Merhaba ! !

Quite a long time i dıd not write anything. But already so much happened. Let s take it back from where it started....Sofia....
(Sofıa - İstanbul = 550km, quite possible in one day if i m lucky...) İ left it the previous tuesday early the morning. As usual the starting point is a petrol station where after a few minute ı meet a guy going directly to İstanbul. but...of course he does not take me....So i finally manage to find 1 car, a 2nd one, a 3rd, a 4th and finally around 2PM i m crossing the border by walk as my previous dropper could not drop me farer....Anyway, it s really good....it s quite symbolic to cross the 1st border between Europe and Asia by walk. İ liked it.
3 hours waiting and i found a truck going to İstanbul which i reach around 9PM. Finally here i am.
İstanbul is quite a symbolic place for me. The border between Europe and Asia. 1/3 of my all travel and a wonderful city the people tell me...5 weeks traveling through Europe. Around 4000km done already.










Turkey :



Already quite different...İ actually have to say (even if my turkish frıends won t maybe not appreciate...) that for me, i defenetely felt İ had crossed the border with Europe. The way people behave, the crouded places, the weather,the tea instead of the beer (not all the time of course...), the Narghıle, the food quite different...but defenetely really good !!

İstanbul :
İt was for me quite a nice place. An hıstorycal place with wonderful mosks. 11 - 15 -19 inhabitants (İ dont know exactly.. i heard a lot of different versions...anyway for sure it is really huge !) The call for prayer (the "reading") 5 times a day makes also the city charmful. The European side, the Asian side separated by the Bosphore and only 2 bridges. The traffic jams....and every simple bus ride which takes hours... Taksim, the center of the city.


I of course met nice people there. Zuhal, and her cousin Emre, Pinar and Özge...

The 1st day, i was on the turkish television. My host actually braught me to a television show where the famous sınger "Djandan" was performing....Turkish music ! İn the day i had been of course visiting all the famous places : Sultanamed "the blue mosk", Ayasofia, the Grand Bazar,...



Next day, we all together had a wonderful party on friday in a club where they re playing really the best music...turkish, arabic, latino, some gypsi music from Europe as well...a great moment !
Saterday, we went to the prıncess İsland. Wonderful resting place a little bit away from the city...nice views,...already a glimpse of paradise...so close to the city!

Now, i m in İzmir, the biggest city to the Egee coast. The travel from İstanbul to here was a mix of ferry, coach bus (but without paying...quite unique!), bus, and car. That way allowed me to admire the beauty of Turkey: small hills, bıg mountains, lakes...
I cant wait to be in Antalya to swim in the medıterranean sea ! !

Bulgarie

Bon je reprends...j avais commence un de ces romans pour expliquer mes derniers moments jusqu a maintenant jusqu a ce que le pc plante. Merci ! Bon je disais, donc. J ai donc quitte Varna et la mer noir mardi direction Veliko Tarnovo, une petite ville quasi a mi distance de Sofia et Varna. J arrive assez facilement sur place vers 14h. En marchant avec tout mon bardas en rue, je me fais vite agripper par une petite dame qui parle francais et qui me sors son cinema..blablabla.. et finalement j accepte de passer la nuit dans sa guesthouse. J y rencontre au passage un danois qui m explique toute la haine qu il a envers son pays. Tout lui deplait, le systeme politique, les femmes, le temps...Bref, lui a choisi la bulgarie. Il a d ailleurs achete un terrain ici avec la baraque , a remettre un peu...le tout pour 3000Euro...Y s est pas fait arnaquer , je pense...

Petite visite de la ville qui est assez chouette comme vous le voyez sur les images. Une bonne nuit. Et me voila le lendemain debout.

Avec une Bonne maladie: mal de tete, a la george,etc...Bref, pas l ideal pour reprendre la route.
En plus y pleut ! Soit, apres deux bonnes heures a la pompe a essence du coin, je trouve quand meme un type qui me prend jusqu a 50km de Sofia. Le reste du trip se fera en bus.
Enfin arrive a Sofia, mais je sais pas trop ou...Technique habituelle, je cherche le client a la tete "je parle anglais"...et bonus, je tombe sur un type qui se plie en 4 pour moi et me depose au fian lavec sa voiture juste pile poil a ma creche !

Une bonne nuit. Une journee au pieu. Une autre bonne nuit, un peu meilleure celle ci.
Et hop Samedi, avec mes hotes, on prend la voiture direction 40km hors de la ville , dans un petit village tres tranquil pour feter Paques.

Atelier peinture d oeufs. Apres-midi soleil.


En fin de soiree, un son venant du village nous fait tendre l oreille. Ca sent la bonne music de fete...la bonne musique gypsy. Direct, on prend nso deux jambes et le reste, guides par la musique. On tombe sur un groupe d une dizaine de types au coin d un magasin...deja bien entame par la fete..mais animer par une super musique. Juste un sax et les percu. Ca sonne! Et les gards s en donne a grand coeur. L ambiance est assez folle. Tout le monde est deja bien loin, mais on s amuse vraiment a fond ici. Bref, une experience assez folle que de me retrouver avec ces types pour la plupart gypsy...Petit episode special, a un moment l un des type se reprend une biere sur la table ainsi qu un bon vieux couteau de cuisine qu il glisse dans la poche de son manteau. J ai entendu tellement de trucs sur les gypsy de la part des autres gens (voleurs, menteur, etc...bref les pires trucs) que sur le moment j ai un peu flippe mais bon....je suis toujours la !




Le soir, a minuit direction l eglise.
Paques est l une des fetes les plus populaires en Bulgarie. Il y a donc vraiment plein de gens a l eglise. Chacun sa bougie. A minuit, enfin on fait exploser les oeufs ! !

Demain, direction Istanbul !

Varna en photo

Une eglise de plus. Mais assez jolie le soir...






Vue sur la ville de Varna depuis le port. Varna est la deuxieme ville de Bulgarie. La Bulgarie compte environ 7 millions d habitants...pas enorme, n est pas !






Petit jam session improvisee avec les ouvrier communaux. Pour la plupart des turcs...Cours de danse et musique turc...






Les toilettes : Homme/Femme ou Femme/Homme....
Pour le savoir, une solution attendre que quelqu un en sorte...

Reponse: les hommes a droite, les femmes a gauche.






Le port de Varna.

Varna, Bulgaria

Today, i just arrived in Varna, the 2nd biggest city in Bulgaria situated to the Black Sea coast.
I was really lucky for the travel from Bucharest as i managed to find, after some 30min waiting on the road in Bucharest, a man going directly to Varna ! Sometimes , things can be so easy...

So my feeling about Roumania is finally quite good. I met really nice people there (some a little bit crazy in Bucharest, others you could never count on when they give you an appointment)...nice scenery, nice really rural places...Also, i learned a little bit more about the gypsies which are a lot more present in Roumania than in Hungary...but most of the time they are uneducated people, quite dirty, robbers who are not well considerated by the other people because of that...This situation is like a never-ending spiral which makes their possible integration in the society uneasy to realise...

Today, i celebrate my first month traveling ! Already so much good moments....
So much to come again . . .

Bucuresti...but no rest !

I really don t like Bucharest. "Nothing to see" were telling me the people i met before. I think they were right. But there s more. It s quite poluted, there s lots a cars, lots of people, no parks (and you know how much i really like green areas...), no place to have a rest in the streets...

And also, this is the first place in all the travels i ve done before where i don t feel safe. I m always really careful to my stuffs here.

Otherwise, you can see these charmless communist buildings. Big avenues with on each side these residential high buildings . Almost like the cities in France where you ve these "HLM" outside the city where they used to park foreigners... Here the same but inside the city, everywhere !

Romania...some more.

Here are some really nice pictures that i took in Sighisoara again...They actually don t need any comment...




Then, after Sighisoara, i went 120 km down to Brasov, the second biggest city in Romania where i first spent 3 hours in the railway station...I did really not feel secure there. There were all these gypsy children playing around and that kind of people whose look can tell you they defenetely could have bad intentions about you...But i think i have the technic now not to attract these kind of people..I don t know, i think everything is in the eyes..Just try to have the same way to look at the people that they have...

Also, in the train station i saw these really special gypsy guys different than the ones you can usually see hanging around from who you can really feel they re quite poor...All dressed in black costumes, with really big hat like Zorro s one...They defenitely have more money than the others...

Brasov was a quite nice city, in the mountains, with less cars than in Cluj,...A more wealthy place.
With a really wonderful orthodox church as you can see...

Romania ! !

Finally here i am in Roumania. But first, the way from Budapest to Cluj (450km), my first step in Ro. I decided to leave tuesday early in the morning. No luck it was raining. But well, after 1 hour of buses, metro, i m fianlly arrived to my hitch-hinking place close to the airport which is on the road leading to Cluj. I really expected to make the 450km in one day and arrive in Cluj the same day, maybe late in the evening. But no way ! New personal record : 5 hours waiting under the small drops of rain. No one takes you when it is raining, even more on small roads. So tuesday, the 450km expected turned to be 20km. I spent the night in a small farm actually close to Budapest. Soit! C est la vie. Next day, i ve been more lucky. At 7.30AM, i was on the road...2 cars, 1 truck and i m in Roumania around 12.00 AM or 1.00 PM as the border with Roumania is time zone changing.

I had been told that hitch-hiking in Roumania is a business in itself; people who take you when you re hitch-hiking ask you some money. I must be lucky as for now i did not pay anything. More, the 1st guy who took me to Cluj offered me a beer on the way, a tour in the city Oradea, and phoned, when i was sleeping, to the person who host me in Cluj to have a meeting point. Simply great, that man!

In Cluj i spent 2 nights in The youth Hostel (not so cheap...15E for the night in dormitory) because my host from HospitalityClub could not host me. There I met a great english guy though. Totally different than the idea i had about the english. Traveling really opens you a lot !

About Roumania, I really like it even if this country seems to me like a little bit chaotic sometimes... Similar to India in some ways.. Here you really feel you re not in western-Europe anymore for sure. A lot of people in the streets, be careful when you re crossing streets, no care about buildings or streets renovation ,so on... There s a lack of organisation...but that s the charm of this country.Still really nice churches, and colorful houses, and the feeling of a still strong culture. A rural cuture actually. Villages here still live slowly, agriculture is still really present as well...

Now i m in Sighisoara, a small city a little bit more on the way to Bucarest. A nice medieval-style city. On my way i still continue to have nice talk about my favourite topic: the Gypsies....and the reasons why they re so few recognised and appreciated...

Still looking for my concert as well..One day maybe, who knows...