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Croatia & Bosnia 1999

My 1999 ventures into Croatia and Bosnia were short, quick trips that I made using Budapest as my home base, as I wanted to get out and see stuff, but the main reason that I went to Hungary in the first place was that my grandmother was very ill in the hospital. So I hit upon the idea of making quick "Blitzreisen" instead of One Big Trip.

The first trip was on 5 June. I left the house 5 minutes late and just missed the 147 bus from near the Tungsram lightbulb factory in Újpest where my flat is to Újpest-Központ, so I ran over to the other stop to catch the 30, which goes directly to Keleti pályaudvar. I got on this bus, but traffic sucked so I jumped off at Újpest-Központ and got into a taxi, in which I paid 800 forints and a bottle of beer for a rocket ride in a Moskvich to Keleti. I made the train in time, 202 to Zagreb. Now I don't know what that train was or where it went beyond the fact it went to Zagreb. I have the ticket still, but all I can say about this is that a V43 pulled it and I sat in a blue car; perhaps this was Avas from Miskolc?

I arrived at Zagreb, went out to the underpass near the station and sat down for a pleskavica and an Ožujsko. Ran back up to the station and asked if there was any train to Banja Luka. They said no. Is there a train to Volinja? Yes. Give me a return ticket. So I bought a return ticket to Volinja, only to find that the last train to Volinja has already left, the next goes only as far as Sunja. So I went to Sunja on train 5113, a 6111 leaving Zagreb at 16.26, arriving at Sunja 18.00. I had never been in a war zone before, so what I saw blew my mind, especially once we got past Sisak - the little shack at Brđani-Krajiški, smashed and overgrown by plants, and the large station building at Sunja. That looked like it was a nice building once, but now it was all smashed up and covered in tape cautioning about boobytraps.

So now I'm in Sunja, the train has gone back to Zagreb. I went into a little cafe for a coffee, and asked if there is a hotel or any other sort of accomodation here, but was informed that I should go to Sisak. So I went back to the station and looked at the UN tank sitting by one of the shattered railway buildings. A railwayman walked past so I asked him if I could take a picture of the station, and he said if I really want to then sure. Shot a few pix, then the 6111 came back so I jumped on it as train 5118, arriving in Zagreb at 20.38.

I was still determined to get to Banja Luka tonight, as I had a package to deliver from my friend in Vancouver to his uncle's family in Banja Luka, and I had a Švejk moment: I have a task, so I'll complete it, even if I have to walk through a lake and climb under fences. I went to the bus station and bought a return ticket to Banja Luka, was informed that the next departure is tommorow morning, so went to the Omladinski Hotel on Petrinjska. Not very cheap and not very good, but whatever, it's a bed.

In the morning I got on the bus to Banja Luka. The bus went more or less along the Zagreb-Sunja railway line, so I got another glimpse of the little "station" at Brđani-Krajiški. From there the bus went to Dvor na Uni where it crossed the border into Bosnia at Novi Grad. After a twenty minute stop at Novi Grad we started up again, but I didn't think to bail from the bus and take the train from Novi to Banja Luka, so I only got to observe the rail line from the bus. I did see a couple of 441s baking at the station though, and noted that the catenary was up. Arrived at Banja Luka in the early afternoon and went to my friend's uncle's place to deliver the clothes and toys. I slept there that night.

On 7 June we went for a little sightseeing in the city, and on 8 June I went for some more sightseeing, then I headed to the railway station to see what goes on there. I saw that the tracks farthest from the station building were filled with damaged passenger cars, and that the large station edifice was completely empty; a smaller structure is the station building now. I was frightened from stories I had heard about photting in ex-Yugoslavia and was nervous about my skill in speaking Serbian (though I had no problems communicating with my friend's relatives, nor in Croatia), so I just stood on the platform and watched. 441-059 arrived with the train from Novi Grad, and since there were people about I did not risk a shot, but after it left and the area became deserted I snapped a pic of the baggage car sitting at the other side of the platforms. The hour approached for the departure of my bus back to Zagreb, so I left the rail station and walked to the bus station to board my bus. The bus arrived in Zagreb late in the evening.

Having arrived at night on the 8th, I secured a bed at the Omladinski Hotel on Petrinjska and bought a ticket to Budapest, and on the morning of the 9th I took train 241, leaving Zagreb at 05.36 and arrived at Budapest around 12.30, about 30 late. Thus ended the first out-trip of 1999.

The second trip started with train 240 from Budapest to Zagreb after a three-hour visit to the Interior Ministry hospital, which, luckily for me is wuite near Keleti. I boarded the train, again pulled by a V43, at 17.10, five minutes before scheduled departure, which was a few minutes late. Arrived in Zagreb at 23.30-ish, and when I wanted to get off at Zagreb, the gripper, with whom I had spoken for a few minutes and had told him that I was from Canada, was surprised that I was getting off and asked why I was getting off. So, I told him I just came to visist Zagreb. By now I couldn't get a place at the Omladinski Hotel, so I slept in the waiting room at the station. Around 03.30 some policemen came in, woke us up and inspected everyone's papers. After telling a few peasants to go away from the station, they came to me, looked at my passport and told me not to smoke in the waiting room and they left.

On the 14th I stayed in Zagreb and took pictures at Glavni, and went to the Omladinski Hotel early to book a bed for the night. I met two guys from Japan who had just come to Zagreb from Bosnia, so we went on a bit of a walkaround of Zagreb on the evening of the 14th, and on the morning of the 15th we got on train 205 to Budapest, leaving at 07.25 behind a diesel. The gripper came and demanded 25 kuna from me for taking this train instead of the other one, because this went the longer way around via Novi Marof. Arrived in Budapest almost on time.