The tickets for the journey were bought at the counter at Bucharest Nord. Like the previous one we opted for the evening departure, so that we could arrive in the early morning in Sofia. Check out was at noon from our apartment, fortunately George was kind enough to let us leave our luggage at his office so that for the duration of the day we could roam around Bucharest without lugging the heavy bags with us. When it got dark we were already in the waiting room at the station. It was quite cold and raining but the inside of the room was quite warm and we were bored to death waiting for the mid night departure.
The train arrived at the platform on time but we were surprised that our coach was just one addition to the main coaches of the Bulgarian Express. Apparently the Bucharest-Sofia sector was just a minor one and did not merit an exclusive train. We had to walk quite a distance to locate our coach and on trying to board there was a young fellow standing at the door who looked like trying to help to get our luggage aboard and then later showed us the seat in first class. Then he put his hands to us like asking for money. I thought it was like a tip for hauling our bags and putting us in the first class in spite of being booked for second class. I felt a wave of gratitude and gave away all our coins but the brat wanted more and I show my empty pocket, a sign of not having any more.
Later the gratitude that I felt changed to anger and embarrassment when the ticket inspector indicated I was in the wrong coach and we should move to our second class coach. I knew we had been had. This is Bucharest, I got fleeced when coming in and again when going out. I felt angry because I did not learn the lesson of once bitten twice shy; and here I got bitten twice in the same place, once by the taxi tout coming in and twice by the pretender going out.
The ride was very uncomfortable. The seats were hard and straight back and the wheels were noisy. We met a fellow traveller, George a Romanian who with sign language and with a lot of effort tried to communicate with us. We understood little but we were touched by his eagerness to be friendly with us, offering to share with us his bread and wine which we politely declined. There was also a group of young Chinese, their girls were very talkative and keep yakking until the early hours. When we got tired we just dozed in the seat and I had a terrible time due to my back pain.
The next morning the train passed through an outstandingly beautiful area of mountains and gorges. I was highly impressed with the sight and it took away my discomfort as I really enjoyed the scenery. It was late morning when the train pulled in the station at Sofia, a ride of almost 12 hours. We had already booked an apartment on line but on arrival we were approached by a lady offering accommodation, showing us pictures and pamphlets of her house and quoting us an attractive rental rate. She was sweet and polite, coupled with the fact we had not paid any deposit for the apartment, we took her offer. We were driven to the house in her car but before that she showed us the bus counter to book our tickets to Istanbul.
Her house was 3 km away and we stayed there for 3 nights. The floor was of ceramic tiles and at night the temperature in the room dropped drastically. When It got too cold I requested heating and was given a portable electric heater which she called a climate. I saw the road condition in Sofia very much similar to Bucharest, full of port holes. The public transport were however cheap and efficient, there were frequent trolley buses run by electric power and moving around Sofia was not a problem, although the city centre is quite small and you can stroll around and cover all the attraction in one day. Food price was reasonable, we ate at Turkish restaurant and the meals were agreeable to our palates, mostly salads, grilled meat and fresh bread washed down by sweet tea.
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