Part two, the bus ticket

It wasn't difficult to find the actual ticket office for buying bus tickets. I went straight outside, so as not to walk through the corridors of the station again, I passed the line of buses outside (buses in front of the train station - how logical!) and there it was, the office, in the other part of the building. To be completely honest, I must say that this point is also marked on Google Maps, it just has the name of the transport company, nothing more. Maybe that's why I didn't pay much attention to it, but to the other one, which no longer exists, on which is informatively written: Ticket Center.
So now I've found the real ticket center, it's not part of the train station building like the old one was. Actually, it is a part, but this room is entered from the outside, it has a separate door, it is not part of the train station halls.

I go inside. I have to wait until a counter is free and I say I want to buy a ticket for the next bus. I pass a debit card over the counter. "You can't pay by card," the aunt tells me from behind the counter.
"How so?" I ask, confused. "Well, says the woman, we don't take cards." I hesitantly put the card away. I don't want to pay with cash for a number of reasons, the money I have is on a card, but lo and behold, card payments are not possible. In the ticket center of the main train station in the second largest city in Bulgaria, full of foreigners, a famous tourist destination, European capital of culture in 2019 even. On the outside of the office is a large illuminated sign that says: "Plane and bus tickets." I imagine how someone would go there to buy a plane ticket and be told they have to pay in cash.
And this, as I understand a little later, is not some emergency situation only with this company. The situation is the same with another transport company, which transports passengers not only in the country, but also abroad... As one outraged citizen wrote on FB: Apparently I'm asking too much from one "European" city.
The strange thing about these two companies, so well-known, and one of them even the largest transport company in the country, is that they have websites, and on these websites there is an option to buy tickets online with a credit or debit card. One even says on its website that it provides money transmission services, whatever that means in this case. But when you go to the ticket office to buy a ticket, such an option, payment by card, no longer exists. And if you ask me now why I didn't buy a ticket online, I can categorically state that after the previous misunderstandings with inaccurate or missing information, online, on old and unsupported websites of companies and bus stations, I would not risk doing something like that. Especially since when I'm running such a complex turned out to be inland transport operation, exposed to constant delays, confusion, accidents and all, I wouldn't risk buying a ticket in advance either.

Meanwhile, the aunt behind the counter is writing hard by hand. You remember how I told you about the conductors on the trains on the line to this same second largest city and their ticket stubs that they painstakingly write out by hand, transporting you to another era. Now I was transported there again. I received a carefully filled-in ticket with the company logo, which contains the following filled-in information: Destination (from-to), date, time, number of passengers (for whom the ticket is issued), seat number on the bus, price.

The first thing that strikes me about this ticket is the seat number given to me, but I don't have time to think about it because I have to pay the price. And the price is even stranger. Because it's a nice round amount as far as bills go, but it ends at 0.95, ie. at 95 cents. We all know those marketing tricks with prices ending in 0.95, 0.99, better be 7 actually, but who needs that to apply to a bus ticket? Which cannot be paid by card. 🤔
Whatever questions one has here, however, there is no one to ask them. So I take out bills and pay, I don't get a receipt, just this hand written ticket and I walk out.

I do not receive a receipt for the amount paid, and that makes an even more strange impression on me. In fact, the whole feeling here is of something wrong that should not be happening in this century and in a country in the European Union, it smells to me of some kind of fraud, even money laundering, but so brutally clearly done, in which all the authorities are involved , local, municipal and state, that one has nothing else to do but accept it (if one can).

I was given seat number 38. I look at my ticket and I can't believe what it says. At first I think it's some kind of joke, there couldn't be that many passengers for this bus that runs in the middle of the day on a Monday. But as I stand in front of the bus waiting for the departure time to arrive, little by little people start to arrive, some still without tickets, others with tickets already purchased.
I stand and wait for the driver to fill the luggage compartment that holds my suitcase and close it before I get on the bus. I watch him throw a bag on top of it, my suitcase lurches to the other side of the bus, but the driver pulls it back, places the other person's bag on top of it again, but eventually wheels it up and leaves it there. I can see the suitcase starting to move with every movement of the other bags around and I wonder if its wheels will break by the end of this trip, constantly being bumped by the other bags. And not in airplane loading and unloading, as one might assume that a suitcase would break, but during a simple bus trip over a distance of 140 km in Bulgaria. I am lucky that I will get off at the very first stop on this destination and there is no possibility of the luggage being stolen, but will the suitcase even survive? That is why I told you that I prefer to travel by train as far as the security of my luggage is concerned. But now I have nothing more to do but get on the bus eventually.

The people inside have arranged themselves quite lavishly. So I walk back, looking for a double empty seat. I pass a very dirty one and end up stopping somewhere at the back door of the bus, hoping that I really don't have to follow the seat number written on my ticket. The passengers who continue to enter, however, insist on keeping track of their seat numbers, so I eventually move to my seat, number 38, and continue to watch the flow of people. I've sat next to an elderly lady who seemed ok from afar, talking on the phone about some Airbnb she owned that needed to be cleaned for the next guest, etc.

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Well, what happened during this 140-km trip is pathetic and typical Bulgarian, 😄I won't bore you any more in this post, maybe I'll write about it in another one.

Thank you for your time! Copyright:	@soulsdetour
	Soul's Detour is a project started by me years ago when I had a blog about historical and not so popular tourist destinations in Eastern Belgium, West Germany and Luxembourg. Nowadays, this blog no longer exists, but I'm still here - passionate about architecture, art and mysteries and eager to share my discoveries and point of view with you.

Personally, I am a sensitive soul with a strong sense of justice.
Traveling and photography are my greatest passions.
Sounds trivial to you?
No, it's not trivial. Because I still love to travel to not so famous destinations.🗺️
Of course, the current situation does not allow me to do this, but I still find a way to satisfy my hunger for knowledge, new places, beauty and art.
Sometimes you can find the most amazing things even in the backyard of your house.😊🧐🧭|