The adventure began the days following what would be my last music festival of the summer season! After four days spent at Electric Castle, a well-known Romanian musical festival in which you could camp outside of Cluj, a big university town. I had the opportunity to watch couple of artists that were on my live watch list for some time such as Disclosure, Purple Disco Machine and Twentyone Pilots, but also had the pleasure of expanding my taste in music. The great thing about festivals is that it allows you to bond and make connections with all sorts of individuals with the universal love of music. It was a beautifully organized event, with fantastic volunteer staff, facilities and massive grounds. Although little time was spent camping because of the heat and the fact you could cook an egg in your tent by eight in the morning, good friends were made around our campsite and it was always a great place to regroup.
The day started bright and early in Timisoara, a western city of Romania nearing the borders of Serbia and Hungary that I had the pleasure of exploring. Timisoara is one of the most populous cities in Romania, credited to the large role it plays in post-secondary education in the country. It is known for its secessionist architecture which is very well demonstrated in the city centre where you can find three squares full of history Piata Victoriei, Libertaii, and Uniri. Not only are these squares fully pedestrianized, facilitating visiting the city sights by foot, but there is an abundance of parks surrounding them, slit by the Bega River which flows through the centre of the city. If ever visiting Romania, I would highly suggest visiting this charming city alongside these other must-see destinations of the country as it is very accessible to reach by train from Hungary and the other metropolitan cities of this often overlooked country full of history and rich nature.
Nonetheless, our time here was short, as our mission was to reach Belgrade Serbia by the end of the day, but here are my top picks of activities, sights and cuisine to indulge in curated with the help of a local friends. I am a huge fanatic of winging it, especially while travelling as you are more likely to experience things out of the norm, but this itinerary will serve to you as a base.
Little did we know that our travels to Belgrade would take much longer than anticipated, with many hurdles, but memories that would top our troubles in the. The first order of business was to make way to the bus station and organize a way to the nearest bordering city of Serbia as no train routes are available between these two destinations unfortunately. As you will come to realize in many of the Balkan countries, transportation schedules are not always found online and merely serve as a recommendation as most things don’t run on time.
That being said, we hopped on a small shuttle bus that would drive us an hour south to this small village, most definitely habitant of no more than 3000 residents. This bus ride cost us 24 lei (4euros), but would only get us as close as 17km from the nearest Serbian village. The day was young, and my hopes of hitchhiking high! Things looked up pretty early, a car had approached us, but was asking for a ridiculous sum that neither one of us were willing to pay for the short commute. Time went on, and we were losing sunlight and perhaps lost patience which resulted in beginning of our 5km walk to the border with hopes of getting picked up along the way. My good friend Jeff and I stocked up on water at what looked to be the only convenience stores in a 30km radius and started walking the 59! We certainly had different experiences as I only had my hiking bag but he had a bag as well as a suitcase because he had been nomadic for nearly a year. This soon became a nightmare as he got a flat tire and lost one of his suitcase wheels, adding some much-unwanted friction. Keeping in mind that it was an absolutely scorching day recorded at 37 degrees. Our efforts didn't go unnoticed, but this road was majorly only travelled by truckers, so in the end, we crossed the border by foot.
We certainly provided entertainment to all of the control officers, as they probably don't see foreigners enter the country by foot very often. Once entering Serbia, we decided to take a breath at the trucker stop with many of the same drivers that had passed us. Our level of optimism certainly dropped, as we still had 10km to commute to arrive to Vrsac where I was confident that we could hop on a bus to Belgrade! Discouraged and exhausted, we resulted in calling for taxi evacuation, but before it could arrive this older gentleman driving a beat-up Volkswagen Golf came to our rescue and waved us over. We were a bit skeptical at the beginning but gave each other a look and what could be best described as a shrug of shoulders, screw it what is the worst that could happen? This kind old man named Petar greeted us with a big smile and a couple of handshakes, making room in his trunk for our bags. Jeff and I jumped in the car, Petar lit a cigarette and threw his bottle of coke outside the window and off we went.
As you can probably imagine there was a heavy language barrier, but body language speaks volumes and allows us to connect. With the assistance of Google Maps and a small knowledge of Balkan dialect we were able to share our plans and he assured us with nothing other than a thumbs up that he had us sorted. Good enough for me!This whole adventure was quite hectic, Jeff was trying to take a work call in the back seat and Petar was very excited and so distracted that he couldn't stay in the lane swerving all over the road. We connected over the small things, his love of Coca-Cola, his vacations swimming in Montenegro and his other travels in the Balkans. He was so proud to show us around his small town, showing us their chocolate factory and vineyards and providing us with some Serbian recommendations from what I could understand.
Things took an amusing turn when we offered him payment for his kindness… The best way to describe the next part of the experience is that I had been politely mugged by a man in his eighties. At the time, neither Jeff nor I had Serbian Dinar, only holding the Romanian lei valued at 25 times that of the Dinar. When I opened up my wallet, Petar's eyes lit up and he couldn't have snatched the few bills I had left from my time in Romania any quicker than I could react! It was safe to say that he had won this arrangement and this had made his day as he became even friendlier then he already was. We drove through the town, and he pulled over onto the curb at this random unmarked bus stop, which he assured us was the right spot to get us to Belgrade.
We had a good hour to kill before the next bus was “scheduled” to arrive and Petar was pretty persistent on seeing us off after his big win, perhaps looking for more. He got a bottle of coke and a bottle of liquor from his back seat. Better know as Rakia, a homemade liquor that most people from the Balkans indulge in and are very proud of. He was very keen on us trying his home-brew, passing shots through the cap of the bottle, and that we did! An hour passes, still no sign of the bus, but Petar is still by our side, energetic as ever providing entertainment, drinks, stories. Another hour passes and the bus finally arrives and we part ways with our new friend, but not until he gifts me a bottle of homemade wine, and a round of high fives.
Final Thoughts
A journey that should have only taken us a few hours, ended up being a full day full of rollercoaster. events. Two bus rides, a personal tour guide, some Rakia samples and a bottle of wine as a parting gift, all for under $20. An interesting day nonetheless, but one I'd call a great success. The moral of the story, if you are stranded at the Serbian border and a friendly harmless-looking old man offers you a ride, consider taking it and you might just get yourself some Rakia and Wine out of it. Worth every penny lost!
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