Travellin' Turkey

Early start the next day. We wanted to make sure that we were at Haydarpasa train station well in advance of the departure time of the train, 8.55am, so we got first a tram and then the ferry. The ferry ride across the Bosphorus was really nice.

Once we got to the station we managed to find where our train was, and we were then told by the conductor that there was no dining car service on this train. Or people walking through the train with buffet carts. So, we would have to have all our food with us - bear in mind though that the train would arrive the next day at 11.15am to Antep - so off I went in search of whatever fruit, rolls, sandwiches, water I could find.

Finally we were off. Our compartment was very comfortable, just the 2 bunks, so we were by ourselves. Shame that everyone else in our carriage smoked - it kept wafting into our compartment. The conductor came around and asked us if we wanted some tea, so we had the traditional Apple tea, very nice. He doesn't speak any English, so it was most amusing whenever he wanted to tell us something. He noticed our cameras and every time he saw what he thought was a good photo opportunity, he would come and see us and point to our cameras. So, duly, we would get up, poke the camera out the window, take a photo, show him, get his approval - and then delete it when he left. Some of the things he thought were photo opportunities were, well, to be honest - not.

We did however see an awful lot of Turkey from this train. It was so interesting to see such a different way of life to that which we had seen in the cities. We saw Muslim women, in their head scarves, driving tractors with half the family hanging off the back. We saw one woman walking home via the opposite train track to ours. We saw a whole town turn out to wave goodbye to the train. We saw some old train carriages that had obviously been converted somehow into some sort of shanty accommodation, with, get this - satellite dishes on the roof! People working the fields in their full on muslim kit, kids hanging off the back of utes... you name it, we pretty much well saw it.

And the scenery was pretty amazing too. Late afternoon on the first day and Agnieszka was dozing in the compartment, when the conductor again approached me for one of his 'photo ops'. After I took the 'shot', he asked me if I wanted a 'nescafe' - their version of our normal coffee. I said no, but he insisted, and the next thing I know, he makes me one and invites me to sit down and drink it. In his cabin. Hm. But he kept the door open, so I figured why not, and quickly drank the coffee. I asked him to show me where we were on the map, which he did, then he tried to have a conversation about where I was from etc, but my Turkish being restricted to the phrasebook, the conversation died pretty quick. I then tried to make my leave but he asked about my work, and when he found out I was a music teacher, he cut me a cucumber (go figure?), salted it, gave it to me, and then started singing. Complete with gestures and facial expressions. Like, the guy had seriously turned into Pop Idol or something. Got out of there real quick.

The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful, and actually it was the first time I got a decent night's sleep in a while, to be honest. But on waking the next morning it was clear pretty quick that our expected arrival time of 11.15 was seriously overexaggerated - we ended up arriving at 1.30pm!

We had been told by the dude in the travel agency that we could easily pick up a bus to Aleppo, but this was not as easy as we'd been led to believe. For starters, we had to get a taxi to the other side of town, to the bus station. Then, there wasn't a bus - so after a lengthy and tiring conversation with some guy about prices, we managed to get on a minibus which would take us to Kilis, and from there onto Halep (Aleppo) - for 25 Turkish liras. Thank you.

Of course, it wasn't so simple. We got to Kilis, sure, and then he did drive us on further - to the border, where he just got out, unloaded our stuff, and dumped it in a taxi. We thought he'd made a deal with the taxi driver, although we should have smelled a rat, as the taxi was seriously overcrowded and the guy wanted us to walk through the border whilst he took our luggage. Yeah, and pigs really do fly - like we're going to do that. So we squeezed in with these 2 other guys, and off we went. To Mars.

It felt like that, as we looked around, because just outside the customs building were about 30 odd women, clad in chadors and other serious black muslim kit, all staring at us. Got through Turkish exit ok, then piled back in the taxi (now minus the other 2 guys) for the entrance to Syria.

At the Syrian entrance, first of all the customs guy hadn't heard of Poland, so Agnieszka got our her trusty Europe map and showed him where it was. He eventually figured it out. Then, the taxi driver, using the customs guy as a translator, outlined that he needed, get this, $50 US to take us to Aleppo. Get stuffed. We don't have that sort of money.

Eventually, after much haggling, we got him down to $15 US to take us to the next town where we could get a minibus to Aleppo. Even that was too much, but he wouldn't budge, and we really were in whoop whoop, so we didn't really have much choice.

The minibus was ok, much the same as in other countries, a clapped out old bus with cracked windscreens etc, but we eventually got there in one piece.

Found a hotel, quite cheap, crashed. Phew.

BEAMET: Turkey - Istanbul

Ok so we arrived in Istanbul quite early on Monday morning. After some hassle trying to find an ATM, getting money (in large notes, as usual) and then trying to pay to go to the toilet (and the toilet chick's reluctance to change large notes... you get the picture....) we eventually managed to sort ourselves out and organise a metro token. Following the instructions in the Lonely Planet, we went the roundabout way from the Main bus station to Sultanahmet, where our hostel, Cordial House, was. Actually I've stayed there before, and its ok. Quite reasonable, and very well located - a few minutes walk from Aya Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Hippodrome and all the main tourist sites.

We arrived there about 10 am and were promptly told we couldn't check in until 12 noon. So we had a coffee and then tried to figure out on the internet how we would get from Istanbul to Aleppo, Syria. Turns out that we were a day too late for the 1 train that would do it, but there was a tourist agency that would be able to help, and they were next to the Hippodrome - so off we went, to try and sort out our ongoing travel.

The guy there told us we could get a bus to Antakya (olden times Antioch) and then pick up another bus to Aleppo, but this was twice the price of a train to Gaziantep (aka Antep to the locals) and only 6 hours quicker. Well I'd rather have an overnight on a sleeper train, than in a bus - even a Turkish bus, which we all know is excellent, so we went for the train option, leaving 8.55am from Hayarpadasa (or something like this). This station is on the Asian side of Istanbul. That being booked, we headed off to do the one thing we really needed to do today - see Aya Sophia.

Agnieszka, like me, has been to Istanbul before, but unlike me, has not seen Aya Sophia. I figured, as I now have a camcorder (unlike the last time I was in Istanbul), I wouldn't mind seeing Aya Sophia again, so off we trot. Alas, on this occasion, yet again, for Agnieszka it was not to be. This is because - and I'm sure you've guessed it - like most Museums in Europe - today being Monday, it was closed. So we went off to the Blue Mosque instead, which was very nice, very blue inside, and then headed back to the hostel to check in, clean up - after our overnight bus experience plus the day at the beach you can be sure we smelt pretty, and I tried to sort out the laundry situation. Turns out that although Cordial House will do laundry, it has to be first thing in the morning, so hepointed me in the direction of a local laundromat. The guy there was very nice, spoke some Japanese too, so I practised up my Japanese a little bit. He assured me that the laundry would be done in a few hours and he would deliver it to the hostel.

So we then spent the afternoon wandering around Sultanahmet and the Grand Bazaar, as well as figuring out how long it would take us to get to Hayarpadasa the next morning. Fortunately didn't buy anything in the bazaar.

Agnieszka then went off to meet her friend for coffee whilst I went back at the hostel to check on the laundry and use the internet. I have to say their internet connection was slower than a wet week, and in the end I gave up after waiting 10 minutes for yahoo to load. I was quite upset to discover that the guy hadn't delivered our laundry, and now it was technically past his closing time, so I didn't hold much hope of being able to collect it - but I went to the laundromat anyway. It turns out they'd had a blackout, and it wasn't yet ready, come back in 30 minutes, yada yada. You know the story, came back in 30 minutes, so sorry, still not ready, 10 more minutes.... so I waited. He then came out and started chatting to me and the next thing I know, we're invited to go get pide (Turkish pizza - why couldn't he suggest baklava instead?) afterwards. Managed to get out of that one pretty quick, got the laundry and off I went back to the hostel.

After this it was a fairly uneventful evening as we got ready for the train the next day. In our room there were 2 young American girls, 2 Japanese girls and an old lady who didn't say too much (who was in the bunk above me). Everyone was actually quite antisocial (unusual for a hostel dorm room) and managed to get to bed at a reasonable hour in preparation for our early start the next day.

Finally, a chance to catch some quality (well maybe not, it is a hostel after all) much needed beauty sleep (MUCH needed...)

Bulgaria: The Land of the Weird Nods

Now I just know that you're all waitıng with baited breath to hear about the train journey to Sophia. Well suffice to say that this time we ended up in a 3 person compartment (that's not unusual, that's the sort of compartments we've been in up until now) but this time there was another person in there. An older woman from Hong Kong, who was on the bottom bunk. This would not have been a problem if the top bunk was full size, but it wasn't. Agnieszka drew the short straw and had to lie up there with her feet on top of the luggage. But there was another problem. Apparently it's quite claustrophobic up there in the rafters, next to the ceiling. And also, the air conditioning in the train did not work. At all. And the windows in the corridors did not open. At all. The only window we could open was the small one in our compartment. This was fine for a while, but as you know, hot air rises, and poor Agnieszka couldn't breathe up there. Also, during the night the HK woman down the bottom got cold, and slammed shut the window (nearly taking off my toes at the same time, as my feet were poking out - don't know what the people waiting at the various platforms thought, seeing my feet hanging out of the train...).

Suffice to say this was not a very pleasant journey. Especially when the conductor started smoking outside our compartment.

So we arrived in Sophia some 2 hours late, left our luggage in the locker and then made our way to the bus station to make reservations to go same day to Varna. This is because we are running a bit behind in our schedule to be in Istanbul for Sunday's train to Aleppo. Secured the bus ticket, spent a couple of hours wandering around Sophia, which was nice, nothing out of the ordinary though. Nice enough place though, beautiful cathedral.

Then we were on the 2pm bus to Varna, a beach resort. Only problem was the bus took 6 1/2hours to get there. Then once we arrived, we couldn't find any accommodation. In the end a guy at one of the agencies booked us something (we were again having the problem of no-one would book us for less than 2 nights) in some woman's house. We finally got there after some taxi driver wanted to rip us off (he was acting ignorant when we told him we wanted him to use the meter, so we got out of that cab and found one who would) and this is when it got funny. See, apparently the Bulgarian language is fairly similar to Russian. And Agnieszka speaks fluent Russian, so she had been doing all the conversing for us. So anyway, the woman whose house it is, is an elderly woman and doesn't speak any English. Agnieszka manages to ask her if there are any restaurants around, and the woman starts shaking her head. But we've seen one across the road? So she tries again, and again the woman shakes her head - but says 'Da'. Then we remember that in the guidebook it says that in Bulgaria (and Albania, to be fair) they shake their heads for yes, and nod for no. Talk about a spin out...

It's not a normal head shake either. They do it like in a figure of 8. It happened again the next day when we dropped our bags to the left luggage in the bus station. Because it was a Sunday, the woman was trying to get us to understand that the office closed at 10pm. So Agnieszka is nodding her head 'yes, I know' and the woman is shaking hers - took a while for them both to realise why the messages were mixed...

Spent the day in Varna, wandering around the town. Agnieszka wanted to spend some time on the beach ('chocolate brown, chocolate brown'), but alas, it was overcast. Managed to have a little swim though, which was nice, and Agnieszka even got in some windsurfing later in the afternoon.

Then we headed back to the bus station for our bus to Istanbul, which was leaving at 9.30pm. I was looking forward to this bus trip because it was going to be a Turkish bus - the Turks have the best bus service ever - you get on and they douse your hands in 4711 cologne, then make you a cup of tea (or coffee - best ask for Nescafe sutlu though - or you'll get thick, black, Turkish coffee) and then give you a small cake. And the buses are very quick, very clean, and very comfortable. Anyway, this had been a bit of a hassle to book because the woman told us that there were no more seats left sat together. "That's not a problem", we said. "Ah, but it is" was the response. The reason being, that Turkey, a Muslim country, apparently won't allow women to sit next to men who are unrelated to them. And she couldn't find any seats with just a woman by herself. Eventually she found something - seats 18 and 32 for us. Ok, no worries. Except that when we got on the bus, seats 17 and 31 respectively were men!

The funny thing too was that the bus conductor was a woman, Bulgarian, so we were back to the wierd head nods....

The border check for Turkey was unreal. It was about 2 am, and we were all hauled off the bus, into the customs building, where we had to queue up and get a visa, except that different nationalities have to pay in different currencies for the visa. So Agnieszka's visa cost her 10 euros (like about £7), and mine cost me 20 US dollars (about £10)... go figure...

Then we had to all take our bags off the coach, place them outside on benches, open them up, stand to attention behind your bag and wait for the customs dude to come and inspect them. Which basically meant that he walked around them doing nothing, then we closed them up and loaded them back onto the coach. Got back on the coach, drove for a couple of hundred metres, then the customs dude got back on the coach and now checked that everyone had had their passport stamped...

Finally we were on our way again, on to Istanbul...

Roamin' Romania

Ok, so in the last blog we were on a train from Belgrade to Bucharest. What is it with these places and the letter 'B'? Belgrade, Bucharest, Budapest, Bulgaria... it's no wonder I can't remember where I am. And ok, I only chucked 'Budapest' in there because it sounded good - but its been confusing me because before Agata left we had to figure out how to get her back to Krakow, and it meant train journeys through Belgrade (spelled Beograd everywhere else though, so that was confusing) then Budapest then Krakow... So Budapest has been in my conscious for a while.

Anyway, as I said before, got absolutely no sleep on the way from Belgrade to Bucharest, so when we arrived (early - surprise, surprise, for the first time ever - thanks to our driver, Speed Racer...) I was in no fit state to start thinking about whether to find accommodation, spend the day in Bucharest, or head on to Brasov or Sighisoara (our other intended destinations in Romania). We've actually got to be more conservative about our time now, because if we're not careful, we'll end up in Istanbul too late for the train to Syria - and at this stage, I've seen conflicting information about the train times - some say it only runs on Sunday (in which case we are in serious trouble, its Sunday now), some say it runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, but you have to reserve a couple of days in advance - so the long and short of it is, we might be having to really rush Syria, Jordan and Israel, which would be a shame. Whereas it would be easier to come back to Romania or Bulgaria, if we don't see it all in the 3 days we've allocated. They don't care if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport...

So you get out of the train at Bucharest train station and immediately feel as if you're at the end of the earth. Bit like Morden tube, really. Looks pretty grim. And seeing as there's a train in 20 minutes to Braşov, in the Transylvanian Alps - well, sounds like a plan. So we hopped on the train, and then immediately thought that perhaps we should've gone to Sighişoara instead, as its further north, and therefore might be more economical time-wise. Too late now though.

The beauty of catching buses and trains to various places is you often get to see a lot of very beautiful scenery on the way. If your eyes are open, that is. But the problem with trains and buses is that they often have a habit of lulling you off to sleep. Especially if you've just spent 10 hours on one without any. So it was quite a surprise after nodding off for a few hours, to blurrily open my eyes for a split second and encounter the mist-covered Transylvanian Alps, looking eerie, spooky, and very much like Dracula could pop out at any second. Absolutely gorgeous scenery.

So we finally get to Brasov around 10am, having now been on trains for 14 hours or so, very tired. We decide to stay in Braşov and head off for the most useless tourist information office ever. This woman was incapable of anything. Unable to help with accommodation, no I can't phone the youth hostel for you... that sort of thing. Eventually we managed to get out of her a very badly faded photocopied map of the town, and information about a bus we hoped would get us to the centre of town. Found one of the budget hotels from the guide book, and just managed to get in before the pack of German backpackers we could see heading in the same direction. The hotel was Hotel Aro Sport, and the receptionist there was very icy. Completely unimpressed that we were checking in before midday, and told us so, in no uncertain terms. Then put us in a room where the bin had not been emptied, the beds not made up, and the ashtrays were full-to-overflowing. Fortunately when we returned to the hotel later that evening our request for the room to be prepared properly had been completed, and it was a much better picture.

Having said that though, although the Tourist Info chick and the Hotel chick were unhelpful, in general the Romanians are very helpful. When we made our way back to the tourist info to find out about day trips to Bran and Raşnov, we met this old guy outside who was not only more helpful and more information than the tourist 'information' chick, he would've actually taken us to the bus stop if we needed it. To be fair, we've found that willingness to help and go the extra mile throughout much of our travels through the Balkan states.

Anyway, we got the bus to Bran which has an amazing castle, and a load of Dracula tourist tat. The castle was very beautiful and you could really imagine Vlad the Impaler living there. We then got a bus to cute little Raşnov, and went up to see the 14th century fortress. Very impressive. Nearly got run over a few times though by old Dacia's (the Romanian Holden) and several horses and carts. Very quaint.

Spent the evening wandering about Braşov, before heading the next day on the bus to Sighişoara. These places look so close on the map, only 100 or so kms away, but it takes an eternity to get there. At least this bus was pretty good, the driver even stopped off for a coffee break after 2 hours.

Sighişoara is just magnificent. It's architecture dates from the 14th century, and is just amazing. I'm so pleased we made the extra effort to go there. It has a lot of Vlad stuff too, apparently Drac spent his formative years in one of the villas there, so of course we went and had a look. It's now a restaurant.

So we wrapped it up in Sighişoara and got the train to Bucharest. On the train we were stuck in a compartment with two women who I have dubbed the "Ciggie Sisters". These old birds were wierd. Every 45 minutes or so they'd pop out the back of the carriage (which was no smoking, of course) and have a quick fag. They both would've been about 55 or so, one of them looked like one of the teachers from school, quite matronly (but a bit dopey, to be honest) and the other one looked like she was having some sort of mid life crisis, or at least was stuck in a bad "Prisoner" re-run (friend of Bea perhaps?) with her faded denim jeans and her white T shirt, short cropped (grey) hair. At least Bea didn't do anything too offensive (other than stick her feet all over my seat, and also her constant fascination with keeping the window shut despite the fact it was quite stuffy), but the dopey one, she had a huge icecream bucket full of smelly chicken which she kept getting out and grazing on. And if she wasn't at the chook, she was on medication - swigging from the medicine bottle like it was a Pepsi or something. Oh and popping pills too. Nice.

We kept getting accosted by this dude who was selling pringles and stuff, that's ok (except he really wouldn't take no for an answer - and Ciggie Sisters made no attempt to tell him to go away, thanks girls), but then a gypsy dude got on the train and was trying to sell us a small tub of blackberries that looked like leftovers from last week.

Anyway, despite all this entertainment, we arrived without incident but of course had nowhere to stay. So we saw a 1 star hotel across the road from the station and headed for it. The guy wanted some stupid money for his silly 1 star room. No thank you. So we were about to head back to the station when this woman, ın thongs, 3/4 trousers and a tank top (what ıs ıt wıth the tank tops, eh) and NO TEETH approached us wıth offers of a room. We had nowhere to go so we decıded to have a look.

The room seemed clean enough and was close enough to the station, so we took it. It was only after we'd paid and she'd left that we realised the light didn't work, and all we had was a touch lamp to light the room. Hm.

Went for dinner and got back very tired, jumped into bed, and then I discovered, in the light of the touch lamp and TV combined, two stuffed birds directly above my bed, looking down at me. I swear I've never jumped so high, it was like something out of Hitchcock's The Birds. Serious freakage. Much begging with Agnieszka to swop beds...

Next day we did a bit of a wander around Bucharest (after checking out pretty early from toothless woman's villa), nice enough town - then back to the station for more train shenanigans. Our destination this time? Sophia, Bulgaria...

If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium... Or Belgrade... Or Somewhere Beginning With A 'B'...

I woke up this morning and I honestly did not know where I was. Seriously. For a few moments I actually had a bit of a panic, it was quite unnerving. Especially as I couldn't even remember what country I was in, let alone where I had last been.

It's no wonder, we're in our 8th or 9th country in3 weeks. We've been averaging about 3 days in each country, and I'll be honest with you, I'm knackered.

When I last blogged I was about to get on the overnight train to Belgrade. I don't remember too much about the journey now because since then I've been on an overnight train to Sophia as well, and all these train rides are starting to merge together. I think the journey was fairly uneventful, except that no one here in Eastern Europe seems to understand what 'no smoking' means. There were people lighting up everywhere in our non smoking carriage. I would be interested to know whether Eastern Europe has the world's highest number of lung cancer deaths or something, because really, its a joke. So many people everywhere disregarding 'no smoking' signs, and just smoking anyway. You try getting a 'no smoking' table in a restaurant. Mission Impossible, more like.

We arrived early morning to Belgrade and checked into the "Full Moon" hostel which I found on hostelworld.com. Turns out this is just some woman's flat, she's converted the 2 bedrooms into dormitories and she herself sleeps on any spare bed or if there isn't one, the couch. What an existence. And there's only one bathroom - no separate toilet, so with the possibility of 10 guests, plus herself and her boyfriend, it's pretty mental in the morning.

You could tell she's only just started out, she was offering free internet and free laundry (thank you very much, we'll take advantage of that) and all she wanted in return was for us to give her a good rating on hostelworld. Interesting woman though, had quite a lengthy discussion with her about the piano, seems she is / was? a pianist of sorts, she was going on about how much she likes playing Bach (hey, I like playing Bach too, but prefer Mozart or Chopin). I had to try hard not to laugh though when she went on about practising up for the Rach 3 - I mean seriously, if she was some great pianist able to play that one, what's she doing running a youth hostel out of her own apartment?

You sure do meet interesting people in hostels. We haven't really been in many hostels since we started this trip, mostly because its been just as cheap (if not in some cases actually cheaper) to stay in pensions or even in people's homes (like in Split, Dubrovnik, Kotor... where people actually approach you at the station with the offer of cheap accomodation). This way we haven't had to fight anyone for access to the powerpoint to recharge camcorder batteries and the like...

Anyway, in most hostels you'll get fairly similar sort of people, kind of like this. You'll get usually an Aussie or Kiwi just off the boat, who has never really spent a night away from home and is basically out to drink their way across Europe. Then you'll get another Aussie or Kiwi (sometimes even a Pom) who will want to brag about everywhere they've been, how cheap they got this or that accomodation for, and basically thinks that they are the world's greatest traveller. Then you'll get someone else, usually a couple of Poms, who are there on some sort of stag do, or to attend some music festival or something. And finally you'll get some 'normal' sorts, the ones who are there to see as much as they can, as cheaply as they can, and let the city / country / people touch their hearts a little.

Sound about right? So in our hostel we had (1) the Aussie who was fresh off the boat, looking for someone to go out to the local bar with. She was also the one who thought she was the world's greatest traveller "oh yeah, I went to Croatia, but it was seriously overrated" - that sort of thing. (2) A couple of Kiwis who spent the whole evening comparing everywhere they've been to NZ (with NZ ultimately coming out on top, in their opinion). (3) A couple of Poms who were enjoying the nightlife in Belgrade before going to some rock / grunge / whatever festival in Budapest. (4) An American who was tracing his roots by travelling through Eastern Europe, and who basically down played his American-ness.

Then we had the not so obvious ones. Like Maria, a lovely girl we met who is studying in Manchester. She's there for a month studying for her PhD on the apocryphal letter of Job. Until now I didn't even know there was an apocryphal letter of Job. And then one of the Poms turned out to be some sort of environmental theologist, so we ended up having quite a good discussion about Christianity, the environment - culminating in a discussion about Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" - if you haven't seen this DVD, do so, please. For the sake of the world.

Anyway, I digress. So that was our hostel.

Back to Belgrade. I think that in the breakdown of Yugoslavia, the Serbs got the best deal, because Belgrade is the one capital city that doesn't look like a tip. Well, not so much, anyway.

So as I said, we checked into our hostel after our long overnight train trip. Had to fortify ourselves with breakfast at the Orient Express Hotel to get over the shock of the journey. Had a lovely traditional breakfast (lots of sausage) - and then hoped like mad it wouldn't affect the digestive system like the burek did - before heading off to see the town. There's a lovely park, the Kalemegdan park - while we were there we saw an interesting outdoor art gallery of photos taken as a bird's eye view of various parts of the world, including carpets in India, the Great Barrier Reef, icebergs in the Antarctic, the results of Hurricane Katrina - it was really quite diverse but terribly interesting. It was interesting also to see the old men in the park, crowded around a table playing chess - in the rain.

We also saw the St Sava church, the 3rd largest orthodox church in Europe, but a bit like La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, in that it still isn't finished, so it looks like a construction site. It was started in the late 19th century, but Hitler, WWII, communism and lack of funds has seriously hampered its completion. Went also the St Marko's or something, and was quite happily looking at all the icons and stuff inside when suddenly the most diabolical sounding trumpet blasted out (this guy seriously had no idea about tone quality) and then there was loud banging of drums and more blasted brass. Turns out there was a gypsy wedding taking place outside the cathedral (yeah, right, normally you'd have the wedding INSIDE the church, wouldn't you?) - lots of dancing, loud, traditional music - actually it was quite interesting.

Finally we wrapped up our Sunday in Belgrade with a ride on the Number 2 tram, which does a circular journey of the city, so that was quite interesting, before we braced ourselves for our night in the hostel. All in all, a pretty good day.

The next day we allowed ourselves the luxury of a little sleep-in (actually in part it was a forced sleep-in as the bathroom was in constant use) before heading off on a day trip to Novi Sad. There wasn't any real point in staying in Belgrade today as, being a Monday, all the museums are closed. This is pretty standard in most of Europe. The trip should've taken 1 1/2 hours but Eastern Europe trains are not renowned for running to time, so, it was more like 2 hours. At least it wasn't so hot today because it had been raining the past few days.

I was quite surprised to learn that outside of Belgrade, Novi Sad is Serbia's 2nd largest city. It didn't seem all that big to me. We spent a nice afternoon wandering around the town, admiring the architecture and all, before heading to the Petrovaradin fortress just across the river. This was very interesting and afforded some nice views of Novi Sad.

One thing I didn't quite get about Novi Sad, though, was all the cows. Lots of painted cows. Just around the main square, nowhere else. We asked someone about it and it turns out it's a competition, apparently last year it was horses. Wonder what it'll be next year?

Had dinner (of sorts) in Novi Sad - the rain suddenly came down so we sought refuge in a little cafe which served some sandwiches. We asked for a table in the non-smoking area, and the expression on the girl's face was one of pure shock. Of course there is no dedicated non-smoking area. She put us upstairs, away from everyone else, which was fine for a time, until the cafe got full and people started coming upstairs, and you guessed it, smoking. Right while I was eating too, thank you very much.

Made our way back on the train to Belgrade and headed back to the hostel. Got up again at a leisurely pace (steady on now, two days in a row with a sleep in? What a luxury!) and then headed off to see Tito's grave. This was actually quite interesting, as in one building there was kind of like a folk / ethnographic musuem which turned out to be a museum of cultural gifts to Tito (including a Burmese gong, Indonesian gamelan, lots of different country's folk costumes and stuff), and then we literally stumbled onto the memorial. It was in a different building adjacent to the ethnographic one and in there, there was a room set out like Tito's office, a chinese room, and then this huge room full of relay batons. Turns out Tito had a bit of a thing for them. I believe that what used to happen was each year, there was a 'relay of youth' for about 2 months, starting in different Yugoslavian towns, with this baton being passed from runner to runner, until finally it was given to Tito on the 25th May. Boy were there some interesting batons too.

So anyway, after this we headed back to the train station for our overnight train to Bucharest. We had again arranged for a couchette (2nd class sleeping compartment where the beds fold down from the wall, the bottom bunk serves normally as the chair for the compartment until the time the beds are made up - there's normally 3 passengers per compartment) and were hopeful that we would have one to ourselves. Turns out we should've been in with some bloke, but the conductor put us in a different compartment. Thank you very much, I'll take that.

No one else joined us (just as well, as its too difficult to lift the luggage up into the storage compartment so we have to leave it on the floor as a potential trip hazard), but this time I was on the second bunk. The driver must've been an Albanian minicab driver in a previous life, I swear, as this dude had no concept of speed limits - we rattled along there at quite a pace, so the journey was not so smooth). Couple that with the noise of the carriage, particularly the wheels on the track - and the motion too - and I got (no word of a lie) absolutely zero, zilch, zippo sleep.

Would've been a lot cheaper to just have sat up all night in the normal seats... probably would've slept better too...

The Tale of the Killer Burek

Warning: do not read this post immediately before or after eating. Those with sensitive digestion proceed with caution...

Ok, now we all know what happens to our digestive systems when we go travelling. For example, I'm sure you've all heard of Bali Belly, Delhi Belly, or similar such things. In Albania, the locals call it Hoxha's revenge.

Or the opposite can happen. Your digestion gets so upset that not even prunes, figs or dates can help.

Me? I don't normally suffer from either. Normally. I have the stomach of a horse, or a cow or something. Certainly one the size of one!

So I was quite surprised to realise that until we arrived in Ulcinj, Montenegro, the last recorded action in that department was in Split. Some four days earlier. Hmm. Feeling a bit of discomfort really. Fortunately a couple of prunes sorted that one out.

But again, since Ulcinj, no action. No 'movement at the station', as it were. And this is again four days or so - and no prunes in sight. So I was starting to worry, to say the least.

Then we had that lovely fish dinner by Lake Ohrid. I had a fillet of carp. Now I don't normally have problems with seafood, but then I don't normally eat seafood fillets the size of a small whale, so I really wasn't surprised to see that it did the trick. Relief washed over me like a flood. Literally, a flood.

The next morning, Agata left early for the bus to Skopje, armed with some imodium. She had had fish too the night before, and was a bit frightened (after her experiences in Egypt) that she might have a repeat 'revolution' (as she called it), so we sent her off equipped with imodium for the 3 hour bus ride.

We got up a couple of hours later and made our way into town. En route we stopped off at a little bakery for some breakfast. Throughout our travels through ex-Yugoslavia we have discovered one national dish which is the same no matter where you go, a pastry filled with meat or cheese called burek, or byrek, depending on where you are. Now you have to remember that in Macedonia, they use the Cyrillian alphabet, so the word burek appears like this: БУРЕК. I've only just learned how to read that, whereas Agnieszka, being fluent in Russian, has no problem with it. Anyway, back to the story.

At the bakery I discovered that I can read this word 'burek' so I ordered one, quite delighted that I've managed to work it out for myself. Agnieszka ordered one too. But this particular burek (we chose the one with meat because from past experience, the cheese one mings) was not quite ready, and they had to go out the back and cook up another one. Fortunately because it took so long they only charged us half price. We should have taken that as a warning.

In Albania and Macedonia the locals eat this burek with natural yoghurt, which they just drink alongside the burek, so we ordered one too, thinking we were being very clever and having a traditional meal. I must just now point out I have had burek before, I did know what I was getting, I just hadn't had it with yoghurt before. That might have been the trigger. Either that or the fact that it was absolutely drenched, I mean the thing was swimming, nay, it had DROWNED, DIED, GONE TO HEAVEN and been resurrected in oil.

About 20 minutes after the burek we were in an internet cafe. I had intended to do some blogging but before I could even begin to log on to blogger, excruciating pain struck. Oh boy, was it painful. It was all I could do to log off, approach the internet cafe clerk and, doubled over at this point in agony, squeak out 'where's the toilet please?' - and as I did so, I realised Agnieszka was doing the same. Fortunately I beat her to the loo, where Vesuvius erupted, and I have been paying for it ever since.

That was more than 24 hours ago. I haven't drunk the tap water here, haven't brushed my teeth in tap water, none of that sort of stuff - yet every time I eat something, even just a piece of toast, it sets me off.

Trust me, it ain't pleasant either. They're not renowned here for having wonderful loos. Some of the loos are those old crappy (literally) squat ones.

And tonight we're on a 9 hour train journey to Belgrade. Pass the imodium...

It's 3am and we're homeless...

So after our experiences with Tiranese hospitals, footpaths, mad drivers and the like, it was time to think about moving on. However before we could do this, we had to figure out how to get out of there. Its one thing to get into Tirana, most buses in towns in Albania will go there, but getting out?

As I explained before, to get to the town of Kruja we had to find the Zogu i Zi roundabout. We had decided to go to Macedonia next, and we found the only way we could get there was a bus from the patch of mud in front of the train station - but you can't buy tickets there, no, you have to find some travel agent called Pollogu or something and buy them from there. And that agency works out of a little office on the first floor of a building with no name, but just look for "Peace" cafe, and you'll find it... seriously.

We found we could get tickets on the overnight bus to Struga, Macedonia, for 10 euros each. The bus left at 9.00pm and would arrive at 2.30am. So we still had a day to kill in Tirana, but nothing left to see. Well, not whilst there was electricity anyway. As I explained earlier, they turn the electricity off at different times and different points throughout the city - who wants to pay 300 leke to NOT see the National Museum? Anyway, we'd seen some nice pics of Albania in the guide book, found out they were from a town called Berat, so we decided to do a day trip there. But could we find the place where the bus goes from? You'd think it would be the bus station right, but no. That would make sense. We asked sooo many people, and kept getting different, conflicting information. One bloke told me to go straight ahead, where I would find the 'big Sahat' - what is a big sahat? Agata reckons he meant 'Pizza Hut' - but there wasn't even any of those here either...

Eventually we found someone who knew something, and we made it to some outlying little bus station somewhere, where we found buses to Berat. But by this point we were absolutely shattered - fortunately then that the bus ride (which we'd been told would take 1 1/2 hours) took, get this, THREE hours! Three hours of more kamikaze Albanian driving (fortunately on a proper coach, gunless driver - but again, you guessed it, no air-con)... this time it was mostly farmland we were passing, donkeys and the like pulling carts, a couple of roadside graves (seriously) and some concrete bunkers in the fields... oh and an overturned truck, a minivan stopped in the middle of the road, and an incompetent policeman (who was just standing by as the driver of the truck tried to brain the minivan guy for causing the accident).

Arrived in Berat more exhausted than when we left Tirana. And it was again sooo hot, we really didn't feel much like walking around - but we did anyway, and it was really nice. We saw this Ethnological museum which was based in an old Ottoman residence, with original furnishings, costumes and everything, very nice. Then we crossed the river and got the 'view of a thousand windows' (by the way if the computer I'm using now would recognise my camera, I'd include some pics, but hey. Not going to happen) - which is a whole hillside of Ottoman residences, very beautiful. By this point we'd seriously had it, so we had to stop off in a cafe for a frappe. After that it was time to get the bus back to Tirana, thank you very much, another 3 hours of madness - and this time I was stuck at the front of the bus and could see everything coming for us. But again, I survived to tell the tale.

Got back in time to have dinner then wait for the bus to Macedonia. The plan originally was to pre-book accommodation in Ohrid, which actually I did do, but then I got a text from the guy saying that they were full, sorry, there's a concert in Ohrid or something that night, no accommodation. Great. So we're arriving at 2.30am to what? A night in the bus station?

If only. No, when we finally got there (you have to go to Struga first then get a bus or taxi to Ohrid, the bus from Tirana doesn't go there direct) the bus station was, get this, the side of the road. Literally. The driver pulled over to the curb and let us off at 2.30am by the side of the road. With all our luggage. No city centre, bus station or even a bench to sleep on in sight.

Fortunately a young family got off at the same place as us and directed us to the nearest motel - phew. Oh no, not phew - it's full. So he phones up some hotel and sends us off looking for that. We get there and the price is a bit exxy - but I'm ready to take anything, I'm so tired. The girls however are keen to keep looking, so Agnieszka minds the luggage and Agata and I set off, 3am, looking for hotels. We find one but can't find the way in, and we ask one of the locals how to get in. It turns out he actually owns his own motel 1 km out of town, so we end up staying there. He tells us that the motel has its own taxi so we can make our way to Ohrid the next day, and that his Mum will make us a coffee in the morning. Perfect. It's clean, it's now very late - we crash for the night.

Next day this woman dishes us up what can only be described as mud in a cup. The spoon can stand upright unaided in this cup. And she's smiling at us, and encouraging us to drink it, nodding in the wrong way (by the way did I mention that in Albania and Macedonia if you nod your head it means 'no', not 'yes' - and if you mean 'yes' you half shake it like our 'no' - but in a figure of 8). So what can we do, close our eyes and pour this stuff down our necks. It was seriously vile. And all we really wanted was hot water so we could make our own drinks from the chai latte sachets Mum brought me from Oz...

Then she tried to charge us for it. What? Pay to drink mud? No thank you - so we told her that her son had said it was included and then basically hot-footed it out of there in search of the taxi. Uh-oh. Lie number 2. There is no taxi, we have to go stand out on the highway and try and hail one. Agata wanted to hitch-hike, and I might be stupid and drive in a minibus with a gunman, but I'm not dumb enough to hitch-hike, thank you very much. So we kept hailing every taxi that came past (of course they were already taken) and eventually one came back for us and took us to Ohrid.

At the bus station at Ohrid we met a funny old Macedonian bloke dressed in singlet vest, daggy shorts, thongs and wearing a green 'Bunnings' hat. So of course we simply had to talk to him - turns out his English name is Bob, and he spent some time (10 years) in Australia (actually his son lives there now with his wife and 2 kids). Bob and his wife Sophie rent out rooms in their house in the summer for tourists - so off we go, we now have accommodation for the night. Pretty good accommodation too, we have a kitchen we can cook in, a huge room for ourselves, and its not too far to the centre of town.
Struga and Ohrid are towns on Lake Ohrid, one of the oldest lakes in the world and the deepest in the Balkans. It is truly a very beautiful lake, and it alongside the town of Ohrid are UNESCO world heritage sites. We spent the rest of the afternoon (after a lengthy chat with Bob and Sophie about the benefits and disadvantages of having been part of Yugoslavia and now being a country on their own - seems to me anyone we ask about this preferred Yugoslavia) wandering about the town. This town is simply gorgeous, there's a load of 13th and 14th century churches with original frescoes and icons, and stunning views of the lake. Plus an amphitheatre built in the time of Christ which is just amazing. Oh and an ongoing archeological dig of an early Christian basilica.

We had dinner in a gorgeous restaurant by the edge of the lake, some lovely fish, then headed back to Bob and Sophie's to freshen up, as currently its the Ohrid Summer Festival, and this evening there's a concert in the Sophia church, a chamber orchestra from Skopje playing Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. So we head back for the concert, only we're a bit late and apparently the tickets are all sold out. We hang around outside anyway and Agata manages to sweet talk the bloke into letting us in - for free - and so we manage to catch the last couple of pieces. Excellent.

So all in all, we've pretty much well fallen on our feet here in Ohrid. Tomorrow we will farewell Agata as she heads back to work via Skopje, Belgrade and Budapest on the train, and we'll stay for a day at the lake. Nice.

The Kindness of Strangers

The afternoon of the crazy Kruja story, Agata decided that she really hadn't seen all the monuments, mosques, blades of grass and piles of dirt that is Tirana, so off we set in search of the huggy Mother Theresa statue which is allegedly in front of the University. This involved a rather long schlep in the heat of the afternoon, but eventually we found it. Dutifully, we took our pictures, some serious, but mostly stupid ones of us taking turns to hug Mother Theresa (I mean seriously, this statue has the woman with arms outstretched as if she either about to hug you or brain you with her left hook). I don't know why there's a load of statues of Mother Theresa in Albania, as technically she was born in Skopje, Macedonia - but she was born of Albanian parentage so that might be the reason - maybe its a Russell Crowe thing. You know, the Kiwis claim he's theirs, we Aussies say he's ours (until he makes a right fool of himself, and then he really is a Kiwi)... anyway.

So after this we begin the long, hard schlep back to the centre of town, quite happily walking along, minding our own business, chatting about the adventures of the day, walking 3 abreast, when suddenly Agnieszka full on drops to the ground and starts screaming. As I've mentioned before, the roads and pavements in Tirana (and to be fair, all of Albania) are pretty much well a construction site. Agnieszka has stepped on a loose manhole cover which has then flung up with the momentum and come crashing back down on her ankle, trapping her. Agata manages to release her and a crowd of onlookers starts to form. Suddenly a lovely Albanian couple (who fortunately speak perfect English) pull their car over and offer us a lift to the hospital. So we get in the car and off we go. They take us to the military hospital, which is the one dealing with bones, as we're not sure if its broken or sprained.

We arrive at the hospital and there is absolutely no waiting, we're just taken straight in to the radiographer's room. Agnieszka's ankle is x-rayed immediately and fortunately, there's no breaks. Next thing I know we're in another room with a different doctor and he gives her some advice on how to treat the swelling etc, and that's it. The whole visit was extremely quick. During this time, the woman who had stopped asked us if we had enough cash to pay for the visit, and then offered to help if not. Next thing I see her pass a wad of cash to her husband (don't get too excited, Albanian lekes come in large numbers but are pretty worthless, 200 lekes equal a pound), who then 'takes care' of the doctor. They wouldn't let us pay anything back to them either. Agnieszka and Agata reckon the bribed the doctor so he would see us 'under the carpet' as it were.

They then drove us back to the hotel after the hospital visit, now an hour or so after they stopped to help us. They still wouldn't accept any money, wouldn't let us take them out to dinner or repay them in any way, just were happy with our many thanks and appreciation.

How's that for being a good Samaritan, eh?

A funny thing happened along the way...

... to Kruja.

The next morning we got up fairly early and made our way to the absolutely mental Zogu i Zi roundabout, where you can get a furgon (minibus) to Kruja. We had heard that Kruja is a nice day trip from Tirana because it is a quaint little town at the top of the Kruja mountain range, and has spectacular views of the region as well as a 13th century castle which is a monument and shrine to the country's national hero, Skanderbeg, who successfully defended the country against the Turks for 2 decades.

Anyway.

After much seeking of directions (the Lonely Planet "Europe on a Shoestring" doesn't really cut it in the map department) we finally find the roundabout, and manage to find the bit of dirt from where the furgons to Kruja go. We were about to get into one, already packed, when we found out it wasn't going direct to Kruja and we would have to change - so another bloke approached us and led us to his minibus. May I just say at this point, he led from behind us, pointing out the way to the bus, whilst he drummed up more customers on the way. This is an important point for later in the story.

Of course, these furgons only go when they have enough people in them to make the trip worthwhile, so we waited for a bit until the driver thought it was appropriate to leave. I didn't actually get in the bus at this stage, as I went to get water. Maybe if I had, we might not have taken this particular furgon.

So eventually the driver comes running around the corner, gets in the van and starts it up - I've been sitting on a bit of grass outside the van as it was so hot so I hurriedly get in the van before he takes off. Once we get underway I notice something. First of all, the windscreen is so badly cracked that I have no idea how the driver can actually see out of it. Secondly, the rearvision mirror is not suspended from the ceiling as in normal vehicles, but resting on the dashboard. How can he actually see what's behind him? And this guy is a complete kamikaze, he has some dramatic deathwish or something, we weave in and out of traffic like nobody's business (which to be honest is how all Albanians drive) - what with all the 'bipping' of horns and overtaking on the wrong side, I begin to wonder whether we're caught somewhere in a cross between Italy and the Middle East. Not surprisingly, we rubbernecked our way past an accident on the road (only one?) - the two vehicles involved looked like complete right-offs. Not hard though when you consider that everyone is driving a clapped out, 20 year old bucket on wheels.

Our furgon is actually full but this doesn't stop the driver pulling over for everyone he sees on the side of the road to see if they want a lift too. I end up jammed in between this woman with her 8 year old son on her lap and this very smelly man.

There's all sorts of interesting things to see on the side of the road after the accident, kids squatting beside a little BBQ where they are grilling corn cobs to sell to motorists, or whoever happens to be passing, little stalls of fruit etc. Oh and a couple of people skinning a cow they just killed.

We go past a wrecker's by the side of the road, not too far past the accident, so maybe this was a bit of a bottleneck intersection or something - not far to go to collect more vehicles for the wrecker's yard, right? Anyway, suddenly our driver slams on the brakes, pulls off the side of the road, jumps out of the car, and that's the first time we see it. His gun. Yes, this guy full on has a gun tucked into the back of his trousers. And no, I didn't think it was an imitation, or a fancy cigarette lighter or something.

So now we have a bit of a predicament, do we get out of the furgon and wait by the side of the road, traffic madly whizzing past, maybe we could get killed by some mad kamikaze driver losing control of his vehicle, or do we stay in the furgon and maybe get killed by some mad kamikaze driver as he takes us on to some destination other than where we want to go... all sorts of scenarios and thoughts go through my head. Finally, the thought occurs to me that all these other people wouldn't be riding in this furgon with a mad gunman - I mean the woman with her 8 year old son saw the gun too and didn't bat an eyelid - maybe that's what you do in Albania. Carry guns. I don't know. We decided though that if at any point it looked like we were going to be the only ones left in the bus, we would get off.

We did eventually make it to Kruja in one piece, and then spent an hour in a cafe overlooking the valley getting over the shock. The town itself was very nice, the castle impressive - but nothing can possibly beat that journey to get there! Fortunately we managed to get a 'proper' bus back to Tirana - so nothing of note to report there, luckily...

BEAMET: Tirana, Albania

We ended up waiting for hours in Ulcinj for the bus to Albania, which again turned out to be one of those Montenegrin specials. We got all excited to see that the bus looked half decent, and began to dare to believe that, yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus, and he just might give you an air-conditioned bus to ride in. Alas, Santa didn't deliver this time. The bus ride was ridiculously hot, and the 'air-conditioning'? Why, the open door again!

The border crossing was interesting. Some of us needed to pay an entrance tax of 10 Euros. I was unfortunately one of the unlucky ones, whereas Agata and Agnieszka, with their Polish passports, managed to skip this tax. Apparently I need to pay it again when leaving the country.

So, we arrive in Shkodra, hop off the bus and have a little bit of a wander around before transferring to the bus to Tirana. We were originally a bit apprehensive about the Albanian people thanks to the woman from Ulcinj, who said that they were all pickpockets and that it was very dodgy, but actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Everyone we met was very helpful and eager to please.

The main impression though which we got of Shkodra was the rubbish. Absolutely everywhere, these people seriously have not heard of bins. Or actually, they have, we did see some bins, they just don't use them.

Anyway an hour or so later we picked up the bus to Tirana, which again was not airconditioned, but the journey was ok. We arrived in Tirana late afternoon and wandered off to the youth hostel, which was full, but he sent us on to a hotel called Kalaja. Upon arriving at the hotel we were stunned to see there was no electricity, or any water for a shower. Apparently they do this everyday, turn off the electricity and water for a couple of hours, because the country's power demands exceed supply. Being unable to have a shower, or see to unpack anything, we wandered about the town. This is a bit of a hazard, as the pavements are unfinished, broken and uneven - would make a great BMX track (especially the bit just in front of the train station). Tirana is a bustling, energetic little city, with brightly painted buildings (painted all sorts of interesting colours, probably to try to cover up the drabness of communism as they are all ex-communist buildings) with absolutely mental drivers. The 'little green man' at pedestrian crossings doesn't mean 'walk' but 'run for your lives!' as the drivers completely disregard traffic signals. The only time you're safe is when you see a policeman directing the traffic.

Had dinner in a very nice and cheap restaurant called Era then headed back to the hotel after a long, tiring day.