I was quite exhausted by the end of my stay in Belgrade, the capitol of Serbia. I had been traveling through Eastern Europe with my friend Taylor for a few weeks and the busy schedule was taking its toll. The next morning we were headed south to Bosnia, and both of us agreed on taking an easy night before our 7:00am train. We returned to our hostel after dinner in Skadarlija, the Bohemian Quarter of Belgarde, to relax, and joined some of the others in the small garden around back. A few sofas and lawn chairs were strewn about a wooden patio adjacent to a grassy area, an optimal spot to socialize with the eclectic group of souls passing through the strange city of Belgrade.
The conversation did not last long before one of the Australians decided we would all be better off with a beer in our hand. He was headed to the store down the street, and told us we could throw in a few Dinar (Serbian Currency) if we wanted him to bring us back a beer. The conversation kept going as if he never left, but a few minutes later he returned, carrying a two liter bottle of Jelen Pivo for each of us.
The Sun Hostel in Belgrade, Serbia— Exceptional beer drinking environment
Minutes turned to hours, and the Jelen went down easily as we swapped travel stories. Before we knew it, it was after 10:00pm and the conversation began to turn towards that night’s events. Several of the patrons at our hostel had been there for quite some time, and had begun a fairly regular routine of partying at one of many boat clubs in the Sava River. They asked us if we wanted to come along, and we said no, echoing our previous plans of having a relaxing night. “Fuck it mate, when else are you going to get the chance to party in Serbia,” asked Sean, one of the Australians. I’ve always been weak to resist peer pressure, but I insisted on having an early night to recover before going to Bosnia. “I’m going to go get you another beer and I’ll ask you again after you’ve finished,” he replied.
Is that soda? No, It’s plastic-bottle beer, and it’s cheaper than soda
Less than an hour later I found myself in a cab driving across the city with my new friends. We paid all of $6 USD for a 15 minute ride from one side of Belgrade to the other. If you want to stretch your dollar while seeing a lot of culture culture, history and adventurous feel, look no further than Eastern Europe. Anywhere East of Germany that isn’t on the Euro is a lot rawer of an experience than the tourist hot spots of Eastern Europe. Not only are these areas pretty much void of the trust fund babies that are “backpacking” through the finest hotels on their daddy’s dime, going there makes you feel like one of those trust funders because it’s so damn cheap.
If you want to feel rich, check your bank account balance in Serbia— A 50 Dinar note is worth about $0.60 USD
We managed to purchase a few more 2 liter bottles of beer just as the small riverside store was closing and made our way to a small park near the docks to drink up before entering. I was slowly slipping into a state of inebriation as I talked with a local Serbian about what it was like to live through the Yugoslavian war in the 1990’s. I was incredibly curious about how Serbians felt about it, and wanted to learn as much as I could, first hand.
Two liters of beer is quite a lot, far too much to finish before we headed up the gangplank to the floating club. I still remember the cover charge, 300 Dinar, less than $4 USD for entry to the club with a drink included. The extremely friendly exchange rate was still slightly amusing to me, and I kept thinking how easily I could just stay in any one of these cities and live like a king, for a fraction of what my life cost me back home.
Several cheap drinks later, I found myself chatting with a local girl on one of the decks of the boat. I remember absolutely nothing about her, except that she could not drinking because she was on some sort of medication. Though alcohol was prohibited, she was smoking like a chimney and offered me a cigarette. I am not a smoker, but have figured saying no would not help in continuing my conversation with her, while the words “Fuck it, when else are you going to party in Serbia,” echoed in my drunken mind. We talked for quite a while, and at one point she said “You’re lucky I’m not drunk or we’d be going back to my apartment now.” We smoked cigarette after cigarette while I drank like a Russian Soldier.
As the sun started to peak over the urban horizon, I remembered I had a train to catch that morning. It must have been around 5:00am, and I decided it was time to go, so I could at least take a nap before the journey to Sarajevo. I went around trying to recruit some of the people I had come with to split a cab back. Our Cab driver did not know where our hostel was, and we did not know the names of streets or landmarks near it either, so he dropped us off at the most prominent point we knew, Slavija Square, leaving us to trudge a kilometer uphill to our hostel as the sun was rising. I had no trouble falling asleep around 5:30am.
I awoke around 6:30 to Taylor slapping me across the face. I winced as I opened one eye to let the blurry scene of our room in. Immediately I felt like every unpleasant feeling I had ever felt came flooding back into my body at once. My body ached like I had fallen down a flight of stairs, and I was in some nauseating hybrid state between exhausted, drunk, and hung over. Luckily I had packed my bag the day before, and decided the outfit I was still wearing from the night before would do just fine. I struggled to peel my feeble body off the mattress.
I have absolutely no recollection of how we arrived at the Belgrade Train station. Upon arrival, Taylor went off to use the bathroom, leaving me, on the verge of collapse, to figure out how to improve my situation before boarding the train. Thinking water would help, I staggered, still significantly wasted, over to a small store near the platform and counted out a few Dinar for two bottles of water. Just feeling the cold condensation on the outside of the bottles made my skin stop crawling, so I did not hesitate before downing an entire bottle in a single gulp. I had no time to feel refreshed before my body decided to reject the water. I ran with my cheeks puffed trying to not unleash the inevitable watery hell all over the station and made it to a trash can just in time to hurl my brains out. Beer, last night’s dinner, and a liter of water were all competing to get out of my body the quickest. I swear the vomit was even smoking after all of the cigarettes I had burned through the night before.
I looked up, hoping no one saw, but an onlooking family appeared quite shocked and horrified at the events that had just unfolded. The father shouted something in their native language to two his children. I can only imagine he was scaring his kids, saying “This is what happens when you do drugs, kids.” Just then, Taylor walked up, having missed the show. My mouth tasted like battery acid, not the improvement I was looking for.
Don’t drink the water in Mexi— I mean, Belgrade
I felt like a sick puppy, following Taylor as she found our train. As we climbed aboard, I could tell that this was a far cry from the modern comforts that are enjoyed on Western European rail, and our train appeared to have literally been through the war. We quickly found a small 6 seat compartment with two rows of three seats facing each other. I threw my bag on the luggage rack and positioned myself diagonally across the two rows and went comatose for the beginning of our journey through the former Yugoslavia.
“We’re going to cross the border into Croatia soon, and they’ll need to stamp our passports,” I vaguely heard Taylor say over the clacking of the train car. I struggled to comfortably re-position myself, but my awkward sleeping position had only further stiffened my neck. It felt like little gremlins had crawled into my ears and jabbing the back of my eyes with ice picks, and my sweaty skin was crawling as Balkan sun warmed our cabin. “Try to figure out the air conditioning,” I mumbled to her. I must have come across as annoyingly needy that day, but she understood my pain. “I already did while you were passed out, it doesn’t work,” she responded.
Our only savior was the sliding glass window that opened a few inches, letting a warm breeze in. This was a small slice of heaven when the train was in motion, but we frequently stopped in small outposts to pick up passengers, sometimes for five minutes, and sometimes for an hour. It was like driving your car with the windows down in rush hour traffic on a brutally hot day, with the worst hangover imaginable.
I tried to compose myself as the border agent and his escort, armed with an assault rifle, passed through the aisles to verify our immigration status into Croatia. It was the highlight of my day when the agent placed a crisp stamp in my passport. I always love getting a new stamp, though it’s just a little patch of ink, it serves as proof that you’ve actually been there, and for as long as you have that passport, no matter where you are in the world, you will remember the circumstances you were in when you received that particular stamp.
As the immigration official made his way through the rest of the train, I decided I needed to choke down some water. By now, my remaining liter of water had warmed considerably, and was less enjoyable than the first bottle, although I managed to keep it down.
I still hadn’t eaten all day, and while my stomach was churning. I knew I would only feel worse if I continued to starve myself. “Taylor, do you know if there’s a food car?” She, having been responsible the night before, was feeling quite alive. I was quite jealous of her. “I’ll go see, but this train is pretty bare-bones,” she replied. I checked my backpack while she was away, praying that I had some food in my possession that would qualify as a meal. I found a package of pistachios that I had bought the previous week in Budapest, and a melted snickers bar. Not looking good. I anxiously awaited Taylor’s return, knowing my well being heavily depended on her findings.
My situation was looking bleak as we meandered through the Croatian countryside. The digital thermometers in the passing towns notified me that the temperature was climbing over 40C. It was nearing noon, the time when normal people would consume their second meal of the day. Taylor returned and hammered the nail into my coffin, “Dude, there’s no food car, I don’t know what we’re going to do.” Though she wasn’t amidst an excruciating hangover, it was hot as hell, and neither of us knew exactly how long the train ride was, or how long we’d have to wait for our first meal in Sarajevo. I informed her of my pasticcios and melted Snicker’s, and we decided to hold off as long as possible before taking our first bites.
The day wore on, and each moment that I thought I could not feel any sicker was followed by a hotter, hungrier, more miserable moment of existence. I had taken to reading Robinson Crusoe to entertain myself. Taylor and I had shopped around Budapest for hours in search of an English bookstore, knowing we had hours to occupy ourselves on the tracks ahead. This was my second time through the book, and it did little to take my mind away from the discomfort.
I seriously contemplated running off the train to hunt down some food in each small forgotten town we stopped in, but this ran a high risk since we had no way of knowing each stop would be. Speaking Croatian would have helped, but I had no way of deciphering the mumbled jumble that came out of the overhead speakers. Finances were tight, and I was in no state to find my own way to Sarajevo if I were to be left behind.
By the early afternoon, we had made our way through the eastern edge of Croatia, and would soon be at the Bosnian border. This got me quite excited, as going to Bosnia was the main focus of the entire trip, and I had built it up in my mind as this mystical war torn place that no one had heard anything about since the 1990’s.
I had been curious about what it would look like, smell like, or feel like to set foot in that country since I learned about the war in third grade. When learning about countries in Europe, my teacher told us that Yugoslavia was “not really a country anymore.” Inquisitive young Peter of course asked why, envisioning the country falling into the ocean, or the land ceasing to exist in some destructive fashion, not understanding that a country was as much political as geographical. I’m sure that my third grade teacher did not even know the whole of the Yugoslavian conflict, but she told us there was a war going on, and it was becoming several new countries. At that age, I had always thought of war as something that happened hundreds of years ago, a la The American Revolution or the Civil War. It had never dawned on my nine year old self, that war occurs nearly all the time, just not on our home soil. Before I could even comprehend the concept of travel, I was curious what this land of Yugoslavia was like.
The 7 current countries that formerly made up Yugoslavia suffered through a messy divorce at the end of the war in 1999. In fact, border conflicts are still being worked out. Montenegro declared independence from Serbia in 2006, and Kosovo in 2008. Kosovo is still not recognized as a sovereign nation by Serbia, who continues to claim it for themselves, a similar situation to what happened in the United States Civil War when the southern states tried to break off and the Federal Government said, “There’s no way in hell we’re going to stand by and let that happen!”
Meanwhile, Bosnia and Herzegovina is composed of two separate political entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Republika Srpska. There are talks of Republika Srpska breaking off from the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina. All of this dates back thousands of years to colonization, and re-colonization by the Ottomans (Muslims) and the Austria-Hungarians (Christians). It is a confusing religious, cultural, linguistic, and geographical nightmare that no one completely understands, and is way beyond simple explanation. One has to visit the Balkan Peninsula to really appreciate the complexity of the situation, but a trip here is highly recommended, just stay away from the Jelen and cigarettes.
Quick geography lesson
We passed through the Croatian exit checkpoint, where I received my second Croatian passport stamp of the day. The train then continued a few hundred meters up the tracks to the Bosnian entry checkpoint where an even bigger guard and his buddy, both bolstering assault rifles and wearing the finest military jump suits that survived the war, scanned the pages of every passport on the train. Three passport stamps in one day, still my personal best.
I was finally in Bosnia, and feeling like hell. I was trying to forget the misery of my current situation while staring out at the countryside as it sped by. It reminded me a lot of Northern California, or the Appalachian Mountains. Lush valleys separated by jagged rock formations, populated with scattered cattle farms. Crystal clear streams meandered through the hay fields and dense forests. This was not the war torn waste land that everyone made it out to be! It was incredibly beautiful, and was looking like one of the best kept secrets in Europe.
I slipped in and out of consciousness as we passed through more small villages. The train began to fill up quicker than in Serbia or Croatia, as we neared our destination. I was woken up twice by people who wanted to sit in the seat that my feet were in, and before long Taylor and I had 4 new companions in our small cabin. More bodies generate more heat, and I was not happy that I had lost most of my space.
My eyes were half closed when the familiar smell entered my nose. I lifted my head to see one of the people in our cabin puffing on a cigarette, as an intense wave of nausea came over me. My body had been through pure agony all day because of these wretched cancer sticks, and the wafting tobacco smoke was too much to handle at this point. What could I say to him anyway? It was perfectly legal for him to be smoking. I prayed the guy with the assault rifle would come back and punish the smoker for his horrific crimes. I clenched my jaw as my stomach began to turn, shooting a look over to Taylor as to say “I’m about to fucking lose my shit over here!”
I took off down the aisle, mustering every ounce of strength to keep my mouth shut, holding back the tidal wave of vomit that was sure to come out, for the second time that day. I threw the door open, and unleashed a river of my remaining stomach contents onto the tracks below. I spent several minutes dry-heaving before I was ready to go back to my seat.
By late afternoon, my stomach was eating itself and my skin was still pulsating underneath my sweaty attire. The snickers were long gone, and the pasticcios tasted like saw dust in our dry mouths. Any morsel of food or drop of drink would have worked wonders for my dizziness. I dreamed of what I would eat first upon arrival in Sarajevo, and would have emptied my bank account for a kebab and a cold Gatorade. Neither Taylor nor I had the slightest idea when we would arrive, they didn’t extend the courtesy of printing that information on our ticket.
Taylor and I had tried to keep to ourselves since taking additional companions, but I had to find out how much longer I would be enduring this hell. “Does anyone speak English?” I sheepishly asked. The smoker replied with a thick accent from across the cabin, “Yes, I do.” “Can you tell me how much longer it is to Sarajevo?” “We should arrive in twenty or thirty minutes,” he replied.
MAROONED 