PART 1 (CROATIA)

It had been an older dream to hike up the Triglav. It was neither in Western Europe, nor in Eastern Europe, there was no visa needed to go to Slovenia and I had not been able to hear much about it from people, because not many Romanians had gone to hike it. It was tempting, besides Slovenia was still a blank spot on my Eastern Europe map. My first idea had been to go to two other countries, namely Albania and Macedonia. I needed no visa for Macedonia and they were very nice on the phone when I called them, but the Albanian embassy clerks were very strange, to put it nicely. After several calls and after talking to several people that told me different things, I got the supreme honour to talk to the Albanian consul in Bucharest.

"You need a visa to come to Albania"

"Yes, I know that, could you please let me know what documents I must provide you with in order to get the visa?"

"You must have a valid Romanian passport, pay USD 35 and provide us with an invitation from a private Albanian citizen"

"OK with the first two, but I shall go there as a tourist and I shall stay in a hotel or other tourist unit, therefore I can provide you with a tourist voucher"

"Vucher?..." she asked, misspelling the word she obviously did not know the meaning of. "No vucher, you must have invitation, we shall send it by fax to Tirana, it will be checked out and when we get the confirmation, you will get the visa"

OK, they did not know what tourism was and I was not their employee to teach them that. So I got Albania out of my list (it was to come back later on, with border officers asking me whether I needed a visa, actually I should have tried that in the first place, hmm).

Spending some time on the internet, I found a lot of information about Slovenia. I also had three chat friends from Slovenia that proved to be quite useful.

Then some friends thought of spending New Year's Eve in Bulgaria, in a shelter near Mussala Peak. The idea of traveling for 2 weeks and hiking up two of the highest peaks in the neighbouring countries was tempting. So the next thing to think about was the new regulations imposed by the Romanian government to Romanian travelers willing to go abroad. One had to present a quite big amount of money (EUR 50 per day), round trip transportation ticket, international health insurance... Not willing to bear a rigid train ticket that would make me know in advance exactly where I go and so, I bought a train pass for the Balkans and two EuroDomino passes for both Slovenia and Croatia, to make the cake complete.

"It is the second Balkan Flexipass we have ever sold", the lady from Wasteels agency told me.

"Damn, I am never the first!", I answered, however making myself an image about train conductors looking at my pass like at a ferry ticket from Mars.

"However the direct train to Ljubljana crosses Hungary and your pass does not cover Hungary", she said.

"I am not going to take that train, as it makes a wide detour, besides I want to spend a few hours in Belgrade, I love that city", I firmly said, ensuring that I get no other reply. She looked at me a bit strangely. Probably she could not understand the reason for which Belgrade could beat in any circumstance Budapest. The reason for that lay in a place called Ruski Car, in one of the central streets in Belgrade, but it was not the right time to explain myself. I had a trip at my feet and a bunch of destinations in my head. Bucharest was not among them, so I wanted to leave.

So I left home on a wet and foggy Friday evening, with the cold wind getting to one's soul and freezing everything. The backpack was heavier than ever, but there was no time for second thoughts. I went on the platform and found the ugly, cold-hearted train to Belgrade. It looked just the same with the one that I had taken a year before when first going to Belgrade. The wagons seemed deserted, apart from the few smugglers which had nothing of the coming holidays in their eyes. I walked in silence, found my wagon and also my berth. I was alone in the berth until a few minutes before the train departed, when the conductor brought my companion: a young guy working for the customs in Stamora Moravița. Of course he had no ticket, he was part of the gang: customs officers, train conductors, cross-border smugglers, border police officers, people that illegally change money, a big and happy family almost impossible to be entered or left behind...

The conductor strangely looked at my pass, took it and went away. What a wonder... We chatted for a while. He told me about the customs.

"It is not as it used to be, the smuggling thing days are over, few still do that. The price difference is not as big as it used to be and people are no longer willing to stand the cold and the sleepless nights for very few money. Besides, the new regulations make things more difficult for travelers even, not to mention the smugglers". I did not believe him. Smugglers never had a train ticket, so I do not think they would ever bother to buy a health insurance or stuff like that. But I was not in the mood of arguing with him, so I let him talk and looked through the dirty window in the dark, to the days to come. I do not remember when we reached Timișoara, the last Romanian city before the customs with Yugoslavia. It was so different now from the last time... I was among the rich, in the berth wagon, while the score smugglers headed for the seats wagon, probably filling all tiny space behind the seats with their stuff. In a puff of steam the train started through the dark foggy night that made people choke. We soon reached the customs and my companion left.

The customs officer came, I showed him my documents and he stamped my passport. The Serbian guy did the same. Belgrade was getting closer as the dawn came. We reached the city in a foggy morning with some grey clouds hanging in the sky. I rushed outside, among few people asking whether I needed a taxi ride. I did not need one, all I needed was to leave my backpack and rush to the city. Belgrade looked a bit different. Some people would say, to the better. Maybe yes, maybe not. There was an exchange office in the train station now; Belgrade was getting tourists now. I left my luggage, crossed the street and went up to the centre, where the first thing to do was to buy a burek sa mesom. The prices had increased with almost 100% in a year and a few months. The city was though very little changed. Walking on the main walking street, Kneza Mihaila, I re-discovered it. Memories were coming back to me, I was so happy that I could breathe once again that air of freshness and dreaming-like inspiration. My trip was successful from the very beginning.

I spent the day walking in the streets, avoiding to make pictures, because I already had them in my mind. It was not a perfect day for a sightseeing tour, as it was cold and wet, but Belgrade was not a tourist place for me and therefore I did not mind the weather. In the evening I went down towards the station. It was raining and it was cold. My train was late; it had some wagons from Istanbul and I knew what that meant. I had to wait for about an hour in that small and nice station until it arrived. Meanwhile I noticed a train going to Skopje and another one to Sofia: the smugglers were on duty even 3 days before Christmas. The police officers were stopping them, checking their stuff, they getting the bribe and leaving the board on the trains.

My train eventually arrived and very few passengers were heading to it. No smugglers included and I was to find the reason for that later on. I got on board of a luxurious (for me) wagon that belonged to the SZ, the Slovenian Railways. So this was the way Slovenia looked...

A backpacker walked alongside the wagon hall, then he came back and entered my compartment; he was probably looking for other backpackers to share the night with. He was from Austria and was going back home now. The train was moving and because of the swell wagon one could hardly notice that. Another conductor, another weird look at my pass. Then I fell asleep, just to be awaken by the Serbian customs officer. He looked through my passport once, then again and again. I told him I was going to Ljubljana.

"Visa Croatia?", he asked.

"I do not need a visa for Croatia"

"Visa Croatia, visa Croatia!", he persisted as if mankind’s survival for another 10 lousy years depended on whether I had a visa I did not actually need.

He then said something in Serbian I did not even bother try to figure out the meaning of, and made me understand that I needed a visa for Croatia and that I would be returned to Serbia from Vinkovci, where I would be imprisoned. I let him finish his nonsense and then explained him that I work in a travel agency and anyway I had called the Croatian embassy before leaving Bucharest.

"OK, OK, you in prison" he said, this time in English, and left.

"Vazi, me in prison and you to djavolu."

I was still in the Balkans. A weird train pass nobody understands, a weird bunch of customs officers, a misty weather, a rule free area, but such a great place above all... thank Nanak it is inhabited by such lovely people for otherwise what a bore it would be.

I looked at my fellow traveller, he looked at me.

"Why did he say that about Croatia? Nobody needs a visa for Croatia!", he asked. "But where is your Yugoslav visa?"

"I do not need one, I am Romanian"

Now he looked at me like at a flying pig. This is what we are, after all, here, in the Balkans, flying pigs, we are neither Turks, nor Russians, Germans or Hungarians, we are a weird hybrid meant to produce contradictions forever. I fell asleep and woke up in the Croatian customs station, where the customs officer asked for my voucher and money, then he stamped my passport and left.

"No visa seemingly", I briefly said before falling asleep again. My travel companion smiled at put back his walkman headphones.

There was a lot of noise on the train in the Croatian border station. They were checking the wagon very seriously and that was the reason for the lack of smugglers: I was entering Western Eastern Europe.

The next thing I remember... (click here for the sequel)

THE CROATIAN SECTION (you are here)

THE SLOVENIAN SECTION

THE BOSNIAN / MACEDONIAN SECTION

THE SERBIAN / BULGARIAN SECTION