Bulgaria and Istanbul

At the time of my last post, we were waiting to receive our Turkmenistan visa. For those unaware of the struggle, the Turkmenistan visa is probably the 2nd most difficult to get as a Brit, behind North Korea. Well after a couple of hours we had our stamp and so put the foot down towards Bulgaria. With the aid of Google, we had found our camping spot for the night, Irakli Beach. A bit of a hot spot for naturalists in the summer, being April it was totally deserted. It has to be said that getting to the beach was a bit of a struggle. Being a wild beach, it didn't have a direct track to the beach itself - we found a side track that seemed to offer hope of access, only to get the Subaru stuck. Harry B had warned Charlie and myself of such an eventuality and so it was a bit of a 'told you so moment' as we had to do some serious weight shedding to get her out of the rather sticky situation that we had got her into. There followed two amazing nights on the beach. Being the manly contingent of the group, Charlie and I opted for a swim in the Black Sea. It soon became apparent why we were the only ones on the beach. The Black Sea in April is cold, very cold. Following this we set off for Turkey; we were all really excited about this, most of all to put the fairly disgusting Eastern European food behind us. The Bulgaria/Turkey border was our first proper one and it did not disappoint. Getting out of Bulgaria was fine, then the issues started. Google had told us that we could get car insurance on the boarder. The boarder guard at first didn't quite understand this and asked us if we wanted to return to Bulgaria. When we finally got the point across, we were pointed to the appropriate hut. Having woken the sleeping insurance man, the system was apparently 'kaput' until 8:30. This soon became 9:30 but eventually the insurance man rang his mate and we were allowed into Turkey. Istanbul has not disappointed - for one the food is a million times better than the muck in Eastern Europe. Having visited all the major sites including the Aya Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Cistern, we headed to the Grand Bazaar. Its fair to say that we left with some fairly revolting purchases including a particularly disgusting orange number from Charlie.  There was a bit of a moment when Harry B temporarily lost our boarder money for Iran. Harry B swore that the money had been left in a hidden side pouch of his main rucksack. However, being a bit of a basket case like myself with the car keys, he had been walking around Istanbul with a not inconsiderable amount of cash in his day sack. Safe to say that Charlie B is now the only one allowed to keep anything of any value. Anyway, now its onto Gallipoli and then Izmir. KBO