Bolshy Bosnians, shirty Serbs and Dracula country

We left Sarajevo on Saturday morning and took a bus to Jajce. There was not a whole lot going on apart from some Bosnian-Croatian ceremony so we took a walk round town and had some lunch trying to kill time until our bus to Banja Luka. We arrived in Banja Luka that evening which is quite possibly the pits of the earth! A necessary stop, unfortunately, to catch over night train to Belgrade. The bus station is miles outside the city centre, adjacent to the 'international' train station however when trying to buy tickets we were told by the very unhelpful man that not only did they not accept cards but the nearest ATM was 5 km away. So, we got on a bus to the centre on the lookout for the 1st ATM we came across. Fortunately, we spotted one on the outskirts of town so jumped off, got some cash and crossed the road to take the bus back to the train station. Armed with our cash we went back to the 'not so smug now looking' man and bought our tickets. Adrenaline still pumping we of course felt that we needed a beer and with 50 marks to use up before the train what else were we to spend our money on?! A few beers later we finally boarded our train where I slept like a baby, rocked to sleep by the train, but Tom unfortunately did not.

We arrived in Belgrade around 6pm the next morning where it was raining which did not make Belgrade look any more attractive- a close contender for the pit of the earth. Tired, cold, wet and miserable we walked around central Belgrade trying to see it in better light,went to the Military Museum and tried to find the Nikola Tesla museum. In the end we went against all our principals and went for a nice cup of coffee in Costa. The rest of our day we spent wishing the hours away at the train station waiting on our overnight train to Bucharest. Thankfully we had paid for a sleeper carriage and despite the 6 typically French group in the next cabin we managed to sleep from about 7pm.

We arrived in Bucharest the next morning and took a Maxitaxi to Brasov where we had booked an apartment for 3 days. After a well needed shower we went out to explore the town. Brasov is a surprisingly nice town except for the outskirts. We tried to go up the cablecar which takes you to the top of the hill where there is a Hollywood style sign overlooking the town but it was closed. So, inevitably we went in search of our 1st Romanian beer. Easier said than done! None of the bars seemed to sell their local beer and the thought of drinking Stella ( which we wouldn't pay for at home) didn't appeal. Buying a few cheap bottles at the supermarket sounded like a much better idea.

The next morning we woke up feeling very refreshed after 11 hours sleep and headed out to Dracula country. 1st of all Bran,which is the 'official' Dracula castle, and then to Rasnov. Both look very impressive however having paid to see Bran castle ( the inside being less impressive) we decided not to make the hike up to Rasnov castle. From Rasnov we accepted a lift from a woman heading back to Brasov and were relieved to arrive in one piece. The Romanian driving is so bad and you risk your life crossing at a zebra crossing, let alone in the back of some random women's car who's tirade at another driver's bad driving literally lasted about 2 or 3 minutes consisting of a stam of Romanian swearwords (well, what sounded like it anyway).

Next day we decided to take a little walk up a hill, which we eventually found in a little village utside Brasov after struggling through the rain and mist. After a couple of hours straight up hill through muddy forest (honesty, I couldn't see the wood for the trees.......) we got to some clearing that might have been the top but was too cloudy to tell so we just had some minging Romanian chocolate and headed back downhill. Once at the bottom I told Kat that at the top I had seen some rather large scratch marks, digging up the turf in big patches. I had told myself that they were just by some unseen cattle but Romania is known to have populations of bears and wolves. This only became slightly more concerning when we met some Scots who told us that they had seen in a local town signs saying not to venture up any hills because of the riskof bears. Oops.

We left Brasov the next day, none too impressed at the crappy bars but having had a few good days. We arrived in Bucharest and found our posh hotel for our last too nights. We spent our time there visiting the rediculously big Palace of Parliament, built by Caucescu. This is the second biggest building in the world and required the destruction of hundreds of houses for the plan, along with a copy of the Champs Elysees (although deliberately 6m longer). The building is pretty amazing, with thousands of tons of marble and lace, and is still unfinished, but still pretty disgusting whilst the rest of Romania was starving at the time. We also just enjoyed walking the streets and naturally visiting a few bars.

Unfortuately our time had come to an end and it was time to return to normality. So we left for an epic journey home (not helped by my (Tom) sudden sickness) which involved two Bucharest airports (thanks for the wrong information Easyjet), a delayed flights and a stop over in Milan before arring home.

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