Balkans 2006

Prologue

2006, it was the last summer before my graduation. I decided to visit Italy once again to indulge myself in the rhythmic opera of the Italian language. Italy itself was certainly quite a sufficient reason to take all the troubles, but if I spend a dozen hours to fly to Europe but do not go anywhere else, it just does not sound justified.

Therefore I searched and researched, trying to find a route that is economical and affordable enough, but at the same time fresh and exciting. In the end, I came up with these four possible routes:

1. Portugal, Spain, then Italy;
2. Bulgaria, Romania, Slovak, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, then Italy;
3. Russia, Finland, then Italy;
4. Kenya, then Italy via “a certain unidentified route”.

Since I visited Western Europe 2 years ago, and also because that the transportation cost between Lisbon, Madrid and Barcelona was quite high, so this time I felt that I was less interested in this route. As for the 3rd route, with a HKSAR passport I had to obtain a visa to enter Russia, so it was not very convenient and thus less attractive. Africa should actually be a very exciting destination, especially because I had learned a little bit of Swahili, the language spoken in Kenya, I was particularly interested in this place. However, after some research, I still could not find any easy way to travel from Africa to Europe economically, so I had to give up the idea at last. At last, I chose the Balkans route. First of all, it’s quite a piece of virgin land for Hongkong people, there wasn’t even a single Chinese guidebook on it. Second, everything should be significantly cheaper than in Western Europe.

Route fixed. My ex-roommate Kam decided to go with me, then later Felix, an ex-classmate from the Physics Department, decided to join us too, and Joey and Stephanie, my classmates in the Linguistics Department, would join us later in the trip. Everything confirmed, let’s start our journey!