Trans-Balkanik! the train from the underworld!

jojojo!

its me again ! this time coming back to you from familliar grounds! after 24 almost hours of train i reached thessaloniki!
i used the only direct connection between zagreb and north greece.. a train that goes through hrvatska ,serbia,fyrom, and stops at thessaloniki greece.

the train is an old train like the ones we had in greece a few years ago. its dirty and it has dirty people working in it. jeje

the thing is that there is not a certain regulation about transporting bikes with train so everybody tries to take advantage of it.

at first i wanted to have a bed and the guy in the train said that i should pay 10 euros more and also give him "something" more to have a drink.
so when i tried to pay him with Croatian money he said no and that he would only accept euro (!) i didnt have any euros so i said, kuna or nothing.. after that he asked for more money
because it was not his preferred currency :P
he asked for 140 kuna that is 20 euros. i said no, its too much , so the deal broke and i just left and had a normal seat.
it was ok in the normal seats anyway.

now, apart from my ticket i had to pay overweight for transporting my bike...
That, i also had to pay it aboard... so...
i payed 3 times.
one at the croatian .train conductor, one at the serbian one and one more at the f.y.r.o.m.-ian conductor. everytime someone working in the train changed ,the new one was asking for money.!
luckily i had made friends with a family from f.y.r.o.m before the last time , so when the last guy asked me for money they told him that no and i already had payed and the guy just asked for one euro..

ridiculous .. anyway

it was a good experience and if someone is just traveling with out any bikes or something weired i would suggest it to anybody.
actually i suggest that all people from greece should travel in the balkans. know your neighbor!

zagreb was very beautiful and i had a very good time with sanja, my host there.
people in croatia are very much like Greek people i think in their attitude and way of behaving .

from the train i saw very beautiful sceneries. people working with the earth, even with horses..

the train crossed the bridge that was bombed by nato in serbia when a train full of civilians was crossing it. i met interesting people in that train and actually had quite a lot of fun!

hvala (thank you) good people for everything.

i will get back with the photos and the new stories from the greek stretch of the trip!
see you soon everybody