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Published: August 5th 2010
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Caught a ride over to the Old Town early this morning on Gogy's trip to work. This would give me the full day to explore the town plus I have no idea where his place is in relation to downtown so the ride helped greatly. Went and checked out the Stari Most (Old Bridge) as I was nearby already. It's easily the number one attraction here. The original bridge was built in the 15th century I think but of course it was destroyed during the war. It's really so simple but something about it just makes it stand out. The setting is great too with a few mosques in the background with the nearby fountains that surround the town as the final backdrop.
Walked along the river a bit until I ran into this Muslim cemetery which I explored. I had seen a few similar grave sites on the bus into town. You can tell the graves are fairly new as the white head stones still have yet to be affected much by the elements. You walk around the site and you see that the year of death for everyone is 1993. It certainly leaves an impression especially since many
jump
before the jump, collecting money of the graves belong to people around my age or younger. Walked up a hill out of town to a similar grave site, except this one for the Orthodox. At the top of the plot you had a great view over the city and the surrounding hills.
The old town of Mostar is a UNESCO site and is quite pretty but after 10 minutes of walking outside of it you see what I would say is the real BiH. A lot of crummy looking apartment buildings, deserted stores and some that have clearly been bombed out. Still Mostar in general gives a very good impression. It's a process to rebuild after a war but they are clearly on their way.
During the day there are a handful of guys who collect money out on the bridge and then once they have enough they plunge into the water below. Frankly, I think it's a bunch of crap. Its only 21 metres high and the water is plenty deep. If they dove in that would be one thing but they just drop in like anyone else would. I would gladly do this but I didn't want to get the only
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bridge jumper, should have done it myself stuff I have for my time here in Mostar soaked. I'm coming back for you Stari Most.
Popped into a hair salon for a quite reasonable 3.50 euro haircut. Definitely needed one with the heat here which I think will only intensify for the rest of my trip. My left sandal broke half way through my trip around town so I had to slow things down after that. I am meeting Gogy at 6pm so until then I am just going to relax at a nearby cafe like I did earlier this morning as well. Did enjoy a nice meal of something I can't pronounce and forgot the name of already but it was similar to the cevapi I had last night.
Had an interesting turn of events this evening after meeting up with Gogy. He works as a sales rep for some car company and his job requires him to travel a lot, often on short notice. His boss had called earlier in the day telling him he needed to go to a meeting in Croatia early the next morning so I would have to go to the hostel. Being the nice guy he is though he
drove me to a nice hostel near the train station and insisted on paying for my nights accommodation since he felt bad about kicking me out. The place was certainly good enough for one night and I once again enjoyed some Bosnian cuisine for dinner. Grilled onions stuffed with minced meat and a Bosnian pie stuffed with cheese and spinach. Loving the food and prices here. On to Sarajevo tomorrow.
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