Mongol Rally Day 16

Varna (BUL)- Sunny Beach (BUL)- Nesebar (BUL)- Edirne (TUR)

July 29, 2014

In the morning we have our E-Turkey and Azerbaijan visas printed at the front desk. Very friendly staff! Then we hit the road drove down the Bulgarian Black Sea coast towards Nesebar.

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The drive was relaxing and fun passing through tons of sun flowers field. We got our tank filled by a all female gas station which is kinda cool. Then we arrived at Sunny Beach. Holy moley! This is like Miami + Las Vegas + Atlantic City combined and it is all Russians here. This resort area is HUGE with tons of Black Mercedes and BMW. We saw some mafia looking old fat guy with super young girl with shorts that show 1/3 of her butt cheek. Pretty sure there are some crazy parties here that i don’t want to be in.

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We finally arrived Nesebar, the “Dubrovnik of Black Sea” and it is super crowded. The old city looks very cool from the outside but there were just waaaaay too many people here. We are not that much into the crowd so unfortunately we only stay for a bit.

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We had lunch in the supermarket parking lot. On the menu are horse and other charcuterie, brie and other good stuff. Them we headed south to the Bulgaria-Turkey border.

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Then we headed south to Edirne Turkey for our next mission ‘Turkish Oil Wrestling”. Kenneth did a research that the Hamzebeyli border crossing is much faster than Kirkapali. Parts of the road is very bumpy with huge potholes, and when we arrived the border crossing its around 6pm. After crossing 5 booths, buying a 10 days car insurance ($48 USD cash only), we are in our 11th countries! The entire border-crossing process took around 50 mins.

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Graham did a reasearch through TripAdvisor and find the Hilly Hotel. When we arrived at the hotel we were shocked at how fancy it is and think that we can’t afford it. The super friendly and sincere manager says we can have a room for 60 Euros (20 Euros each $35 USD). When we saw the room we were shocked at how big and new it is. This is probably the biggest hotel room we have been in!

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Right after we settled down we received a tray of free cocktails and fresh fruit as a welcome present. Excellent service, excellent staff and excellent value. I would highly recommend Hilly Hotel if anyone plan to stay in Edirne. Below is the view from our hotel room balcony:

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We drove a short distance down to the city center. Edirne is famous for two things: the annual Kirkipnar Oil Wrestling tournament and the fried liver. We stumbled upon a outdoor restaurant called “Beltsi” and and have Turkish Fried Liver “Ciger”, Turkish grilled meatball “Kofte” and salad.

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The owner had his pictures plaster everywhere with seemingly very important people. In the glass display case there’s a kisbet worn by the 1994 Bas Pehlivan so we assumed they are somehow related. The food was absolutely delicious.

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Then we walk around the very bustling city center, got some baklava and try some other Turkish deserts.

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We stayed up until 1am updating our FUNraiser site and research about tomorrow’s mission.

Posted on December 28, 2014 in Mongol Rally

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