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Published: August 31st 2008
Parliament, Budapest
A little better than the BeehiveDriving south of Croatia took us into the world’s newest country (and maybe one of the smallest) - Montenegro. Montenegro became independent from Serbia two years ago, and is (slowly) finding its place in the world of tourism. We drove to Budva, the largest coastal town, which is a very busy summer holiday destination (and not much else). This is the type of beach you imagine when you think of Europe; very overcrowded, hot, polluted water, umbrellas and chaos! Budva’s new claim to fame is that it is hosting Madonna next month on one of her European tours; although we don’t know if she will find the hotels up to her usual standard, but at least she may be able to stick around for a tan. Heading East has been good for our pockets, with accommodation prices dropping to around 15 Euros per night, although this doesn’t include air-con and Montenegro is almost hitting 40C in summer.
From Budva, we drove through the centre of the country up to the Durmitor National Park; Montenegro’s only National Park and a busy ski field in winter. The tourist agency found us a cosy room for 16 Euros and we made ourselves at
home by firing up the gas cooker on the owner’s lawn for dinner. The National Park hosts over 16 lakes, mountains and various walking trails, not to mention bears, foxes, lynxes and more! After walking around some lakes (some good, some very tame) we decided to get more adventurous and head… up. Walking up amongst the mountains was an adventure, especially with the ‘track’s’ and the possibility of going on a bear hunt. We ended at some old hunter cabins under the mountains, and imagined the old Serbian hunters that we could have come across a couple of hundred years ago.
Although Montenegro is undeniably Eastern, with the piles of rubbish across the ‘roads’, rundown buildings and low grade food, heading to Bosnia and Herzegovina was another story. Bosnia was exactly what it sounds like; war torn buildings, Soviet era apartments, bullet holes, rubbish and chaos. After entering the country through the dodgiest border crossing you’ve ever seen, we took a very long gravel four wheel drive track that could never be classified as a road in NZ (or attempted with a Citroen C3). After not passing another car in three hours, we couldn’t believe it when we finally
came across a village where a group of locals offered to drive us to the nearest town (a slightly better offer than the school kids who offered to drive us…). Some of these people were so different to anything we had ever seen before; small women dressed head to toe in black hunched over their walking sticks, old men smoking cigars in their full dress suits and children playing amongst bombed buildings. The whole village came out of their houses to stare at us, presumably tourists never make it to these parts.
When we finally got on track, and started heading to Sarajevo a cop pulled us over and started making things interesting. We have come to the conclusion that ALL cops pull us over because we have French number plates and they either want our money, or to intimidate us. This cop was very agitated and probably very corrupt. First he picks up our passports and licenses and starts throwing them around. Next he starts screaming at Matt who had got out of the car without shoes on. We realized he was trying to tell us it’s illegal to drive without shoes, yes we said but Matt was
wearing sandals he just left them in the car. But no apparently sandals aren’t good enough; closed shoes are the only way to go in Bosnia. So Matt goes and changes shoes, but our friendly cop hasn’t finished and tells us our lights aren’t ‘bright enough’ (lights have to be on 24/7 in Eastern Europe even in daylight sun). Well sorry sir but we didn’t make our car and the lights are either on or off. He doesn’t really understand us, and is beginning to get really angry. After some telephoning, screaming and gesticulations he starts writing down arbitrary amounts in Euros he wants us to pay as fines. Matt is trying to diffuse the situation but not relenting, and is trying to avoid him getting his many weapons out. We start getting the numbers out for our Embassy and tell him we will have to go and get the money out of the nearest ATM as we don’t have any on us (stretching the truth….) and although this cop was angry, greedy and mean he was also lazy and couldn’t be stuffed accompanying us to the nearest bank so we got off (another) fine in Eastern Europe.
Things
got a little better in Sarajevo, the war torn capital with more bullet holes than people (not that we counted). Growing up in the 90’s, Sarajevo was the word we associated with war, death and fighting. So coming here was a bit surreal, and slightly sad. Like all places subjected to war and oppression in the recent past, we found the people to be quite poor and sad but very friendly. Our host was so kind and when he asked where we were from he thought we said the Netherlands. After realizing we were from New Zealand he was so overcome and happy he took us out to his garden and said we can pick all the fruit and vegetables we liked! Either some Dutch people hadn’t been too friendly to him or he had met some great Kiwis, but we were stoked! After getting a great dinner of fresh tomatoes with our pasta, we had juicy pears for desert.
Exploring Sarajevo was fascinating and brutal; many buildings are abandoned and many with bullet holes covering all possible surfaces are still standing, although major reconstruction is occurring, no doubt in order to forget the recent past. The Lonely Planet
warns to not enter abandoned buildings, war torn rubble, parks/bush or basically anywhere there aren’t people. A little disconcerting when more than half the buildings are abandoned/rubble. We drove past the bright yellow Holiday Inn Hotel where all the journalists stayed during the four year siege of the city, the road in front being dubbed ‘sniper alley’ for the many that were shot and killed here. The city has many graveyards (separate male, female, Christian, Muslim, Jewish) with so many dead after the world and civil wars. After walking around these graves, we met a nice homeless man who attempted English, but mostly spoke Bosnian mixed with German. He showed us many places where the Serbian snipers would shoot their victims from the surrounding hills overlooking the city. To really get the point across he showed us in slow motion the shooting and dying actions in a mime series (just in case anything got lost in translation). Very funny guy who made a point of telling us Richard Gere was here last week for the Sarajevo Film Festival….hmmm will have to google that later we thought.
Walking through the city, most of the sights are centered near the river,
with Jewish synagogues, Muslim mosques/minarets, Orthodox Churches and Catholic churches (apparently the most religiously diverse in Europe within a small area). We also came to the Latin Bridge where Duke Franz Ferdinand (Austrian) was shot, and where World War 1 was therefore initiated (this city appears to be most famous for shootings than anything else).
Leaving Bosnia we had another runin with the border cops and we were quite nervous, although not really surprised. Apparently we didn’t have an entry card into Bosnia and had therefore been in the country illegally for three days…..great. The guy spoke absolutely no English (us no Bosnian) and kept throwing our licenses back at us. We tried to explain that they gave us no card at the border when we entered and after causing a queue behind us he gave up and let us through into Serbia. In Serbia the standard of living (very slightly) improved. While there were still hundreds of hideous Soviet apartment blocks, there were also some road signs in English, fields of crops and some sealed roads. The villages were unimaginable cobbled streets with concrete houses and old people sitting out front staring at anything and everything. Depressing! It
seemed apt that upon entering the country it rained, and didn’t stop til we crossed the border into Hungary!
Although we did find a little gem in Novi Sad, a small town north of Belgrade, and home to Albert Einstein (no wonder he went crazy!). Serbia was really just a stopover on our way to Hungary, although Novi Sad actually gave us a few hours of good entertainment. Seeing rain for the first time in months was bizarre and we forgot what to do. Jumpers? Umbrellas? Shoes? Strange…But it wasn’t cold so we went walking through this intriguing town; finding bookshops, churches, historic buildings, courtyards, ice cream stalls and even the Danube River. We stayed above an old restaurant in a cosy room that was exactly the size of the bed…making it a bit tricky to do anything apart from sleep. Walking into town we sampled a Cevapa, which is a typical Serbian/Eastern food of beef kebabs inside pita with salads, so good and cheap (bring on the meat).
Getting up early, we started our trek to Budapest, Hungary. Crossing another border proved to be relatively uneventful, although the customs officer decided our camera looked a bit heavy
duty and similar to a journalists and gave it a thorough investigation. Driving through Hungary it was a whole different story and class jump. The streets were cleaner, buildings newer, people happier and sensible systems like road signs, speeds and transportation were in effect. Arriving in Budapest and taking two hours to find our accommodation wasn’t the best welcome, but we didn’t care; we love Budapest!
Budapest is a visually beautiful city, divided into Buda and Pest (no jokes). The Buda part of town is across the Danube River, with it’s old walled centre containing churches, museums and cute alleyways. The town is divided up in to numbered provinces, in a typical Germanic fashion. The ambience of Buda was enhanced by a cellist/violinist duet, which impressed even Matt. Crossing one of the many picturesque bridges we walked through Pest and to the Parliament buildings, which seem way too extravagant and beautiful to be any country’s Parliamentary building. Walking around in the pleasant sunshine we even found a patch of green grass that reminded us of home (a rarity in European cities) and we sat down and smelt it for a while! Heading back to our Jesuit hostel (don’t ask)
we found out that one of the tradesmen had accidently cut off our electricity and decided he couldn’t be bothered fixing it because no one was staying in the building. The young receptionist comes out saying ‘what the f(^&* no-one’s here, I am here and I need electricity now!’ After waiting for 8 hours for some electricians we sit down and she tells us about how stupid and lazy tradesmen are in Hungary, and how the people are so ignorant she has to move to France. With her stories, actions and anecdotes she had us rolling with laughter for hours in the dark waiting for the lights to be fixed. She was one of the most entertaining people we have met, and seems well suited for her next occupational vocation; ballet dancer in Paris. Just one of the many interesting people we have come across on our travels!
Walking around Budapest we came across streets of old buildings and the Turkish baths on the outskirts of the city. Castles, moats and churches are abundant and in excellent condition; parts of the town look like scenes from Cinderella! On a beautiful sunny Sunday we came across a Hungarian folk festival
in one of the castles, with food samples, folk dancing and crafts. Great fun! We saw some hilarious dancing and great music, with instruments we had never seen before. The local dishes are great with high meat/fat content and of course many types of cheeses!
Leaving the East we head into the mountains of Austria, where we will attempt to stretch our legs for once and try a tramp or two….meeting Robert in Canada in a few weeks is a good incentive to improve our non-existent fitness!
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Marg
non-member comment
Even Michael Palin doesn't have adventures like this. Pity a film crew hadn't followed you through Eastern Europe rather than him. His adventures there were decidedly tame in comparison with yours.