'I am starting to love this dirty town' | Travel | The Guardian
A desirable Bulgarian holiday-home is £12,000. Again I am the only customer; the staff outnumber me six to one. Ana says things such as: "The people of Varna organised different types of exhibitions for light industry and technology." And she shows me relics of everything that has ever happened in Varna. And I discover that bouncers are as horrible in Bulgaria as they are everywhere else. And something strange is happening to me. And the names are marvellous too - one dish of aubergines is called "Burst Priest". And then, eventually, after pondering your problem for half an hour, they turn to you with mournful eyes and say, through reams of fag smoke, shrugging, "We don't know".Eventually, I find the British expat community. And they stare at your map, deliberate, phone a friend and draw in passers-by to join in the discussion. Are you a member of the Bulgarian national swimming team?" She grinds out her cigarette in triumph. As a tourist destination, Bulgaria has Spain in a headlock, and has beaten France to a pulp. As I eat my starter he is playing a flute. As you pick up your cutlery a man picks up his musical instrument and dances over. But I discover that Bulgarians love to give directions. But none of them have any water in them. But today, out of season, Golden Sands does not look like a resort. By the time I start my main course he is on the violin, then the xylophone. By the time it is over I feel that a small piece of my brain will remain here for ever, next to the "exhibit" that is in fact just a dead woman's shoe. Each Bulgarian musician plays 10 musical instruments; only nine and he will be really letting himself down. Even though it is 24C (75F), the men are all in leather jackets and smoking. Four of the world's most polluted rivers flow into it and all the dolphins have died in protest. Golden Sands is full of swimming pools - rectangular pools, square pools, round pools, pools in the shape of bananas, pools in the shape of question marks. Golden Sands looks wonderful in the brochures, full of happy Germans and giggling Romanians playing inter-former-eastern-bloc volleyball and toasting each other with cocktails. I am in bare, square room in a concrete block, staring past a hungry seagull, out at a vista of cranes, ships and grey water. I am starting to love this dirty town.I get lost a lot in the tumbled streets, looking for the Museum of Bulgarian Spoons. I am trapped in an exhibition of Bulgarian peasant costumes in near darkness. I ask Dave if I can interview him about the appeal of Bulgaria. I don't have a black leather jacket and I only smoke 40 cigarettes a day, but I still I feel I belong. I explain I will like to see the museum and they jump for joy. I give him a large tip for opening the door, which is clearly a mistake, because he grabs the note and sprints into the strip club to spend it.O'Neill's is run by Michael, who came on holiday to Varna two years ago, and stayed because he can open his own bar so cheaply here. I go first to the Varna Museum, which sits in a creaky Gothic house by the sea. I have come in low season, and I land in Varna, the biggest city on the Bulgarian coast. I ignore the fact that after I last swam in the Black Sea I had an ear infection for two years, and plunge in. I spend the rest of my holiday swimming in the bath. I take a taxi 15 miles north to Golden Sands, the premier resort on the coast. I want to ask if I can smoke but I know I am being ridiculous. If there is an opposite to the Groucho club, it is Varna. If you want to come somewhere where nobody will find you, come to Bulgaria, where it's always 1977 - and great value too. Inside, in a casino inspired by Joan Collins's boudoir, the local gangsterati are playing poker and smoking. Instead, they have leaves, or men drilling things. It also shows the Bulgarian version of EastEnders, which seems identical to our EastEnders, except that all the men wear black leather jackets and all the women have dyed red hair. It goes like this - you approach one and ask, "Where is the Museum of Decommissioned Nuclear Weapons?" They look intensely interested; some of them even drop their cigarettes. It has a piece of mown grass next to it - possibly the only piece of mown grass in Bulgaria. It is full of traffic jams and dental surgeries. It looks fine, except there is no water in it. It looks like a council office and smells faintly of cabbage. It looks like downtown Basra, but with forgotten inflatable toys knocking against piles of rubbish. It looks like Paris spliced with Cardiff - part pleasure resort, part port - all concrete towers, battered villas and barking dogs. It was last updated at 00:04 on April 21 2008. It was last updated at 00:04 on April 21 2008.I have taken a holiday to the year 1977. It's a block of ice pretending to be a sea. No one bothers me around here." Tom slurs, "I never have an ounce of trouble here either. Not only that, but the food is delicious, you can smoke everywhere and even the rabbits are special. On the streets outside, everyone is wearing black leather jackets and smoking high-tar cigarettes. She keeps touching me, as if to check I am real. So I go to the swimming pool next to the beach. So it only takes four Bulgarians to produce a full orchestra. So there is no functioning swimming pool on the Black Sea coast, unless you are an Olympic standard swimmer. So what is it like, this former eastern bloc paradise on the Black Sea, squashed between Romania and Turkey? Somewhere, Night Fever is echoing.According to a study by Teletext, this is the best-value holiday money can buy. The Black Sea sits in the middle of eastern Europe like a big, fat radioactive lake. The bouncer in the Black Sea Casino - catchphrase "Irreproachable Service, Pleasant Atmosphere, This is the Place for Your Business Meeting" - shouts at me when I ask how much it is to enter (£1.20). The Bulgarians have honoured the lost dolphins by placing statues of dolphins everywhere, but it's too little, too late. The caption on the piece of my brain will say, "British Tourist 2008". The carpet has a burst eyeball motif, and the television shows Desperate Housewives in Bulgarian and adverts for inflatable saunas in German. The doorwoman is fast asleep, with a cigarette in her hand.It is all so empty, and seems so far from everywhere I know. The dummy peasants glare at me, their eyes glowing in the void. The following morning, I go down to the sea. The people are all lovely."After O'Neill's I check out the local nightlife. The shops are shut and the amusement park is deserted, apart from a small group of Bulgarian hoodies, doing the international hoodie skulk.It is a bit like turning up 200 years after human civilisation has been wiped out, to have a holiday. The staff stare at you when you go in, as if they are incredibly surprised to see you. The zoo has lions, tigers, bears and, strangely, rabbits. Then he relents and explains, rather mysteriously, that, "in London everyone bothered me. Then the staff arrange a cocktail party in my honour. There are men in it instead, drilling holes and smoking. There is a mini Blackpool tower - as if they started to build it and got bored - and a very communist-sounding Ministry of Cocktails. There is an ancient Bulgarian doorman standing outside, in a red doorman's uniform (possibly stolen from the Ritz) and a St Patrick's Day themed hat, complete with clover motif. There is something wonderful about this country that feels like the edge of the world. They have been hiding in O'Neill's, a subterranean Irish pub in central Varna, next to a strip club. They have dyed red hair, and they smoke.My hotel is a tower block with a neon sign, overlooking the sea. They open it especially for me, but they forget to turn the lights on. They stare with intense concentration at the roulette wheel. They too go to the International School of Shaving Your Head to Scare People in Leisure Situations for Fun. This is where the bargain hunters will flock in the summer, like big, pink, lager-drinking birds. To calm my nerves I go to the zoo at the edge of the Pleasure Gardens. What is so wonderful about Bulgaria, I ask. When I arrive there are five people standing outside, smoking. When I squeal in disappointment, they wave at me and shout, "There is another swimming pool next door." I wander over, and it is so lush and gorgeous it doesn't look as if it is in Bulgaria at all. With the Euro stronger by the day, the Bulgarian lev looks ever more appealing. You can almost hear the lambs bleating as you tear their flesh.
0 comments:
Post a Comment