Europe Trip: Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina

27 October

Shifting on from beautiful Bulgaria and onto Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina. Tonight I have a travel mate known to the locals as Mr Mexico. We have caught a overnight train from Sofia to Belgrade departure 8pm arrival 5am The city of Nis in Serbia has been missed due to it being fully booked out and when we arrive into the city at 1am on the overnight train I can see why! There was a soccer match on for the night. Our arrival was greeted with everyone climbing onto the train to travel back to their perspective towns and Belgrade (the capital) it would have been fine if the railways had decided to put some extra carriages onto the train but we ended up having 8 peoples in our 6 seated compartment and a lot of people sitting or standing in the corridor. Making the remaining 4 hours a little cramped and coming off the train not quite smelling like yourself....

Arrival at the hostel saw us both crashing out on the sofas in the lounge room only to be woken at 9am by the local police coming in to check their facebook?! Trying not to waste the day we decide to walk into town and have a wander around.

We pop down to the local fortress area which is now a park that looks over the Sava and Danube Rivers. (the Danube I am sure to come across in my travels again at a later date) cant believe how full it is and decide to follow the masses to see what's up. People every where - queues - cant quite figure it out and then we take a short cut and stumble across two churches and a lot of people. From research I have discovered that we stumbled upon a Slava - Patron Saint day for St. Petka. - Eastern Orthodox It was interesting to watch for a half hour and mingle around with the locals, we were even offered a vial of holy water which was politely declined.

The grounds are pretty cool and on our way back to the hostel I catch some local guys having a good hit on some clay courts. I have four days here before heading onto Sarajevo (Bosnia) and decide that 3 days tennis lessons sound like fun especially as I haven't played since leaving and I have never played on clay before. Loved it - the Belgrade Tennis Academy made me feel very welcome and I have been invited back any time to join any completion the academy has.

I have also been spoilt at the hostel with it now being the end of the tourist season and Mr Mexico on his way to Paris I have a 9 bed dorm to myself, a little lonely you may say but the hostel staff are a lot of fun and every night we have a visit from the local police. Which usually means they have come around to check their Facebook and drink coffee with us. A lot of stories and I have picked up a couple of new tricks for when I'm back in NZ tramping.

The free city tour was very well done but I did feel after 4 hours that it was a little long. We had a neat group of people and learnt some history along with drinking rakia and eating avjar. MMmmm yum!!

Had a bit of a look around through the shops, the people and cops from the hostel were telling me how cheap Serbia is for purchasing clothing but looking at the general merchandise similar to what we have at home, i.e sneakers, keen walking shoes, its not much of a difference and in fact ours were cheaper.... I guess this is because when ever you talk with them about their currency they convert it to euros. I didn't like this and had to get a local to explain why they do this and the answer I got is the Serbian currency - Serbian Dinar fluctuates quite abit and people want to know a actual base of what they are paying as it could be vastly inflated. Which would explain why I saw cars for sale on the side of the street with a euro price.

Brilliant experience at the local supermarket - I was doing a grocery shop for my dinner and purchasing some avjar....when I got into a discussion about the price of apples with another shopper. I could follow roughly what was being said particularly as the lady spoke with her hands. After 10 minutes I was promptly growled at for not saying I did not speak Serbian they tried out their English which I must admit was pretty good and ended up going out for coffee!

With the help of the hostel staff I organise my travel from Belgrade to Sarajevo, and this time I'm in a private "bus" which is actually a 7 seater people mover which picks up and drops off. Costs the same as the local train or national bus lines so am very happy especially when one of my car mates speaks a little English and I find I have lovely bottle of Macedonian red wine cheese and a baguette tucked away in my bag to share with my two other companions.

(Sarajevo Main Square - Foggy Morning)

Arriving into Sarajevo is very stress free as I am dropped at the door to my hostel!! cant believe my luck as the walk up the hill with my bag would have taken me a good hour. I am greeted by Harris and spend a merry evening catching up with fellow travellers and what they have done in the city. It is recommended to do Harris 8 hour local town outskirts tour. After a unsettled nights sleep I find there are bloody bed bug bites on my legs, little monsters Harris has organised all my gear and I mean all to be decontaminated, washed, folded and returned. I also have to shift rooms but this is of no consequence so long as those little things stay next door!

Harris breakfast are amazing, lots of avjar, fresh fruit, coffee, fresh breads and ceral for those inclined. The day is spent quietly walking through town looking for the Franz Ferniand Museum and observing the markets, I did get in trouble with the locals as there was a rather large gathering to mosque, forgot its a all man's thing and was shuffled away from the entrance area. So I went to mingle with the lady shop keepers who were standing on their doorsteps to listen. The grounds were very full and a lot of men were also milling around the entrances and fence line watching and listening. An experience I can tell you.

Sarajevo has the highest ratio of mosque to population other than the Arab and Turkish nations they tell me. Today I also met James from Aussie and together we convince Harris that he should take us on his tour tomorrow!! Which is fabulous, we learn so much about the 1994 war and what was going on Harris lived in town with his parents and was able to give a honest (from his view) opinion. We visited the 1984 Olympic sites, the bobsleigh track was used by Serbian troops as a trench line the visit to the tunnel museum was highly interesting as the tunnel was the only link allowing food, war supplies, and humanitarian aid to come into the city, and people to get out. The tunnel was one of the major ways of bypassing the international arms embargo and providing the city defenders with weaponry. Our final site was a visit the exact point Franz Ferninand was assassinated before heading out for a easy evening meal of cevapi and beer cant go wrong!

One of the things I am struggling to get my head around is the UN/NATO Sanction that Bosnia Herzegovina now has three presidents and administrations that have a 8 month term about. Representing each faction that lives in the country, Bosnian, Croate/Herzegovina and the Republic of Serbsica where they only speak Serbian and all the street signs are in Serbian. A lot of monies being spent. The locals tell me a average wage is 500 euros a month but if you work in the government administration your wage is 5000 euro they also tell me they have 7 billion in monies that is missing......

3 November sees James and myself shifting onto Mostar, after missing the early bus and then the 12:30 due to a car parked on the tram tracks we finally depart at 2pm. I must admit the country is beautiful and has a good water supply with a hydro dam forming lakes and hills not quite mountains rising up from the shores not anything compared to NZ standards but I have enjoyed it very much.

Mostar is a interesting city and still wears its scars also from the war. We were able to visit a old bank which was turned into a snipers nest as it was the tallest building in town. It full of graffiti and is right next door to apartment housing which makes you wonder what the neighbours think about the building and the tourists entering it. We didn't scavenge but were told the following day we could have easily found bullet shells.

Our afternoon is spent with the Mostar Diving Club. James has his heart set on jumping off the Mostar bridge into the river a drop of 25 meters. Due to the fact I have not jumped before from these heights before, the weather and no practice jumps were being carried out yours truly was not able to join the club but it was a neat experience to be able to share in James's. The locals were a little put out James's jump was perfect no splash - they spend their time practicing for the yearly competitions and trying to get monies out of tourists to 'sponsor' their jumps.

Needing an evening meal we head to a local restaurant for a meal of cevapi , this all sounds good until we decide to amp it up and make it into a cevapi challenge. 30 cevapi in under 20 minutes, helped on the way with mayonnaise, ketchup, onion and beer not bad going for a first and probably my last time. Feeling the meat sweats and will need to start fitness training!! if we keep this up.

Next morning sees us up on time and Mijda our hosts cooking everyone breakfast before we head off for a 10 hour sight seeing tour with her brother. Pretty interesting man. He was arrested at the age of 17 managed to escape, made his way to Sweden and returned 3 years ago. His stories and information us leaves us wiped out by the end of the day. The tour has been fantastic - checking out Tito's summer residence (which is now a shopping centre) popping back to the snipers nest, nipping into a local restaurant to learn the secret to Burreck (way better than Turkish pancake its more like a light filo with fetta and spinach with some spices) which yes is probably not good to eat a lot of but was much needed as we went swimming at Kravice Falls!!!! Very cold and I am pleased to have my swimming cap with me to keep my hair dry (especially as it is raining intermittently through the day) Visiting Medijugorje was a eye opener, it is said a vision of Jesus came to 4 teenagers in the 1980's the Vatican refuses to acknowledge it but people still pilgrim and visit the place enmase which you can tell by the number of tourist shops selling the Virgin Mary! Pocitelj is a neat town in the 10th Century Crusaders came through and erected two towers. In the 13th Century the Turkish invaded and put further fortifications up and turned the old town into what it is today. It has a sad history with the war but the government is trying to fund a resettlement of the area. Our last visit of the day is unfortunately in the dark but the Blagi Dervish house is in credibly special as their are no other tourists bar the 5 of us.

After a good nights rest its time for 4 of us and two bikes to depart Mostar and head for Croatia!