Tom's Travel Blog

Independent travel, from eastern Europe to east Asia and beyond

Sofia

by tom on 07/05/2015

I got to Sofia on a minibus from Nis. The bus was much smaller than I was expecting, but it was efficient and arrived an hour earlier than I was expecting, as I didn’t realise that Sofia is 1 hour ahead of Serbia!

I had to wait almost 24 hours for the bus to Sofia, as there were only 2 buses and 1 train to Sofia from Nis, one train at 2.45 am, 1 bus at 4.30 am and one bus at 4 pm. I got the 4 pm bus and was there slightly early, to avoid any problems. The bus was actually a minibus and slowly filled up as we got towards the border, with one or two stops in smaller towns. I had a Serbian woman working in Sofia sitting next to me, who was able to talk about food, where I had been and where I was going. The border crossing took a long time and after about 40 minutes of sitting around we were in Bulgaria and on our way to Sofia. The bus driver dropped us in the bus station and I got the metro to my hostel.

The hostel was in a residential area and was along some completely un-lit streets and past some barking dogs to the road it was on. The dogs were behind fences and the area was safe, but I did take me torch with me, just so that I could see where I was going. The person running the hostel was a Ukrainian who had travelled widely and we sat around talking about different places until it was a bit late to go and find somewhere to eat. As the only local options were Aladdin’s takeaway and a Chinese restaurant, I decided to go into Sofia and get a taxi back. The train ride in was fine and I found the restaurant that he had recommended, which was great, but got ripped-off by the taxi driver on the way back. He ended up charging me 4 x the normal fare and must have had an extra-fast meter, as we did not cover the distance that the price he charged me could have covered.

I changed hostel the next morning as the one I was in had little-to-no atmosphere in it and there was no-one there other than some Bulgarian men. I went to another hostel closer to town, which was perfect and probably one of the best I’ve stayed in. The woman on reception was friendly and helped us with everything and they had a balcony overlooking the street they were on. I spent the next 3 days walking around Sofia, going to the Yalta nightclub, going to the Museum of Socialist Art and walking up a mountain in Vitosha Nature Park with Alastair, an Australian I had met in the hostel.

Nis

by tom on 04/05/2015

I went to the train station the night before setting off to get a ticket to Nis, as the station was only 5 minutes from where I was eating that evening. I had asked in the hostel what the train times were and the woman helping me thought that the ticket office should be open, but I was going expecting it to be closed, as it was about 9pm when I was going. The ticket office was open and I bought a ticket for the for the fast train to Nis the next day.

I got to the station on time and had to ask if the train at the platform was to Nis, as it wasn’t clear from the signage on the platform and the train was pretty dirty. I got on and it was easily the dirtiest train I’ve ever been on, with graffiti on the outside, windows you couldn’t see through because they were so filthy and very smelly toilets. There was one smelly man taking up a whole compartment with his bags of what I presume were rubbish, because of the smell. The woman sitting opposite me wiped down her seat with a wet-wipe before sitting on it and I was slightly dubious about my one before sitting on it, but they were all leather, so could have only been so dirty. There were people smoking in the corridor, which I didn’t mind too much, as they all did it with the window open. I actually remember thinking at some point that a blind had been closed or something had been done to obstruct my view out of the window, but all that had happened was that the window had been closed and you couldn’t see through it to the outside. It got opened again fairly shortly after.

I was expecting a slightly faster, nicer train to Nis. The train arrived about an hour after I was expecting it to, but someone I asked in the corridor seemed to think that it was getting there at the right time, so I can only assume that the woman in the hostel had been wrong. The person that I spoke to in the corridor about the train times had just got out of a temporary detention centre for not paying his child benefit to his wife in Norway, which was fun! I got to Nis and walked around trying to figure out where I was, as it didn’t seem to match up with my mental image of what the area outside the station should have looked like.

I went and got a Burek in a cafe and looked at the map. The area I was in was nothing like the map, so I got a taxi to the hostel. The train station was actually a 5-minute taxi drive from the hostel and the station on the map on the website was a small local station that was rarely used. I wasn’t exactly where I thought I was going to be but I managed to find the hostel.

The next 2 days were spent walking around Nis, which is Serbia’s 2nd biggest city. The woman were far more attractive in Nis and this was noticeable, as I had been in Belgrade wondering where all the attractive Serbian women were. They’re in Nis. I walked around the Citadel, walked around the parks, went to the Red Cross Concentration Camp Museum and bought some new trousers.

Belgrade

by tom on 01/05/2015

I got to Belgrade via an epic 7.5 hour bus journey from Sarajevo. It was epic in the sense that it was fairly complicated (getting to a remote bus station, actually in a different region) and the scenery was spectacular. It was then a case of finding the hostel, which was more difficult than I was expecting as the signs were in Serbian (a type of Cyrillic). When I got there it was worth it though!

I asked in the hostel the day before setting off what the best way of getting to Belgrade was. According to the woman in the hostel, it was to get the shuttle bus, which takes you door-to-door, but is no fun! I got up at 6am instead and got a local trolley bus to the border with Republika Srpska, a Serbian-controlled entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I then crossed the border and went to buy a bus ticket, but as I had been trying to get rid of my Marks, I didn’t have enough to get the ticket with. I went on a mission to get some more Marks, which was more difficult as the station was almost in the middle of nowhere, but a big shopping centre had a bankomat so I could get some Marks from there. I got some and went back to the bus station. I tried to get rid of the rest of my Marks by buying a fruit drink and some expensive crisps.

The journey to Belgrade was spectacular, going through the countryside in Republika Srpska to the border. The bus stopped every hour or so and it was very pleasant, until we got to the border with Serbia, not long after which it was mainly motorway to Belgrade. This wasn’t very interesting and North Western Serbia is very flat. We eventually arrived in Belgrade and it was very hot as I was walking around, tring to figure out where I was.

I eventually made it to the hostel after climbing a steep hill, which was necessary but slightly more difficult as I hadn’t really eaten anything for breakfast. I got to the hostel which was clean and almost empty and the girl there helped me plan what I was doing next.

Whilst in Belgrade I went out with the hostel staff and the guests, walked around the Old Town, Citadel, went to Tito’s mausoleum and went to Usce Park, ending up having cake and ice-cream by the river. It was very good and I could have easily stayed for another day.

Sarajevo

by tom on 30/04/2015

I got to Sarajevo via a train which I got with Geomseo and Kali. We got up early to get this, as it left at around 7am, but I was still suffering from food poisoning at this point and was ill one last time before setting off. I was a bit weak on the journey, but slowly recovered until we made it to Sarajevo, at which point I slept!

We got the train in Mostar to Sarajevo, which left at around 7am from the train station. I had been to the station the day before to buy tickets, but had been told that they don’t usually sell them in advance, so the woman in the hostel was slightly surprised that I had been able to buy them. I went out for dinner the night before to the restaurant that we had been to the night before that, which had been really good, but I think there was a problem with the sausages this time, as I was ill overnight and pretty comprehensively ill in the morning. I didn’t feel completely normal overnight, the first occurrence of it didn’t make me feel much better and the final one almost sorted me out completely.

As I was waiting for the train I had to drink plenty of water and move away from someone who was smoking, as it was making me feel unwell. The train turned up on time and we all got on and found a carriage. The compartment was one of the only ones with only 1 person in it, so we chose that and spent most of the time looking out of the window, as the views were spectacular. I slowly started feeling better during this journey and we made it to Sarajevo and got a taxi from the taxi rank. Geomseo had instructions that we should get one from the main road, but as there didn’t seem to be anywhere for them to stop, we ended up paying the minimum fare from the taxi rank, which was about 3 x more than what it should normally cost, but as we didn’t really know what we were doing and it seemed to make sense, we went with that.

Once in Sarajevo we went and got something to eat. I left the girls after that and went and slept for about 6 hours, after which I felt significantly better! The next day I was back to normal and we went and explored the 1984 Winter Olympics bobsleigh track, which was at the top of a hill. The taxi driver who took us there fought in the Bosnian army during the civil war and showed us his gunshot wounds whilst also pointing out other things in the city. The track was very interesting and we walked back via a cafe which had views of Sarajevo, which were also impressive. The rest of the day was spent going to theĀ Srebrenica exhibition and then eating, again. The next day I went back to finish off the museum, had a job interview, got a haircut and planned the trip to Belgrade the next day.