Tanya Masha and I are at the MPM Royal Central Hotel in Sunny Beach Bulgaria, a mere 30 hour bus ride from Zhovti Vody. But we saved $400 by not flying. And the folks who started from Kharkiv spent 10 more hours on that bus than we did. The bus run was Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Krivii Rih (where we got on), Mykolaiev, Odessa and then onwards.
We crossed Moldova at the bottom corner. One hour at border control in Ukraine, one hour at border control in Moldova, one hour to drive, slowing to a crawl every 5 minutes to cross a hole in the road, then one hour at border control to leave Moldova and one hour at border control to enter Romania at Galati, then three hours to cross Romania, two hours at the joint border control between Romania and Bulgaria and 4 hours more to reach our hotel. We were almost to Turkey.
Border crossing goes thusly. Officer gets on the bus, collects passports, matching each to a face as he/she goes. Then he/she takes the passports to the office, goes over them carefully and scans them all into the computer. Bulgaria is not part of the Schengen zone so we had the extra two border controls. Bulgaria is not part of the Euro zone either for which I imagine they are thankful. Their currency is the Lev, which is about 2 to the Euro or 1.9 to the USD.
Sunny Beach is a nice little family tourist town. Strip joints and sex shops abound. I told Masha she would be smarter when she left than when she came.
Hotel is nice. Our room is actually a small sitting room and a bedroom so Masha has her own sleeping space. Supper was good. We walked to the beach after supper. Return trip only took an hour and a half. Took two days to walk to the beach when we were in Spain.
We crossed Moldova at the bottom corner. One hour at border control in Ukraine, one hour at border control in Moldova, one hour to drive, slowing to a crawl every 5 minutes to cross a hole in the road, then one hour at border control to leave Moldova and one hour at border control to enter Romania at Galati, then three hours to cross Romania, two hours at the joint border control between Romania and Bulgaria and 4 hours more to reach our hotel. We were almost to Turkey.
Border crossing goes thusly. Officer gets on the bus, collects passports, matching each to a face as he/she goes. Then he/she takes the passports to the office, goes over them carefully and scans them all into the computer. Bulgaria is not part of the Schengen zone so we had the extra two border controls. Bulgaria is not part of the Euro zone either for which I imagine they are thankful. Their currency is the Lev, which is about 2 to the Euro or 1.9 to the USD.
Sunny Beach is a nice little family tourist town. Strip joints and sex shops abound. I told Masha she would be smarter when she left than when she came.
Hotel is nice. Our room is actually a small sitting room and a bedroom so Masha has her own sleeping space. Supper was good. We walked to the beach after supper. Return trip only took an hour and a half. Took two days to walk to the beach when we were in Spain.
thirty hours on a bus - damn, that seems like torture. I think I would have opted to stay home. It does sound interesting.
ReplyDeletethe Ol'Buzzard
Staying home was tempting but it is quality time with both Tanya and Masha. We were off the bus likely 4 hours of that time. Toilet breaks, etc. and the two hours at the Romanian Bulgarian border. We stopped every three hours max, usually ever two to let people have a pee and cigarette break. Only three "men to the right, women to the left" stop, the rest had some sort of facility.
DeleteIf I die and go to hell, it'll be on a bus. That is the most loathsome form of transportation ever invented.
ReplyDeleteAs Stephanie used to say on Newhart, "Ewww! Bus people!"
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