Dumball Rally 2007

OK, so back to the story telling. We'd just got on the coach.

By this point we were pretty low on energy. We'd all had a big night out in Varna, driving for hours on mountain roads, got dicked around by our friends in Bulgaria and then waited in limbo for hours. But we all agreed that moral was very high. It was a damn shame that we had had to leave Dumball One behind, but it had fun at the border - pretending we were going to have to live there forever but knowing that it would all get sorted out eventually.

Anyway. The guy driving the coach seemed fairly intrigued by what we were doing. It not often he picks up people at that border I reckon. And if you look here for a map (we were at the border near Malko Tarnovo) you can see it was a good 250Km over rubbish roads back into Bulgaria and round to Svilengrad in order to get a train if we didn't. So every now and then he (or one of his assistants) would come round with a bottle of what looked like oil and offer to pour it in our hands. I think it was alcohol hand wash stuff. Then he'd give us a small cup of water. He did this 3 or 4 times, every time we stopped.

So, the bus was a experience in itself, but it was very dark by the time we set off and we didn't really see much of Turkey which was pretty annoying. We arrived in Istanbul at about 2am. The bus station was a hideous mass of concrete, most of us had just woken up, most of us had no money and none of us knew where we were - the bus station wasn't on the original itinerary... Basically, not the best position to be in when you need to get taxi's for 10 people. The taxi drivers tried to rush us all into separate taxi's as if it was vitally important we left immediately but we managed to calm them down and agree a price before we set off. Probably not a very good one admittedly.

The taxi drivers are mental. To quote the Lonely Planet - "Driving in cities should be avoided - traffic is terrible and parking difficult." We were hurtled round the city at breakneck speed, and eventually got to our final destination - Hotel Troya. A few people were still up and around, so we went out and had a great kebab and few beers. Nothing big about that night, but it was still 5am before bed and just starting to get light.

Now, at this point I lack some vital information. While I dozed through the morning heat, the true Dumballers- those that had driven all the way to Istanbul, quietly got up and started driving, again. Apparently the exit from Istanbul was rapid and rivalled the taxi drivers. They even had time for a bit of formation driving before reaching Bulgaria and Svilengrad, where a train would be waiting for them at 2 o'clock. The cars were easily foisted onto grateful east-Europeans and they headed from the train... which had left 12 hours earlier - at 2am. An unwanted drama, but minor set back for now experienced Dumballers - taxis were accosted and finally every one was headed back to Istanbul in time for the final big night out...