2022 World Tour – Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Hello from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, my 29th stop on the trip and my 58th country.
Below is the standard summary:
– Cool Ranch Doritos: No
– Thai ATM Card Works: Didn’t try
– Thai Debit Card Works: Yes
– Thai Internet Purchase Works: Didn’t try
– USA Credit Card Works: Didn’t try
– Worldwide Telephone/Data/SMS eSIM Works: No!
– Spanish SIM Card Works: No!
– Magic Jack Works: Didn’t try
– VPN Works: Didn’t try
– COVID Compliance Chronicles: No Requirements
– Internet Works: Yes
– Drone Flights: Didn’t check
– Cost of Living: $$
– Currency: Mark = USD $0.52
– Language Issues: None
Your Short History Lesson:
The country with a lot of names: Bosnia and Herzegovina or Bosnia, and abbreviated BiH or B&H. The Bosnian region is generally the north and the Herzegovinian region is generally the south of the country.
South Slavic peoples arrived in the region from the 6th to 9th century, followed by the Banate of Bosnia in the 12th century then the Kingdom of Bosnia in the 14th. Those pesky Ottomans rolled in mid-15th century and took over until the late 19th century, and this is when the Islamic influences arrived. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy annexed it until World War I, when it became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Germany conquered it during World War II and it became a puppet state of the Nazis, and was subject to widespread massacres and death camps. It was pulled into Yugoslavia at the end of the war. In 1992 it proclaimed independence, followed quickly by the outbreak of the Bosnian War which ended in 1995. You’ll remember that its territory goes down to that 20 kilometer strip of land on the Adriatic that splits Croatia that I had to cross through. The Internet country code is .ba but uses BIS on the license plates. It has applied for EU and NATO membership.
I’ll talk more about the Bosnian war later, but I suggest you find and watch the movie ‘Welcome to Sarajevo.’ I watched it there and it brought everything into sharp focus for me. It is not for the faint of heart.
Due to the geography of the region, I had to head nearly south on the bus to get from Zagreb to Sarajevo. I was lucky that I bought a ticket online as at least 20 people were bumped from the full bus due to some problem with the second half of their ticket. It took nearly 2 hours to get through the border control. Then we drove on long, narrow, twisty roads all the way to Sarajevo. We went through extensive road construction, and through a tunnel so new that the crews were still working on it. Great views of mountains and river valleys along the way. We stopped a couple of times so people could pile out, smoke their brains out, then pile back in. One stop was literally on the side of the road with an actual outhouse. I decided to hold it. At the bus station at 11pm a nice taxi man had the hard work of calling the hotel to get directions into the old town and drop me off a couple of blocks away. The hotel is located directly on the pedestrian walkway of a trendy area in the downtown, steps away from shops, restaurants and bars. Jackpot! Sadly neither SIM card worked but I stayed within the city and got along with offline Google Maps plus the hotel and other random Wifi sites.
My first morning I thought I’d start on a high note and went to the Museum of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide. Small but immensely powerful due to exhibits of items and first-hand accounts of the people involved. The bloody shirt of a baby with a story by the mother, the white smock of a doctor who treated soldier’s wives and children who was later shot and dumped in a pit, toys, letters home, accounts of soldiers entering a town and shooting all the men and raping all of the women and girls and leaving. Just gut-wrenching. The invasion in Ukraine is bad, but as they say 100,000 dead is just something we call war – reading the story of a single innocent person has far, far more impact. At the end of the exhibits was a wall of names of the leaders and their henchmen along with their prison sentences. A few bad guys went to jail. Should have been 10,000 or 100,000. You cannot leave this place without coming to the conclusion that man’s inhumanity aginst man has got to stop. I have developed an idea that will immediately halt all future war, but I’d probably be kicked off FB and get a visit from the CIA if I laid out the details. Buy me a beer and I’ll tell you someday.
I walked in a daze to the truly old town section, with many old buildings and a surprisingly large number of mosques, as there is a significant Muslim population here that I wasn’t expecting. I bought a piece of baklava, dripping with honey. I didn’t have any small Marks coins so I gave the lady a crisp $1 bill I had, which was far more than my charge but she took it for good luck. I later went back and bought more after I got some local currency.
Around the corner is the river that flows through town and I walked to the Latin Bridge where Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated, triggering World War I. If you think this place is bad to be in a war, just wait there’s another one coming soon. Had a not-great chicken kebab for dinner, along with a local beer and another piece of baklava.
The next morning I went to the same bus station to book my ticket to Belgrade, but was told I have to go to the *other* bus station. Got a really great taxi driver for a reasonable flat rate who waited while I got myself booked. I met a young guy from North Carolina who does business in Frankfurt and he just came from Belgrade, so I got some good tips from him and we talked about Tesla and SpaceX. Always say Hi – you never know what will happen!
I walked all the way uphill to the Olympic stadium, which unfortunately had every gate padlocked so I couldn’t check it out inside. I took the ancient tram system on a loop around the city. The main tracks go down what was called “Sniper Alley” in the war, and you’ll recognize this in the movie. Many of the buildings have been repaired but they intentionally left bullet and mortar damage to some of the buildings as a reminder of what happened. I was a tourist, strolling around in complete safety where just a few years ago people took their lives in their hands to run across the street to try to get a bit of food for their family. Fuck this war shit, man. I mean, really.
In the morning I walked a block, got a taxi and told him to go to the *Belgrade* bus stop, but after a while I could see he was taking me to the wrong one, so I got him back on track. Sigh.
Is it worth a visit? Absolutely. On one hand you have the beauty of the architecture of hundreds of years of buildings and churches and mosques and great food, on the other hand you have a reminder of the hell of war, and a country, city and people bouncing back time after time to the modern developing nation of today. My experience here contributed strongly to my feeling of needing to help in Ukraine. I truly appreciate everyone’s comments on my previous post, and Belarus is now officially off the plan. I’m still slightly considering Lviv in far western Ukraine, but only under the auspices of a global volunteer organization that wants me for what I can contribute. More later.
Next Stop: Belgrade, Serbia
