For the fourth year in a row, I am spending a part of my summer by the Black Sea in the Sunny Beach area because my manager is working as a guide here during the tourist season. I am happy to remain a bit outside the big tourist-machine since, in most resorts like these, you are considered a money-magnet and treated accordingly. It is probably like this in most countries, but there are ways and ways, and the Bulgarian way seem to be the way of mosquitoes (i.e., the harder you try to get rid of us, the harder we come back, and we always end up sucking your blood).

This is especially true for the people selling stuff at the beach, who seem to increase in numbers every year. At the moment, in a poor country like Bulgaria, it is only natural that traders are attracted to foreigners like vampires to blood. For many of them, the few leva extra they can make during the summer will make the difference for the rest of the year (i.e., they will not have to choose between starving or freezing in the winter like many other Bulgarians).

Strictly speaking though, should tourists have to pay for the Bulgarian state's inability to take care of its own people? Most tourists coming to Sunny Beach are ordinary people, not venture capitalists from the west. We have paid a fair share of our money for some rest in the sun for a week or two, only to find ourselves on a sandy super-market, where beach traders try to outshout each other as to the superiority of their products, while a man with a loudspeaker outshouts them all, informing us in four different languages that there is a boat going to Nesebar every fifth minute, 12 hours a day!

You can get anything from grapes to sexy underwear, pancakes to screwdrivers. I am lucky enough to be able to say "blagodaria, ne" (No, thanks) and, therefore, left more or less in peace, while most of the tourists sooner or later give in and start buying bras and bananas out of sheer exhaustion. This year, many tourists also have to suffer the consequences of the resorts' privatization process, where building and re-building have turned parts of Sunny Beach into an inferno of noise from huge machines, the air thick with dirt and cement. What's the big hurry? Why not wait untill autumn instead of starting in the middle of the tourist season?

On the other hand, McDonald's has finally arrived! In some restaurants, the service is questionable and you have to be on the alert to avoid getting over-charged or stolen from. I had my mobile phone stolen in a pizzeria on the main street. Afterward, I was told by the owner that my mobile was not his problem and that, being stupid enough to leave the thing beside me at the table while eating, what else could I expect?

The kidnapping of semi-conscious Scandinavians by taxi-drivers is another Sunny Beach peculiarity, and probably a profitable one too, since staggering Swedes and Norwegians seem to be an ever-present commodity in the streets here. Maybe the captives don't mind either, at least not those from Norway, a place where you have to wait for ages to get a taxi, and are often refused a ride if you are drunk enough.

But when it comes to the turning of the old town of Nesebar into a vulgar place, I fail to see any humorous aspects. This jewel, under the protection of UNESCO, is gradually losing bits of its beautiful, ancient character. Almost every inch along the narrow cobble-stoned streets is filled with cheap souvenirs, and it is hard to enjoy the classic wooden buildings any longer, covered as they are with big neon-signs advertising Coca Cola, video erotica, and so on and so on . It is a mystery to me that UNESCO allows this to happen. Another annoyance is that the quiet, timeless atmosphere you expect to experience in a place like this is partly ruined by restaurant employees, chasing you like pimps in a red-light district.

Well, you must think I hate this spot by the Black Sea the way I go on! On the contrary, I love it! With its eight-kilometer beach, it is the perfect place for hot Bulgarian summers. I have only pointed out a few things this paradise can do without. On second thought, I might not want to be without the beach trading. On good days, it can be quite entertaining. Next time I might tell you about my favourite beach pusher.