Lovely Sarajevo

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I had made some really lovely friends in Kotor, but I was very ready to leave the buzz of tourists behind after 3 days. I headed onto a bus to Sarajevo; left at 19:30 and arrived at the uncomfortable hour of 5am. I was not happy to be dropped off in the middle of relatively no where, and had to get a taxi to Sarajevo, which as I was about 30 km away, had to fork out 20 euros for a taxi which was about the same price as my bus there.

When I eventually got to Sarajevo, the taxi driver took me to the wrong hotel, dumped me out and I managed to find a friendly hotelier at a big pricey hotel to give me directions to my hostel - Hostel City Centre. Once I got to my hostel I was very happy to get into bed, but was woken up 5 hours later as they didnt have space for me the following night. So I had to pack up and thankfully they found me a hostel - Harris,s hostel, which was actually brilliant in the end. I was not best chuffed at having to pay for only 5 hours of sleep, but couldn,t be helped and was my fault for not reserving the following night too.

When I had been woken I was immediately greeted by a friendly Dutch guy who got me to come with him on the Tunnel Tour, which was a fantastic introduction to the city and the history of the war of 1992-1995, as well as a visit to the famous tunnel that had been made under the airport to gain access to a supply route.

The Dutch guy then took me under his wing as such and showed me round the city - as he had worked in Sarajevo for 6 months recently training the local police- and also had a car so we were able to drive up into the surrounding mountains and get some fantastic views of the city. Although beautiful, it was painful to realise this was the same position the Serbian forces had taken as it had given them such clear views of the city, enabling them to be very accurate with their mortars, and snipers.

Although surrounded by stunning forest, we couldn,t venture off the path as there are still up to 300 000 land mines surrounding Sarajevo.

After a day of being looked after, I had to escape the friendly dutch man, luckily I had the excuse that I need to go to the other hostel.

Once at Harris,s I got to regain my freedom, and meet up with Nikesh who was also staying there. So we had a couple of days where we got to pair up again. Harris opened the hostel when he was just 15 to pay for loan taken to rebuild the house after the war. Him and his family were in Sarajevo for the entire war, and it greater significance to my stay being in the home of -real- Bosnians. I always wanted to ask more questions, but the war is still very recent, and the wounds still very fresh.

Sarajevo was a brilliant city to mull away the hours in little -Old Town- coffee shops serving Bosnian coffee - very similar to Greek coffee, notice I dont say Turkish! - very civilised with a glass of water and a piece of Loukomia - Turkish Delight for those nonGreeks. I also could, and did, walk around for hours looking absorbing the atmosphere of the Turkish, Muslim Old Town, with its beautiful Mosques, and then around the New Town, which had Austro-Hungarian architecture, and was simply stunning. It was also very modern, and with the chic coffee shops, restaurants or designer boutiques you could easily be in London, Paris or New York. At night the whole city filled with people going out drinking or clubbing. Especially in the Old Town where we would go for drinks and to smoke the water pipe - hubbily bubbily, or shisha -, and to would be bustling with Bosnian and Croatian hipsters and fashionistas, we looked quite shabby in our flip flops and travelling attire. Plus the women in the Balkans are simply gorgeous; very tall, thin, beautiful and often quite elegant in their dress, and always very fashionable.

It was Ramadan when I was there, and so the call to prayer five times a day seemed to have greater significance than usual, and the streets came alive with Muslims in the evenings when they could finally eat.

After three days in lovely Sarajevo it was time to leave and continue onto Belgrade, and I was very interested to see how I would feel in the Serbian city after spending so much time with Bosnians. I got an 8 hour bus during the day, allowing to see some of the beautiful surroundings on the way, which made the 5am start seem worth it.

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