Serbia Oct 08

Belgrade

We arrived on the overnight bus at 5.30am being yelled at, and barely awake, we were thrown off the bus as we hastily grabbed our belongings (leaving a half read book on the bus).  Not the best way to be welcomed to a new country.

We avoided the offers of taxis and instead headed towards what we guessed to be the direction of the town centre, on foot.  We thought we´d find a nice little cafe to hole up in until it was a reasonable hour to find a hostel. We ended up walking up and down the main streets, surprised to discover that cafes don´t open until 9am!!!  Even McDonalds, which we considered in our desperation, kept the same hours...  Very much like the first scenes for 28 days later...  empty and kind of weird.

To look for sleeping options, we fired up our little laptop and accessed some random hotel´s wireless internet from the street.  Then, wandering toward a hostels map location in the fun  sapping cold, we finally stumbled across a cafe that was actually open (it was 7.30am by now).  We happily settled into this sanctuary for a hot coffee and sweet pastry (and desperately needed comfort stop).  Spirits restored, we pressed on.

We found the ¨3 Black Cats¨ Hostel and woke Mladen, the owner up....but he didn´t seem to mind too much.  The hostel was just a small two-bedroom apartment that had been converted into dorm rooms, only ten beds in total.   There was a small kitchen and common area and a single bathroom.  We immediately felt at home though as Mladen offered us tea, beer, rakija or vodka.....we settled on a tea and a hot shower!  It truly was one of our favorite hostels of the entire trip.

Belgrade is a massive city by eastern European standards.  The Serbs had dominated their Southern (Yugo) Slav mates for some time and made close friends with their Orthodox Russian comrades, so the city feels like a capital...  big, busy, dirty with a western commercial buzz.  We spend a lot of time walking about soaking up as much as we can find.  Our first stop was the huge citadel enclosed in an expansive parkland.  This site has been destroyed over a dozen times and is clearly a massive point of cultural pride for Serbians.  Mark checked out the military museum, including NATO aggression exhibit and Kosovo terrorist evidence (a laptop), while Mandy viewed the photo exhibition in the park before we met again for a beer and snack at the ? cafe.  And no, we haven´t forgotten the name....it used to be called the Cathedral Cafe but the Orthodox Church across the road claimed copyright on the name ¨Cathedral¨, asking them to change it, so they simply called it ¨?¨.

Heading to the opposite end of the city, we attempted to visit the Tesla Museum – the genius who invented alternating current among other things.  Unfortunately only one room of the exhibit was open, due to reconstruction.  They had the hide to charge the full price....or we could have a quick look for free.  So, seeing that there wasn´t very much to it, we chose to give it a miss.

Instead we visited the unfinished Orthodox Church, claiming to be the largest in the world.  Realising just how tired we were (after the overnight bus) we grabbed a quick nap in the park in the last of the setting sun before heading back for a nanna nap so we could hit the town that night.

Upon arrival back at the hostel, we were offered a beer, the first of many.  We attempted a nap....without success, had a few more beers with the other guests before ducking out for food and finally hitting a wall and crashing, promising ourselves a night out the following night.

The next day was a lazy day with little more than updating the internet, a wander to the Bohemian Quarter and coffee and cake in the park.  Belgrade has a vast array of coffee shops, popular at all hours of the day and night (except very early in the morning, of course).  There are also hundreds of bakeries with enticing displays of cakes, slices, quiches, pastries and sandwiches, tempting you inside.  Many have queues out the door, making them impossible to walk past without stopping. So this is how Belgrade will be remembered by us – and I´m sure we are now a few kilos heavier!!

We enjoyed chatting with the flow of guests and owner of our Belgrade hostel.  The trend in this town is for the owner to sleep in the reception of apartments converted into hostels....  Mark enjoyed the chance to talk about the wars in the Balkans after travelling through most of these countries.  Strangely the owner did not seem to understand what war we were talking about.  The conversation being:

Mladen: ¨what war? There was only NATO aggression¨

Mark:... hmmm...  ¨Yeah ok, not talking about the latest conflict, but the independence wars before that time¨

Mladen: ¨What wars? There was no war.¨

Mark:¨...  Ah... the ones in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo...¨

Mladen:  ¨That wasn´t us¨ 

Mark: ¨Yeah, ok, not Serbia,but Serbian´s supported by the ruling regime...¨

Nonetheless, there did not appear to be any value in continuing that line of conversation.  He did openly dislike Milosovic and the UN...  Some interesting points about the EU rules and US democracy.

We did make it out that night, joined by an American couple, who were on their way home from a 2-year Volunteer Peace Core program in Niger.  We did a bit of a pub crawl across the city, gradually making our way to Mladen´s favourite bar on the other side of the city....only to find it closed!  So after a late night Chevapi roll, we stumbled back to bed, a little bit disappointed by the nightlife of the so-called city that never sleeps....maybe being a Wednesday didn´t help...

The next day we kicked around town a little before packing our things for the train to Romania.  Not certain if Mandy needed a visa (which we didn´t apply for).

We found the train with 20 minutes to spare and met a Kiwi traveler upon boarding.  Other backpackers are becoming rare at this time due to the end of the season and possibly the financial crisis.  So we settle in to a carriage a little to close to the toilet and hope for the best at the border.

So we saw too little of Serbia for our liking, but enjoyed the western familiarity of the capital, despite it´s anti US propaganda (Zombies in US uniforms destroying the world, etc...)

On to Romania