Saturday, July 30, 2011

Checking into Serbia

20 km down stream we had to tie up to a rusty old boat and were taken into the customs buildings on shore. Checking into Serbia took a little longer as they needed much information and  paperwork in triplicate was produced. Also we had to buy a 30 day visa for 55 Euros. Again we had to go through customs and then to the police. Even though they were very friendly it took quite a while.
Customs is what took all the time. the police just looked at the passports, stamped it and asked if we had any children on board.  When all the paper work was done the police went with me to the boat and I asked the customs officer to come with me as well as I wanted to give him something. When we arrived at the boat the police officer pointed to the flag and mumbled something in his native tongue ( he did not speak English or German)  The customs officer informed me we were flying the wrong courtesy flag. The Croatian flag, and the Serbian flag look very similar and I had put up the wrong one. This was a NO NO.... the war might be over but the Serbian's and the Croatians still have no fuzzy feeling for each other, that was quite clear.
We gave both of them a pint of maple syrup and they were very happy. 

Serbia and Croatia share the boarder for the next 140 km but we intend to stay on the Serbian side so we don't have to go through customs on the Croatian side.  After that we are only in Serbian territory for  about 230 km. Serbia then shares it's boarder with Romania for about 250 km. Again we will stay on the Serbian side. After that Romania and Bulgaria share the border. We will have to decide where to check in at that point.



1 comment:

Mike, Sandy, and Alex said...

What amazing adventure! Sandy and We serioulsy think you two should co-author a book about the experience, the people you've met etc, starting with your trip over to Holland from the U.S. Separate fact from fiction and show people that we all can still embrace one another despite government infused turmoil. We'd buy one. I wish I was retired now, I would have beeged to be a crew member!