Blogs from Bosnia & Herzegovina, Europe - page 24

Mostar After a 6 hour bus journey going through many boarder controls we finally made it into Bosnia. Once in Bosnia we had a rest stop but were not allowed to go to the loo because some old woman wanted paying before letting us in, considering we had just come from Montenegro which uses Euros and Croatia which uses Kuna we could not quite understand how she expected us to pay her!!! She would not accept Kuna so we boarded the bus with our leg crossed and hoped the ride was not too bumpy for the rest of the way. After 8 hours going across 3 boarders we made it to Mostar. Straight away you could still see the lasting effects of the war and bombing in 1993 by the Serbs. Where Croatia had done everything ... read more

Scott’s parents were over in Europe for a few weeks and we all went to Zagreb and Sarajevo for the long Bank holiday weekend. Setting out late Friday evening, we arrived in to Zagreb just before 11 and then managed to get a bus into the city and then a taxi to our pokey little hotel. It was central so we forgave it for being tiny. The following morning we went out walking to the main square where there was a large statue of a man on a horse surrounded by huge billboards for Ray Bans, Pepie Jeans and other similar products. The markets behind the square were full of local Saturday morning shoppers; the fruit and veggies were super fresh and we sacked on strawberries and bananas. We then commenced a walking route around the ... read more

I'll have to admit that I knew embarrassingly little about Sarajevo before I came -- all I knew about it was that it's the capital of one of the longest country names I had the misfortune to memorize in geography class, and that its claim to fame (in my mind, mind you :P) was being the city that was bombed to smithereens in the recent Bosnian conflict. The moment I arrived at the bus station, I instantly learned a couple of important things: 1) The Lukavica bus station is a decrepit, sorry-for-an-excuse bus depot/hovel which serves as the secondary international bus station in the city where all the reject routes end up in Sarajevo (AKA the buses coming in from Serbia and Montenegro :P), located in the middle of nowhere 2) And because I was currently ... read more

My last night in Serbia was dominated by apprehension, since I had read only on my last day in this schizophrenic country that all foreigners have to register with the local police within 24 hours of arrival. I decided to go to the immigration office and ask some vague questions. The man in charge was more than unfriendly, being very impatient and highly irritable having to deal with me and my questions. He said I would have to pay a hefty fine, but he didn't know exactly how much. In reply to my asking what would happen if I didn't pay and tried to leave the country, he said coldly: "Then you have problem at the border". In reality it wasn't all too bad. I slept for the best part of the bus journey and only ... read more

There's no war in sight... although there are reminders. Well we got up at the crack of dawn the other morning in Duborvnik to get to the bus station for our 800 bus away from the coast into Bosnia. Nothing was open and we were starved. I had a bag of paprika potato chips and a twix bar, and jeff had espresso from a machine and a bag of pretzels for breakfast. then off on the bus, which was pretty empty, further up the beautiful coastline. bosnia has a short coastline so we had a couple of border checks along the way but basically just flashed a passport and off we went. the Neretva river flows through bosnia and out to the coast of croatia in a huge delta covered with farms growing lemons, oranges, veggies ... read more