A Lone Travellin' Man

My friend Daniel has been exploring the world - from Asia to Europe - since August. During this time, he has sent periodic digests from his adventures in places like Vietnam and Egypt. His latest update is from Eastern Europe. Daniel finished law school and just took the bar. I usually have a prejudice against the writing ability of attorneys, but his pen betrays the general stereoytpe of unclear, convulted and boring legal dredge. So enjoy - here's part of his recent world travelling saga.
-----

We all have our mountains to climb. Some of us have them in our personal lives, some in our schooling, and some in our work lives. Some can even consider taking the adventure of traveling alone as a mountain to climb. I looked at it more as an invitation, of a world open to exploration. What I found, was a bunch of mountains to climb. Actual mountains.

That's not to say that traveling alone has been difficult. In fact, I enjoy the freedom that comes with solo travel, and as I've noticed, I'm never really completely alone, because there is always somebody out there to extend an invitation.

Leaving Istanbul to Bulgaria, I was struck with the notion that Bulgaria would not be an inviting place at all. No fewer than three people in Istanbul said with an air of snootiness, "Why would you want to go to Bulgaria?" Indeed, when I arrived in Plovdiv, the Cyrillic signage against my Latin lettered Lonely Planet map invited chaos, confusion, and an inevitable triple priced cab ride to my hostel.

The hostel I stayed at in Plovdiv was at the top of one of the 7 hills of Plovdiv. Appropriately it was called Hiker's Hostel. There, one of my roommates extended an immediate invitation to me to join him and three others for dinner in the town center. It was a good meal and good conversation. That's the thing about hostel travel, you easily connect with people. As far as the rest of my time in Plovdiv, I conquered two of its 7 mountains, including the tallest one in the city, saw the Roman theatre of Phillipopolis, the original name of Plovdiv after Alexander the Great's father, the ethnographical museum, and of course, my good friend McDonald's.

The people at Hiker's Hostel extended the invitation to book me in their sister Hiker's Hostel in Veliko Tarnovo, and after a few hour mini bus ride through a gorgeous mountain pass, I was greeted by the hostel owner at the bus station and driven up and even large hill to the hostel. The only guests in the hostel were me, a pair of Korean girls, a norweigan couple, and an 18 year old Australian named Scott.

Scott was to become my new travel buddy. We explored the beautiful town of Veliko Tarnovo, played cards, and of course climbed to the top of the mountain on which the old fort was located. Also in Veliko Tarnovo were inviting sigange for the 36th annual world arm wrestling championships. But we followed all the arrows and we never succeeded in seeing any competition. But the streets were loaded with guys with huge arms all wearing their national matching track suits.

Because Scott, the Korean girls, and I were all headed to Bucharest the following day, the hostel owner invited us to accept a drive in his car there for the same price as the train which would take twice as long. So into his Fiat we all piled for Romania. However, crisis hit as he told us that all the hostels were booked. He offered to let us stay with him another night in Veliko Tarnovo, for a price of course, but Scott and I together decided to forgo Bucharest and take a train to Transylvania upon arrival. We met two interesting Romanian students on the late train, and arrived at the hostel in Brasov at 2:30am.

In Brasov Scott and I decided to do separate things, and I ended up day tripping to the birthplace of Dracula, Sighsoara. It was a beautiful old town, on top of a mountain, with a wonderful covered staircase leading to the top. I also climbed the bell tower and wandered in the cemetery, though I made sure to do so before dark fell, because I didn't want to invite anyone to suck my blood, whether the vant to or not!

Brasov was also a wonderful city for exploring and climbing mountains. Though for the huge mountain there was a cable car to the top, next to the giant Brasov sign that looked like the Hollywood sign. There was no access to the Brasov sign, sadly as uninviting as the one in Hollywood. That night Scott headed off to Hungary with some travellers from Trinidad and Tobago, though they invited me to dinner at KFC with them. Now while McDonaldćs is my old friend, nothing seems less inviting to me than KFC, except maybe KFC on the top of a mountain. So I went with for company, said goodbye, and then went with two girls to a Chinese restaurant.

After two nights sleeping in Transylvania, it was off to Bucharest via Sinaia, where I climbed an even larger mountain to get to the amazing castle there. Talk about uninviting! You have to buy your ticket, then ring the front door, then wait to be invited in! I had to wait 40 minutes. It reminded me of Buffy in reverse though, where instead of vampires needing to be invited in, here the vampire castle had to invite you in!
------

For more, check out Daniel's blog. He's listed as Danielspice on my friends' blogroll on the right.