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It was Thursday 3rd January and I was up early. My little Christmas break had come to an end and I was set to get back on the road again.
Vanja lovingly wrapped up some sandwiches for me, as I squeezed the last of my things into my backpack whilst pouring a half-litre carton of chocolate milk down my throat – just the chocolate milk, not the actual cardboard carton – and then we crammed on to the packed bus to the centre of the city.
It was a crisply cold yet brightly sunny day. I love those days. Don’t you? That kind of weather that plays tricks on you. You look out the window and think ‘blimey, summer’s come early. I better fish out my shorts.’ Then you step outside and your ears freeze instantly before cracking and then snapping off the sides of your head.
There were only about nine or ten other people waiting to get on the 10am coach to Belgrade. I was extremely happy with this because I’d been expecting to have to sit for eight hours with my face squashed up against the glass as the abnormally large Serb next to me stuffed his face with barbecued meat whilst shooting his gun into the air and singing boisterously with a bus-load full of his fellow compatriots. Not that I let stereotypes influence my expectations.
Instead, I was going to get not just one, but two seats to myself. I’d be able to put my feet up if I so wished, and if I didn’t then my bag would get his own seat. You might be wondering why I used the word ‘he’ and not ‘she’ when referring to my bag. The simple answer is that he would probably be pissed off if I referred to him as a she, just as I would be a little annoyed if he referred to me in the same way. My bag is male and his name is Juan. Sometimes to mix it up a bit I call him John, but this pisses him off almost as much as being called a she. He throws back the accusation that I’m an Anglophile. Anyway, I digress.
I took my seat and we left on time. I’d been expecting there to be at least one Slovene on the bus, or maybe an Australian or American backpacker, but no, I found myself the only non-Serb on the vehicle. No guns though. Not even any barbecued meat. Just nine or ten other people all contemplating passing the time by drifting off into kip. Actually, a couple of them were way past the contemplation phase before we’d even pulled out of the bus station. It seemed as good an idea as any, so I kicked Juan onto the floor, switched my IPod on to the self-titled Paul Simon album, stretched my legs out over the two seats and closed my eyes.
Three minutes later and they were open again, as I remembered that in my life I’ve never been able to sleep on a bus.
Getting out of the city and onto the motorway was like entering a winter wonderland scene straight off of a Christmas card. Snow covered hills reached high up into the clouds on both sides as tiny white villages sat at their feet. It really was a beautiful sight. The puritan would argue that it was slightly spoilt by the fact that someone with a great sense of humour had walked the whole distance of the stretch of motorway between Ljubljana and Novo Mesto (I assume he walked. He may have been in a car, it’s a fair old distance) and sprayed the words ‘Fuck you’ and ‘Fuck off’ in huge green letters on almost every sign and bridge along the way. The schoolboy in me giggled every time we passed a new one, as I pictured the scene:
There you are, an Austrian or German caravanning old couple, driving through this amazingly scenic winter paradise, you look out the window to admire Mother Nature’s work and you get told in big green letters to fuck off. Now I don’t know about you, but to me that’s funny.
The further we drove away from Ljubljana, the thicker the snow on the ground outside became. The sun still shone brightly, though. It was a perfect day for a drive.
About an hour after leaving Ljubljana we got to the town of Novo Mesto. I’d never been there before, but that was mostly because every Slovene that I’d ever heard mention the place had usually included the word ‘shit’ quickly followed by the word ‘hole’ in their description.
As I looked out the window I could understand why.
Every wall had been daubed with Slovene nationalist slogans and racial slurs aimed at the members of the ex-Yugoslav republics’ communities. The swastika was also branded about quite liberally.
As we sat in the bus station, about another twelve or so Serbs boarded the coach.
It couldn’t be such a terrible place here, could it? This was Slovenia, after all. A land that encompasses beauty in some form or other wherever you happen to look. I stared out of the window, scanning the area, trying to find that something nice. That thing that would make me go away and say “you know what? Novo Mesto might not be the nicest place on the planet, but it’s still not as bad as they say. At least they have that beautiful <insert item of beauty here>” That little something that’d make the place that little bit less crap.
My hopes were dashed, though, as my eyes fell upon two small, pasty-faced, pony-tailed, skinny guys in their early twenties, marching up and down the concourse in Dr. Martin boots, grey camouflaged trousers, and black bomber jackets covered in sewn-on nationalist badges. I let them catch me grinning at them. They looked away. I wanted to hate them, at least dislike them, but all I could feel was pity as they were clearly the kids who’d been picked on in school.
The driver took us out of Novo Mesto and I didn’t look back. The next stop would be the Croatian border.
Those of you who’ve been paying attention will remember me saying that I drank half a litre of chocolate milk before setting off earlier in the day. Well, as we approached the edges of Slovenia and got nearer to their Southern neighbour I was starting to feel the pressure of that morning beverage on my bladder. I was starting to feel it pretty strongly, actually.
We got to the border at 12 and I got excited when we were told that we all had to get off of the coach to walk through passport control on the Slovene side. There’d be a toilet there for me to nip in to, surely. Right? Wrong.
Oh well, even standing up for a few minutes meant some of the pressure was taken off of my now aching kidneys.
I always get nervous when crossing from Slovenia into Croatia and this day was no different. I’d had problems or at the very least special attention on every occasion prior and the last thing I wanted or needed now, as I danced to hold in my wee, was any kind of delay in getting through.
The reason I always have difficulties? It’s partly because there’s a bit of an air bubble underneath my passport picture that seems to arise an itsy-bitsy bit of suspicion in border guards’ minds, but it’s mostly because in that picture I look more like a Bosnian or an Albanian than 95% of all Bosnians and Albanians. It was taken when I was a teenager with earrings, short hair, and I was going through that angry pubescent phase. Chuck into the equation my slimy dark features for good measure and it throws a lot of border police.
We all got off the bus and formed an orderly queue to file past the little booth that housed the Slovene officer. As my turn came, I kept my eyes firmly down as I shuffled along and handed her my passport.
“Kris?” Oh dear, question time. “Where are you going?”
“To Belgrade.” I replied sheepishly.
“Kris.” There was a pause as I still refused to look at my interrogator. “You don’t remember me, do you?” She asked.
What? Now I looked up, completely taken aback by the question.
She was smiling at me. I knew her from somewhere, but couldn’t place the face. Then it clicked into place. She was an ex-student of mine, somebody I’d taught English to for three hours a week over a course of a year in Ljubljana. I couldn’t believe it.
All the times I’d given her shit for not doing her homework, tested her in front of the class and told her I expected a better effort, and now how the power had shifted.
She started chatting, asking me loads of questions about what I was doing now and what I’d been up to over the past year or so. She didn’t seem to care in the slightest about the impatient queue of Serbs forming behind me, none of whom could speak English and all of whom were now trying to work out whether I was in trouble with the authorities or if I was trying to chat up a policewoman. I don’t know which would’ve given me more respect in their eyes.
After a couple of minutes we said goodbye and shook hands. The Serbs would eye me suspiciously for the rest of the journey.
At 12.30 we pulled into a service station in Croatia, and by now I was almost crying from the pressure on my bladder. I jumped off the bus and sprinted into the garage building, only to find that I’d have to pay 2 Kunas or 30 cents to use the amenities. A little bit difficult under my circumstances, wouldn’t you say?
I ran outside as quickly as I’d run in, found myself a tree and proceeded to write my name in the deep snow. Well, it started as my name but then went on to date of birth, followed by the first 2 chapters of my autobiography. On reflection, I think that’s probably the greatest feeling I’ve ever experienced in my life, and believe me there’ve been some great feelings over the years.
We drove through Croatia and into Serbia, arriving at the border at about 4pm. The guard got on and stamped my passport (something I always like) and then we proceeded into his country.
The clear conditions of Slovenia had long since disappeared and been replaced by a fog that just got deeper and deeper the further south we drove. It got to the point where I couldn’t even see the side of the road when I looked out the window. It was literally just a haze of white, as the snow on the ground mixed with the fog. Every now and then you’d catch a blob of light; a cry for help from a streetlamp, begging you not to forgot him. “When you get off of the bus at the other end, tell them there were some you left behind!” It screamed.
The snow outside was so deep that the trees in the fields either side of the road were literally buried. You could just about see their cold heads trying to stay above the line.
Another couple of hours in and we stopped at a service station and again it was time to relieve myself. No need for money or trees this time. No, this was Serbia, this was classy, this was a little portable cabin with a bucket in the middle. Oh yea, I’d arrived.
After what seemed like an eternity on the coach we pulled into Belgrade bus station at 5.45pm. I got off the bus and had an intense stretch. It was freezing. I don’t mean the kind of freezing that I’d experienced in Slovenia where your ears crack and then snap off. This was the kind of freezing where your ears actually commit suicide before you even take them outside because they can sense the horrors that await.
I was knee-deep in snow. I looked around to see how the natives looked. The men were big, strong, scary-looking. The women were tasty.
Related Posts
- Hiking in Slovenia
- On the piste in Slovenia
- Sleepless in Slovenia
Copyright © 2010 Kris Mole
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