I asked many friends and relatives if they had ever done it, and since the answer was no, I just had to try the train from Sofia to Istanbul.
Following in the footsteps of Agatha Christie and with visions of the Orient Express, I decided to venture where apparently recently, few had gone before.
I started my research by Googling for Bulgarian Railways which led me to the somewhat amateurish-looking website of Bulgarian State Railways EAD (http://bdz.creato.biz/en). Here I found information about the Istanbul Route only after I figured out that the route I was looking for is called the Balkan Express. The website offers a PDF file where I found the timetable.
The schedule showed overnight services with daily departures from Sofia at 7.30pm arriving the following morning at 8.40am and the return from Istanbul at 10pm which arrives back in Sofia at 11.40am.
Next I tried to get information by phone, which was absolutely impossible, so I sent my brave assistant Adi to the ticket centre at NDK. http://bdz.creato.biz/en/rila_adresi to purchase a First Class roundtrip ticket with private couchette.
After what she described as an interesting trip the poor girl returned to the office with a No-Class return ticket accompanied by single couchette vouchers at a total cost of 179.66 leva (about 90 euro). Apparently the counter staff at the Rila Ticket Office at NDK acted as if they had graduated 35 years ago from the now legendary Joseph Stalin College for Charm and Public Relations and were not very pleased with offering a single couchette.
I must admit that at this stage I was getting a little worried about what was to follow. But after I had convinced myself that it could not be any worse then travelling on Hippy Buses in the 1970s or the overnight train from Amsterdam to Naples, I decided to continue.
After all, my lovely Lilly would be joining me by air from the UK as she was to attend and deliver a paper at a conference in Istanbul.
On May 22, I took a taxi to Sofias Central Railway Station and I must confess that I was beginning to feel a little nervous in anticipation of events to follow. I arrived 30 minutes prior to departure and, on entering the station hall, I noticed that all trains had a departure time and platform except mine. Only five minutes prior to departure it showed a platform and I managed to make it on board only seconds before the train pulled out of the station.
After managing to get rid of the usual gypsy hustler who needed money to meet his uncle in Plovdiv, I encountered a train attendant who took all my tickets (only to return them in the morning) and barked my couchette number. My couchette was of the usual three bunks variety of which I was supposed to choose the bottom one. On this trip the BDZ offers complimentary sheets, pillow covers and a blanket. The couchette had definitely seen better days and neither the electricity nor the water seem to work.
My plan of reading a book was replaced by playing some computer games until the batteries ran out after which I decided to visit the toilet and get ready for bed. It suffices to say that what I encountered there was a total insult to any fare paying passenger; filthy and without toilet paper.
I cannot understand how a country that is doing everything in its power to look like a serious tourist destination or even a place where you can do business or invest can let this kind of equipment cross its borders. Especially, since most of the passengers are foreigners whose first and/or last impression of Bulgaria is one of sheer horror.
Anyway, Istanbul was wonderful and we both had a great time. Since I knew what to expect on the return, I was emotionally much better prepared and even had a laugh with some fellow passengers at the 25 or so Turkish border guards who, at 2am, stood around supervising one single colleague stamping our passports.
Koos Jan Schouten (1954) was born in Amsterdam, has lived in Bulgaria since 1998, owns webfactorybulgaria.com and has been married since 2002 to his lovely Lilly.
