Hostel Mostel's notice board has a bunch of handwritten postcards pinned up on it, sent from various places in the world. "Thanks for taking us to the Gypsy community," and "We loved our stay in Bulgaria, thanks for the tour of the gypsy community, it was really interesting". Actually go out and meet the gypsies? On a "tour"?

Travel guide books are full of warnings, and I'd been absorbing these subconsciously for years. Pickpockets. Watch your bag. Kids tricking you with noise and newspapers, well-dressed women sliding up next to you and you suspect nothing, until you find your billfold is missing. In Europe, I was always petrified of gypsies.

Even Sofia's Hostel Mostel, which conducts the visits, has a sign warning backpackers to watch their valuables, and be aware that the pick-pocketers are often well-dressed women. A Sofia-written guide book says that pick-pocketing is not necessarily done by Roma people.

Hostel Mostel's owner, Assen, agrees to take me and an American couple on a visit and he gives us a few rules. Don't just take photos; give something back, even verbally. Involve them, communicate with them, he says. Will they want to communicate with us?

We reach the community after a 10-minute drive from the centre of Sofia, and walk across a rickety metal bridge over a river where people are bathing and washing clothes. It's stinking hot, and it's stinking. I've just avoided falling into a deep drain with no lid. I can't believe people are swimming in the river; it's strewn with plastic garbage, and the trees surrounding it are decorated with plastic bags. I learn later that this is due to a flood that damaged several of the Roma homes here not long ago.

The roads are dust-covered and divide up the hotch-potch of shanty-town like constructions, beautifully organised vegetable gardens and large, "currently being extended" houses. The vegetable gardens and homes are protected with high wire fences.

It doesn't take long before some cute Roma kids are chatting to us, and posing for photos. Their parents come out into the afternoon heat and Assen translates their questions for us. We mill around, talking under the sun, and I can't help notice that horses aren't spared the heat; they're not even allowed shade. They stand chewing on hay that sits in wooden carts fitted with car wheels. Some of the horses have open cuts, others shine in good condition. Other carts are loaded up with ink cartridges: recycling makes an income for the Roma.

Income is a big question. We are invited for a coffee at a home which is a makeshift cafe where you can buy cold beer, soft drinks, and cigarettes sold individually. That's what the men who are sitting with us want to know. How much. How much do you earn? How much does it cost to get to Australia? And, with earnest and desperate faces, Do you know ANYONE who could help us live in Australia, we could pay the fare, but can someone help us find work and get set up when we get there?

I find it hard to answer any of them, knowing that my paltry wage, half from the government and half from my writing, is still bucket loads more than they get. But I try to be honest. I look at the car parked in the driveway of the house. You have a Mercedes! A lot of people dream about that in Australia. Assen doesn't even bother translating this. It's a 25-year-old Mercedes, a 2000-leva car, he says. It's nothing, it's cheap here. Doesn't mean anything, he tells me.

The women are on one side of the bench, constantly breastfeeding their one- and two-year-olds, while the men ask questions from the other. We don't get any help, they say. Nothing. Well, something. One hundred leva from the Government each month.

There are 1000 people in this community, they tell me. Most of the older ones have tattoos, and when we point out the extensive tattoos on one man, including castles filled in with checked patterns on his arm and back, he says he got them in jail. Was in for 10 years. He doesn't mind telling us this as he drinks a soft drink. Just a part of his life.

It's the eyes of the Roma that reassure me that my belongings are safe here and that we're welcomed. With beautiful, expressive brown eyes and clear dark-skinned faces, they want to know why I'm here, why in Bulgaria, do I prefer to live in Australia?

There are geese terrorising a grey-from-the-dirt puppy. A few dogs bark from behind the fences of houses. We offer to pay for our drinks. Ne ne ne, they say, nodding their heads, which, in Bulgaria, means no. We do anyway, leaving some leva on the table. The kids that haven't been suckling, the ones that are on their feet, have been flitting around while we've been talking and drinking orange soft drink. There are strollers here, but the mums prefer to hold their babies close to them. They keep the young nappied ones off the dirt floor, holding their arms as they begin to learn how to walk.

It's all so normal.We head back to the car, with a couple of kids in tow, one of whom is asking for 50 cents.

Before I leave Sofia I stroll along Zhenski Pazar and recognise the dark-skinned features of Roma selling vegetables and shoes and second-hand bits and pieces. It's a tough life for them, and I'm so glad I got to venture, if only for a few hours, into a friendly, happy and hospitable part of it.

Hostel Mostel
2 Denkoglu Str, Sofia
088/ 922 32 96
info@hostelmostel.com