Exploring Ladakh (Leh - Part II)

First part of my travelogue reaching Leh from Manali by Enfield motorcycle can be found at: http://shantagunny.blogspot.in/2015/08/gunny-motorcycle-diaries-manali-to-leh.html

Suggestions

• If you are traveling in Leh during the non-peak season, you get easily get 25-30% discount on the published taxi rates.  Take a look at the published taxi rates and calculate how much the published fare for your trip would be.  This knowledge will help you to negotiate better.  Before start negotiating, take a look at the vehicle first and make sure that you are happy with that.
• Every destination in Ladakh area may or may not be beautiful but the journey to those places will be definitely awesome.
• There are a lot of guest houses and hotels close to the old town
  
  
  near the palace area.
• The share taxi stand is now moved to a new place (polo ground) that’s located in the Manali highway beginning area.  If you are planning to take share taxi to Manali or Kargil or Srinagar, you need to have patience and belief that you would get there.  The people in the taxi stand are very helpful and will let you know which taxi will leave first to your destination and you have to wait til the taxi get full, it may take 30 minutes or two hours.
• Instead of booking separate taxi rides, e.g. Leh to Nubra valley
  
  or Leh to Pongong, etc., have an itinerary and book as a 3 or 4 day trip, you will be able to get deep discounts.
• If there’s no major floods or landslides, you will be able to go to Pongong from Nubra Valley without coming to Leh, when you book multi day tours, you will be able to save time.
• If you are planning to go to Tso Moriri from Pangong lake using backroads, you need to get the inner line permit and plan to get it a week or earlier.  
• Not many people venture to the Tso Moriri because of its remoteness that is one of the reasons why you should visit.  
  
  There’s limited accommodations near the lake, so as soon as you arrive there, book a place before you go out to enjoy the views.

Getting the Discount

Before going to the taxi stand, we talked to the receptionist about the taxi, our plan and asked for his suggestions.  With the help of the published taxi fare booklet, we calculated different fares for different plans and finalized on a less expensive plan for four days.  To cover the places that we wanted to cover, the published taxi fare has price for five days so right away we knew that we could easily get 20% discount and after negotiation we were able to get 30% discount with the first driver that we talked to.  We left to Nubra valley around 1030pm because we need to cross the check post before certain time.  

Khardungla

We saw a lot bicyclists on the way to the Khardungla pass and view of himalayas in the background of Leh was pretty awesome.  The road was dusty but well maintained.  There’s an oxygen station run by army and a cafeteria at the 18380 feet level.  It was not as cold as what we expected.  We spent about 15-20 minutes walked around taking a lot pictures and testing my endurance by doing pushups at the high altitude, we continued our journey to Nubra valley.   After coming down from the Khardungla pass, we took a break at the Khardung village for lunch and tea, if you want to enjoy the food at the military canteen, it is available there. 

Orchard of Ladakh

The Shyhok river and the valley is very beautiful with a lot of

vegetation, since the climate in the valley is mild at the 10,100 ft level, people were able to do farming there.  Even on the side of the roads, there are a lot of lavender plants.  This area is called "Orchard of Ladakh”.  We decided to visit the Diskit monastery before continuing to the Hunder, and climbing the stairs to the top of the monastery was really tiresome but it is worth time and it is a such a peaceful place.   In contrast to this 14th 

century monastery, there’s a new and modern monastery with 14meter statue of buddha is close by.  You can go there to have a good view of the Nubra Valley and I didn’t find that monastery interesting.

Sand Dunes

The main attractions in the Nubra valley are the sand dunes and Bactrian camels (two hump backs).  Diskit is the government center in the valley so it is a little bigger town than Hunder.  We reached Hunder around 5pm, while my friends were taking the ride on the

camel, I was walking around the sand dunes enjoying the beautiful scenery.  Compared to the sand dunes in Rajasthan or any other desert area, it is not huge but the location of it between the mountain ranges is the beauty.  The whole place shuts down once

the sun goes down.  We wished that we went to Turtuk which is very close to the Pakistan border which became accessible only after 2010, but no time.  There are a number of tourists visit Nubra Valley for camping but majority of them are just to just a day visit to see the sand dunes.  More than the scenery of the sand dunes, the scenery along the way is very beautiful

Road to Pangong Tso

We really wanted to take the road through Warsi La to Pongong but due to the latest cloudburst and bad weather, that road was closed

so we had to go through Leh. We took the road through Changla, which is the third highest motorable pass in the world (17,688 ft), to Pangong.  As expected, the scenery is very dramatic with the views of monasteries, yaks and himalayan marmots.  It is depressing to see most of the tourists getting very close to the marmots and in some cases feeding them to take pictures.  

Pangong Tso

As with any tourist place in India, Pangong was crowded and the signs about “no motor vehicles beyond this point” or “no camping

allowed” do not have respect, saw people riding their motorcycles/cars very close to the lake and also saw a person camped closer to the lake.  As usual, I could see beer bottles and other trash thrown around the lake which is depressing.  Ignoring all these, if you look at the scenery it is mesmerizing and couldn’t find anyone getting in the water for swim.  Guess what, no one is willing to do it, i was dumb enough to do it, so got in to the water and ready to take a dip but at last minute afraid of

getting arrested for swimming there (this lake is considered as one of the sacred lakes), got out of it just standing in the water for sometime.  The water was not that cold but very clear and nice.  It is one of the largest (83 miles long) high elevation  (about 14,000 ft) lakes that’s shared between India and Tibet(China).  The view of the clear blue water surrounded by mountains is very beautiful.

There are a lot of tent sites as well as concrete buildings available to stay in Spangmik, which is the name of the village on the shores of the Pangong Tso.  Surprisingly, it was not very cold at night and I could get out of the room around 5 am to see the sunrise without much winter cloths.  We decided to wake up early the next day to drive to Tso Moriri.

Drive to Tso Mirori

This is one of the remotest and beautiful landscape that I have seen,

this drive is the best of the best.  We drove up to the Merek village and the drive is so beautiful.  Most of the tourist don’t go beyond Spangmik but you need a four wheel drive to go to Merek.  On the way to the lake, we saw a number of Brahmini ducks, Tibetan Asses (Kiangs) and nomads setting up their tents in remote areas grazing their goats.  This is also one of

the high altitude lakes (14,500 ft) and at night this place gets really cold.  We met a group of people travelled from Mumbai wearing no shoes/socks and cotton cloths freezing in the dining area, because they had been told by their tour operator it won’t be cold.  I really wanted to see the night sky but didn’t bother to fight the freezing weather so slept well.

Adventure (almost) gone Bad

We stopped briefly for tea near Tso Kar (white lake) and didn’t find a lot tourists staying here.  Due to the high salt content, this lake

looks white from far so the name Tso Kar.  Also on the way, we passed through sulphur lake and a water spring.  Since there’re not many tourists traveling here, you could enjoy quite, calm and remoteness, that is hard to find in India, here.  Once you reach the Manali Leh highway, you will see a lot of traffic.  We stopped at the Taglangla pass for some time and the driver wanted to make our trip interesting so he took on the

off road to cut 5 km of travel through the winding road, it was like rolling down from 17,000 ft.  It was fun for 5 minutes before car

got stuck in the mud.  We tried hard to move the vehicle but no luck, but we were lucky to get stuck near a place some people were working laying cable for the BRO.  Five of us managed to push the car out of mud after trying different tricks for about 45 minutes and continued our journey to Leh.

Last Minute Things

We reached Leh around 4pm and decided to take the motorcycle to the mechanic to take a look at it for the long ride the next day.

 Since one of the riders was having hand pain, we decided to leave one motorbike in Leh and take only one bike back to Manali.  I decided to go to Srinagar and fly out of Srinagar to Chennai.  There’s a long line of people checking and running their bikes, so by the time we got our bike it was dark.  We decided to look for the share taxi stand and the exact location of it was not found by the time we went back to the room because different opinions/directions provided by others.  We packed the stuff for the riders and put them in the bike before went to sleep.

Conclusion

I wish that we rode the bike to Nubra valley, Pangong lake and Moriri lake areas, but it needs a lot of time and planning that we didn’t have in this trip.  May be next time.  It is one the best trips of my lifetime. 

Motorcycle Diaries - Manali to Leh 2015 (Part I)

Suggestions

We sent the pictures of our driving license to the motorcycle

renting place so that he could get the necessary permits for the trip to Leh.  We got this permit on the Independence day, so the permit office never closes, I guess.

New Manali is very crowded and mostly shopping but heard that the old Manali is a better place to hangout.  If you have spare time, go to the Old Manali.

Renting the bike took more than two hours because involved testing the vehicle, getting the necessary paper work, getting the right size helmets, etc.

Since I traveled from Leh to Srinagar and Manali to Leh, I could confidently say that the road from Manali to Leh is more scenic, especially the the Jispa valley area is really awesome.

Rain boots and tarpaulin sheets to cover your luggage are very essential for the trip.  You won’t be able to predict the weather (as any mountain weather is not predictable), so plan to wrap your luggage so that you don’t have 

run out of warm cloths.  If you don’t have waterproof gloves, get a few surgery gloves to wear on top of gloves to make it waterproof.

Pack whatever you need for the next day or two on your ride to Leh in a smaller bag that can be easily accessible.  Unpacking and repacking the whole luggage is a time consuming thing.  Take a kerchief to cover your nose and mouth, the road after Zing Zing

Bar gets more dusty and the trucks generate so much fume, covering your nose/mouth will be a better thing to do.

Unless you are a hardcore bike rider, I would suggest riding one way from Manali to Leh and return back to your home from Leh.  The better option is to ride from Srinagar to Leh and then Leh to Manali, both these options will cost you additional drop off charges.

Appreciation

Big salute Border Road Organization (BRO) for keeping the road as good as it is based on the remoteness and rugged condition of the landscape.  Heard from the driver that they are building a tunnel to avoid the Rohtang pass which will enable year around travel along this route.

My Journey

Five Star Daba with 2000 people

On the way to Manali from Delhi the driver wanted to stop the car for chai in a famous daba in the outskirts of Delhi.  When we stopped at the daba at 2am, I realized that it’s not a regular daba but a special place that could accommodate about 2000 people at the same time.  We had to wait for 10 minutes at Amrik Sukhdev before getting a table.  We decided to have dinner there instead of just having a chai because we wanted to enjoy the party scene.  The crowd was going wild and shouting every time when the electric power went off for a fraction of a section and came back.  Couldn’t believe that the the city was active at 2am.

Leaving Manali

We wanted to leave Manali very early in the morning but the

packing and waterproofing our luggage took more time, and we left the hotel around 7am.  We had to come back to hotel within 5 minutes to collect the oil bottle that we left in the hotel.  As soon as we left Kothi after our leisurely breakfast, the rain showers started and continued until we reached the Rohtang pass, by that we were wet and cold.  It was completely cloudy, rainy and the visibility was bad, but the roads are reasonably good except in a few places before Kothi (where one of us almost fell down).

Passing Rohtang Pass

We noticed a few people taking oil from a rolled over tanker in the Rohtang pass.  After having some hot coffee in Rohtang pass, we started to continue our trip.  We continue to discuss whether to make the trip in two days or take three days.  The roads started to get worse after the Rohtang pass and we had to cross a few water runoff on the road.  One of our friends almost

dropped the bike in the water in one such crossing but managed to save. Coming down from the Rohtang pass was a very bad in a mud road for about 20km.  

Keylong is the only place in the highway that has some concrete hotels/guest houses and in other places on this road, all of the stays are in tented camps.  So don’t assume that Sarchu or Pang will have good hotels, they have only tented accommodations.  Knowing of Sarchu mentioned in a number places, we expected that it’d be bigger town but it is not.  Since we reached Jispa earlier, around 4pm, we thought that we could go still further to stay in a place called Zing Zing Bar without realizing that it’s in a higher elevation than Sarchu.  This place was recommended by one of the taxi driver that we met on the way.  

No Bar in Zing Zing Bar

Zing Zing Bar is located in a nice place with beautiful views but there is no bar only tented campsites.  Since none of us realized that it’s in a higher elevation than Sarchu, we did feel better except one of us who felt little giddy so went to take rest.  We met two guys in the ZZBar who were returning from Leh about the road conditions to Sarchu and they recommended that we don’t continue our ride to Sarchu but to stay in ZZBar because of the bad road conditions and storm conditions at the Baralacha La pass.  Since we were already wet and cold, we didn't want to take the risk of going through the storm late in the evening.  But the next day on our ride to Sarchu, we found out that the roads were not as bad as those guys mentioned and there's no sign of rain either.

We booked three beds for Rs. 150/each for the night and went to

sleep around 9pm after dinner in the tent.  Surprisingly, the weather was not that cold.  After the open air toilet in the morning (that my friends refused to use the toilet paper and decided to wait for the proper restroom) with the beautiful view of the sunrise and waterfalls, we left for Leh around 7am.

Crossing the Passes

Today, we were crossing four passes, Baralacha La Pass (16,500 ft), Nakee La Pass (15,500 ft), Lachulung La Pass (16,600 ft) & Tangland La Pass (17,400 ft), and every time you cross the pass, the roads gets very tricky.  We had more water crossings ’til we reached Pang and the roads after Pang were pretty good.  But until we reached Pang we had tough time overtaking the trucks and navigating in the water runoffs.  After experiencing going down

with the bike that I was pillion a couple of times (luckily no major injuries), I gave up the idea of riding the bike in that road.  The scenery from ZZBar to Pang and beyond is breathtaking, the camera couldn’t capture the true beauty of the scenery.  There’s not much civilization on the Manali highway(!) to Leh.  

Decision Time at Upshi

We stopped at Upshi around 7pm for dinner and discussing whether

to continue to Leh but unfortunately the headlights in one of the bikes was not working so we gave up going to Leh that night (after riding about 10miles with the help of the headlights from the other bike).  The next day morning we left early to Leh and arrived Leh around 9am.  Except the first day rain, we had a perfect weather in the second day.

We parked our bike in Leh and decided to rent a car to go around to save time and energy. Both the riders were tired of riding.

Belgium - 2015

Suggestions

Brussels

• Train stations in Brussels are very confusing (at least for me) with no Tourist Information desk or useful multi-language or English maps.  Also, if you are take the train and your destination is not the final destination of the train, you better figure out before getting to the train station which train you need to take.  If you are in a hurry, you will be stressed out unless you know French.
• Getting out of the train station in Brussels and getting into the bus is another problem because once you get the get the ticket to go in the bus, there are whole bunch of gates in multiple floors, there’s no proper guidance to get to the right place.
• Brussels in one place where I had to pay to get the local Tourist map while in other European countries, you will be able to find the tourist maps in the train stations and airports.
• Most of the hotels in Belgium have wifi but there’s no password required, so if you want to get on the internet to research something or get the map or whatever you want to do, go to one of the hotels where you will have the service available to you.

Bruges

• The Tourist Information at Bruges is much better than Brussels and the person at the information center was very helpful & patience.  A lot of useful information at the information center.
• During the weekend, get the train tickets on the Internet that is more discounted than the same ones available in the train station
• Visit Bruges very early in the morning before the tour groups start arriving.  Walking in the non-crowded streets takes you back in time.  When the crowds start arriving, even though you are standing in the middle of the historical place, you may wonder whether you are standing in the movie set because of all the crowds around you.  So get there early.
• I’d stay in Bruges and enjoy the city in the quiet hours than staying in Brussels.

Getting into Brussels

Struggled to get to the correct platform to catch the train to Brussels North and after leaving the Brussels North station, I had trouble getting to the bus station within the metro to get to a particular bus number.  Initially, I thought that it was a language issue but I can assure that it is not the case.  There’s no proper direction or maps in the train or metro stations.  

When I booked my apartment through AirBnb, I didn’t realize that the apartment was in the Elsene section, it is one of the areas where most of the migrants from North Africa and Turkey live.  The information about that area in some of the forums was pretty negative, but my experience I really enjoyed staying there and I walked around that area about 11pm without any issues.  There’s a police station just a block away from where I stayed and didn’t see any sketchy characters hanging around.  I was staying with a nice couple (French and Greek) who are ballet dancers and teachers who invited me to join them for a drink later that evening.  I joined them for a drink the next day when we talked about their profession, my work, capitalism in US, US work hours, etc.  It is a nice place where they provide me with good breakfast and a lot of advise on what to do in Brussels.

Walking Around

Even though it was a cold and gloomy day, I didn’t want to stay in the house so ventured out to 
explore Brussels.  Brussels is relatively a small city and you can walk to most of the touristy places by walk.  Before I left the house, I checked with the hosts on the security situation on the streets after dark and they told me that there won’t be any problems in that neighborhood.  I was able to walk around in a leisurely pace and cover most of the touristy areas before went for beer in one of the oldest pubs in the city, À La Mort Subite, to taste kriek and half-en-half. 

Getting to Bruges

The next day, after having cereal and coffee in the apartment, I headed out to the Brussels center to go to Bruges.  I was not sure whether they will accept the electronic copy of the ticket and when I asked the ticket counter, the person at the counter told me to get it printed somewhere.  I decided to take a chance and got on the train just with the electronic ticket where no one checked for it.  Since it was Saturday, there was a lot of crowd with a bunch of people standing and traveling.

Beautiful Bruges

Bruges is a must see place if you visit Belgium.  The Tourist Information center will provide you with the map in the language of your choice and provide all the information that you need - very friendly people.  I walked on the side streets where there’re not many people around and enjoyed the quietness.  But after sometime, around noon, I couldn’t find any place there’s not a lot of tourists :-(  I walked around the city so much and enjoyed every bit of it.  Ended the tour of Bruges by going to one of the oldest bars in the city and having their local brew :-)  

Brussels - Grand Palace

When I reached Brussels, I wanted to spend the evening at the Grand Palace and wanted to see the whole place light up.  They finally lit up the place at 10pm but til then I was enjoying the local scenery where the youth were sitting on the floor in the plaza and socializing and people of different cultures walking around the plaza.  This is a very nice place to hang around for people watching.

My Views

Overall, it is a beautiful country with very good transportation network with less guidance to use them.
I didn't find anything to do for more than a day in Brussels but I could have spent more than a day in Bruges.

Sarajevo - 2015

Suggestions

• Finding English speaking people in the non-touristy areas is difficult, so have a clear directions and plan to reach your place if you happen to arrive in the East Bus station.
• When you walk out of the bus stand, turn towards right and walk about 10-15 minutes find ATM and shops to eat.  The bus stand to the old town is on the way.
• Don’t have food near the pigeon square and it is expensive, especially for vegetarians (compared to Bosnian standards) and walk little bit further into the old town, you will have a number of choices.
• Stay in Airbnb or home stay to interact with the locals.  The people are very friendly and have a conversation with the

  

  Memorial for Children killed during war

  local, you will get to know more of their history and their sufferings during the war.  If the photo exhibition, "Milk and Honey", is still going in the old town, please go for it.  
• Central bus station and the train station are located very close.  
• The National Theatre is in the Old Town, they have programs almost for everyday
• Sarajevo has a huge Turkish influence so you get very good baklavas :-)

Bus Journey from Belgrade to Sarajevo

The bus left Belgrade on time and stopped every two hours for cigarette break.  Both in the Serbian and Bosnian immigration points, the immigration officials collected the passports from the bus after verifying the picture, and returned the passports shortly after.  The bus travel is slow and since it was night time it worked out perfectly.  It crosses the Serbian/Bosnian border after 3 hours, so you could get 3 hours of undisturbed sleep and after that you’ll be awake for at least 30 minutes during the passport verification. The bus stops in some small towns as well as whenever people are waiting on the road for the bus, and since Sarajevo was the last stop, I was not concerned where to get off.   Bosnia is not yet upgraded itself to be a tourist friendly place compared to Croatia where you find English signs everywhere.  Before reaching the Sarajevo East bus stand, you will get to see the eagle view of Sarajevo (if you are sitting on the right side of the bus).

Remote Bus Stand

It felt like that the bus had dropped me in a remote bus stand.  Sarajevo East bus stand was pretty small and had to talk to at least six people before finding someone who could speak English and who could direct me to where the ATM machines are. Had to walk about 15 minutes before finding the ATM machine.  Walk past the local bus stand and take a left turn at the signal, you will find the bakery shop as well as ATM machine.  There’s a direct bus from the local bus stand to the old town and once in the old town, finding my apartment was pretty easy.  If you are staying near the downtown or old town,  get the clear directions to reach the your place using one of the landmarks.  If you are driving, get the information on where to park near the old town or downtown area, it is very difficult to find parking and you won’t be sure whether it is closer to your place.

The Host

Mickie, the host, is a very friendly person and prepared Bosnian coffee when I arrived.  During the whole stay, I felt like that I was staying with a friend and we talked very much about the war.  I really don’t think that I would have got the experience if I stayed in a hotel.  

He was telling how friends and brothers who used to drink/barbeque/hang around together, turned against and started taking sides.  He shared his experiences during the war when his house got with grenades a couple of times and his narrow escapes.  

There was another lady staying with Micke who was working on developments projects in Bosnia mentioning about how these countries except Slovania struggling to figure out changing the system from Yugolslavian model to the current Republic model and level of corruption that’s preventing the growth.

Sarajevo is a pretty small place to walk around but there are a number of places around Sarajevo, you could spend time on.  It is surrounded by beautiful hills and the drive to Mostar is very picturesque.  The whole landscape is completely different from the ones in Serbia (at least around Belgrade area). 

All of the important places were marked well with a lot of details so I decided not to take the walking tour of Sarajevo.  Visited the “Milk and Honey” photo exhibit on the Bosnian war photographs and it’s very well worth it, it gave a geographical perspective on where the places are and how the siege was happening.  This is in addition to reliving through the war times.  

Got the very detailed information on the tunnels and how the Sarajevons were supporting themselves during the siege using the tunnels to bring in the essentials.  The tunnels are outside the city and the cost of that tour was about $30 and decided to skip it.  The old town has mosques, churches and synagogs located very closely each other, the city has huge Turkish influence.

My Thoughts

A number of people as well as in the movie shown at the exhibition (Milk and Honey) indicate that the Bosnian massacre is the worst after world war and they could not believe that it’s happening in the middle of Europe.  I was thinking about other two massacres happened elsewhere in the world and why there’s not so much awareness on that.  In one case, Rwanda, the world powers where not doing enough to stop it when 100K people got killed (I salute President Clinton for recognizing the mistake) and in the other case, Cambodia, the world powers were supporting the regime that massacred 25% of the country’s population (about X million people).

Overall

• Overall the roads are narrow and windy but very well paved.  People follow the road signs/laws so if you rent a car, you will be able to drive (except the signs are not in English in most of the places).  
• It is crazy going from Belgrade to Dubrovnik, we had cross into Croatia from Bosnia, then Croatia to Bosnia and then Bosnia to Croatia in the five hour bus ride.
• I didn't explore anywhere outside of Sarajevo but there's natural beauty just outside Sarajevo.  So it is more than Sarajevo and Mostar, but you could go for other outdoor activities.

Belgrade - 2015

Suggestions

National Theatre and last Russian czar Nicholas II

• Belgrade is a beautiful city and easily covered by walking around.
• Language is not an issue in Belgrade and people are friendly.  They come out of their way to help you.
• You should try borek and yogurt. It is very filling and tasty.
• If you have time, checkout the National Theatre and go for a concert/play or whatever happening that day.  The ticket prices are about $3 for awesome plays.
• You don’t need to buy the tickets to get in the fort unless you are going to visit particular attractions.  So don't get over excited and buy tickets to all of the places when you enter, wait to go to that particular place and you can buy tickets there too. 

Getting to Belgrade

Belgrade Train Station

The train station at the Zagreb is small and clean but there’re some sketchy characters hanging around outside the train station.  The train arrived and left on time (@1150pm).  The seats are comfortable in the train but they did not turn off the lights in the compartment, so if you are traveling in the train, please carry an eye mask to have a good sleep.  

One of my daughters, Sharada, couldn't sleep much because of the lights and constant waking up for the immigration check.  During the six hour train ride, we got woken up four times (2x for

immigration and 2x for ticket check).  Overall the train is clean and safe, arrived at Belgrade one hour late after moving through different stations very slowly.  The landscape is pretty flat and most farming areas.  

First Impression

As we approached the city, we could see dilapidated buildings and trash piled up on the sides.  We could feel the clear contrast between the stations or localities in Croatia and in Belgrade, wherein Croatian cities looked like more modern, western European cities but Belgrade looked like old East European city.  The Belgrade train station is pretty

small and looked like an old Indian train station plus a couple old rusting train compartments on the side.  Even with this, we felt pretty safe and the tourist information center at the train station was very helpful, and people could speak good English in the information center.  There’re cloak rooms in both the train and the bus stations.

Knez Mihailova Street

Old City

The weather was cloudy and showers, when we were in Belgrade but we managed to go around the city and enjoy.  The walk from the train station to the city center (old town) gave us a good idea of unmanaged old parts of the town and well-maintained old town where the touristy places are.  There’re not many places open for breakfast at 7am, so we had some coffee and strudels before walking around the city center.  Since the number of intersections that we had to pass and street names not written in English made finding our apartment was little challenging.  People are very helpful, for example, there’s a guy near the apartment, walked around with us to show us the place, when we asked for the direction (unfortunately it was the wrong place but we appreciated the effort that he made :-) ).  After calling our host who came over to get us from the street corner to take us the right place.  

So in addition to the address, get some other landmarks to meet or identify the place which makes life easier if you are staying with airbnb or booking.com.

The host is a really friendly person, and talked about how she born as Yugoslavian but now identify as Serbian and the sadness comes with it because a  number of her family members are of different nationalities now (e.g. Croatians, Slovenians, etc.).

After having an awesome lunch near the Princess’s residence, spent most of the afternoon/evening in the castle/fort are in the old town.  Before going to the castle, I stuffed myself with borek and yogurt on the way to fort.   

In the Fortress and Ballet

We heard about the possibility of a lot of street dogs in Belgrade but we didn’t see many but there’s one German Shepard started following us everywhere in the castle walk.  The audio guide for the fort was good with a lot of information and after sometime I got tired of hearing the same kind of information.  After some conflict drama within our family, we decided to celebrate our peaceful conflict resolution by getting the ballet tickets, cheapest is about $2, in the national theatre.  The ballet was amazing and heard that it’s a black comedy about people stuck in a bus during Belgrade bombing.  We couldn’t understand what’s going on in the

stage but the music and the dance was really amazing.  We grabbed gyros for dinner and rushed to the apartment because I had to catch my bus to Sarajevo at 1030pm.  The apartment host provided the service to drop my daughters in the airport the next day for a reasonable fee.