Advertisement
Published: November 17th 2013
Edit Blog Post
The football business temporarily over in Belgrade, we were up at 5 am and down to the Bus Station for the 6.15 express to Sarajevo. The bus company was called Kondor, which was quite appropriate as we would be going over the high ground into Bosnia. We already had our tickets and I had the little tokens to get on to the platform secured. There was no sign of any seat numbers being employed on the bus - at least nobody came up and said move - so we settled down to early morning departure heading intially north out of Belgrade past the airport. The early scenery was not memorable - the flat agricultural land only interupted by the occasional feature incluing the West Balkan branch of the family diesel engine firm. We re-crossed the Sava at Sabac and headed for the hills.
The bus journey represented a respite from the cigarette haze that most of Eastern Europe lives in. It seems that No Smoking is the order of the day on the long distance coaches and is actually observed. At any service stop or comfort break, the rest of the coach bolted to get a nicotine fix. The road
deteriorates after Sabac on the approach to the border and whilst certain sections are not exactly unmade, they are not far off. The railway runs parallel. There was no sign of any trains though. The Man in the Middle had visions of us on the Sarajevo Express, but no such thing or any other moving train was spotted on either the outbound or return journey.
After 3 1/2 hour or so, we arrive at the border crossing near the River Drina. The Serb border police came on to the bus and took the passports. One passenger had left his in the luggage hold, so he was escorted off to find the document. The passports were duly returned to the driver's mate and ditributed amongst the passengers. We moved off and stopped again after a 200 metres or so at the Bosnian passport control. The Bosnian border police then came on the bus and after studying the passport photograph against the individual disappeared with them t complete his checks. It was clearly a whole lot more intereting than the routine workers crossing over and they just waved a few private cars past with no more than a second glance. The
passports once again arrived back on board via the driver's mate and the coach set off. It is a little disturbing that you are on the move before you have th document back in your hand, but nobody else seemed concerned. I was pleased to see a Bosnian stamp. It makes crossing borders a whole lot more worthwhile. We arrived very shortly at the Bus Station in Karakaj.
We had arrived in Bosnia, but more precisely in the Republic of Srpska. The mind can play tricks with you at this point, because all the familar brands on show are what you were used to just back across the border in Serbia proper. Jelen Pivo still rules in these parts. The majority of the flags flying are red, blue and white and just missing the Serbian eagles emblaoned in the middle. There are occasional Bosnian and EU flags side by side, but this is still definitely an area where their loyaltis are plain. The road runs alongside the River Drina. It is picture postcard stuff - sort of a little Austria. The hills rise above the river and lakes. We then also began to rise - high into to the
hills, where the mist still lingered. We kept climbing. The houses have an alpine feel to them and most folk are out tending to their patch of ground or tending their animals. It was clear that a decent fall of snow might render the road impassable, judging by the signs for ski-resorts and the odd depot of snow ploughs. We stopped every now and then to pick up passengers - most were using the international bus as the local one to go a few miles into the nearest market town with facilities. A ticket inspector climbed onboard, dressed in a pin stripe suit. He made a few ticket checks and settled down to read the driver's newspaper. The journey had plenty of scenery, but the constant pick up and drop off of the locals made it at least 2 hours longer than it needed to be. We stopped for a refreshment break at Kondor's own service station. The bus was refueled. We stood around for 15 minutes, as we had not Bosnian Marks at this point.
We finally arrived in the hills above Sarajevo, widning along a road with remarkable views of the valley and city below. The cemeteries
are plainly in view, along with buildings pock marked with bullet holes from the siege still waiting their turn for renovation. The bus is tantalisingly close to Sarajevo, but we are bound for Lukavica - the Serb part of town. We skirt Slavia Sarajevo's ground and the bus deposits us at the Lukavica Bus Station, home to the majority of services arriving from Belgrade. A woman who spoke English on the bus - I learned it from the movies - pointed us to the terminus of the 31E bus, which would have been extremely useful had we acquired any Bosnian money. There was no sign of ATM, so she suggested we try the adjacent shopping street. The money sorted, we hailed a taxi and hoped he would be the type to use a non-tampered meter. The taxi driver rued the break up of Yugoslavia and suggested that things were a lot wors in the new fragmented Balkans. He deposited us at the Hotel Italia, ironically just behind the Sarajevo cigarette factory which was probably themost thriving business in town.
We headed out for a reconaissance mission and came across the first minor problem in Bosnia - not all bars
serve alcohol. The easiest to assess where you are seemed to be follow the rule - Jelen Pivo=Bosnian Serb bar, Ojusko=Bosnian Croat bar no beer=Bosnian bar and Sarajevsko / international brand=we've moved on from all that and are just making money. We acquired the bus tickets back to Belgrade on the only service from the main Bus Station to save going back out to Lukavica. It wasn't as straight forward as envisaged, as we were passed betwen the till windows on the grounds of a lack of English, I am information only, I only sell domestic tickets - we finally got the goods 10 minutes later! All part of the experience!
The easiest way to get our orientation was head up the shiney tower next to the railway station - the Avaz Tower. A mere 1 BM fee gives you a panorama over the city, which stretches for miles down the valley. The wind was a little blowy on the top. The fag smoke in the adjacent cafe meant there was no chance of us passive smoking for 1/2 an hour over a beer in there. The yellow exterior of the Holiday Inn was a good geographical landmark to
head towards - the scene of hours of news footage during the siege. This was sniper alley. We dined on pizza. Beer was not an additional extra. The Eternal Flame burned as we reached the main shopping area and it was getting dark as we hit the Old Town. After a brief glimpse of the Latin Bridge - scene of the assasination of Franz Ferdinand - the early start had caught up with us and we started to make our way back towards the Italia. We lingered in a bar, where we were the only customers and watched the local car ringers dismantling various vehicles. As we were the only customers, the smoke was non-existent. The barman nervously checked his fixed odds football, channel surfed and kept his excitement contained as Union Berlin conceded another goal against IFC Koln to secure one of his results.
We had been lucky with the weather on the trip so far, but the morning promised buckets loads of water falling. We made a plan to go to Mostar, in the hope that the rain would have passed by the time we got there.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.044s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0228s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb