Day 11
After getting up we had a bit of time to kill. Everyone felt quite rough after the partying we did the night before. We sat down and chilled out in the tv-room. Around midday Cliff and Marc came around to the hostel. We put up some music and relaxed some more.
Afterwards we went for some pizza. Two girls from Canada joined us, so we had a nice group of people. The pizza we had was quite bad. The cheese they used for the pizza was definitely not mozzerella cheese, which made the pizza quite untasty, but hey.. it’s food.
Afterwards we headed back to the hostel to grab our bags and get a taxi. We took the taxi to the bus station from where our journey would depart to Sarajevo. Cliff decided to come and travel along with us, which is a good addition to the team.
The bus turned up about an hour later than expected. On top of that the bus took quite a bit of time to get to Sarajevo. After about 9 hours we arrived at our destination.
Immediately we noticed the climate was a lot colder here than it was back in Croatia. Most likely due to it being in the mountains.
The taxi driver who picked us up to get us to the hostel was asking 10 euro’s for the ride to the hostel. I knew we were paying too much so I told him he was asking too much. Immediately he changed the tone of his voice and told us he knew 10 euro’s wasn’t a lot of money for us. I told him we were not in Western Europe here but in Bosnia. It only made him more agressive. Finally Luc was like.. let’s just get the taxi already. 2,50 euro’s is not all that much.
Once we got in the taxi driver relaxed and asked me if he had brought any weed, as he likes to smoke. He then told us about the buildings we were seeing on our way to the hostel.
Once at the hostel we checked in. The hostel turned out really big and quite nice. The people of the hostel seemed really friendly too. We went out for some traditional Bosnian food called Ćevapi. Mainly they are like meatsausages in a pita bread. After dinner we had a beer in the bar opposite of our hostel. After the beers we went to our room to have some sleep.
Day 12
The next morning we got up a tad late. We had some breakfast and we went to explore the old town. The old town of Sarajevo turned out to be quite nice. Lots of old buildings that were built by the Turkish long before it became Yugoslavia. We walked around for a good two hours, had another Ćevapi, which costs about 2 euro’s.
Around one we went on a tour around town. The owner of the hostel was driving us in his own car to all the highlights in the city. Meanwhile explaining about the war and the Olympic games that were held in Sarajevo in 1984.
The tour took us all around Sarajevo. It was crazy to see that all the buildings in the city still have bulletholes in them from the war that happened nearly 20 years ago. After a good three hours seeing loads of things of Sarajevo, including a tunnel that was dug in 1993 to transport food and other stuff from the mountains into the city, we were back at the hostel.
From there we went back to the hostel common area for a little sitdown. I walked over to the guy at reception to ask him about our departure the next morning. We had to get up very early as our train to Budapest would depart around 7 in the morning. Once I spoke to the guy, he told me we wouldn’t be able to catch a train to anywhere tomorrow, as the train company in whole Bosnia happened to be on strike.
Thankfully he wanted to help us anyway, so he found a bus that would take us back to Zagreb. Then from there we would be able to catch a train to Budapest.
That night we went to the bus station to buy a bus ticket, as we were a bit scared all busses would be full. We went to the bus station by tram, but didn’t bother to buy a tram ticket. Then on the way back two men came in to check our tickets. The two young British guys that joined us did buy a ticket and started to laugh at us. Cliff and me ran to the back of the tram, while Luc and Sidney were stopped by two the guys who checked the tickets. Both Luc and Sidney got a fine, while Cliff and me ran outside only to enter again at the front of the tram to buy a ticket. Even though the guy who checked the tickets looked a bit weird at me, he couldn’t charge me for anything as I had just entered the tram.
Once back at the hostel we had some pizza across the road of our hostel with a beer. Afterwards we went straight to sleep, as we would have to get up around 5 am the next morning.
Day 13
The alarm went off at a 5.15. I got dressed and walked to the taxi we had ordered the night before. We made it to the bus station where we waited for our bus to bring us to Zagreb. The bus departed on time around 7am. According to the bus company it was going to take us about 8 hours. Unfortunately the bus took almost 9 hours to get us to Zagreb. This gave us just enough time to grab a tram to the train station in Zagreb for our train that was going to depart around 16:20.
We got to the train station in time, bought some bread and beers for our trip that was going to take another six hours and off we were. Even though the beers helped us to get through the long ride, it wasn’t enough. We finished the beers in the first two hours of the trip. From there we started to sober up again.
On the train we did meet a Hungarian opera singer. He told us he was part of the National Hungarian opera team. He gave us a ltitle performance in the cabinet of the train, which was really cool. He realy did sing really well.
He offered us to help us to get to our hostel. He told us to get off at a train station a bit before the central station, as that would be closer to our hostel. We decided to use his advice. He arranged a taxi that would take us for 20 euro’s to our hostel.
Even though the guy told us this was a good deal, it still felt far too much as that’s basically what we would pay back home.
Once at the hostel we checked in. There I found Maria, the girl from Uruguay again, who arranged to meet us at the hostel too. From there we went into town for a few beers. Later on we went to sleep, as this full day of traveling was quite tiring.
Day 14
We had a little sleep in today. After getting up we went to explore the city. We ate some burger at Burger King (very Hungarian, I know) and off we were te explore the city. It turned out that the city is divided into two parts: Buda and Pest. The river divides to two parts from each other. We checked out most of the Buda part of the city.
We also tried to find the island where Sziget, the big music festival was being held, but it turned out we were walking on the wrong island (there are multiple islands that lay in the middle of the river in the city).
We walked the whole day through Budapest. Afterwards we played a bit of footbal in a square and had a drink on one of the many terraces of Budapest. Afterwards we grabbed the subway to Central Station to buy a train ticket to Kiev. The queue took at least an hour before we were able to buy our tickets. Only then we found out that the Sunday night train was already booked up, so we were forced to stay an extra in Budapest.
After buying the tickets we grabbed a subway back to one of the squares and had some food at a nice open air restaurant.
After dinner we went back to our room to freshen up as we were going to party on this Friday night. Two Dutch girls decided to join us too. We ended up in a cool open air club along side the river called Rio.
The club was really big and the music being played really good house music. We partied the night away till about 3am. At that time me, Sidney and Maria went back to the hostel. Unfortunately at that time Maria found out she had lost her camera, which was a shame.
Once back at the hostel we grabbed some well deserved sleep.
Day 15
Today we had a nice relax day. We chilled out at the famous SPA at the Gellert hotel. Budapest is famous for its thermal baths so we had to check it out. Before we decided to buy us a ticket for the Sziget festival, as we had an extra day in Budapest anyway. By buying the ticket, we were allowed free entrance to the SPA too, which seemed a good idea. That way we had free public transport and entrance to the SPA for only 7 euro’s. The rest of the afternoon we chilled out at the thermal baths which was really nice.
Afterwards we went to have some pizza at one of the restaurants here in Budapest. That night I went to bed early as I was really tired and ate a bit too much at dinner too.
Luc and Cliff decided to party it up. They found out their Sziget tickets were already valid the night before, so they partied all night at the Sziget festival.
Later today I’ll be going to the Sziget festival too to party it up. Stay tuned for new updates!!!
Aug 9th 2011 – Aug 13th 2011
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