It’s been always hard for me to keep a
travel diary and my trip around Balkans wasn’t an exception. But this time I
have decided on writing at least a summary of my travel due to two reasons; main
reason being to share my experiences with all the great people I have met
during my trip and showing my gratitude
to all of them – that’s why I’m writing in English- ; and the second reason is of course that it
was a good one, worth recalling again in the future!
After the travel story I’m thinking of writing a blog entry about the sad collapse of Yugoslavia and how it’s perceived in the different ex-Yugoslavian countries I visited but for now let’s begin with the travel story. Of course some personal details might be skipped and if anyone feels that something too personal (like name or some details.. ) is mentioned, he/she can tell me J And I also look forward to any possible corrections, especially by my travelmate, some things I might have mixed up while trying to remember them.
I divided the trip into 3 parts:
Belgrade (Beograd) for the first 6 days, Novi Sad the next 5 and the last and
longest part is the one I spent with my
travelmate which was much more adventurous than the other two while lasting 15
days and thus will be a huge one compared to the other two.
How to start a trip without a plan? Why do we
travel? Some short thoughts and a big thanks section!
Throughout my life I have admired people
who can make plans and determinately follow them. Well I’m not going to say I
haven’t made any plans in my life but so far I could apply none in practice :) However this case was an extreme one even for me :) Just on the day of my flight to Beograd I
bought my backpack and sleeping bag from Kadıköy, shopped some clothes, put quickly the things
I thought I might need into my backpack, went to the barber to get shaved
–unfortunately there was no time for a haircut- and then took a taxi to the
Ataturk Airport not to miss the flight. After this excitement I was in the
airport finally, went quickly through the controls and one could perhaps say
I’d be relieved when I get into the plane but no, with the lovely JAT Airways
the thriller was just about to begin. Our plane was an old and very small
propeller type one, with two seats at each side instead of the usual three :) It looked like a toy from outside and inside was hot like hell, the air
conditioning didn’t work properly. If I
had taken a plane like this let’s say one year ago I might be dead by now :) Thank God for antidepressants which makes you keep your serotonin and take care
of panic attacks as well! Anyway after some minutes of waiting the plane took
off, we were up in the air trying to resist the engine noise and vibration, the
only good thing was that the flying height was not that much so we could see some
cities and landscapes all the time :)
While the plane was literally hanging up
in the air, the small engine could only overcome the wind and nothing more, I
had an “empty” feeling inside. It was as if it didn’t matter really if I stayed
or not, nothing resembling an enthusiasm about travelling or so. Every time I’m
about to begin a trip I feel a “void” deep inside, I don’t know why but maybe
it’s a common feeling for all human beings, I remember talking about it with
Dorota, my travelmate, and she said that she also has the same feeling before a
trip. Maybe we love our “nest”s too much as “homo comfortistus”s, I don’t know.
But it has a good side as well; it makes you not to exaggerate the fact that
you are travelling and thus saves you against all the hypes regarding
travelling itself. No it’s not that cool when you think all the time that you
are doing something cool. Travelling is just about adapting yourself to a
different environment than your normal one, but then again don’t expect too
extraordinary things as well. It’s like a test made up by some evolutionary
biologists, can you adapt yourself and live as if you have been always living
there with all those people you have met like a day ago or not? The best and
worst feature of us humans is exactly this one, being able to adapt us
immediately to somewhere. It’s good and crucial to our domination over the
other living beings in the world but it has also a bad side; showing us that in
contrast to what we’d like to imagine how weak our ties are with our daily
environment although our much beloved ones live there. Maybe the instinct of
survival is too strong for all those things..
Anyway one may ask why we travel then if
it’s not the coolest thing in the world. For me the answer is very simple:
Meeting new people; “new” in the sense that they are not part of your normal
life, new people who come from a different way of life, eat, think and speak
different etc..I don’t care so much about sightseeing at all, here is a castle
and there is an old town business, when I meet even just one good man I
consider it – the trip- to be worth all the effort. And in this one luckily I
have met so many of them; they are the ones who made this trip special! Before continuing my story, I’d like to thank them all in chronological order:
Belgrade:
First of all big big thanks to my lovely hosts Nevena and her brother Ivan,
Milos, my friends Igor, Milan and Danilo; the drunk Serbian girl whose name I sadly
forgot, the Turkish guy owning the
baklava shop “Istanbul”, Polish group we
have met in Belgrade and their host and all the others whom I met..
Novi
Sad: Again biggest thanks go to my pretty
and Turkey-loving host Ivana and her
sweet mother Radmila and stepfather Imre, Ivana’s friends Zorica, Katerina and Miroslav, Sonja;
ex-volleyball player Natasa, and all the helpful people of
Temerin and Novi Sad..
Montenegro
1: Of course first of all Eduardas,
the waiter in a cafe in Kotor, the Israeli guy working in a cosmetic shop, the
official selling tickets for the castle, the pharmacist who took us to the
border from Kotor and all our other drivers..
Croatia:
Rich Russian businessman with black
Mercedes and an angry wife, Jürgen,
nationalist guys in Baska Voda, the good-hearted truck driver who took us to
Split, the funny beach café owner and his daughter and all our other drivers..(
this will be seen in every step :P)
Bosnia:
This time the biggest thanks session is
a little bit longer: Tijana and her
sister Vaneja and their friends who are the loveliest persons of Sarajevo together
with the coolest guy Lelo, the nicest guys working in Blagaj Adnan and Ekrem, Prof. Omer Lakise and
his very cultured and sweet daughter Elma from Mostar, Kemal and Salih from Blagaj and finally the beautiful and crazy Serbian
villager family from Brod, not forgetting the skipper guy. And also many thanks
to the Mostar consulate of Turkey for their unusually nice and friendly
attitude. And yes I didn’t forget you our other drivers, thank you all!
Montenegro
2: American “Sweaty Stefan” guys, Bosnian
driver and his aunt, and yes the drivers again :)
Albania-Macedonia-The
Return: The guy from the wedding in Skodra and the
helpful people of that town like the woman with nice breasts :), the Turkish restaurant owner in Tirana, the
small businessman from the hotel, Greek driver from Vlora, the petrol station
near Sarande, Spanish couple, all the restaurants having menus, the Albanian
engineers, the drunk guy in Permet.. And all our drivers on the way back to
Serbia through Macedonia including the nice man and woman working for an
organization related to UN. Cemal Abi sana da teşekkürler! Not
forgetting the Serbian border police!
And finally of course I have to thank my
best friends -some of them joined me in Belgrade- with whom I have spent last
14 years of my life together, thanks for being my friends again! Last thank you
however goes to my cheerful travelmate Dorota,
without her this trip wouldn’t be possible! Thanks for standing the hard
conditions we have experienced together; although I have tried to make it as
easy as possible for you sometimes I was just not aware that you were tired,
hungry or angry, but I’m more experienced this time so definitely our next trip
will be just perfect! :) Let’s see what waits for us in Turkey, I’m quite excited and a little bit
anxious about to travel through my country with a foreign girl but it will
definitely be interesting and hopefully at least as fun as our Balkan trip
together!
So let’s go back to the original scene, I
was in the plane to Belgrade on 15th of August, feeling a void deep
inside…
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder