A sunrise to share with all

GATWICK > BUCHAREST > SERBIA

As the sun rose above the clouds the orange glow hit the cabin of the ATR72 and i closed my eyes not barely being able to hold them open, i was off to dreamland and well on my way to Serbia.

My flight out of Gatwick had been delayed by 1 hour, the airline I flew with is called WIZZ and the only way to describe the punctuality of the airline was like a Land Rover Mechanic trying to do an engine swap in the alleged time of 25 hours….. it was mayhem.

Boarding the plane in Gatwick was like watching a gypsy carnival, people would stop and have a family reunion for 5 minutes in the isle and the cabin crew were almost beside themselves trying to organise 150 Romanian passengers to sit down and allow the plane to take off.

I slept from the moment the plane left the ground till it touched down in Bucharest.

My connecting flight was tight, when i cleared immigration i had to run 1KM Through the terminal at warp speed, narrowly missing my checkin time for the next flight, when i arrived at checkin counter number 51 the gentleman behind the counter laughed at me dripping in sweat after running with 27KG Strapped to me he said “your the luckiest man here , you have 27 seconds until the checkin closes” i breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed on the counter.

To get to my next flight was smooth sailing oddly enough the customs officials actually read my passport and started waffling off to me in Romanian, i had to kindly explain i only speak english and they couldn’t understand why that was..

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The plane touched down in Serbia at 5.50AM Local time and i made my way to the exit, I exchanged all my GBP to DIN (Serbian Dinar) $400 GBP got me 125000 DIN which will be enough for about 2-3 weeks excluding living costs. Hostels cost around 25-32 NZD Per night so the country is cheap in comparison to London… that place is horrifically expensive to visit.

I’m currently sitting in a wee cafe on the main Boulevard of town, the lady who own the coffee shop luckily speaks english and is very accomodating, the mobile shop next door opens up in 10 minutes so i can get on the grid and start keeping in contact with my outside life.

Belgrade is a classic Eastern European city… very communist architecture but the city seems to have an ambiance that is hard to describe, as like all communist city’s the gardens and government architecture are beautiful and regularly do you see people just relaxing in public areas with their children and dogs, unlike tokyo everyone smiles and looks well rested.

My accomodation i have yet to check into yet as i don’t have a check in time until 2PM so 27KG are my best friend at the moment, people here don’t seem to take too much interest in me here, my Mediterranean complexion probably is my saving grace.

I have been wearing the same clothes for 24 hours and have stated to get the classic traveler smell, I’m not happy about this, however i have found Hand Sanitiser and deodorant mask the musk until i get to my accomodation.

The drinking water here is not drinkable it has an off elbow colour so i will be sticking to bottled water for this leg of the trip, water costs around 75 Dinar for a bottle which is about 1 NZD

And food here is very cheap, there seems to be a big baking culture, the only reason why i say this is that there are hundreds of bakery’s on the boulevard and people cue up for them.

Over the past 4 days i have walked in excess of 30KM, its amazing in Dunedin you would never walk anywhere unless your either drunk or your car has broken down in big cities you don’t feel the need to drive, public transport is sufficient and if you like you can rent bikes ad dedicated bike stands and then drop them off at the next bike depot…. it would be something i would encourage the NZ Government to look into.

I’m not entirely sure where my journey will take me from this point onward. I’m relatively relaxed and quite happy to let the road just take me to hidden corners of the country, ill spend 3-4 days here then navigate my way up to the north. The lovely thing about Serbia as the temperature sits just below 30 degrees which is bearable for me, tokyo and London just killed me

I would drink around 3-4L of water and not go to the bath room once, and the price of water was around 6NZD per bottle so i was drinking 30$ for water a day to keep hydrated

Eastern Europe seems to be very heavy into smoking, Gambling and drinking every 4th shop is either 1 of the 3 options above.

Mum and dad like to be kept in the loop regularly and dad always has great insight to my movements and wants to make sure I’m safe, one problem i have run into is that my Credit Cards magnetic Chip has seemed to have been cooked so the Credit card readers at bars and hotels no longer seems to work… i have managed to navigate this by using ATMS at banks. The only low is that i pay a USD conversion rate along with a transaction fee…. not i deal but sometimes life throws you curve balls like this!

The Hostel here would be the best one yet…. its probably 1 step below a hotel in the sense that the room has its own bathroom and each bed has its own incorporated lockers that you get a key too, th access to the hostel is via swipe card and there are only 4 people in my dorm.

After i had checked in i decided to go for a wander it was only 10AM but i managed to navigate my way to the Nikolai Tesla Museum. This Museum is a small one and costs about 5 Euros to go in and they give you a video and demonstration of his ingenious engineering behind DC Current, you get to stand in a room around a giant Tesla Coil and then hold a Neon tube, with the Ionised particles in the air caused by the TESLA Coil the Tubes glow, the Exhibitor will then go on to demonstrate that its not voltage that damages us but more the Amperage and current, this is proven to the tour group by the tour guide taking a direct bold of lightening from the coil itself.

After the tour i decided to walk back to the hostel and unload my day pack as i was carrying around a lot of my items from traveling in and my run through Bucharest had damaged my Archillies tendon so to take some weight off seemed to be the logical step.

I have 2 Bunk mates ….. Armin, he is from Iran and then there is a Swiss girl Melanie as well who is on holiday here for a week.

After unloading i went for a walk down to the local square where a lot of the government buildings are located, communist style building are modelled off a mixture of new age Greek design with huge columns but made out of concrete rather than expensive marble. The roofs traditionally have spires of Gold or Copper that when it weathers it goes that Jade green and almost Glows in the sun slight, wandering through the city i managed to come across the national Museum and as it was staring to rain Gerald and i too the opportunity for 350 Dinar to take a look, unfortunately i had to check Gerald into the coat check and the lady behind the counter promised me she would take good care of him.

Serbia unfortunately doesn’t have much of a history in the sense it didn’t have a huge industrial Era nor did it have any great addition to Slavic way of life, the Museum was filled with a lot of Art and most of it was around baby Jesus, after 45 minutes in there i came to the very quick realisation …. I’m not and art connoisseur…. i can appreciate the human form in its nakedness but the overall thought of art does not spin my wheels.

As i walked back up to the Karavan INN (the Hostel) i decided to stop in at a very Dark looking lunch bar, it smelt stale of cigarettes and beer, the kind Slavic man gave me a huge welcome in Serbian, i kindly shrugged mm shoulder and asked of he spoke english and to my surprise the old man spoke perfect english, he could even do a British accent thinking i was from the UK!, i let him down gently and said i was from New Zealand. He clapped and said perfect ill give you my Special…..I’m not entirely sure what it was, it was a stew of some description served with a bean and rice mixture with white bread….. the hesitation i had taking the first bite was that of a toddler having his first serving of and unknown food….. i smelt it….touched it…… inspected it and when the first drop touched my tongue this amazing flavour hits your pallet at 100MPH… it was sweet, with a salty edge and the savoury of the bread balanced out the whole mix of flavours….. I’m not sure what the meat was but it was a cured type of animal, similar to bacon but very different in its flavour

As i got back to the Hostel i decided to put my feet up for just a few moments and closed my eyes….. 3 hours late i have awoken in a Dehydrated sweaty mess… i think its time to venture out and get a beer, there was a nice wee place around the corner called “Haos” so I might go and check it out

A