HUBBERS DOT COM BLOG

Back at the Iranian Embassy at 9am and the guy told me that he would personally send a woman to Iran on a bicycle today (at least I think that is what he said) so the visa could be another ten days. What!? Amazingly I didn’t give him a stern telling off. Instead I explained that after tomorrow I would give up. At this point he made me pay forty quid and he walked out back with my passport put a bloody big rubber stamp Islamic Republic of Iran visa in it and that was it. Done. Why didn’t he bloody do that sixteen days ago? Happy but.

Am gutted that It took sixteen days but at least my time was well spent. I saw Macedonian, Albania and loads more of Bulgaria in addition to meeting some really cool people.

Saw ‘Stepford Wives’ which was reasonably watchable. It’s the last good film showing so it’s quite handy that I got my visa.

Went to the Embassy again at 9am. They don’t so visas on Tuesdays but I thought it would be worth a try. It wasn’t. Today’s emotion is brought to you by the letter F for Frustration.

While waiting I read some of the Iranian Embassy literature which contained a list of workshops you could take including: ‘The disasters Darwinism brought to humanity’ ‘The collapse of Darwinizm (misspelt)’ and ‘The Qur’an leads the way to the science’. Educational I’m sure.

More milling around Sofia with my bottom lip hanging out. As a gesture of blind faith I bought some long sleeved shirts to wear in Iran so I can dress in a manner that is respectful to their religious beliefs.

Sometimes I have trouble communicating with the Bulgarians because they seem to be nodding when they mean no and they shake their heads when they mean yes. Hmmm. I’ve had many conversations that have gone: No? Yes. Yes? No. So no? Yes. So confusing.

Saw ‘The Village’ and ‘The Forgotten’ which were both good.

Got into Sofia at 1am and walked back to Hostel Mostel past the transsexual prostitute part of town. How was I to know it was there? Ended up running for my life when a six foot bloke in a mini skirt and heals grabbed my arm saying ‘I like you jacket sexy’.

Slept badly due to visa (or possibly tranny) anxiety. Made the Iranian embassy by 9am only to be told that the was no word on my visa. A touch demoralised. Will try again tomorrow.

Prescribed myself intensive geek therapy for my melancholy. Took two sci-fi movies and decided to call on the Iranian embassy in the morning. Both The Chronicles of Riddick which and Alien Vs Predator were excellent excellent geek fests. Very happy.

At dinner some Americans asked if I was English. This is not the first time this kind of nasty accusation has been made. The other favorite is Australian. Grrr. In two and a half months not one person has guessed Kiwi. This morning some other Kiwis said I sounded English after I told them I was a Kiwi. Someone is gonna get a smack in the head soon.

Veliko Tarnovo is easily the nicest part of Bulgaria I have been to. The old town actually seems really old. In addition I have run into a fabulous group of travelers here who have been stuck in a Veliko Tarnovo warp for many days. Some of them have been here up to nine days but all had overstayed their initially intended duration’s. It’s that kinda place. Sadly I have no such luxury as I have to be bright eyed and bushy tailed at the door of the Iranian embassy at 9am tomorrow morning.

Bulgaria is incredibly inexpensive. We are all eating at a restaurant here called Pizza Pasta that does massive portions of delicious food for next to nothing. The beers are laughably cheep.

Found out that an American couple at dinner trade cyber-artifacts and cyber-cash earned in online games for real money on Ebay i.e. they are selling bits and bytes for cold hard cash. They once funded a trip to South America with ten thousand US dollars earned this way. Ohmygod. And to think I have been ‘working’ all these years like a total mug when I could have been playing games.

My bus to Sofia left at 10pm after a fantastic meal of something I can’t remember and much red wine. Was pretty tanked for journey.

Got done by the most basic taxi scam this morning. Was chased across train station at Burgess by a taxi driver and stupidly I gave him the time of day.

Tip: never trust taxi drivers who hang out at stations/ports they are there because it is the best place to meet people who don’t know the local situation.

He said that the trains to Veliko Tarnovo only ran in the summer (this is the most common taxi driver lie i.e. you hotel is closed or full etc). It ran all year round. Cleverly he offered to take me to Veliko Tarnovo for only eighty Euro so I though that was his scam. Instead got him to take me to the bus station that went to Veliko Tarnovo. This is classic scammer psychology to offer a big obvious scam and a little thing knowing that the ‘punter’ is more likely to take the lesser of the two things. The actual scam was to take make me take on an unnecessary taxi ride to the bus station at a grossly inflated rate. The whole ride there he talked an talked and I dimly paid attention to the meter but when we arrived the magic meter had suddenly jumped six hundred percent. Right now I should tell you my one hundred percent successful strategy for dealing with dodgey taxi drivers.

‘THE’ INFALABLE STRATEGY FOR DEALING WITH DODGEY TAXI DRIVERS

Before you go anywhere find out how much the ride costs from an independent source and when you arrive pay the correct/fair amount and walk away. Don’t look back. Don’t negotiate. It works, trust me.

So we arrived and the fair had jumped six hundred percent and what did I do? I told him he was a thief and paid the inflated bullshit amount and walked away. Why? I don’t know. I wasn’t in the mood to fight and the total value of the scam was only worth three quid. Also the ‘magic meter’ is the first really remotely decent scam I’ve faced in this part of Eastern Europe. It’s not like Egypt where almost every transaction of every day you are fighting to save being ripped off. Still, I finally met a scammer in this part of the world and I buckled like a beginner. Stink.

Due to dodgey info I got into Veliko Tarnovo well after dark. Tried to get into local hostel after more taxi shenanigans (oh it is full, you no like it’s way out of town). Sigh.

Up latish for no good reason and spent most of the rest of the day getting to the Black Sea town of Nesebar.

On the train I met some Brits from Birming-gum who own a sex shop and smoked enough to be Bulgarian. They are looking to invest in property in Bulgaria. Apparently you can get a house with a pool here for five thousand pounds. They expect that with Bulgaria joining the EU soon that prices should skyrocket by 25 to 100 percent a year. If you’re interested they gave me the following URLs www.bulgarianproperties.com and www.britsinbulgaria.com. They did also mentioned that you couldn’t buy within a certain distance of the coast unless you had the go ahead from a Minister (coughbackhander) and that businesses over a certain size attracted the attention of the Mafia with associated tariffs (coughcocksuckers).

Nesebar is a small stone town on a peninsular. As you’d expect it’s very pretty and very touristy. Am staying in a nice hotel with a balcony overlooking the Black Sea for eight quid. Gotta love that off season. If only it were a bit warmer.

Finished reading Agatha Christie’s ‘Death on the Nile’ courtesy of Noel from Matamata. Totally knew who it was the whole time from dim childhood memory of movie but couldn’t see how they had done it so blamed everyone else instead. Buggrit.

Incredibly made the 8am train to Plovdiv. Slept some of the way there but was still tired when I arrived.

Looked around town very nice indeed.
Saw ‘The Whole Ten Yards’ with Bruce Willis and Chandlern from Friends. Thoroughly missable.

My big travel goal is to backpack through Iran, Pakistan and India. At the moment this is all hinging on getting an Iranian visa from their embassy in Sofia. Today I flew back to Sofia to see if it was ready early.

As a standard preflight precaution I made two arrangements to be woken at 3.30am in the morning. The first was my phones alarm, which doesn’t work very well. As a backup I asked the hotel owner to wake me as well. Luckily my alarm worked because the hostel guy had thought I meant him to wake me at 3.30pm in the afternoon. Eh? He as very apologetic as he drove me to the airport in his pajamas.

Albania’s international airport is Mother Terese International Airport. Turns out the late saint was born here.

The guy at the Iranian embassy was not pleased to see me. My visa was not ready. He didn’t know how it was going. Hmmm. Like a twat I asked if I could come back on Friday. Yes the Muslim holy day of Friday. He looked at me like I was deranged and told me to come back on Monday. So now I am stuck here until Monday. The good news is I love Sofia and I get to see loads more of Bulgaria. The bad news is if I don’t get the visa here there is no easy or cheap way to fly to Pakistan or India.

Had a near perfect day. Napped, drank coffee and used the internet.
Invited myself out for drinks with some people from the hostel. Met an interesting American guy and then some cool Bulgarian chicks. Somehow ended up at a salsa evening where I spent the evening pinned to the bar avoiding any sort of dancing whatsoever. Did sort of get into the South American thing with loads of shots of tequila. Areeba.

Good work on the comments team. If at all possible please say who you are so I can add/remove you from the Xmas card list.
I recently changed my Hotmail settings and discovered that loads of real emails were getting put in the junkmail folder. If you have written and were wondering why I had not replied maybe this is why. Or maybe I don’t like you. Write again and find out.

Woke delarious due to effect of malnutrition and just had enough strength to weakly drag myself to the bank again with my backup card from the HSBC (Hated Stealing Bastards Corporation). Only to be told there is a problem with Cirus in Frankfurt. Yeah right. My final resort was to exchange some of my emergency US dollars for local dingbats. This isn’t such a bad plan because if Bush wins the election they should be worth less by the day. Don’t get me wrong I think Bush is great for the US economy – if you work in tobacco, oil, weapons or Microsoft.

Caught train to seaside ‘resort’ of Durres. It’s a little porty and a little resorty but mostly it’s dusty, dirty and run down.

Two words on the trains here, utterly dilapidated. If it can be broken on a train it was broken on these train long ago. They ran on time though.

Most of Albania is run down. There are as many half finished buildings as completed ones and the whole country is covered with a blanket of litter. On the plus side there seems to be lots of construction so maybe they are building their way out of it. Also the people seem nice.

Bused, taxied, vanned, vanned, walked, taxied and finally walked again to Hotel Endri in the capital, Tirana. First impressions of Albania is it is capital B for BROKE. On the journey I swear I saw almost as many incomplete buildings as finished ones. The ‘state highway’ (called that because it is in a state) was worse condition than the ones in Africa. It must get better in Tirana I thought. Boy was I wrong. So far I haven’t seen many roads that don’t have gaping holes and piles of rubble. My hotel’s street is more reminiscent of early 80s Lebanon or downtown Ramala than a city in mainland Europe. Spent the evening walking around town looking for a cash machine that would mate with my cash card. Sadly after six failed insertions my card went home a virgin and I spent my last quid on a tiny piece of pizza hoping to stave off the early effects of starvation.