<a href="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/?attachment_id=627" rel="attachment wp-att-627"><img class="size-full wp-image-627 alignleft" title="bulgarian-donkey-cart(oct12" src="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/bulgarian-donkey-cartoct12.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="150" /></a>The last time we visited a communist country was over 20 years ago when we went to Yugoslavia. This was our first visit to a post communist country and it seems that capitalism has had a limited impact on Bulgaria, certainly true in the small village where our friends have set up home.

The roads are appalling with deep potholes and often the tarmac surface virtually disappears as you enter a village and then restarts once through the village. It is a real test of a cars suspension and if I was a test driver for Landrover I'd use Bulgaria as my test track.

Of course there are cars but with a low population density (70 people per sq km compared to UK 257 people per sq km) there aren't many. The peasant population are still happy to use donkey drawn carts as shown here and true sophistication is having rubber tyres on the cart. They cannot travel far because the nearest town was an hours drive from Martin &amp; Kate's house and this is really the nearest shop