2005 Bulgaria Camp Diary
A blow-by-blow account of the Bulgaria Training Camp held in August/September 2005
by Matt Grange
Saturday 27th August
An early start, as is often the case with short-haul European flights. Amazingly, everyone arrives at Gatwick South terminal with no problems, although some confusion occurs until it is established that Eddie Walsh and Ed Harding are flying from Stansted. The Swiss pairing of Urs and Wira turn up with identical luggage, to much amusement.
Amusement turns to trepidation when we discover that we are taking a Bulgaria Air 737, the type of plane that has made the news recently for all the wrong reasons. Fernando takes his mind off this by going shopping for clothes, a frequent theme for the entire camp. I decide to lose my money in the slot machines instead, mission accomplished.
The flight is uneventful, although I cannot bring myself to eat any airline food, partly because it's horrible stuff and mainly because Gaia, Fernando and myself indulged in an English breakfast at the airport. We arrive in Bulgaria (Fact: pop. 7.5 million, land area 110,000 sq. km) at around mid-afternoon local time.
Sofia looks nice from the air, being quite green and not as big as you might expect, from the ground it manages to look slightly grubby and much construction work is in evidence ('it looks like Colombia!' says Fernando). We rendezvous with Eddie, Ed, Adam, Rosie and Rosie's cousin Katerina and get on the bus to our hotel, some 3-4 hours away. A brief halt is called to admire the St. Alexander Nevsky Patriarchal Cathedral Stauropigial Memorial-Church (!!), change our currency into Bulgarian leva (sub-unit, the stotinki, commonly referred to as thingies or Stravinskies because we couldn't remember the name...) and have a laugh at Wing's expense, it being her --th birthday (deleted at Wing's request). Rosie's aunt turned up with a huge and extremely tasty chocolate cake to mark the happy occasion.
The coach ride resumes, punctuated by a halt for refreshments at a gas station. Here begins the increasingly complex Bulgarian lavatory rating system devised by Gaia and Teresa, and also the welcome discovery that everything is dead cheap in Bulgaria.
The scenery is much debated, everyone finding other countries to compare bits of it to (Colombia! Italy! France! Spain! Sussex?!?), but definitely quite pretty. Chief Instructor Ngo offers to provide in-coach entertainment 'the bad news is, we only have one DVD, the good news is, it's Sleeping Beauty: the Musical!'. Well, Carmen liked it.
We arrive in Bansko pretty late, 9ish, and find it an odd place. It will be a picturesque ski resort in a wonderful mountain setting, once they've finished it, currently it looks like a cross between Berlin 1945 and a builder's yard. We are welcomed to the Hotel Rahoff by three female staff dressed in traditional Bulgarian costume, who sing us a long and intricately harmonised traditional Bulgarian hotel song before feeding us bread and spices. We go out for dinner almost immediately, at a nice looking restaurant which includes a local four-piece band who sing lots of folk-songs and make themselves increasingly unwelcome by refusing to shut up and go away. The food is excellent, with a Mediterranean theme and characterised by lots of bread, cheese and roast meat. We are introduced to the unnerving local custom of bringing the meat in on huge pointy skewers, depositing it on the plate and then ramming the skewer into a beam above the recipient's head. Geoff looks particularly nervous, and eventually the staff take the skewers away. A short toast from Chief Instructor Ngo and a long stagger back up to the hotel, and we collapse into bed with the wonderful news that we will be getting up at 6:30am to go running. Happily, we discover the hotel has a sauna, (David Lundblad is overjoyed) a jacuzzi and a pool table (Felix is overjoyed).
Sunday 28th August
Up bright and early to much groaning. The weather is great and the initial run (around the town several times) goes well. I'm glad to note that my training in the previous months has paid off and only the imperturbable Jonathan Westmuckett makes it home before I do. Gaia does well also, Fernando looks the part in all his new gear but sadly does his knee in. We find breakfast very satisfactory, including pastries, cheese, meat, eggs and a salad. No yoghurt until later though, George is much dismayed by this. We also discover Blackberry Tea, and several people rapidly become addicted to this beverage, to the extent of becoming emotional and stroppy when it runs out on Thursday.
Off we go to train, on the grass out the back of the hotel. Chief Instructor Ngo's theme for the week is sparring in White Crane style, any more information than this and I risk being assassinated by ninja. We have a Q&A session about our sparring fears and problems, and various nasty things involving noses, ears and pressure points are duly demonstrated on Adam Prout and George, who is beginning to look distinctly harassed by the end of the session. We also practice our Suan Yuang, and find that Bulgaria presents its own particular problem in this respect, having almost no flat ground anywhere and plenty of incontinent goats. The fight for a decent bit of turf to stand on will continue all week, although no one's arguing with John Irwin.
Lunch is very nice indeed, and then we hop into our hired bus and roll on down to a hot springs swimming pool. Our driver is an elderly native in an olive green and probably army surplus bus which is clearly his pride and joy, and another theme for the week is the increasing annoyance he displays at our inability to be on time for anything.
We hang out at the pool all afternoon and are much entertained by George and both Adams putting on a display of diving, or in Adam P.'s case falling with style. The locals look amused as well, including the barmaid that Fernando spends all week chatting up. The water is warm and very pleasant, although Harry is more tempted by the massage parlour, possibly due to its seedy looking exterior. We then amused the local gypsies by practising blocking techniques nearby.
Dinner is in a restaurant up the hill, and is accompanied by many tales of misbehaviour in the massage parlours of China, not suitable for repetition here. Carmen decides chips are definitely her thing, I get landed with the job of collecting drinks money all week, which is not going to make me very many friends, I suspect.
Monday 29th August
This time we run uphill, for nearly half an hour, before running back downhill in rather less time. The lack of fibre in the otherwise excellent Bulgarian diet is beginning to tell on some people, and Immodium suddenly becomes a valuable commodity. We will be training up in the mountains proper today, and following a coach ride up we disembark at a spectacular location on the side of a valley with two of the highest peaks in Bulgaria looming to either side and a great view down the valley. It takes a fair bit of climbing to get to a good spot for training, and Urs takes a break from it all to go and sit on a big rock and commune with the mountains.
We do more block/punch training, and then follow up with patterns. A number of people discover that Bulgarian ants are pretty big and quite aggressive, and it is wise not to perform San Zhan on top of them. Lunch is nice but only two plates of meatballs are provided, leading to some tricky arithmetic for everyone except Michael, who being a vegetarian gets his own food all week, mainly involving cheese. Following the discovery of The Worst Toilet In Bulgaria (TM), we take a hike across the rushing stream, through the muddy bogs and up to a round, still lake in the midst of the mountains, very pretty indeed and only slightly ruined by the sight of Harry taking a dip. We wait expectantly for strange aquatic monsters from the depths of time to devour him alive, but disappointingly none appear. David, being Swedish, goes off to jump in the river instead. Katerina says that the lake is called the Eye Lake, for obvious reasons.
We meet up to go back to Bansko and find John Irwin missing. Luckily, being a substantial gentleman, he is not hard to spot on the other side of the valley.
Back in Bansko we have further training on a punch/block theme, which means more bruises and an enlightening lecture from Chief Instructor Ngo about cooking mushrooms, which I wish I'd written down.
One excellent dinner later, and I have my first go at the sauna with steam veterans David and Jonathan, just what i needed to soothe the muscles.
Tuesday 30th August
Today's run answers the question, what does a ski slope look like without any snow? Answer, big rocks, little rocks, the worst surface to run on since land mines were invented. Uphill and punctuated by streams, it was horrible and Gaia in particular was not amused. Fernando bought some aerodynamically designed, ventilated and probably bullet-proof socks on the way to training, which caused Chief Instructor Ngo to laugh a lot and point out that his socks are also ventilated as they have holes in and didn't cost £12 either.
We moved onto pushing hands training, during which having a good poker face became very useful. Following more tasty pastry snacks, of which Bulgaria has a great many, everyone watched with sadistic and totally unsympathetic delight as Chief Instructor Ngo massaged some thumb muscles I had torn the previous day. It hurt a lot, but worked like a charm. We followed up with Suan Yuang in the sun, which felt really good and relaxed everyone nicely.
Off to the pool again after lunch, only to find that today is pool cleaning day. We located an alternative pool, with a high diving board, from which various instructors spent the afternoon leaping. This afternoon also saw the inauguration of the FWC Underwater Swimming Club, a not-at-all-silly masculine contest to see who could swim a length underwater. Geoff decided after repeated attempts came up short to form the We Don't Care About Your Silly Underwater Club, membership of one (Geoff). Carmen kept everyone busy again, many of the instructors must be fully qualified babysitters by now.
We finished up with freestyle training, pushing hands, Suan Yuang, patterns, whatever took the fancy, before Chief Instructor Ngo gave a short but fascinating talk on force and energy and their use in sparring.
Dinner was at a new restaurant in Bansko where traditional folk dancing was perpetrated on us and Ed ate all the chips. This was also our first attempt at Bulgarian wine, although I personally stuck with the beer. By all accounts, it was ok. The double act between Eddie and David is beginning to flower into a real comedy pairing.
Wednesday 31st August
Our first day of sprints. Complaints from the girls that they are naturally slower were thoroughly ignored by the all-male instructors. We did finish off with a Sun Salutation, which is as always a fine experience when combined with the sun rising. Today was declared a day off from training, and we took a long coach ride to the Rila Monastery, an Orthodox monastery in the mountains (Fact: 82% of Bulgarians are Orthodox Christian).
Fortress-like on the outside, it combined functionality and extreme ornamentation in the Byzantine style on the inside, and was peopled by large bearded priests dressed in black and sporting spectacular beards. The museum in one wing had fantastic and rather eclectic displays of ornaments, clothes, weapons and odd stuff, including an incredible carved wooden cross that took twelve years to make and apparently resulted in its creator going blind.
We then walked up the mountain-side to view the hermit's house and the Cave of Sinlessness. Any man who has sin, so the legend goes, may not pass through the cave. Evidently kung fu students are an incredibly virtuous bunch, as everyone made it through except John Irwin, whose soul is obviously too tarnished. On a more prosaic note, it was a tight squeeze and not improved by the amateur photographers lying in wait at the cave exit to inflict flash photography on the people groping their way out of the darkness. We noticed that a number of frail old ladies were making their dogged way up the path to pray for healing and drink the holy water issuing from a tap at a shrine nearby. One of them told us that the Devil has cast the hermit down from the mountain several times, but he had never given up and nor would they, a useful lesson for everyone.
We shopped for some souvenirs back at the monastery, and then drove off to have lunch, which turned out to be excellent trout and some very nice ice cream, although i couldn't bring myself to eat fish heads despite Chief Instructor Ngo's insistence that they were the best bit.
One long bus ride later, and back to Bansko for another meal, which this time involves rabbit and an extended session of awful jokes and tricky logical puzzles. Adam P. is especially good at telling really bad jokes and getting away with it, only Tommy Cooper could do better.
So far, it's been a really enjoyable camp, nice people, good atmosphere, no cliques and no disagreements, and i really feel we've learned a lot of useful and interesting stuff. Humility and the ability to take things seriously but not too seriously (you'll go blind!) are important characteristics to develop, although ultimately you have to be pretty obsessed with kung fu to get really good at it.
Thursday 1st September
Sprints again, but more so. Sun Salutation is a welcome change from the high impact of running as fast as you can across a field. Yet again, it is a nice day, and we spend the morning practising cross-stepping and evasion techniques. Chief Instructor Ngo demonstrates the value of having strong fingers by poking people on pressure points, and yes, it does hurt! George in particular wears his 'harassed' face again. The Suan Yuang feels really good afterwards, I don't know whether it is the location or the way I'm thinking and feeling, but I've never enjoyed it as much as I have on this camp.
After moussaka for lunch, we headed back to the swimming pool, which has just been refilled with piping hot water and is now more of a sauna than a pool. Most people don't stay in for long, and an informal practice session breaks out instead. Some of us prefer to relax, since for only 2 leva you can hire a couple of sun loungers and chill out while laughing at Adam P. trying to somersault into the water. Wira turns out to be a dab hand at magic tricks as the daily game of keeping Carmen amused on the bus continues to stretch our minds.
Training this afternoon involves more pushing hands and reaction/touch sensitivity stuff, at which I am astoundingly bad and getting worse, much to Adam Horner and Wing's amusement. Ah well, patience is a virtue, they say.
Dinner is the biggest tray of varied meat i have ever seen, with sausages, chicken, pork, lamb and all sorts of other stuff, plus a repeat of the skewer trick. Teresa turns out to be a diver in her spare time, which keeps me fascinated for an hour or so as I've never done any sea-diving. The realisation that the camp is nearly over is a bit depressing, as there's so much to learn, but we still have another day of training to go...
Friday 2nd September
Our last day of training, beginning with a sadistic variant of sprints whereby people set off at intervals and anyone who gets caught has to do press-ups. More protests from the ladies, and Fernando doesn't do well either, possibly because of his hi-tech socks. Urs and Wira have taken to calling people 'girlymen' in their best Arnold Schwarzenegger accents, along with other many other of the Gubernator's catchphrases.
Happily, one of the best experiences of the camp awaits to make up for all this activity. Following breakfast and another bus ride, we take a ski lift from the foothills right up to the mountains at about 2,200m, a very long ride in two-man chairs with an amazing view all the way up. The first time I've ever been on a ski-lift, and hopefully not the last. It's in two stages, and finally stops at a small centre next to another mountain lake which is larger and not as inviting as the previous one. Harry doesn't fancy a dip this time anyway.
It's cold and a bit misty, so we gear up with warm clothes and stroll round the lake to the other side and Chief Instructor Ngo leads us through the Sun Salutation and some Suan Yuang, tricky on the sloping and uneven ground but rewarding in such a scenic and atmospheric location. After a snack we move onto pushing hands (I'm still rubbish) and another lesson about mushrooms, people having discovered various types of them growing around the area.
However, at this point it began to rain, so we leave the mountainside and break for lunch, which turns out to be an ad hoc serving of cold sausage and cold omelette, not very nice really, although apparently the best that can be done at short notice. Eddie begins to rave about apple pie and custard and has to be restrained. After another enjoyable turn in the ski-lift with a white-knuckled Gaia for company, we get back to the hotel and are given the choice of hanging out at the pool or catching some sleep and it is here that I betray my role as a diarist by going to bed for a couple of hours!
The last training session of the day is blocking, pushing hands and basically practising all the stuff we've learnt over the week. In discussion, we conclude that it had been a really good camp, lots of fun and a serious lot of training, and agree that the point of camps should be to learn things that you haven't the time or leisure to go into in detail in class.
Saturday 3rd September
Despite it being the last day, it is decided that we should really push ourselves in the morning, so we go for a long run and then do sprints and the dreaded snake for good measure. Having neglected to sample the regional wines thus far, it is revealed that the morning will be a wine-tasting expedition. We drive to Melnik, one of the more well-known centres of Bulgarian wine production to judge from the menus in the restaurants. It's very Mediterranean in appearance, with white-walled and red-roofed houses and sandstone crags everywhere, and winding streets. Following a poke around a restored vineyard house and the cavernous wine cellars, we try some wine and are not terribly impressed. Things improve once we arrive at the restaurant nearby, the white wine in particular being very good. Sharon demonstrates a formidable knowledge of all things viticultural, leaving Fernando and myself to nod sagely in agreement, drink too much and order espressos in a hurry. The walls provide the explanation for the lack of wildlife so far; it seems that Bulgarians shoot and stuff anything they can't eat, including tiny birds and squirrels. The toilets, I am informed, top the lavatory ratings system by some way.
The afternoon is set aside for shopping in a nearby town, mainly for clothes and presents, Fernando in particular buys most of it, with Ed sticking to weapons purchasing and the rest of us searching for the famous Bulgarian rose oil for various women back home.
To be honest, we could have bought half the town, it was that cheap.
Back in Bansko, we have the final dinner of the trip, presenting presents to Chief Instructor Ngo and family and to Adam, Rosie and Katerina for doing such a great job of organising and running the trip, and then sit down to eat two entire roast lambs stuffed with rice and liver. Once again, I betray my journalistic responsibilities by going to bed rather than staying out and writing, but I am reliably informed that misbehaviour was minimal and only Geoff gambled in the casino, although everyone drank in the Lion Pub.
Sunday 4th September
Up at 2:30am for the coach to the airport, we feel sad to leave the hotel and Bansko behind. It proves a fairly gruelling trip to Sofia, and we are delayed for a couple of hours in the airport. Eddie, Ed, George, Adam and Rosie are not flying with the main group, so our reduced party spends the last of its leva and sits about waiting for the flight, taking turns to read the one English newspaper that Adam P. somehow gets hold of. George prefers to conduct a heated argument with an American tourist over questions of social responsibility. An easy flight back, and we all split up to go our separate ways, mainly with the intention to get hold of some muesli and a lot of sleep.
Altogether an excellent camp, friendly and productive in a location which is not an obvious tourist destination yet, although that is sure to change with Bulgaria's entry to the EU in 2007 and the increasing lure of the cut price Eastern European holiday. The scenery and food were top notch providing you had a good camera for the first and some appropriate medical supplies to counteract the latter, and the town of Bansko itself will certainly be a more attractive prospect as the construction work progresses. I'm pleased with what we learned and how we learned it, and would certainly go back (and spend more money!).