Like before in Bucharest, I made a 2-day stop in Plovdiv to make my connection to Istanbul and with the intention to have a look around town. Our bus arrived in the town centre in the evening and after about half an hour of walking I stood in front of Hikers Hostel (thanks for pointing me to them, Fedio). Yanni opened the door for me and whilst walking me through the backyard, I could already sense that Hikers was a potential traveler trap. The house and garden were very cosy and Yanni (the guy behind the bar in the photo) and company made me feel like a friend rather than just a paying guest right away.
Plovdiv is culturally and historically rich, and with Hikers being the place it was I knew it would be hard to stick to my schedule. But I did. In fact, I didn't even try to discover much of the town, knowing that I could be opening Pandora's box. Instead I spend a lot of time talking the the folks at the hostel. Some friends of the staff, travelling musicians, stayed over night and made for good conversation. One of the young rasters had started a course at university but was disliked by his professor for his looks, to the extent that passing the course became an impossible mission without changing his appearance first. So after dropping out he could have tried to get a full-time job, he explained, earning him maybe 200€ a months, bending his back for someone else to get rich, but barely enough to survive himself. Taking on a “slave job” didn't agree with his attitude however, instead he is trying to survive as a street musician and taking up the odd little job. When we were getting pizzas later that evening we could see what “slave jobs” do to people. A young and rather grumpy guy asked us what topping we want and when we said 4-seasons he snapped back at us saying that we were not in a restaurant. Sorry for asking, dude! Anyway, together with my Polish and Bulgarian companions from the hostel (latter translated the whole unpleasant scene for us later) we did manage to get some pizzas in the end and we used the waiting time to make jokes about that sad character of a pizza cook...
After two nights at Hikers in Plovdiv I boarded a Metro Plus bus to take me out of the EU and all the way to Istanbul. Passing the boarder was quite a procedure. We had to get off the bus four times: first the Bulgarians checked our passports. Following this we stopped at a huge duty free mall in the no-man's land between the Bulgarian and the Turkish checkpoint, where many of the passengers stocked up on fags...
Shopping stop in no-man's landThen we drove a few hundred meter further to disembark again at the Turkish passport control, that didn't check the passports but just collected them all. We boarded again and then had to get of at the customs checkpoint, where the luggage got checked manually or, in case of complicated pieces with too many pockets (like my backpack), it got x-rayed. At 1.5 hours in total it was a very lengthy procedure, and a bit nerve wrecking, especially when we had to board the bus without getting our documents back first. But everything smooth: we drove on a nice motorway (something sorely lacking in Bulgaria), got our passports back, and a few hours later we reached Istanbul.
On my march from the bus station to my hostel I got some nice first impressions, but also I got hustled a lot by all kinds of dubious “friends”, offering jewellery, women, fags or try to convince me that my hostel was no good and suggested I instead follow them to their “cheap” hotel. But I kept smiling and walking... Istanbul, here I come!
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