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Здраво Србија!

I was last here in 2022 on my warm-up trip, and it wasn’t the easy part of the travel. Let’s see now. Again, changing currency and script at this border.

Passport control took a while again, but I got stamped in. We arrived at Пријепоље [Prijepolje] at about 1:30 AM, so at least I have one less hour to spend here. There doesn’t seem to be any hotel close by, and the station is actually open and lit all night, so I opted to sleep there. Here goes the first night off-bed of the trip! However, it smells of piss (good thing my sense of smell is nearly on-existent) and the floor is so dirty I didn’t got my sleeping bag out. I laid on a bench, and as soon as I did, my intestines started to ache crazy. I had been a bit sick since last night, and of course, the station doesn’t have open toilets, and there’s nothing around it. I didn’t felt like exploring the town tonight, despite the five-hour connection, so I just held it in all nightmare long.

Somehow I slept like 45 min. By 5 AM, sunlight started to show up, but temperature was at its coldest. My deliverance finally came at 6:30 in the form of a modern regional train.

I did my best to keep my eyes open, as the scenery was gorgeous, if not as impressive as on the Montenegrin leg. At least I stayed awake until we reached Bosnia and Herzegovina.

So a very interesting fact for nerds like me, is that the rail line between Montenegro and Serbia capital cities goes for a few kilometers on Bosnian territory. That’s likely because it was built during Yugoslavia times, but the crazy part is that this area is disputed by Serbia, which thus consider this small part of the railway to be fully on its soil! There is even a small train station called Štrpci, in Višegrad, that regional trains like this one serves. That means it’s totally possible (but very unadvised) to go between the two countries totally illegally, unless you make previous arrangements with local police, as there are no border controls.

Zdravo Bosna i Hercegovina!

As we got close to Štrpci, I positionned myself in front of a door (where the controller wasn’t), and when the train stopped, put a foot down on the platform, snipped a picture, and got back in with the controller making me signs. AHA! I just technically illegally left and entered both Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (according to everyone) while still never leaving Serbia (according to them). I know it sounds dumb, but not doing so, and just crossing into the country without stepping foot on it would have triggered my OCD to no ends… Anyway, needless to say, my first visit in Bosnia and Herzegovina was rather limited.

The few smal buildings at the station were fully painted in Serbian flag colours (unless I mistaken that for the flag of Republika Srpska, one of the administrative entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina), and this line is totally disconnected from the small Bosnian rail network. This is technically the only passenger rail connection crossing the border, with the touristic Šargan Eight train in the summer.

Здраво Србија!

I was last here, uh, 15 min ago, and it wasn’t the easy part of my travel. Let’s see n… Wait, do you feel déjà-vu?

Finally, sleepiness beat me, and I dozed for a good half hour, missing some beautiful sceneries. And I went through all this trouble to see it by daylight. Oh the irony!

After Ужице [Užice], the scenery became more generic, the train fuller, and the ride felt very long. We got to Београд [Belgrade] at 13:45, at the Centar station, which, as its name suggest, is about an hour walk from the center…

First thing, I got some denars, but the ATM gave me 1,000 denars bills (that’s 10 €), too much for a bus ticket. I tried to buy stuff to make money but they wouldn’t accept it. It begins… Then the two buses where so full that they might imploed at any time, so I walked.

Interestingly, there were plenty, and I mean plenty, of Chinese flags everywhere, as much as Serbian flags, and even some Chinese-writing billboards. I wonder why.

I stopped at the bus station on the way, and decided to get a bus to Bosnia and Herzegovina tomorrow. It went surprisingly very easily, and I just had to get ripped off 30 € to get a ticket tomorrow morning directly to Sarajevo!

I finally checked in at the hostel, and by 4 PM, I got to bed and I sank fast and deep asleep. But I rose up from the dead by 7 PM, went for a quick dinner and then back to sleep. 

Here’s the super short video of last week: