These two new friends told me I could share their cabin on the train. The guy on the left spoke adequate English, but his friend...not so much. We were quickly joined by two young brothers and thus began the train ride.
On a stop along the way, the two brothers met up with a friend of theirs and his girlfriend. It was obvious that I was not to get much sleep in this cabin. There was a bar on the train that the two younger guys frequented, but for the first leg of the trip, I shared my beer with the group.
Most of the people I met in Serbia & Montenegro (including the Bosnians, Croats and Kosovars) were still quite nationalistic. They were not aggressive or disdainful toward each other in any way. But you could sense that some unresolved issues were always near the surface. The people I met seemed eager to let these disputes play out in a democratic way and were never pleased with the military conflicts to which Milosevic had made them a part.
I ventured down to the bar and had some Rubin Vinjak at 100 dinar a miniature bottle (cheap). It is a cognac-type liquor that is produced in a town about 100 miles south of Belgrade. What was interesting was that not only were the passengers enjoying a cocktail, but so was the train conductor...
The bathroom....
After a quick trip to the bathroom, which was as described in the LA Times article, my two new friends decided to find another cabin -- away from the teen-agers.
It wasn't until early in the morning that my English-speaking friend woke me up, The train was coming to a near stand-still, so I asked if we were arriving. His answer came as a shock. We were approaching the ravine where in January the train to Bar had lost use of its brakes and careened over the edge of the mountainside. I wasn't aware of the accident, but read about it at the BBC once I got to a computer.
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