titel's place

Travelling to Macedonia.

As some of you know I planned of coming to Macedonia hitch hiking. So having that in mind I left Sibiu on the 5th at 1 AM. the driver that tool me from there was coming from Austria and later on he told me that he used to work as an mercenar, he was in the French Legion and even fight in Iugoslavia during the war. By 5 I was in Bucharest, after making a short trip to Sinaia first... In Bucharest I took the first tram to go to the exit to Giurgiu. Because I was badly informed by somebody I found in the streets at that time I ended up moving in circle for about an hour or more. Eventually I've got to the right exit where I also found quite easily a car to Giurgiu. In the car the driver that worked in a company producing electrical fences told me that he is going to the border where they had some work to take some tools. He drooped me off in a road cross and showed me the direction to the border.

The problem was there was a very deep fog and you could not see a thing so I didn't realise that there were actually 3 km to get there. I eventually got in the Customs area at the Romanian border and after speaking with some people from there and positioning in the right place, I've started speaking with the Romanian drivers. The only problem was that through the customs the trucks were very slow, about 5 an hour and it was also weekend so there were no many cars and everything moved sower than usually, that is why there were actually not many people to talk to. What hurt me the most was that I've been refused by a guy from Sibiu who told me that he hasn't got enough space in the truck because he had an refrigerator, or at least this was the excuse he used.

After informing myself on the phone about the trains I could take I found that I've already lost one but that there was one at 15:30 o'clock (it was about 13:30 at that moment already). I started walking to the Giurgiu city center and meet driver that used to take people from the border to the city. This driver turned out to be very angry when I told him I don't want to pay 200.000 lei (20 ron) for the 3 km to the city. I eventually hitch hiked a car that got me to the railway station for free. There I had to wait a while and took a personal train to the railway border were I had to manage to get in the train that I was told that goes to Sofia.

There I found out that they didn't actually sell tickets in the weekend, that the train I was trying to take didn't go in Sofia during the weekend and that usually you could not get in the trains that go in Bulgaria there. I found again somebody kind enough to inform me about how the things work there, you find them everywhere :), and after negotiating with the Romanian border police they let me take this train for one station, till the city of Russe in Bulgaria without a both way ticket as they were actually supposed to (for FREE). In the train I had to give 100.000 lei to the Romanian ticket checker and 100.000 to the Bulgarian one and in less than half an hour I was in Bulgaria.

Here I found out that I only have a train to Sofia, the capital, after about 8 hours so I started walking around the city because I also needed Bulgadian currency to pay for the train. The city was very nice, realy I was surprised, who said that Bulgaria is worse than Romania, I don't know... anyway the only problem was that they didn't have any change office open in the weekend. No change office no Bulgaia Money, no Bulgaia Money no train ticket, no train ticket no Sofia... After walking for about two hours with all the luggage wich was a bag not a back pack (by the way I'm never in my life going to do that again) I found one and managed to find my way back.

I arrived in Sofia at 6 in the morning and I found that thre was no direct train to Skopje, Macedonia and I eventualy found an bus I could take at 9. After walking a bit arround the railway station in Sofia I took the bus and at arround 3 o'clock romanian time, 2 o'clock macedonian time I was here...

From here on I'll tell you in the next post because I think this is already too long,
So, keep in touch,
titel

posted by titel @ 11:12 AM