Not having planned a holiday because we had just bought a new car, but fed-up with the non-summer we were having my husband and I decided enough was enough and started the process of looking for a cheap and cheerful fortnight in the sun. After a few weeks looking in Travel Agents windows and teletext pages we saw what we thought was a good deal, Golden Sands Bulgaria, B&B £300pp for two weeks. Great, we thought - I rushed to the Travel Agents and picked up a brochure. The brochure was filled with pictures of smiling families having fun on the beach, clear blue sun-filled skies, and £1 for a bottle of vodka. Excellent - looks great, lets go. Our first concern came when we saw the plane that we were going on, how on earth was that rust bucket going to actually fly? But fly it did, mind you it was the worst flight I have ever been on. Arriving in Bulgaria we were held up for about an hour at passport control as they scrupulously checked every passport several times. Fair enough, but who would want to sneak into Bulgaria anyway, far more chance of people sneaking out. Next came a drive through Dracula country in the pouring rain, not a great start to our sunshine break. Arrival at the 'Hotel' was turned into a total rabble by the hordes of locals offering to carry cases the twenty feet or so into the Hotel. "Tip for luggage, tip for luggage Sir". OK, so it is a poor country and they are only trying to earn a few pence, give them a pound and the harassment will stop - Wrong!! One word that sums up the entire Bulgarian experience is 'Harassment'; boy did they know how to really bug you. The very shortened list includes - Black market moneychangers, in the street, at the breakfast table, knocking on your room door, everywhere. Taxi Drivers more or less trying to pull you physically into their cab. Horse and Cart men following you for 500 yards on every street. Photographers - "no I still don't want my photo taken with Mickey Bloody Mouse thank you". Dinner was the next big shocker; every menu included such culinary delights as Brains in Butter, yuck. So it was omelette and chips every night (until we found a KFC - pure bliss). After dinner a couple of drink necessitated a trip to the loo, disaster zone. None of the pubs or restaurants seemed to have a toilet, well not an inside on anyway. The toilets were outside jobs shared between a few establishments. Each one had a woman sitting outside charging a few pence for use of the toilet and two sheets of paper. If they charged the cockroaches and beetles a few pence each they would be millionaires very soon. The toilets were absolutely crawling, but at least the more accommodating attendants would go in with a brush and shoo them away before you went in, and for that I am thankful, although after about 30 seconds they were back in their multitudes. We did at last find a good pub where the food was edible and the drink cheap and good. They had a band on every night, and the singer with an unquestionable likeness to Marti Pellow made the rest of the week just about bearable. I say the end of the week because after two days we went straight to the rep with a plea of 'please, please get us out of here'. They did so with no real bother, but we had to see out the full week until we could get a flight. The flight that we got was to West Midlands, and we had to hire a car to get back to Glasgow - it was worth every penny. To finish up, I would compare the resort with a pale imitation of 1940's Blackpool. Before we went we were told to take tights and chocolate as gifts for the locals since they were hard to come by over there. My advice would be to take some soap and deodorant for the waiting staff, as that is obviously also in very short supply. I sincerely hope that I never have to set foot in Bulgaria ever again - I can't even watch their football team now without feeling ill. Bulgaria is not for me I am afraid.