
In Which I Spend All Day on a Train: Croatia to Bosnia
I knew going in, from reading online accounts from other travelers, that the bus to Sarajevo was faster, had air conditioning, and prohibited smoking. But, it had no onboard bathroom and only made 2-3 stops during the 8-9 hour ride. Not ok! I had to take the train: Even if the bathroom onboard was a disgusting hole of %@*$, I needed it.
I felt pretty prepared for delays, the low comfort level, the disgusting bathroom, and most horribly the cigarette smoke. The ride wasn’t as awful as I prepared myself for, so I advise you to expect the worst and be rewarded with just pretty bad.
The train journey actually began with an hour-long bus to Sisak train station, which was delayed about 40 minutes because we waited for a train from Germany to arrive. (This is a good thing – those aboard the train would have otherwise missed their only ride to Sarajevo.)
We stopped about 4 times, for at least 30 minutes each, for border crossing and passport checks. NB: It was frightening as hell when one patrol officer took our passports and left our carriage. Luckily, it was just to get them stamped in the little office off the side of the tracks, but before he returned them to us I had already imagined the train leaving, the renegade Bosnian selling two American passports,
This is where my passport went
If punctuality is important for your journey, I recommend taking the bus. The train stops not only for the border and passport control stops, but for stray cows or workers crossing or I don’t know a barrel of hay blowing by. Overall, we arrived about two hours late.
Oh, Zagreb cherries! Seriously, they are incredible. And of course I had bread for the soy pate (which you can find in groceries in Zagreb), I’m not a savage. Also, ginger chews are my #1 recommended snack for travel of any sort. It helps with nausea. And I always travel with pouched baby food. I love baby food and this just makes it great for travel. It’s not weird.
For the final third of the trip, it became standing room only, with people stuffing the corridors and squeezing extra people onto our bench. So, if you don’t have to pee all the time, you are probably thinking of definitely taking the bus. However, the train has better views – like insanely better:
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Vladimir & Suzdal: Quaint, Charming Towns in Russia’s Golden Ring
Next up was the Museum of Wooden Architecture, a hilariously cute outdoor museum site that has examples of real cabins and workshops and chapels and lighthouses as were used in regular domestic life of peasants in the area in the 18th and 19th centuries. All the structures were really used, taken from various villages in the region.
On the grounds, they had a cute little cafe and shop with lots of mead and honey jars and then something I thought would be for me – the seesaw! But as soon as I was about to sit on one end, I saw the saddest sign:
For dinner that evening, we went to a relatively famous (for this one-horse town (actually, sadly, they did have horse-drawn carriages all over so it was really a 10-horse town but really more like a 1-horse town you get it)) restaurant on the main street recommended by our guide book and (we think) by Neighbor Babushka, called Kharchevnaya. The menu had English translations under every dish, although they weren’t the most helpful. They were pretty freaking entertaining though:
The only vegetarian-looking things were that Omelet is Natural and some mushroom dishes. I asked about the mushrooms but she said they were cooked in cream. I asked if they could cook me mushrooms without cream, and she said they could give me potatoes. Like okay I know I’m being a nuisance by asking for changes but that’s just a whole different thing lady. Anyway it was okay, the potatoes were really good and I haven’t gotten sick of them just yet. I also got a salad-y pickle-y plate which I am accustomed to now, having had it at most meals it seems! But I like it! It’s good to have fresh vegetables and pickled stuff for probiotics. Pickled stuff has probiotics right? I’m counting on that to prevent illness. Haha just kidding we’re traveling through Central Asia for more than 3 months I’m gonna get sick.

Eating Vegan in Mongolia: Ulaan Baatar is Surprisingly Veg-Friendly
Remember we arrived at like 7am, and spent just a few hours at the hostel before setting out? Despite researching what would be open early for us, everything was closed! We walked the 20 minutes or so in the pollutiony heat to an area that had one of the six or so Loving Huts and the famous Luna Blanca, the buddhist temple restaurant that is all vegan and yet is in all the not-so-veg-aware guide books. Luna Blanca didn’t open until noon, which we knew, but the Loving Hut was supposed to open at 8am. It said so on their own site. But there was a huge chain across the door! Ughh! So we trekked to another Loving Hut, and another, and they were all closed. Then we tried to find other HappyCow places – first, a place called Love Each Other, which was closed! Then a place called Agnista, which NO LONGER EXISTS. We learned this after walking around a neighborhood forever trying to find it by the very helpful (eyeroll) HappyCow directions that it was ‘near a primary school’. A shopkeeper on its supposed block pointed to a big ramen place and communicated that it was now that place. COOL. What were you doing to me, universe?! By now, we’d gone through my whole list (and on foot no less). We even chanced upon another vegan-friendly cafe (green juice posters in the window!) that was ALSO closed. I was crushed! Ulaan Baatar was my beacon of hope during the first part of this trip, my surprising vegan city on a hill. But, we soon learned, restaurants and shops are often closed during and around Naadam – which seems SUPER stupid considering that’s when the city is flooded with tourists and people from the countryside! Why would you close during the busiest time of the year?! People need to eat! But I guess all the waitstaff and cooks are also going to Naadam and learning about ankle-bone beer pong, so they have to close. There are only so many Mongolians.
So guess what. We trekked around the city, famished, for so long that by the time we checked all the above stupid closed stupid places, Luna Blanca was open.
I mean.
What a day.
As usual, we ordered way too much and got to try a whole lot of stuff over a few visits. One of my favorite things was a huge surprise – the Victory salad, a cute molded (not moldy, molded like into the cylinder shape) mix of chickpeas, celery, seaweed, pickles, red onions, vegan mayo, and topped with a tomato mix. I don’t usually like mayonnaise-y things, but this was delicious, like a scoop of a perfect chickpea-based version of chicken salad, or tuna salad, whatever people keep going for with their recipes using exactly these ingredients.
One night, when Naadam had claimed the lives/opening hours of vegan places, we decided to go to a Mongolian BBQ place called BD’s. I didn’t care, I figured I’d be able to find SOMETHING here, right? And I was being a good wife and letting Z go to a kind of must-go place here. It was expensive though – it was an all-you-can-eat buffet – so we looked at the setup before committing.
GUYS.
It was the best for vegans, to my absolute amazement.
As for UB food finds, there was an INCREDIBLE grocery store close to the Naadam stadium, super fancy in a sort-of mall and it had amazing random vegan finds. I just got super deja vu – did I already write about this? I don’t care I’ll share again. This shop had clearly marked vegan tofu and seitan mixes in the fridge! And the first good produce section we saw! And Bob’s Red Mill products! We stocked up on the vacuum-packed tofu and seitan, and I will be carting them around until Kyrgyzstan, where I imagine I will really need them. We also found these strawberry Oreos. They were gross. We still ate them all.
So, as you can see, eating in Ulaan Baatar was better than doing pretty much anything else in Ulaan Baatar. I don’t know how it became such a hotspot for all-vegan restaurants – I guess Buddhism? But I’m a fan of it being one! Hooray for Buddha! Or whatever the reason is!