Many groups of people often
compete to become the least popular group of people in the world. Bankers,
politicians, parking attendants and the French all have strong claims to the
title but as a frequent traveller, I find that taxi drivers have always held a
special claim to the title.
Unfortunately this was reinforced in Bulgaria and left us getting to
know the local police force in Burgas better than we would have liked.
Following a good journey we were
ejected from our bus in Burgas on an unmarked road at 2am with no discernible
land marks. Having no idea where we were
a taxi pulled up and having checked that the price would be on the meter we set
off. The seemingly friendly driver kept us distracted with chitchat until we
arrived and then declared a ridiculous price for the journey. Traveling with a British passport is very useful
but one of our shortfalls as a nation has always been overt politeness in the
face of people being complete dickweeds and in hindsight we should have refused
to pay. However, at 2.30am, half asleep and in an unknown town and country we
paid. We did however photograph his license plate. Having checked with the receptionist in the
hotel about the extortionate price we called the police, more out of anger at
yet another taxi driver screwing over tourists than the monetary value to us
and we spent the next 2 hours with the police giving statements translated
through the clearly dazed receptionist.
The following morning we went to
the police station and tried to see where the investigation had reached. After a short walk we found the police
station, a depressed concrete building with an interior to make a cave dwelling
look cosy. We were greeted by the burglar
from Home Alone minus two front teeth (the duty officer) and following some communication
issues he excitedly told us that his baby
spoke English. As friendly as Angel (unbelievably
his real name!) was he was clearly no Sherlock Holmes but he kept us
entertained with his amazing accent and eccentric behaviour while we waited
with growing bewilderment for his baby. His baby
(Natalia) arrived in a taxi 20 minutes later and our new friend Angel proceeded
to take an hour to rewrite our statements (all of 8 lines) whilst he pinched
Natalia’s bum, gesticulated widely and got completely over stimulated by the
entire situation. We left with Angel
insisting we added him on Facebook and with assurances that our case would be
looked at that day. Judging by the other
policeman who were very friendly but seemed more interested in sitting on their
cars outside and smoking we left with little hope but very amused at the
mornings events.
We decided to spend the afternoon
exploring Burgas whilst we waited with baited breath for the outcome of the investigation. Burgas itself is a nice enough town on the
black sea but unfortunately the Indian summer Eastern Europe was experiencing seemed
to end as he arrived at the black sea. The
town has been developed with a nice waterfront park and promenade and it has a
large sandy beach that draws lots of Russians down for the summer. Although it is no Caribbean beach as an industrial
zone replaces the palm trees the town itself was far more modern and developed
than Sofia as most of the governments money has been spent improving the
tourist destinations along the coast.
The following day we returned and
as Angel was not at the station we waited for another officer. Unfortunately without Angel nobody spoke a
word of English and after half an hour we spoke to the chief of the station who
used his daughter in Manchester (via Watsapp) as a translator to update us. The driver had given different statements (surprisingly)
and the officer investigating our case had gone on his annual leave (obviously)
the very day he took our case! We left
our email addresses at the request of the Police Chief and he assured us they
would let us know the outcome of the investigation in due course as he showed
us photos of his daughter in Manchester on his phone. The entire episode with the Bulgarian Police
had been ridiculous from start to finish but the officers had been so friendly
and amusing that despite the affair it had almost been worth it so see the
Bulgarian Police force in action.
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