"Oh, Serbia would be nice"

Remember my new Serbian friends? They invited me to come visit them in Belgrade, only a few hours away from Ljubljana...and I decided to take them up on the offer.

The train ticket was only 25 euros – what a deal!
Oh yeah, what a deal.

The Soviet-era train had the barest of amenities. In fact, it was perfect for a fun little game I’ve begun playing called Worst Train Bathroom Ever.

I thought the prize had been won way back on the Slovenian border...but that was the premature thinking of a rookie. There were much more serious contenders to come. 

It was a real tough call on the Ljubljana-Belgrade train, with all three bathrooms highly qualified.  In #1 the light didn’t work, the lid was down (always suspicious, although little did I know then that a lid was a bonus), and the whole little room reeked of poo.
#2 had a toilet seat that looked like it had been stepped on by about thirty people. That itself was enough.
#3 featured dead flies all over the sink and no toilet seat at all. Plus it looked like the flush mechanism had stopped working about one hundred stations ago. Oh, and the door didn’t lock.

Talk about choosing between a rock and a hard place and another rock! It was one of those times you sit down (on a nice, regular train seat) and tell yourself you didn't really need that thing you wanted anyway.

If I had only had to choose which disgusting bathroom to use, it would have been an easy day.

It wasn't.

My old buddy at Heathrow must have friends in eastern Europe, as I was once again closely inspected by border guards in the countries of former Yugoslavia.
At the Slovenian border the official actually took out his jeweller’s-eye magnifiying glass to scrutinize every inch of my passport. Then he radioed in and although I didn’t catch much, I did hear my name and nationality go over the airwaves.
It was a tense few minutes while he stood in the passageway with my passport, waiting for a response!
I did finally get the ok and my passport back.
After he left I breathed a big sigh of relief and the woman next to me said “Don’t worry, they’re always like that.”
I had read that border guards in eastern Slovenia are especially vigilant because it’s the eastern edge of the EU zone. However, I hadn't thought that would affect me!

There was another group of people on the train that regarded me strangely. A Sri Lankan family -- a mother, her teenage daughter and two sons around 10 and 6 -- boarded partway through the journey. When they saw me, they began staring at me like I was the most exotic thing they’d ever seen.
When I actually spoke to them they were overjoyed.
“English!” the girl crowed triumphantly, to both me and her mother.

We didn’t say much to each other but the boys enjoyed stealing glances and giggling when I looked back at them. When they got off I received an energetic “Hi! Hello! Hi!!” and a wave from the girl.

****


I'm still deciding what the scariest part of the day was. Besides the intimidating border guards, there was also a drunken hostel owner and getting lost in Belgrade in the middle of the night.