Sofia station seems to be a good place to me. It’s a large, slightly brutal, Soviet inspired building, but it is clean and seems safe. Getting a ticket for the Istanbul train proves very simple once I have located the hidden counter 22. If in doubt start at counter 23, and it will all work itself out. The platforms are mainly under the station and each is described as East/West (in crylic) by a letter after the platform number, which is really just indicating the position on the same long platform.

Tonight the platform for the Istanbul train was announced about 40 minutes before departure, and there on platform 4 was the train, made up of a mixture of Turkish and Bulgarian carriages. At the front were four similar looking modern Turkish coaches, most looked like sleepers (2 berth), but maybe a couple of them were actually couchettes (4 berth). Outside they all look the same.

The Bulgarian loco hauling the train tonight for the first stint was ancient, and could be part of a vintage train restoration rally. The driver spoke a little English and seemed like the sort of person who was used to fixing things designed for Stalin.

The two white polo shirted Turkish carriage attendants were very professional, but at the same time enjoyed a joke or two, which is just as well as the passengers were a wonderful mix of nationalities – Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, German and Turkish amongst others. Many were students on their first Istanbul adventure. I recognised several of them from Serbia, and it was nice to share the next leg of the trip with the ‘Balkan gang’ on such a wonderful train.

On board the sleeper, the first class compartment is a two berth set up, with one above the other. The lower berth pulls down too, so it is a proper bed, both wide and comfortable, and bags of pressed bedding are supplied complete with smart Turkish rugs. But the big news of the night was the ‘kitchenette’. I’m calling it a kitchenette, as each two berth 1st class compartment has its own fridge, and a big table top complete with a further table that sides out, presumably for late night kitchen supper parties.

This really is taking comfort to a new level, especially if you have brought your own picnic. Added to this, the compartment has a good air conditioning system , with a heating set up that can be adjusted but also isolated, giving you just cool air. The window also opens. Sleeping carriage nirvana!

There was a bit of a party atmosphere on board, and I felt very safe and comfortable to be amongst the passengers on this train. At one point a very nice Turkish woman knocked on my door and asked me if I was Russian. I asked why she might think that. She had checked the manifest and there were several Russians on board, and she expected them to have a surplus supply of vodka! If we were not getting up at 02.00 I would have joined her in her quest.

The only snag with this train is one of timing. The train departs at 21.15 from Sofia, and really you need to be disciplined and go to bed immediately, as between 02.00 and 04.00 you are up dealing with officials on the Bulgarian border and then the Turkish border at Kapikule. You then get to go back to bed until around 08.00 where the train currently terminates at Halkali station on the outskirts of Istanbul. Here there is a bus transfer into the city which drops you outside the original Sirkeci station terminal building.

You might wake up in the morning and vaguely remember a dream about getting off the train at the Turkish border. The process takes about 30 minutes for passports to be inspected and stamped. Your luggage stays on the train, so its just an amble over to the immigration office, a stamp in your passport and back to bed. There seemed to be no interest in my paper e-visa – I can only assume that their system just shows that I have one when they scan my passport.

Halkali station is currently a massive engineering project, and as the footbridges have not been finished, getting from the train to the bus involves a 10 minute walk through the building site, and no hard hats are provided. The bus transfer is included in the ticket.

This route is only going to get better now as the line engineering works get completed. It is already much better bet than two years ago, when I last made the journey (from Bucharest) – back then there was a five hour bus journey from the Turkish border at Kapikule. I have to mention that as a young man I remember InterRailing here a couple of times from Greece (now no longer possible) – back then the train rounded the Golden Horn and terminated in the wonderful Sirkeci station, now a railway museum. This was the ultimate way to arrive Istanbul for the first time, and I wrote a little about this experience in my first book ‘Trans-Siberian Adventures’.

My taxi driver is keen to impress and drives us right onto the main station platform to drop me off. There are a few backpackers and locals hanging around, but not always trusting second hand news, I breeze into the station master’s office and enquire about today’s train. I seem to have moved into the mode of speaking loudly in English, as though I will be better understood. It seems to work here. The member of staff with the best English answers my questions and it turns out that the train is already here and ready to go in half an hour. Being a signed up member of the Tufty Club, I’m nervous at walking across tracks, but that’s required here to reach The Balkan, where it lurks on on platform 3 like a rebellious bad boy of a train.

There are no signs, clocks or screens at Topcider. It’s the sort of station that you ask where to go and which train to get on. My options today are simple as there is just one train and two carriages. The one I have a reservation in is a commuter coach and does not look like a comfortable place to be for this 12 hour journey.

Instead I find a seat in the second coach. It doesn’t look like its going to be busy today, and other than a few tourists, no one seems to care about which seat they are supposed to be sitting in.

You may have noticed the distinctive livery of The Balkan, but it’s not an official one. It seems that nearly all trains in Serbia are covered in graffiti. I have seen some so bad that I wonder how the driver can see out the front!

Right on time at 09.06 the driver hoots his horn and we set off down the line with all the doors still open. The rules on this train are in character with its external image. People smoke at the open doorways and the guards seem to view both the open doors and the cigarettes as totally normal. To compensate for this the air-conditioning is switched off and we adjust the climbing temperature by opening up the steamy and grimy windows as best as possible.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about today’s journey across Serbia is the police presence. I couldn’t work it out at first. At nearly every stop a gang of them would get on and question people before leaving. The more this happens the later the train gets and we are soon a couple of hours behind. At one place a plain clothes woman asks to see my passport and actually gets on the phone to someone to discuss my presence onboard. One of her colleagues joins in and asks me where I’m going. “Azerbaijan” I tell him, but I think he misunderstands me and thinks I have said Afghanistan. More police arrive and notes are made about my passport whilst I explain that I’m actually headed to Baku rather than Kabul. Eventually they move on; I’m not what they are looking for. They head down the carriage to interview one of the German hippies.

Later in the day a fresh squad bring a sniffer dog onto the train. All of them are armed with at least an automatic pistol and a baton. They mean business. It would seem you can choose your own gun in the Serbian police force. Most of them go for a Beretta 92F, some fitted with custom wood grips. Someone told me that no one liked the Beretta until Mel Gibson used one in the 1987  film “Lethal Weapon”. Now they all use them.

Speaking with a couple of friendly Brits at the end of the carriage, we conclude that this may be all about the flow of people from the south (Albania) toward the EU border (Bulgaria). It would seem to make sense, and if I’m ever on the run I will know now never to take a Serbian train.

As we reach the south of the country, the broken industrial landscape changes to one of mountains and meadows. Once we have left Nis, the train backs out the way we came in and we take a junction onto a single line that climbs through the mountains. It feels more like Colorado than Serbia to me. Incidentally if you are a steam fan, I noticed a whole graveyard of rusty engines outside the station there.

I chose the right carriage. As the day went on the other one began to small terribly, and I suspect that a major accident might have occurred in the single toilet. As the sun set we reached the Bulgarian border, where we surrendered passports once more. My passport was inspected so many times that I had given up putting it away. The only difference with this border was that the Bulgarian security people inspected the roof of the train and peered into voids with a long snakelike light, presumably looking for people.

I got rather confused by my timetable at this point, as a result of the names of some similar sounding places, like Dimitrovgrad, and the change in time between the two countries. The train was due to arrive at 20.19, but at 21.30 I calculated we were still two to three hours from Sofia. The wonders of the modern world saved me though, back on EU telephone roaming I figured out we were actually much closer, and in the end we arrived at around 22.00.

This journey was always going to be a bit of a challenge. I did actually find it mainly relaxing, if a little hot during the afternoon. The passengers were all charming, and the train staff and police were pleasant enough. I brought along a days food and 3 litres of water, but had run out of water several hours before we got in to Sofia. So if I was doing this again I would overstock on rations just in case. By taking this route I have broken the back of the mileage to Istanbul, with just a nearly direct night train ahead of me. By contrast the northern route via Bucharest leaves more mileage until its final day.

On arrival in Sofia a few passengers who had booked onto the Istanbul Express missed the connection, and had to get a seat on the 23.00 bus departing out front. The international ticket office closes at 21.00, so the chances are you will need to come back the next morning to sort out onward tickets even if slightly delayed. Sofia station struck me as large, clean and safe – a good place to be, with helpful staff and lots of seating. They have even placed a few steam engines around the building.

When I find the departures board I discover that my train for the first seven hours is bound for Sofia. On platform 1 I spot two carriages getting pushed back into the station.  Where is the rest of the train? The guard confirms this is actually all of train 461, the only daily service to Sofia. One of the carriages looks pretty crappy and has no obvious numbers or markings. The other carriage, number 473 has international pedigree. It is Sofia bound and it is air conditioned. I’m relieved to see I’m in this carriage and not the crappy one.

On board there are about a dozen passengers and the compulsory seat reservations have been issued so that we are all down one end. I sit opposite a slightly scary looking big man with a shaved head and a black leather jacket. It’s actually against the law not to wear a black leather jacket if you are a Romanian man. Smoking and drinking lots of coffee are also mandatory. The inspector writes something on my tickets and it looks like all is in order. The next challenge will be the Bulgarian border in three hours time.

Giurgiu Nord, 15.30
I woke up at the Romanian frontier where in time honoured rail tradition a policeman checks our passports and takes them away. The border between Romania and Bulgaria is a massive flood plain and the Danube itself with a big metal Cold War bridge stretching over it, more than two kilometres long. On the other side we stop again and a Bulgarian policewoman repeats the passport process. On the platform a woman wearing rubber gloves writes our carriage number in her notebook. I wonder what her job is, but am afraid to ask. The Romanian locomotive was detached here and heads back to Bucharest. A new Bulgarian engine will power the two carriages to Sofia. The crappy carriage is still with us, and it’s empty. Other than luck I’m not sure how you would avoid getting a seat in it. The only possible ticketing difference is that it is not air conditioned.
One we set off again the Bulgarian ticket inspector spots my cunning plan and checked I knew where I was going to get off. I suggested what I thought was the arrival time into Gorna Orjahovica and she said “maybe, around that time”. I hope I make the connection, which I think is possibly 16 minutes, depending on which timetable you believe. There is just a single track on much of this line, which amazes me. You would think that two ex Soviet block countries would have better connections, but maybe that’s part of the story of Romania’s independent approach during the communist period.

18.29, Gorna Orjahovica
Connection made, 15 minutes was plenty of time. The timetable supplied by the ticket office in Bucharest is useless. Fortunately I have a copy of the DB Bahn one printed out (don’t leave home without one) and it’s pretty accurate. I couldn’t work out the Bulgarian departures board very well but got to speak to a helpful lady in the ticket office. Platform 4, 18.45 – I’m now bound for Dimitrovgrad.

On platform 4 I’m greeted by two old carriages, the style that have mini compartments. The engine is coming – I can see it in the distance. This is all good. I’m joined by a Taiwanese lady headed somewhere that neither of us can pronounce. She is lovely and we have much in common, so it’s a shame she is getting off soon. Before we depart the woman from the ticket office hops on as well, she is now acting as our conductor. She brings with her an amazing bit of news for me. My next leg, that was to be by bus, will in fact be by train. That means I’m on trains all the way to the Turkish border. I’m not sure if this is because there are no engineering works at the weekend, but I suspect more likely is that the bit of paper I was given in the Bucharest ticket office relates to train travel in the Byzantine period.

As the sun sets there are some good views and I have an open window. This is great, but in my haste to snap something interesting I nearly lose my camera out the window. Schoolboy stuff, get a grip Woodward. It’s an odd combination of open windows but overhead electric power, so from time to time I hear frazzling sounds and the smell the incineration of large insects or small birds. I settle down by the window and the day changes to night as the sun sets. I’m joined by two local lads who I can only guess are heading out for a Saturday night somewhere more exciting than Gorna Orjahovica. They are an odd couple. One is dressed ready for the full disco experience, right down to a diamond earring, the other has a strange emo haircut making his ears stick out through his hair at an odd angle. I’d like to know how they get on, but of course will never know. According to my timetable in 4 hours I shall be close to Dimitrovgrad, ready for my next change.

22.50, Dimitrovgrad
Bang on time again, I’m one of only two passengers left, and changing trains here. The 465 train that brought us here turns itself round, waiting I’m guessing for the reverse operation in a few hours time. Dimitrovgrad looks brand new and you can see what I’m guessing is big investment in the new line. At this time of night there is nothing going on, but the conductor of the train suggests platform 2. Bulgaria uses the cryillic alphabet, so it’s just like being in Russia – I have to guess the words, but on platform 2, none are obvious. Fortunately my fellow passenger, a Moldovian lady, confirms “Istanbul”, so I relax as best as I can and wait for half an hour for our “Midnight Express” to arrive.

This is getting even more crazy. The last two trains have been made up of just two second class carriages. Well now this latest train is made up of just a single (really crappy) one. It is the 493 train from Sofia. I imagined that it would be a big train full of InterRailers, but in fact there are seemingly none. There are five of us on board, and we make a very odd and diverse looking bunch. I read a book once called “Refusal Shoes”. It was about how immigration at Heathrow airport select and deal with people based on their footwear. I’m in sandals tonight, but at least I’m wearing a shirt with a collar. This is the route of the Orient Express after all. Three hours until we reach the Turkish border. The guard has taken down my passport number and nationality, so it will be interesting to see how they do this.

Kapikule, 02.30
I’m sat on a bus waiting to leave Kapikule with my four fellow adventurers, two Finns, a Moldovan and a chap who I can’t place, but he needs a full visa. It’s very dark and very hot on board the bus.

A man with a big moustache has been shouting orders at us and making us move around together between various police and customs buildings. If we had stayed any longer I’m sure he would have had us marching. One passenger does this every weekend, so I followed him. He’s Finnish and very ably exhibiting his national character, he’s as cool as a cucumber and very understated – he left his ticket on the train and was made to go back to get it. He explains to me in broken English that the train was moving away whilst he did this and he had to jump off. I tell him I’m pleased he made it back and he looks at me in a very deadpan Finnish way and says simply “Shit happens”.
I have discovered that the crappy carriage I was on for the last couple of hours has in fact come all the way from Sofia, no change at Plovdiv required. Normally I would be attracted to a direct train, but it was a really horrible local commuter carriage. My trains down from Romania today were much better, even though the journey has been six hours longer and I have needed to change twice.
Our bus first of all has to negotiate crossing the massive queue of lorries waiting to get into Bulgaria. There are miles and miles of them. Quite incredible. Once this is done we limp along the toll road in a top gear that doesn’t quite sound right. My plan has been to stay awake until getting on the bus then catch some sleep for the 4-5 hour run into Istanbul. In reality sleep isn’t possible on the bus. It’s hotter than a sauna, my seat won’t recline. The metal part of the heater by my feet is so hot that it burns or melts anything it comes into contact with. The hours pass slowly, but eventually I realise we are much closer to the centre of Istanbul than I had thought. It’s a fantastic dawn over th Bosphorus and I tag along with the Finnish guy who shows me how to use the metro (not built when I was last here) and avoid the usual station taxi scam.

Unsurprisingly I’m not in good shape, and I’m relieved when my hotel organise a temporary room at 7am just to allow me to wash and sleep for a few hours. As my head hits the pillow I actually start to hallucinate. I see a huge swarm of flies in the room swirling all around me, then all flying together into one mass before vanishing. Am I on the edge of a train based breakdown?