The Forgotten Corner of Europe (Bosnia Herzegovina)

Member Name: kittykat18

Product:	Bosnia Herzegovina
Date:	06/10/04 (943 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful, full of history, diverse cultures

Disadvantages: Ethnic divisions, poverty

The war ended 9 years ago, yet there is still a common misconception of Bosnia as some sort of dangerous, dusty, battle zone. When I applied to be part of a project in Bosnia this summer, I had some worries myself. When my departure date came closer, I started to wonder if I was just a little bit crazy to be travelling there alone. Would I have to cover my head in public? Did they hate English people? Was I going to step on a landmine?

I was in Bosnia for three weeks and I'm glad to say that the answer to all of those questions is a big NO. I discovered an incredibly beautiful country, recovering from the scars of war, with lots to offer visitors.

Bosnia and Hercegovina is in Eastern Europe, South-East of Italy, bordering Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro. It has a population of approximately 4 million people. The landscape varies from rolling valleys to dramatic mountains and rushing rivers.

Bosnia and Hercegovina as it is known today was created in 1995 following the Dayton Peace Agreement. It is divided up into the Federation, and Republika Sprska (RS, the majority Serb part).

I spent most of my time in Banja Luka, the capital of RS, but also stayed in Sarajevo and Travnik, as well as some places in the countryside.

The aim of the project I was working on was to create an alternative travel guide to Bosnia. This enabled me to meet many local people, talk to them about important issues, to visit many places, and hopefully gain a better insight into the country than an ordinary traveller would.

I found a country that varied hugely, from Turkish influenced Muslim dominated towns in the South, to relaxed Western style Serb towns in the RS.

Although some tourists (mostly the young, backpacker type) are venturing to Sarajevo now, usually as a detour from Dubrovnik or part of a multi country European trip, I met no tourists in the RS. Local people are on the whole welcoming and friendly to travellers, and keen to encourage tourism to their country.

Money and costs: Bosnia uses the convertible mark, which is approximately 1 to 34p. Prices are very low. A pack of 20 cigarettes is between 1 and 3 marks. A bottle of beer is 1 to 2 marks, and a meal out is rarely more than 10 marks. You can buy any copied CD you like, including computer software and games, for 4-5 marks.

Food: If you are a vegetarian or have religious dietary needs, you won't have much fun in Bosnia. The 2 most popular forms of fast food are Burek, a greasy pastry containing meat, and Civapi, meatballs inside a bread wrap. You can get Burek containing spinach and cheese at some bakeries. In big cities there are lots of restaurants, although most sell the same food as the next. Banja Luka has a good Mexican restaurant, but international cuisine is a rarity in Bosnia.

Fresh fruit and vegetables are widely available cheaply at stalls along every road, so cooking for yourself is a good idea if you have the facilities.

Toilets are mostly of the Turkish variety. For the uninitiated, this means a hole in the floor which you squat over. Requires some practice to avoid splashing. There are no public toilets other than in bus/train stations, but every cafe/restaurant will allow you to use their toilet, free of charge.

Language:

People in Bosnia and Hercegovina speak essentially the same language, although it is called Bosnian in the Federation and Serbian in the RS. Buy a "Serb-Croat" phrase book if you want to learn a few words before arriving. Many young people speak a basic level of English, but it is not commonly spoken otherwise.

--Sarajevo--

How to get there:

Sarajevo has an international airport, which recently started flights from Manchester.

Buses go to Sarajevo from Dubrovnik and many other Eastern and Central European cities.

The bus station is a few miles from the city centre, a taxi costs the equivalent of £2.50 or you can take a tram number 1.

Where to stay:

If you have money, stay at the bright yellow Holiday Inn, where international journalists stayed during the seige.

If you don't have much money, head to the Ljubicica hostel office, which is opposite the "pigeon square" entrance to the Turkish quarter. A bed in a slightly grubby hostel cost me £5 for a night. Staff are very helpful, speak several languages, and the office runs tours as well as a free left luggage service.

What to do:

Sarajevo is a nice city to simply walk around in. Every night in the summer, families from the city stroll around the narrow cobbled streets, occasionally stopping for coffee. I found it pleasant to see people of all ages out in the evening, enjoying life at a relaxed pace. It's certainly a different atmosphere to most English city centres at night.

The Ljubicica hostel office run a daily "war, history and tolerance tour". A minibus leaves the office at 11am and Sunny, a local man, takes you on a tour of the city. Be warned, this is not your ordinary "oh, there's a pretty view" type of tour. I found it quite moving, and felt a little uncomfortable at times, being a "tourist" to so much destruction and atrocities.

The tour takes in visits to some spots high above the city, as well as the war tunnel museum. While Sarajevo was under seige, it was effectively cut off from the rest of the world, and was encircled by Serb fighters. An underground tunnel, 800 metres long was constructed to allow civilians to get supplies safely from the airport. The first section of the tunnel is still accessible and the house from which the tunnel starts has been converted into a museum. It's certainly different from your typical museum with dusty items behind glass cases.

There are lots of other things to do in Sarajevo, such as go ski-ing in the winter on the rund which were used for the 1984 winter olympics. Make sure you go with a reputable tour operator though, as there are land mines remaining in certain marked areas.

There seems to be a certain breed of annoying, know it all, superior traveller in Eastern Europe. Watch out for raised voices reciting the potted history of the former Yugoslavia (as remembered from their lonely planet guide which was a present from Mummy and Daddy), rah-rahing about how Eastern Europeans don't use deodorant, and ticking Bosnia off in their "countries visited" notebook. If you come across one of these species, just back away slowly.

--Banja Luka--

Banja Luka is 250km North of Sarajevo. Buses go to Banja Luka from Ljubliana in Slovenia as well as Belgrade and Sarajevo. There is also a service from London run by Eurolines, but I strongly suspect you would have a sore bottom after sitting down for so long. It is cheaper and easier to get a cheap flight to Italy or Slovenia and then take the bus.

The river Vrbas runs through the city, and offers good opportunities for white water rafting, punting on a "dayak" boat, or simply cooling off from the hot sun in the mountain water. The temperature reaches 35 degrees + in the summer, and gets well below zero in the winter.

Banja Luka has a lot of fashion, CD shops as well as a big daily market selling everything from socks to lace to huge watermelons for 10p.

There are quite a few hotels in Banja Luka, try the Bosna hotel in the city centre.

Banja Luka is almost exclusively Serb. Street signs are in the Cyrillic alphabet, people speak Serbian (which is the same language they speak in the Federation, although there it is referred to as Bosnian), and the RS flag flies above official buildings.

80,000 Muslims fled the city, and only a few thousand have returned, mostly because of necessity. Deserted, falling down, graffitied Muslim houses are easy to see. The only non white face I saw in 3 weeks was that of a NATO soldier. Although there are only sporiadic troubles in the city now, there are quite a lot of soldiers in the streets, usually doing nothing but sitting quietly, having a drink.

Hundreds of coffee bars line the streets, and to fit in with the locals, you will have to become a serious coffee drinker. Nobody rushes here: kick back, have a chat and watch the people go by. Ice cream is available in every possible flavour, 1 mark a scoop, gorgeous girls look like supermodels on the catwalk as they strut down the main street. Every August, the Summer Games are held, which combine sports competitions with nightly concerts at the castle.

One of the best things about Banja Luka is its location. A short drive away are a number of canyons, gorgeous picnic spots in the shade of weeping willows alongside the deep blue water of the Vrbas. The people of Banja Luka are sports mad, and visitors can try paragilding, mountain biking and parachuting, for the fraction of the cost in Western Europe.

On the surface, Banja Luka seems like a normal city. I found many things similar to my home city of Birmingham. There are lots of 24 hour bakeries and small shops, as well as several internet cafes. The streets felt safe, even at night. Don't be fooled by what you see- there is a lot of corruption, poverty, and strong nationalism in the RS.

I would have hesitations about recommending Bosnia as a "holiday destination." If you normally go for a beach holiday for 2 weeks and enjoy that, Bosnia will not be for you. But maybe you want to come back from your travels with a deeper understanding of the troubled Balkan area, and just do something different from the norm. I realise people won't suddenly flood to the region, given its past, and in a way that's a good thing, as thousands of tourists would damage the area and in a way, make it less special. One of the joys of Bosnia is the space- only 4 million people in a country of 19,000 square miles.

I had mixed feelings about leaving Bosnia. I saw many beautiful things there and met many intelligent, kind and interesting people. The young people especially, seem highly educated and motivated, despite poor prospects for the future. I found it a little shaming to compare the typical Bosnian university student with the average British student. Being there certainly changed my perspective, and has made me come to appreciate the opportunities I have in England. I would definitely like to return to Bosnia in the future, and hopefully in years to come I will find a country that has completely recovered from its past.

Relatively speaking, it's not long since the war, and ethnic divisions and tensions have not gone away, especially in the RS. Hopefully in the future, the Muslims and Serbs will find some viable solution and continue living in their beautiful corner of Europe side by side.

If you want to go to Bosnia, but not merely as a tourist, you could go on an international exchange project. Workcamps for groups of people from across Europe are arranged across the country, and work varies from working with children, to environmental and cultural work. Projects last anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months, and taking part in a workcamp is a great way to see a country, meet new people, and usually expenses are covered.

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