Days 44 & 45 from Nepal – Through the Balkans - Bulgaria - Serbia - Hungary - Austria!

Morning excitement in the elevator!

After exploring the area around Hagia Sophia enough, we left Istanbul. As always before, it was easier said than done in this megacity. We sat in a 35-kilometer-long queue for almost an hour and a half before traffic started moving.

We drove along the highway towards the Bulgarian border for a long time before deciding to stop for lunch. Our tire had been vibrating a bit during the drive, so we decided to check the situation. It wasn't good. The Indian tire, besides being the wrong size, had apparently suffered from the 3.5 bar recommended pressure. It was cracking and could have exploded at any moment!

Well, no problem, we had a good spare tire in the depths of the car. We started digging it out when it turned out it wasn't the good tire I thought was there. For some strange reason, a tire with a broken rim had been packed as a spare tire in our car in India. The good original front tire that we had driven to Nepal with was probably somewhere in India.

We also had another spare tire that had been tied to the bottom of Heffalump the entire time we owned the car. It was an old studded tire with some studs still remaining, but basically no tread.

Fortunately, a local tire man appeared on the scene who not only helped us change the tire but also sold us a worn and slightly smaller tire we could use. Tire on and let's roll!

In no time, we were at the Bulgarian border. Based on a tip someone sent us, we went directly to the smaller Hamzabeyli-Lesovo border crossing. From there, we got into the EU surprisingly quickly; the whole process took less than half an hour. WE WERE IN THE EU! No more border crossings or anyone asking for papers!

Bulgaria

We drove through the Bulgarian countryside until we found ourselves on the E55 road to Veliko Tarnovo. From there, we made a small detour to Mission Possible's Bulgarian training and conference center, where we got to stay for the night. At the conference center, there was simultaneously a rehabilitation seminar for women who are in a similar situation to the women living at the Princess Home shelter in Nepal. It's great to see how many people in the world are ready to help.

We enjoyed our short stop immensely, but the next morning we had to leave very early. We had planned to drive from Bulgaria through Romania and Hungary to Austria, but the Mission Possible people told us that probably wouldn't be the best option. The day's drive was 1200 kilometers, almost 150 kilometers more than our previous daily record. We decided to follow the advice and drive through Serbia. That meant two more border crossings, but the roads in Serbia were supposedly in a completely different class than on the route we had planned.

Driving Record

In the morning, we left at six. By nine, we had passed Sofia and reached the first border. The border crossing took less than fifteen minutes total, and it was by far the easiest crossing ever. Shortly after noon, we drove through Belgrade. At three, we reached the Hungarian border, where it took almost an hour because of the queues. Then all that was left was 500 kilometers of highway to Wiener Neustadt, where our team member Matti and Anna Pesu are living during their student exchange.

We arrived fourteen hours after departure, although we crossed one time zone, so the driving time was actually only thirteen hours. We were so fast that Matti was still on his way home from work. We then decided to change the small tire we got from Turkey to a rear tire because its durability didn't convince us. We had to add air to it twice, and otherwise it was a bit iffy.