EXIT 007

Seven days travelling on mostly un-air conditioned buses and trains for the sake of four and a half days of fun! But was it worth it?

Yes and no. Exit Festival is an annual music extravaganza held at a beautiful fortress in Novi Sad, Serbia, but if I were to go again – I would never, never, ever take the same transport!

“Oh, it’ll be amazing, think of all the sights – all the border-crossing!”

Why did I say that?! For the price (£85), at the time, that was the reasoning… I have since found out that most of my (sensible) friends took a four-hour flight for ten pounds less…gutted! So here’s how it went: on Monday we got the Berrys coach to London, stayed at Charlotte’s, had a nice Indian on Brick Lane, got a relatively early night.

Tuesday at six got the tube to Victoria, checked in, waited to board. First in the queue, we expected to occupy the back seats – but how wrong could we be? This little, fat, squat Eastern European woman barged in front of us, folding her arms across her enormous bosom. We knew she meant business, but could she really be challenging us for the back seats? Yes, and some! She practically sprinted to the middle of the back row, and growled at ANYONE who thought they might be in for a chance.

I was in hysterics – and felt quite in ore of her because she held her ground all the way to Belgium! But in Brussels her glue came unstuck, she had to give in, the driver came up and eventually, she caved in, but again, not without a fight. She must have thought we were running a conspiracy against her because the whole way to Budapest, she deliberately knocked her big boobs into our heads and backs as we tried to sleep aisle side, and bared her gummy teeth when we were unlucky enough to wake in her presence.

That was pretty much our only source of entertainment during the twenty-seven hour ordeal to Hungry. So we were turfed out at the bus station with literally minutes to withdraw money, find the metro, buy tickets and get to the train station before the only day train to Novi Sad departed. I hate backpacks; I hate backpacking in the heat and being late for stuff. Needless to say, we got there almost on time, but the bloody thing was packed like a triple-over-packed sardine tin. Full of happy EXIT fans, drinking and smoking out the windows, mocking us latecomers.

It chugged very slowly out of the station, as if to further humiliate us – but there were a fair few stragglers, so we didn’t feel quite so isolated. Twelve hours of sitting around eating, drinking and finding the locals hostile to say the least, we positioned ourselves as close to the departures board as possible, in order to race off to the train as soon as it’s arrival was announced. We knew that this one would be more crowded than the one we missed earlier, but the newcomers didn’t – this was our only advantage.

Even though we ran like the wind as soon as that mysterious spinning mechanism stopped spinning with PLATFORM 9, a few flocks of EXITERS found their way on first. No matter. We found a carriage with traditional booths, leather seats and head rests, with only three people inside. We sat; we took the abuse from all the grumpy toffs who thought they deserved seats more than we did, and endured the constant cackling of four Irish lads high on champagne and poppers to finally arrive in Serbia three hours late – six-thirty on THURSDAY morning!

Next hurdle was finding a cash machine and then finding change for the bus and then trying to find the campsite….
And then there was the tussle to get into the ticket ‘hall’ which looked like a disused bomb shelter. At breaking point, we queued for our wristbands and then plodded into the site to find camping. Luke and I found somewhere quite central, under shade, near the toilets…then crashed for an hour or two, until the sun rudely woke us by turning our tent into a sauna! Both too exhausted to move the tent, we got outside and explored the site.

The camp is separate to the festival site, divided by the Duane River, but close enough to walk there in ten-minute, over the bridge in the town. At six o’clock, we went up to the festival site to check in and get our ‘state of EXIT’ passports. Why couldn’t they give us wristbands? I know at least a handful of people who lost their ‘passports’ and had to buy dodgy day passes to gain entry.

The fortress was impressively huge, about twenty-two stages in all, but not rivalling Glastonbury in numbers of festival goers. There were rabbit warrens leaning to hidden bars, hidden sights and let more musical interludes. Best of the bunch for location had to be the dance arena, right at the back of the site, down some steep steps into a valley, always a sea of bodies pulsing to the likes of Roger Sanchez and John Digweed. At the back of the arena, a slope led you up the other side of the valley and into a separate arena, but here you could see over the whole valley and it was definitely the best place for watching the sunrise.

Highlights of the first night included a rip-roaring set by The Prodigy, firing up the crowd into a writhing, cantankerous fighting-machine. Amazing to see they still have that energy and drive – thoroughly appreciated by those gathered. If anything the set was a little too raucous, as a stampede occurred afterwards, sending us all flying in all directions and fighting to stay upright. All we could see was people as we tried to make sense of our bearings – where could we go to escape the crowds?

After clambering up a steep slope we found a temporary safe spot, and exhausted, we stayed perched there safely until the crowds had dispersed. At this safe distance we watched Groove Armada from the main stage and then braved the scene for Stanton Warriors. As the sun came up on Friday morning, Luke and myself decided to call time and staggered through the town as the rush hour traffic clambered past us.

After no more than two hours sleep we were up and at it again, strolling into town to find some breakfast. Then onto the beach for some sun, until the sun got too hot and we slept in the shade for a while. Time didn’t have a place here: if you wanted a burger for breakfast – fine, if you wanted to rave at lunch time- - that’s fine too. In the afternoon we met up with my friends at their camp and began drinking. We tried to keep together and enter the festival in convoy – but despite our best efforts, we always seemed to get split up.

In the food court we sat on logs and watched the sunset over the river, listening to the disorientated sounds of Lauryn Hill, who everyone agreed has lost her touch with reality. Next came The Beastie Boys, with a most eclectic mix of old and new tunes, and a few too many instrumental interludes for my liking. Again, the old school boys, like The Prodigy, still had their wits about them in an ultra-respectable way. Venturing across the other side of the fortress, Luke and myself decided to check out the smaller stages; Reggae, Fusion, Funk and ten others I’ve forgotten the names of already...

Sunrise and we’re on the street again, eating fresh corn-on-the-cob, doing our best not to get involved in the traffic piling up around us. No sleep today – it’s too hot already, we try to find a shady area near one of the bars, but the sun seems to move at a ridiculous speed and a cold shower is the only answer. By today (Saturday) the sun is ferocious – about 38°c and rising – no more sunbathing for me! There is literally not much you can do in this heat: even eating is a chore. If I hadn’t been drinking so much wine and vodka, I’d probably have lost some weight this week…

Today I waited in the queue for the on-site internet café, and was a little worried to see the number of emails I had received from Matilda at The Ecologist, asking for me to make amendments to my second draft and add captions to Lilli’s catwalk photos. Got Lilli in pronto and we worked together in the intolerable heat – trying to make words come out of my severely fuzzy head! Sent that off and apologised for my lack of communication.

More drinks around the campsite and it’s off to the festival again. Vodka and peach, vodka and tonic, vodka and whatever I can get my hands on…. shame we can’t take alcohol inside with us because that vile wine is driving me insane – it tastes like watered down whiskey and it’s the colour of piss…and the beer is even worse, and that’s all the choice there is!

Tonight we partied with the Serbians, three Serbian lads to be more precise. Very sweet-natured, generous guys, curious to know about us and constantly trying to buy us drinks and offering to put me on their shoulders so I can see Basement Jaxx and Snoop Doggy Dog better. The Jaxx were a little disappointing – I was expecting them to be really loud and outrageous, but the sound system or their mikes let them down. Although the two lead singers amused me with their frequent costume changes and wobbly boobs. Snoop was predictable and bland, and if I hear “What’s my mother fucking name?” again, I will cry.

He played some classic hip-hop from the old school, but all his recent R&B stuff is boring and monotonous. After Snoop, we wanted to stick with the Serbian’s and they were into Dance, so we went to the dance arena for Roger Sanchez. His set was poor, the only amusement coming from the dancers clad in metallic dresses and punk Mohawks, stomping around on stage. Just as it was getting late we said goodbye to our new friends and staggered back to camp.

Sunday had that ‘last day’ feeling, and although I was exhausted by the festival lifestyle, I was truly getting into the routine. Meeting up with a few others, we decided to go into town for ice cream and a lounge in the park. We explored a beautiful part of the city, quirky, clean and decorated in flags varying in colour and artistic licence. Must be the hottest day today, it’s an effort to do anything, save reclining. Determined not to be unprepared for the next morning’s departure, I decided to make a start on the packing, but again, the heat defeated me swiftly.

We kind of made a pact to stick together for the last night, but we were defeated at the first hurdle as usual. I know I can see a lot of my friends every day back at home, but I wanted to share at least one night with them on the festival site…but never mind…it was still fun. I didn’t have enough money to buy a bottle of vodka, so I blagged some, then had to hand it over at the entrance to the festival, so I was devastated to hand over my last tokens in exchange for that rank wine.

The heat and exhaustion of the previous days seemed to wipe me out of party mode, and I sent most of Wu-Tang-Clan’s set moaning about my back and the lack of proper sound. Shame, I like the Clan, but just couldn’t get excited about their two minute silence for Ol' Dirty Bastard or their not-loud-enough mikes. Pendulum played straight after Wu, but my days of getting excited about cheesy drum & bass are most defiantly over, so we headed to the Reggae stage.

We called it a night just before dawn, and slowly took in the scenery back to the camp for the last time. I was so paranoid about missing our bus at 8 am because we didn’t have an alarm clock that I made Luke stay up, just in case. How mean – he wondered around in a drunken stupor, trying to stay awake by talking to randoms and checking the time every two minutes! I actually woke up before he came back to the tent and I felt mighty guilty for being so horrible, so I then had to try and sort Luke out and stop him from falling asleep before we got on the bus!

The bus was, of course, late. And I had to check Luke was in the shade and not dying in the hot, hot heat, practically pouring water over him every two minutes. When the bus arrived it was like seeing an oasis in the desert – except when we got, we realised there was no air conditioning! So it was probably worse than being outside! Why don’t bus windows open? I don’t know, but we were all a bit delirious by the time we were dropped at the airport. The sodding airport! Which meant more money, more hassle, more transport and more stress. But at least the airport had shade and air con.

Budapest was beautiful and how glad we were to be dropped off right outside the hostel…to be greeted by our lovely host! Us girls quickly dumped our bags and went straight off to the public spa; a short tram and metro stop away. Real heaven. Saunas plunge pools, steam rooms, three gigantic outdoor pools with whirlpools and Jacuzzis! I felt like I’d just sweated out a lifetime’s worth of shit from my body, to be replaced with complete inner peace.

We had a giggle, tried out every possible combination of pool and then sadly got kicked out at seven by the moody staff. You should have seen the look of pure distain as my friend Maeve put her pass in the wrong slit on the way out – I swear the attendant was screaming all sorts of obscenities at us, but we just kept on laughing! We were delirious and exhausted, but in good spirits.

Later a disastrous meal followed with ten of us sat in an ‘air conditioned’ Italian restaurant that was too expensive, and they added a hefty tip which we didn’t really want to pay, and most of the crew couldn’t eat anything due to being hung-over…we got back early and slept heavily in the muggy evening air.

Got up early to say goodbye to friends lucky enough to be transported home in limited hours on a plane, then planned the last leg of the journey. We took Lilli and Luke back to the spa with us, giving our bodies a much-needed boost before the pain of bus travel ensued. Said goodbye to the rest of our friends and got the metro to the bus station. This last leg was actually fairly pain-free, with the help of a speedy-Gonzales style driver and the sudden ability to sleep at will. But the worst by far was the stint into London, where we had to get to Victoria sharpish, otherwise we’d miss the Berrys coach to Somerset. Then the driver scraped a car on a roundabout and came to a stand still.

We were all calling for him to drive on – the other car had continued on its way. The driver eventually got a move on, but we were over an hour and a half late! I’ve never run so fast in my life, as we dashed to Victoria underground. Flip-flogs a flopping, bags jostling with the commuters’ space, we had to get that coach. Lilli ran ahead with her Oyster card, whilst Luke and me struggled to find a change machine and work out what tickets we needed. A kind attendant did the hard work for us and we got to Hammersmith with literally seconds to spare. Not much fun, but at last – a bus with air con, light snacks and home in sight. Finally arrived home at 10.30 pm, delirious, and ready for bed.

Would I do it again? The festival: yes. Bus travel: no. Fascinating country, fascinating people, but next time I will be organised, book a flight well in advance and pack some valium, like everyone else seemed to be doing…