Actually, more like Aunt Boryana.” Each utterance was followed by giggles. “No, that doesn’t look like Aunt Boryana at all!”
Or maybe they were debating the standings of the Europa Cup, which seemed to preoccupy the entire continent.
As I let my imagination distract me from the long journey, something distracted me from my imagination: my bladder. Again. There was no restroom on board, and I had no idea of when or if we’d have a bathroom stop.
The highway narrowed as we passed through the city of Kirklareli. The sections along the road appeared drab, dreary and dirty. When I encounter places like this, it often comes to mind that it’s a place I’ve never heard of but for some people it’s the only place they’ve known.
Only later did I learn that ongoing archeological excavations in the city have revealed that the area was the location of one of the first organized settlements in Europe.Based on descriptions I read later, the town has much to offer in culture, archaeology, architecture and outdoor activities. I reminder myself that first impressions, especially based on the edge of a town, can be deceiving.
Kirklareli: more than met my eye
I exhaled in relief as we pulled into a rest area. And inhaled again as we kept going and exited the rest area. Perhaps it was too modern and clean for the driver’s taste, since 20 minutes later, with a whisper of sprayed gravel, we parked in front of a rural grocery store.
It was more an accident of corrugated metal and sheetrock than an actual planned structure, but at least it had outhouses. Never a big fan of squatting toilets, I nonetheless was overjoyed and soon relieved.
I joined some other passengers inside the store, where rows of crumbling shelves alternated with aisles of stain-mottled wood. The one modern display case tempted with perhaps a dozen different types of baklava. Lest the bus leave without me, I was happy to see our driver disappear into a back room. They might leave without me but not without him.
I needn’t have worried, as the relief driver walked down the bus aisle and did a head count before we continued.
As I write this, I feel the need to explain that my visual observations about both the grocery store and Kirklareli came without any judgment. In similar settings I’ve heard travelers firmly make disparaging comments that all came down to: “How can they live like this?”
My response, at least in this case, would be “Apparently happily and with pride.” And with laughter. I got the strong sense that the local shoppers and cashier were long friends. They were in the store as much to catch up on life and share fun stories as to shop. I had absolutely no idea what folks were talking about, but I’m pretty sure they were happy.
This made me think about the correlation between wealth and happiness. I recalled a bicycle tour I was on in Namibia in 2013. We rode into a desert village that had no running water, no electricity, and barely any shelter. What it did have was joy. Families sitting together telling stories. Friends sitting together and laughing. Children playing games using rocks and sticks. Wealth comes in many forms.
The bus carried us from plains to ever higher rolling hills, arid and rocky with scrub shrubs and trees. We reached a plateau and passed occasional small farms. From this elevation we could see rows of distant mountains, green with swaths of brown and gray stone.
We rolled ever higher, major ups followed by minor downs. The roadway carved through hillsides. Scattered scree lined the shoulder.
The increased elevation perhaps meant cooler temperatures or more rainfall, as the trees became fuller and greener. The road was now down to two narrow lanes, and the bus seemed to struggle a bit with some climbs. Eventually, we hit the summit and followed a series of roller coaster switchbacks down toward the Bulgarian border. In the middle of nowhere, a small billboard advertising the “Butterfly Butik Hotel” seemed greatly out of place.
Border crossing from Turkey
We rounded a bend and joined a line of 20 cars and buses. The buses had split into a separate lane, and I could see one bus unloading its occupants, who walked toward a line of at least 100 people waiting for passport control. We soon joined them. And this was just to leave Turkey. We hadn’t even gotten to the Bulgarian checkpoint.
Cumulus cotton ball clouds lulled overhead and gave us temporary breaks from the searing sun. Eventually, officials split our line and escorted half of us to a second station that had just been staffed.
Long lines at the border crossing leaving Turkey
As I approached the window, I noticed that some people were being scrutinized and questioned more than others. My U.S. passport and innocent looks apparently didn’t raise any red flags. Passport duly stamped, I joined other passengers under a tree while we waited for the others to be processed.
Out of sight but not distant, a driver behind us started laying on his horn again and again. Legato, then staccato. Legato, then staccato. After a couple minutes of this, car doors opened, and irked drivers formed a veritable phalanx heading toward the offending vehicle. I didn’t see what happened when they reached the car, but I could hear it. I don’t know whether they were speaking Bulgarian or Turkish, but between the context, the intonation and the volume, I’m sure they were shouting some variation of WTF.
Cars line up at the border crossing
Our driver signaled us to get back on the bus. We pulled forward 50 feet or so, and a tanned border official in khaki slacks and an Izod golf shirt climbed on board and inspected all of our passports to make sure we all had exit stamps. No stowaways on his watch! Or maybe he wasn’t even a border official. I didn’t want to be the one to ask.
As he walked down the aisle, I looked outside to a blockaded driveway leading to a bunker-like concrete building. Despite the driveway being at most 15 feet wide and fully barricaded, two soldiers with automatic weapons crossed back and forth from curb to curb. March 10 steps, turn, cross over. March 10 steps, turn, cross over. A most surreal changing of the guard. Were they protecting the border, or had someone pissed off a superior?
Now to get into Bulgaria.
As we approached the checkpoint, the 12 gold stars and blue background of the European Union flag welcomed us. I had once wondered why 12 stars, given the 27 EU member countries.
Apparently, the number of stars doesn’t change regardless of the number of countries but remains fixed. The EU website explains that the 12 stars stand for “the ideals of unity, solidarity and harmony among the peoples of Europe.” OK, cool, but those are three ideals, not 12.
Another EU site notes that 12 is a symbol of “perfection and completeness” and recalls the number of apostles, the sons of Jacob, the labors of Hercules, the months in a year, and the quantity in a dozen. Or maybe it was the flag designer's favorite number.
The checkpoint welcomed us to the Republic of Bulgaria and to an extended wait. As the wait seemed unlikely to shorten anytime soon, the driver turned off the engine and with it the AC. Those puffy clouds did little to keep the bus from becoming a sauna.
Amidst the boredom, some silent signal seemed to signal permission for passengers to start playing music on their phones.
“Personal space” means different things to different cultures. But here it definitely didn’t apply to sound. Toward the front of the bus some younger folks played euro pop. Toward the back, it sounded like a belly dancing studio. In the row immediately behind me came the sounds of traditional folk music, though I couldn’t decide which tradition and which folk. It was the least jarring of the three genres, but competition caused repeated increases in the folk music volume.
As if the conflicting genres weren’t discordant enough, the folk music guy started singing. Just off key enough to violate the Geneva Conventions–specifically the Fourth Geneva Convention, which protects civilians from torture or brutality.
The World Court must have read my mind because the bus pulled 20 feet forward and disgorged us. Into the blazing midday sun.
I needed to pee again, in a major way, and I saw the restrooms just beyond the checkpoint. I was tempted, but then I thought: What Would Jenni Do? I stayed in line.
Bulgarian customs search
The Bulgarians were far more concerned with the people entering their country than the Turks had been with the people leaving theirs. I wondered if controls had become more stringent as the refugee crisis had deepened. Bulgaria has what’s called an “external border” to the EU. If someone makes her or his way into Bulgaria, it’s relatively easy to reach the rest of Europe through the “internal borders.”
One by one, we were scrutinized by passport control and walked to a shady area just past the border barrier–and close to the restrooms!
When I returned to the group, the bus had pulled up, and all luggage compartment doors had been opened. At random (as far as I could tell), the border police selected three suitcases for inspection. One was mine, and they had me carry it to an examination table dressed with tattered cloth and open the zippers.
Our bus luggage compartments opened for searching
I seriously think the border cop had never seen packing cubes before. He looked puzzled, a look that seemed quite appropriate given that he looked like Tim Conway in mid-argument with Harvey Korman. (If you don’t get the allusion, you’re too young to be reading this.) He prodded a few of them, tapped at the zippers, and appeared ready to ask me to do a blanket packing cube unzipping. Instead, he looked at me and asked a one-word question: “Cigarettes?”
Apparently, smuggling cigarettes from Turkey into Bulgaria is a huge issue, since cigarette taxation is low in Turkey and non-existent in Bulgaria–if you smuggle them in successfully. That puts a huge dent in Bulgarian tax revenues.
I shook my head, remembering too late that in Bulgaria shaking your head means yes, and nodding your head means no. I immediately added, “No cigarettes. Just clothes.”
He started digging below the cubes and asked me another question, this time with multiple words (I think). I told him I did not speak Bulgarian, just English. He looked at me and asked, “American?”
As soon as I said yes, he stopped his rummaging and motioned for me to close my bag, immediately moving on to the next bag. Apparently Americans aren’t high on the list of cigarette smugglers into Bulgaria, and he felt no need to dig further.
I closed my suitcase just as he lowered his head to peer into the next suitcase. He moved his head to the left, which put it in the trajectory of my closing suitcase flap. In my head, I heard the flap make a cartoonish “bonk” sound as it hit his head. I was grateful that he barely looked up, let alone put me in cuffs. He was very focused.
With just cause. A few moments later, his inspection of the next bag turned up a treasure trove of cigarette cartons. Two other officers came over, and a very flustered fellow passenger started answering some very pointed questions.
It turns out that cigarettes are the primary contraband crossing from Turkey into Bulgaria. The tax is much lower in Turkey than in Bulgaria, so even with a hefty mark-up, there’s quite a market for bootleg cigarettes.
Luggage wasn’t the only target. Behind me, officers were removing every item from the trunk of a Toyota Corolla, pulling up the carpet, and inspecting the spare wheel bay. Another officer looked under the car and hood with a mirror device.
“They were looking in your suitcase for cigarettes,” a Bulgarian passenger told me. “They were looking in his car to see if he was smuggling people.”
In a Corolla?
Given the level of boredom my fellow passengers were feeling, watching the luggage searches became the lead spectator sport. I congratulated myself on having such an organized suitcase and that my dirty laundry was in a laundry bag. Just call me the Simone Biles of packing. Or, given my destination, perhaps the Stiliana Nikolova of packing. (I write this the day after this incredible 18-year-old pride-of-Bulgaria gymnast won the women's individual gold medal at the 2024 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Cup.)
As I walked back into the shade, I heard English. Without an accent. Apparently there were two other Americans on board. A young couple from Indiana backpacking across the Balkans, I soon learned.
“By the way,” one of them said, “Great job on your packing. And I think you really threw him off with the packing cubes.”
Before we got deeper in conversation, the driver herded us back onto the bus. I don’t know whether the cigarette smuggler (alleged) dude was with us or detained, but we were already two hours behind schedule, and we were off.
But not until we drove into a large shed with signs warning of radioactivity. Apparently, it’s some kind of massive X-ray machine.
And we were off–again.
I’m not sure whether it was the tight downhill turns or the driver trying to make up time, but the next ten miles or so were perfect examples of centrifugal force at work.
The terrain gradually leveled out, and we left forest for farmland. Just before our first stop in Bulgaria, in the coastal town of Burgas, we earned our first brief sighting of the Black Sea.
Subsequent stops were along the coast, and we moved to a secondary highway, a coastal road that often came so close to the sea that we could see white caps and smell the sea breeze.
Our next stop was in the historic resort town of Nessebar, where a dozen or so passengers, mostly families, climbed off the bus and retrieved their luggage, likely containing floaties, sunscreen and a minimum of clothing. As the driver boarded the bus, a woman called out from behind me. It was the woman who had saved the day for me in Istanbul.
I assume she was asking to be let off, as she hustled her way to the front of the bus. The driver re-opened the door. On the sidewalk, the two drivers and the young woman engaged in a nearly ten-minute shouting match. Most of it was between the two drivers.
I unsuccessfully tried to conjure a scenario that would explain what was going on. It was even more confusing because the woman had told me she was getting off the bus in Varna, some two hours away.
The shouting stopped, the woman walked away, and the two drivers climbed back on the bus. I was so tempted to ask them what had just happened, but I try not to be too American in situations like this.
Instead, as our 7.5-hour bus ride looked like it was going to be more like a ten-hour bus ride, I dug into the last of my provisions: cherries, grapes, string cheese, bread, and thin-sliced incarnation of meat in a shade of pink perhaps found primarily in chem labs.
We left town and mystery behind us, and the road soon curved through dense forest. The sun was now somewhat lower in the sky, perhaps contributing to the lush, deep green on both sides. Some curves were so tight that the speed limit dropped to 30 kilometers per hour in some places.
We broke out of the forest and leveled out on a wide plateau of never-ending farmland. I’m guessing hops, but that’s barely an educated guess.
The route took turns approaching the sea and returning to the woods. The road narrowed, and the tree canopy overhead nearly touched.
We stopped at additional seaside resort towns typified by resort hotels, boardwalks that extended to the beaches, and blocks of kitsch shops.
Entering Varna
Nearly ten hours into our journey, Varna came into sight. Then the bus station. Then my friend Deyan, who had come to pick me up.
I stepped off the bus and hugged him–much like a rescued castaway would kiss the ground when first going ashore. Journey completed. Destination reached.
Deyan and I
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