Croatia - lovely people, lovely coastline, interesting Bosnian police

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Hostel lika was great. We arrived with no booking and there was no 3 person room available and no 3 beds available in any of the dorm rooms. So instead we where offered two double rooms, M and R grabbed one of them and the guy who ran the hostel gave me a discount of more than 50% on my own double room which meant I was paying only just above the price of a hostel bed!



The hostel was run by a really lovely couple who cook BBQ each night for the guests and have their little son running around playing! We got on really well with them and each night the guy would sit and drink with us (free Croatian brandy!) and even offered to let us come back and stay for free while helping him do some bits to the hostel. We found them incredibly welcoming and wished we had longer in the city.



We walked around zagreb and found it a very interesting city. We enjoyed seeing st marks church and even went to the museum of broken relationships. Which was filled with items and descriptions of ended relationships. We found it hilarious that there was a wedding going on just over the road from the museum!



It was a pretty city and we stayed in a great hostel and the people we met where all cool to hang out with. We spent one evening getting rather drunk with our new Dutch friend and an Irish guy who was staying at the hostel. It was sad when we had to leave as we felt we could have remained in the city for much longer due to the amazing people we had met and how welcome they made us feel.



Our next destination was supposed to be Split (a town on the coast midway down the country) and we needed to get the train at about 14:00. We jumped on the tram back towards the central station and relaxed for what was the start of a long journey.



It seemed odd that at one stop everyone got off the tram and the driver changed. No one seemed to bat an eyelid at us remaining on the tram so we assumed it was just a popular tram stop. The tram gets moving again and we think we will soon arrive at the central train station. That's when we realised the tram was heading back in the direction we had come from. We where incredibly confused and started to check and recheck the tram timetable. In the end we jumped off the tram almost back where we had got on it... And to our surprise the tram now said number 7 on the side, rather than the number 6 it had when we got on it! The tram had changed numbers and routes halfway to the station! And no one had told us!



This meant we had missed the one train to Split for the day. We didn't want to fall any further behind schedule so we checked what buses would run towards split. It turned out we could get a bus all the way to dubrovnik which was our destination after split. We had decided to break the travelling over two days stopping in split but due to missing our train we decided on the long coach ride straight to dubrovnik instead.



We hung around for a couple of hours for the coach to arrive and then went to board. We where surprised to find the coach driver asking for extra money to put our luggage on the coach. Who is going on an 8hour+ coach journey and not bringing any luggage? Whilst it seemed ridiculous, everyone was paying and it only worked out at about 80p so we didn't argue.



Next up we chose some seats on the coach and then got asked to move as it turned out there were individual seat numbers assigned to our tickets. The problem being our actual seats where now occupied by a man and his two children. Naturally when we asked them to move they didn't speak a word of English and just looked at us like we where stupid. Luckily for us there was a nun on the coach sitting nearby who spoke English and so could translate between the man, us and the girl wanting her seat from us!



The man seemed to be refusing to move and using something to do with his children as the excuse why he couldn't move elsewhere when the girl who's seat I was currently in kindly offered to sit elsewhere to solve the issue. She later helped us by translating what the bus driver was saying during the journey and was generally just a very helpful person.



These early incidents where a sign for what was to come and the bus journey got progressively more "interesting". We had two drivers who each took turns driving the coach. One of them was unable to get it into gear properly and the coach would roll backwards and shunt forwards making a horrible sound each time he started the vehicle moving. The other driver found this really funny and wouldn't help him but drove the coach just fine when it was his turn! They would stop the coach all the time to have a smoking break and twice stopped to go and sit and have a coffee in local cafés. Supposedly they where 5 minute breaks but they lasted a lot longer! Then we even stopped randomly and the drivers seemed to be looking something up on a smartphone before one of them ran into a garage and bought what appeared to be engine oil and had a quick play around in the engine!



By this point we were ages behind schedule and the drivers gave up on having smoking breaks and just decided to smoke on the coach. Only in Europe...



Now it was very late and we had already been on the coach for more than the 8 hours the journey was supposed to take. After enjoying some really lovely views from the coach during the daylight hours I decided to take the opportunity to sleep now that dark had fallen.



I was awoken by a short sharp jab to my ribs. I was shocked back into the world of the living and opened by eyes to see a police officer staring back down at me. I had been about to get annoyed at the way I was woken until I saw the officers stern face staring down at me. "Passport?" He said. We had arrived at the Bosnian border. I began rummaging around in my bag to find my passport as he continued along the aisle checking everyone's documents.



I had assumed he would come back to check mine once he had finished going up the coach. Instead he came back and told me to get up and get off the coach. Still unsure what was going on I got up and followed him off the coach. He shouted at another woman to get off the coach as well and to hurry up about it.



Once off the coach I was made to find my backpack from the luggage hold. While I was looking for it the officer began to lay into the woman who had got off the coach. Apparently she hadn't taken too kindly to his method of waking people up. "If I was in your country, if I was in Peru, I wouldn't speak to the police that way, I'd do as I was told!" Before she could defend herself, "just shut up and get back on the bus". She did.



I was walked away from the coach and ushered into a small room with a wooden bed and a locker in it. Everyone else was still on the coach. I had no idea what was going on, whether the coach would wait, or what was about to happen.



A second officer joined the first in the room with me. The first officer aggressively barked instructions to me, purposely choosing not to talk English as much as possible. He threw my stuff out all over the bed, emptying my wallet and bag. Meanwhile the second officer carefully began going through my backpack.



I think they regretted choosing me to search due to the huge amount of random stuff I had with me and how tightly my bag was packed. They exchanged a few words in Bosnian and a look that said "for god sake..." As they searched through countless tram tickets, receipts and odd bits and bobs from the trip so far.



Then the aggressive first officer found rizla (rolling papers) in my bag and burst into a fit of "where's the drugs?". "There's no drugs in there" I laughed back at him. The second officer gave me a smile. The first officer began sniffing at the cling film that had earlier held my sandwich for lunch. He was sure there was something in my bag but seemed annoyed he hadn't found anything.



"Turn around" he ordered. So I did. He patted me down quickly and roughly before walking past me without saying a word and out of the room. The second officer had been trying to put stuff back into my backpack and looked up at me as if to say "how does this stuff fit in here?". I took over re-packing my stuff but he had done a pretty good job of it. The first guy however had left all the contents of my wallet and smaller bag all over the place. I rushed to put it all away, worrying that the first officer had gone to tell the bus he can leave now! As I ran back out the room the second officer said "goodbye" cheerfully. The first officer was nowhere to be seen.



As I got back onto the bus, still slightly confused and full of adrenaline from the aggressive search by Bosnian police, the Americans sitting at the back of the coach clapped me back to my seat! I can assure you, that is the last time I'll be asleep when going across a border!



After a drive through Bosnia and then more driving back in Croatia. Finally we arrived in dubrovnik at about half 1 in the morning. We had arrived too late to check in anywhere and so decided to spend the night sleeping on the beach. It was easy enough to find a good spot with sun loungers to lay on but it got freezing cold and we had Mosquitos bothering us constantly. It was a real struggle to sleep until about 5 in the morning when the sun started to rise. The temperature heated up really quickly and we ended up getting a few hours of ok sleep.



During the day we went and found some wifi and sorted ourselves an apartment to rent. It was the cheapest option and only set us back about £15 each per night. It had everything we needed including a kitchen, good shower and a lovely little garden area where we could eat and drink. We phoned as soon as we had booked it and they let us arrive hours before check in should have started and also had a carton of fruit juice waiting for us on arrival so we had a cold drink! Again it was a couple who ran this place and they where incredibly welcoming. We found the Croatian people to be very hospitable.



By chance M's parents happened to be in dubrovnik at the same time as us. They had tried to visit a month earlier but couldn't get the hotel they wanted and when they booked it our plans ended up overlapping. They where staying at a 5 star hotel right on the coast by the old town.



So we spent the next few days exploring the old town (one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, highly recommended to anyone) and lounging by the pool in a 5 star hotel. We swam a lot in the sea which is so clear you can see the bottom even when it starts to get really quite deep. And you could see fish and crabs in the water. It was incredible after all the fast paced travelling and low budget hostels to just be relaxing in 30+ degree whether in such a luxurious location!



Each night we went out for a meal, now the 5 of us. On the first night I ate a big bowl of mussels in a creamy tomato sauce, which were very tasty but on the small side compared to the mussels I've had in other Mediterranean countries. Followed by a massive banana split! And on the second night we went for a very filling BBQ burger and chips (with a side of courgette chips). On our last night in dubrovnik we cooked up our own meal in our apartment, pasta with chicken, salami, tomato sauce and cheese. It was one of the best meals we have eaten and was very cheap! With it we drank a bottle of wine given to us by M's parents and these large plastic bottles of beer which have 4 pints in each and only cost about £1.20. It was a lovely last night.



We thought dubrovnik was a really pretty place to go. It's a little more touristy than most of the other places we have been to, but there is still so much that is beautiful to see, both the man made things and the natural surroundings. And the coastline is amazing.



Finally it was time to leave. We booked ourselves a coach journey to Split where we had booked a flight to Amsterdam the following day. The coach journey wasn't too bad and due to it not being full up we had plenty of space to lay out over the seats and get some shut eye. (Though I made sure I was awake going across the border to Bosnia!).



The little we saw of Split didn't impress us. It looked like the benidorm of Croatia. We where quite pleased we only had the one night here which we spent mostly in the airport. After fighting our way past all the tourism workers carrying signs and bits of paper and offering this and that we managed to figure out the local bus to the airport which was far cheaper than any other option we had seen. We where packed onto the bus with loads of drunk party goers, it was loud and not and probably felt a lot longer than it actually was! A lady sitting next to me on the bus helped us figure out where to get off and the driver also shouted down the bus to us to make sure we didn't miss our stop. Despite the city not being our cup of tea the Croatian people still came across so well.



We slept on benches in the airport. And by slept I mean rolled around uncomfortably for several hours desperately wishing the clock would move faster and it'd be time for our flight!



And finally, after some really great times in Croatia we dropped off our bags and boarded our plane to amsterdam. Waving goodbye to a country that had made us feel really welcome. (Leaving just enough time for R to fall down the slippery wet stairs towards our plane after turning to warn us "the floor is wet so be careful!").

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Photos

St marks church

St marks church up close

Another church!

View over zagreb

Zagreb

Dubrovnik view from the hotel

Another view from the hotel in dubrovnik

A view towards the old town in the evening

Gardens at the hotel

Me at the hotel!

Dubrovnik old town

M and R in the old town

Old town

Old town again

Heading into the old town with a nice cream!

View from the hotel again..

And another view...