We're
Jordan and Emily a couple who are spending their life savings traveling the world
full-time over the last eight months we've taken overnight trains in Thailand, Vietnam and Serbia
all to varying degrees of success this is like 10 times better than I was expecting
bribing the Serbian police was worth it even after the stressful moments train Journeys have become
one of our favourite ways to travel. Tonight we take an overnight train that really surprised us
it is 5pm and we are only just about to start our massive travel day tonight we are getting
the Sofia Express which is an overnight train from Sophia to Istanbul but between
us and beautiful turkey stands 570 kilometres 11 hours and hopefully one smooth border crossing
we've had trouble booking our International train tickets before especially the overnight
ones typically they sell out so we came here two weeks ago to book our tickets on this overnight
train if you're looking to buy tickets online you won't find them you actually have to come to the
train station to get them don't know why just the way it is we paid 21 Euro and 10 cents each
to get a spot on the train and then we had to pay a 30 Euro supplement which guaranteed us a private
cabin it's just us two should be a lot better not a bad price for travel and accommodation
of course we had to start our time on the beautiful Sofia Express with a full cabin tour
First Impressions it is incredibly spacious for a train look at this I have my whole arms out we
still got a space to move I know they're not beds yet but I'm quite impressed with that I feel like
normally the wall would be here don't you think other than that there is a few amazing things that
we weren't expecting to point out we have a sink which is something we absolutely love when we can
get up on a train it means you can wash your hands brush your teeth in your cabin you don't have to
go to the stinky toilets it looks like we have an outlet for a shaver but I'm sure you could use it
to charge plenty of space for our bags we've got our big wheelies up top and our backpacks hanging
we've got the two beds currently in sofa mode even these are incredibly spacious
and I believe like all train ones it will pull down and they'll be made into beds
it's
quite like old school Style but pretty clean and like kept up to date whereas
I feel like a Belgrade to bar one was maybe a similar era but wasn't kept up
to date there's also a massive cupboard here which I don't know what's going to be in here
some storage space and what looks like a little Outlet a fridge
with water, pretzel sticks and juice and what I assume is a chocolate I don't know a hobby that's
amazing they're your pretzel sticks you love with hummus oh my God oh my God it's incredible this
makes me feel like it's closer to the train in Egypt than any other train we've gotten
and the table this a desk I think that's kind of good well
not really there appears to be the standard light controls but it also looks like we
have air control in here as well it's not currently turned on and it's pretty hot we
do have a window that opens but it's only the top bit so it's starting to
get a bit steamy so these are our beds I'm assuming they'll come and make them for us
massive blanket and the mattress seems pretty good as well we have some clean linen so I
think they're gonna come make these for us a bit later on but I'm assuming that'll be when
we take off in a couple of minutes overall I don't want to jinx it because obviously
we haven't started yet it's not the middle of the night and we're not being woken up
by border patrol but I'm really impressed especially for the price the fact that we
have a fridge with some snacks and stuff in there just way exceeds my expectations
I will say I have hopped on first thing so it is extremely clean because I think
I'm like the well maybe second person to use it there is an option for a Squatty
Potty or a regular Western toilet there's a window that's open got a toilet cleaner,
bin, toilet paper, assistance button, an outlet if you want to shave in here, soap and running water
I'd say that's a win for a train toilet plus it doesn't smell that bad and like I
said it's really clean right now might be one of the best toilets we've had
Seven minutes late is not bad we've heard that on average it's about one or two
hours late into Istanbul so starting seven minutes behind it's not bad I'm so excited
we're about 20 minutes in and the cabin attendant just came to check our tickets and our passport
numbers so when you board the train there's not actually a cabin attendant outside to
check and make sure that you're in the right one you just find the cabin that looks right
try and find the matching numbers jump in your cabin and they'll check your tickets
about 20 minutes in there is people around that you can ask so you do make sure you
get the right cabin but there's not going to be someone standing there checking you in.
Because this is a Bulgaria to Turkey overnight train we obviously have to cross a border we
looked online to try and get an idea of what that would be like seems like it's a little
bit different for everyone but the one common thread is that at the Turkish border you have
to take all your luggage off and get it all scanned in all the trains we've done and all
the buses we've done we've never actually had to do that so at the very least it's going to
be a new experience for us. Late Discovery but there is it's not quite a blockout blind but
I feel like that plus this I am so impressed with the Sofia Express oh that kind of rhymed we should
be getting to the first border around midnight so we're gonna try and get some sleep until then
it's 11 51. we're at the first border
We've just pulled into villaingrad which is the town that the Border controls are done
and I think we're going to be working up by the border guards soon to get our passports
I think they start at the other end of the train so we kind of have to wait until they get to us
shouldn't be too long, it does give us a chance to get ourselves ready for the main event which
is Crossing into the Turkish border so we can get all our documents ready and make sure all
our bags are easy to carry off the train and get our shoes on and things like that won't be long
this train station is just for border Crossings that's enough
it's been a pretty easy one so far the guy just came around and took everyone's passports and I
mean hoping that he'll come back with them the swapping beds I had the top bunk like
normal but there's this red flashing light so I was sleeping with my cardigan like this
so Jordan seems much more rested than I am so I now get the bottom bunk for the next half.
12 35 so about an hour later and we're officially stamped out of Bulgaria with a little train and
just like that we're stamped into turkey the Turkish Visa was super easy we applied for
our visas a few months ago it was 60 USD and they came through pretty much instantly we did manage
to print them off to take them with us but it was all electronic so we didn't need to do that
but safe then sorry you basically hop off the train there's this whole room that you just put
all of your luggage through and it gets scanned like at an airport and then you walk across to
a separate room where there was one single guy doing passport control for the entire train but
it went pretty quickly took a while to start but then it was just stamped stamp stamp yeah
now I think we can try and squeeze in another couple of hours sleep yeah on our way to Istanbul
which means we're about an hour and a half late but we have just been woken up by a knock on the
door asked to turn these back into seats I think it's time for a quick breakfast before we arrive
it was a pretty good breakfast
7:48 which means we're about two and a half hours delayed I do feel bad for for most people
if they were hoping to get in on time but we are loving it it means we got to sleep in we get to
watch the sunrise and we have less hours to kill until we can check into our Airbnb massive win
we made it yeah still an hour-ish and two trains until we actually get to the city centre though
yeah apparently this train used to go all the way into the heart of Istanbul and actually
used to go from all the way back in Budapest but recently they've stopped that and now it
comes to the Halkali station which is kind of a suburb in Istanbul and about an hour away
there should be a pretty easy connection that we can take for those that are thinking of doing
this there are no ATMs in the Halkali station whatsoever so if you don't have currency to
exchange or have Lira you won't be able to get on the train to take you Into the Heart of the City
we've got the Istanbul card which was 50 Lira each pretty easy to buy
there was a lady helping us with the machine it doesn't take part
that's the Sophia Express all the way from Sofia to Istanbul overnight train done getting into the
city centre was super easy with the Metro that Metro as well packed absolutely crazy super
clean super modern and quite easy to navigate though and uh Airbnb let us check in early