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Looking for coach number 12 of only 6 coaches was a confusing start to the journey, but one made easier by the presence of my new friend. “They do this sometimes, to save money”, Rodavan told me. He walked over to a guard and confirmed his suspicions in Serbian. “It’s okay, it’s the right train: you’re in here”, he said, as he helped me up into the coach. Rodavan had turned up unexpectedly at the station after we spent the day exploring his home town. He had saved me from the mess I had created by trying to use an English guidebook to navigate Cyrillic street signs where “church” became “црква“, and where I’d become totally turned around within half an hour of leaving my hotel. “It’s a misunderstood place”, he explained as we looked out from the fortress of Kalemegdan over the glittering confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers. This feature, he said, had helped bring Belgrade its success, but was also partly responsible for much of its strife. As he gazed across the water and told me of the city, his smile deepened: from a tour-guide it would have felt like an act, but despite his flare and passion for his subject, it transpired that this was not Rodavan’s profession. In fact, I learned that his job took him all over the world, far away from the beautiful sunshine and ancient fortress for many months at a time. “When I come home I only want to come here, and to share it: to share how beautiful it is”. Now, with the sun almost entirely set I was getting the night train (my first) to Ljubljana. The cramped couchette had a dark, moth-eaten-velvet cosiness to it; the heavy materials muffling the noises from outside, where guards fussed in the hallway ‘assisting’ confused travellers by shouting them into their quarters. I struggled into my bunk, trying unsuccessfully to appear competent as another solo-traveller, Kaitlyn, arrived: she was unable to mask her amusement at my efforts. As we chatted, Emiliana (the third to arrive), confirmed Rodavan's story about the train being effectively halved; “cheaper this way, for them” she echoed, “but it means it will be busier”. It was then that three huge men were stuffed through the corridor by a guard and into the couchette where they suddenly seemed to occupy 90% of the space. The largest of the three gestured at us to the guard in complaint, but was silenced by what was clearly, even untranslated, a threat that disobedience would result in removal from the train. Mutiny averted, the guard switched his attentions to us. “Pass-ports in here”, he snapped at Kaitlyn and I, jiggling the netting at the end of our beds irritably, anticipating our naivety. Once satisfied, he turned and left, no doubt cursing InterRail as the source of all his woes. With the guard departed, the men made themselves comfortable in their bunks, and our conversation slowly resumed. The men mumbled to one another until late in the evening, low mutterings punctuated by moments taken to scratch, turn over, or sip something (I’d guess not tea) from a thermos. Emiliana was getting off in Croatia, she told us- turning in so that she’d have a little sleep before the next leg of her journey. It was sad to think of waking up to find another new friend disappeared in the night- but much of my trip had been that way. Solo travellers bumping into one another and being one others’ best buddy, sometimes for a day, sometimes just for a few hours. I looked down at my wrist in the low light and saw the woven bracelet ‘HANNAH’. “This was the other reason I wanted to come here” Rodavan had said as he got me settled, “to give you this”. He’d taken the bracelet out of a little paper bag and handed it to me, “you say you don’t like souvenirs, but…I wanted you to remember me, and to remember this good place”. As it turned out, upon waking in the morning light I realised that none of my travelling companions had ever really disappeared: and even now, over a decade later, I remember.