We moved, eventually, the couple of hundred yards across the border to Bulgaria. Where we promptly slammed to a sudden halt once again. This halt was even worse, for not only did we have to hang around again while occasional officers would wander onto the bus, but then we had to climb down into the ice + snow, haul our bags out from under the bus, open them up, + stamp feet + clap hands to keep the cold from depriving all feeling from the extremities. And wait for the Bulgarian customs boys to look thro’ them contemptuously in their own good time. They also gave the bus a very thorough going-over. Looking for all sorts of capitalist goodies being smuggled in to taint the hands of the pure Bulgarian peasantry. Eventually, we were allowed back on, to warm up very slowly.
Now, not so very far on, the rest of the day is a jumble. We stopped at a duty-free store a few miles before the Yugoslavian border, where just about everyone on the bus piled off + bought at least one denim jacket. Only for most of those jackets to be confiscated at customs. And this despite corruption + bribery. Cigarettes (Marlboro of course) changed hands at every encounter with officialdom, but at the Jugoslavian border in particular, there was whisky + money too. To no avail.
There was a stop at a pretty plush Jugoslavian service stn, where we paid a lot for 2 coffees, + not very much for goodies from their supermarket. We were stopped for speeding + fined. The cop even turned down the Marlboro – maybe he doesn’t smoke. Another customs fiasco late at night, into Austria, + then a stop at an Austrian services. We walked in with the others just to keep warm, but then spotted the coffee with whipped cream that the others were drinking, found out the place would accept dollars, + promptly ordered one each. The price was a shock – $3, bar the odd shilling, but there was a bonus in 2 free coffee mugs. They were attractive + we might have kept them, if I hadn’t spotted that they were made in England. So we sold them for DM4 to a fat Turkish lady – she was only too keen to add to her collection, + it made our coffee a little cheaper.
Onwards, with reminders of a huge bus trip I took many years previous to this across the USA, San Francisco to New York, existing on Crackerjack peanut popcorn, and pancakes and syrup, abandoned by their consumer as we were called back onto the bus, which I wolfed down speedily.
In 1974 I took a similar cross-country trip, Boston to San Francisco–two weeks, $100. I bought the ticket in London, meant for British tourists. It was when I came home from 3+ years of travel, and I stopped to see all my friends that I hadn’t seen in ages along the way. A good deal back then.