12.9. sofia, bulgaria
my biggest challenge was to find a supermarket. in every corner there was a small shop selling chips, chocolate and alcohol, but I needed somethig more for my trip to macedonia. I saw many people carrying a billa bag coming from the same direction, so I thought it couldn't be far, but I was wrong. after walking for half an hour I succeeded in finding a sign telling that there is a billa supermarket 15km away. I decided to stick to chips and chocolate.
13.9. ohrid, macedonia
definitely one of the best days on my trip. I took the morning bus from sofia to skopje and slept most of the time on the way to the border. after a couple of hours the motor of the bus broke down and the driver had to stop in the middle of nowhere, but he seemed to be quite handy: it took him only 10 to 15 minutes to fix the motor and we could get back on the bus. we had almost reached the border when the driver suddenly turned the bus around. he also made an announcement but in bulgarian, so I had no idea what was going on. we drove back another way for half and hour and turned once again just to return to the border. at the border we had to take all our stuff out and open the bags for the customs. there a macedonian man explained to me what had happened: the driver had left his passport there where he fixed the motor. after we had crossed the border, the bus driver took a bottle of whiskey out of a bag and served us all a drink as a compensation for the lost time. I smiled all the way to skopje. in skopje I just changed money and took the next bus to ohrid.14.9. ohrid, macedonia
I stayed at jimmy's. jimmy is a taxi driver who has to flats for rent. as I am travelling alone, but had the whole room just for me, he insisted on me paying for two people. I was too tired to care, especially because the whole room cost me 10€. jimmy turned out to be an excellent host. he drove me around and took me out to eat on both nights. after dinner I wanted to go back to my room, but jimmy said I should go out and took me to a jazz club for a good glass of wine and then to an irish pub which was full of irish soldiers. jimmy explained to me that all the soldiers from kosovo spend their free weekends in ohrid, apart from the germans who go to bulgaria and the americans who go to greece. or the other way around. anyway, I had a great time and still got home early enough to prepare myself for tomorrow.15.9. overnight bus to belgrade, serbia
it is amazing how much time and energy macedonians spend on organizing seats on the bus. I had to take two buses: first to skopje and there change to another one. both of them were full. on both of them it took almost 30 minutes to find everyone a seat they were satisfied with. with each bus ticket you get a designated seat, but in practise everyone sits where they want to. I have absolutely nothing against that. then, when the bus should leave, somebody decides that she/he wants to sit on her/his own seat. that, of course, causes a domino effect. passangers try to change places on the narrow corridor, most of them have huge luggage. luckily, I took my own seat right away and could concentrate on observing other passangers and learning to count in macedonian as they shouted out their seat numbers: "trieset!", "pet!", "sedum!".
16.9. belgrade, serbia
on the bus from skopje I got to know to a korean guy, bo, who studies in london. his friend had been to belgrade earlier this year and had recommeded him a hostel. since I had no idea where to spend the night I joined him. the hostel is very central and cosy. so cosy that there is an american here who has stayed here already for five and a half months.17.9. overnight train to bar, montenegro
I sat for three hours in the park at the fortress in belgrade. two elder men sat down next to me and started chatting to me as soon as they discovered I was a tourist. one of them had been to helsinki 30 years ago and told me they had troubles buying beer as they arrived so late. he was amazed to hear that nowadays you can buy beer in a supermarket until it closes. the other one was interested in linguistics and therefore had learned turkish and hungarian and so we had a linguistic conversation. then they started to give me advice. I should by no means miss dubrovnik as I was already in the area. in mostar there's nothing to see as the new bridge doesn't have the same atmosphere as the old one. one of the gentlemen told me I could save some money by hitchhiking along the montenegrian coast instead of travelling by bus, but the other one disagreed because I am a woman travelling alone. one of them said I should stay in herceg novi to have good connections to dubrovnik, the other one disagreed. it was great to follow the discussion.18.9. kotor, montenegro
once again I met interesting people. in the evening I climbed to the castle with conny, a german who stays with the same lady I do. on our way down it was already dark and the steps were in a really bad condition. there we met two australian women, a mother and a daughter. the mother had difficulties getting down, so we accompanied them. conny used his mobile phone as a torch and we all got safe and sound back to the old town where we went to eat together. it came up in the conversation that the mother had escaped from jugoslavia in a rowboat 50 years ago. she stayed in a refugee camp in italy for some years before moving to australia. after dinner she gave us some home-made rakija.19.9. kotor, montenegro
once again I'm happy about not having strict plans for my journey. it seems impossible to find out the bus timetables. they're not very well organised, as harald said. conny and I wanted to leave for mostar, but when and how was the question. from kotor there's a daily bus to mostar at three pm, but I wanted to leave earlier in order to have some time in mostar and find a good place to stay. in the travel agency at the bus station conny was told there is a bus going from tivat (15 minutes from kotor) to mostar at 7.30 in the morning. on the internet harald found a nightbus. in lonely planet it said there was an 8 o'clock bus from herceg novi. we had already decided to take the 7.30 bus, but then we heard that it only goes in the summer. as the 3pm bus was the only one we could count on, we decided to take it. to be on the safe side, we booked a hostel online.20.9. mostar, bosnia and hercegovina
travelling day. the bus went via dubrovnik, so I was able to see it, although I wasn't able to visit it. I just don't have time for everything and apart from that, dubrovnik is expensive. mostar is great. we had dinner at ten in the oldtown and it was almost empty. after kotor it was relaxing not to be constantly surrounded by tourists. the small lanes impressed me.21.9. sarajevo, bosnia and hercegovina
the tourist got back to mostar at noon. at the hostel one australian guy recommended us to stop by at the souvenir shop: "there are some really cool things, not those tacky souvenirs you can find everywhere." he told us he had bought a "bullet turned into a pen". not tacky, huh? :-) our host in mostar had fixed us a place to stay in sarajevo and we got picked up from the railway station. I also like sarajevo. there's something about bosnia that fascinates me.22.9. sarajevo, bosnia and hercegovina
in the morning there was a nasty surprise in the bathroom. a huge bug. an american guy had tried to kill it with shampoo (!) and in fact it lied on its back in shampoo and seemed to be dead. until I got into the shower. then it turned around and came towards me. I crabbed the next bottle that wasn't mine (it was mr muscle and I had to laugh when I noticed it) and hit the bug with it. its head got ripped off, but the body kept on moving. I had to hit several times. afterwards I felt like a murderer. I killed gregor samsa.23.9. vienna, austria
I know it's not a good idea to travel on a sunday. that's why I had booked a flight from sofia to vienna for monday. unfortunately I was in sarajevo and not in sofia. I ended up taking a bus to vienna as it would cost me more time and money to get to sofia where I would have had to stay in a hostel and take a taxi to the airport. the bus left at 8 in the morning and was supposed to arrive at half past nine in the evening. it took us over two hours to cross the border to croatia. in croatia there were constanly traffic jams. our bus driver had to stay with the police in croatia, but don't ask me why, I didn't understand a word. luckily, we had another driver on the bus and we were able to continue our way towards vienna. at half past eight we were still at the border between croatia and slovenia. it took us one and a half hours to cross the border. finally, after 18 hours of travelling, we arrived at vienna bus station at 2 am. it was a good holiday, but it's also good to be home again.
