The nearby villas around Plitvice Lakes, where you can find comfortable lodgings. [Photo by Wang Shanshan/China Daily]

Visiting the lake that became the planet Pandora

We were like blindfolded donkeys when we circled around the train station of Graz, the second largest city of Austria. A bus should leave here for Zagreb, capital of Croatia. We spent two hours running about and asking people, but no one knew where the bus stop was.

Finally, a young woman pointed to a spot, where there were no signs, and said: "Come at noon tomorrow and there will be people. You can get on the bus with them."

The next day we found ourselves in a bus full of Croatians. They paid the driver, loaded the luggage, went on the bus and began to speak among themselves.

The bus was not as comfortable as the other buses we had taken in Austria. It traveled south for two hours, and Google Map showed that we were crossing the border into Slovenia. There were no border checks. Green fields spread along the road, and occasionally there was a factory-like building in the former Soviet Union style.

After two hours southward in Slovenia, the bus stopped. We got off and walked through the customs out of Slovenia. Then we got on the bus again, drove for a few minutes, got off and walked through the customs into Croatia. Officials were inspecting passports carefully.