Skip to main content

Sarajevo taster

I arrived in Sarajevo's East or Christian quarter at around 4pm after a 8 hour bus ride. The road from Montenegro was like nothing I had ever experienced and crossing into Bosnia (like all Balkans crossings was very easy handing your passport to your bus assistant and them getting it stamped for you) saw us on the narrowest and poorest maintained road in Europe...A Bosnian welcome road...what an impression. About 10 minutes out of the checkpoints gorge we hit palatial highways.

Prayers during Ramadan
 at Bey's Mosque
Taking a cab from the East Station is my best advice it is about 7km into town and in 35'c heat not really what you want to welcome you to the city...despite thinking of all my hard core backpacking friends who would have done it, I figured the Israeli I had befriended on the bus would get me the best price! €9 each later and we were deposited in the central backpacking district also the posh old town!

Bey's Mosque 
I was helped to a new hostel in the centre of the city where I was to able to arrange to stay on my return with René in a couple of days. That night I took a gander around the city. Walked through the old Turkish quarter and admired the liberal approach to dress and Islam shared in previously war torn city. Over the next couple of days my heart would feel like each of those bullets went through it. The hardships and cruelty these people went through during the Serbian/Croat offensive was something I had seen each night on TV as a young teenager but the ravages of war reminded me of how basic human life is at threat everyday, regardless if you have a flat screen tv or internet, white skin or black, religion, creed, sexuality or sympathy.



Labels

Labels:
Location: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Comments

  1. Anonymous6 September 2011 at 05:23

    Hey Jojo. Great reading your blogs. Sounds like an incredible journey. I'm back from Sri Lanka and already mourning the sunny shores.
    Will chat next time I see you on skype.
    Lots of love. Debs x

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hills of His Holiness

The state of Himachal Pradesh is one of mountains and rivers, winding roads and toy trains. Here are a few of the famous tourist highlights I enjoyed between 10 hour bus journeys! Shimla Famed as one of the great Raj Era Hill Stations where ladies of the Raj spent monsoon summers sheltering from the heat, I had to see this. In my experience this is anything but a shelter from the heat! On arrival you are deposited in a new bus station 8 km from the town forcing you to use either the public bus (R10) or a  taxi (R250) neither takes you to the top of town or even close to a hotel. So I opted for the R10 bus. They deposited me at the bottom of the hill. Porters were waiting at the bottom but how hard could it be? Hard. I walked for 3 hours in the hot sun with my 20+kg trying to find a nice clean hotel room, eventually ending up on the ground floor of Spars Lodge. You can’t open the windows due to monkeys so the task of finding a room in Indian summer season is hard. Really th...
2 comments
Read more

My My Myanmar

I have been touched, pinched, squeezed and had my back rubbed as I was sick. Myanmar is one phenomenal place which I have so much hope for. Hope for democracy, hope for development and hope for conservation, all in a gradual process without losing its authenticity. I have felt safe, with my large amounts of cash (remember no ATM’s so budgeting became a real past time of all travellers not just the “budget” ones) and in pilgrimaging crowds, in villages and on rickety hill top roads, travelling solo or in a crowd. Not once did I fear for my personal safety or that of my belongings. I had to stop myself on the first day from being so travel weary and closed. I had to trust. I had to open up and Myanmar may well have taught me one of my greatest lessons on my Big Adventure. captive in Myanmar There were moments of democratic desire, like an aged village monk carrying a bamboo log who stopped me to ask “Do you know Aung San?” to which I replied quietly knowing it was a very c...
6 comments
Read more

Blog Catchup Links....

Because I have written my blog in chronological order I have updated a few gaps whilst I am procrastinating from job hunting! Hope you enjoy the stories as much I have enjoyed the experiences and if you have any questions or comments I welcome them..... India  - I had a few items to catch up on so here goes Mumbai/Bombay  -  Hello Mumbai! Bye Bye Bombay! Chandigarh, Punjab -  A Modernist Experiment 60 years on Taj Mahal, Agra  -  Taj Mahal Unvisited Thailand - I have not writen anything for my time in Thailand because my dear Mum says "if you can't say something nice so nothing at all" but here is a great cooking school I attended in Koh Chang of the South East Coast I am desperately trying to write about  Myanmar  for my friend Matthias. Promise its coming, I just need to put some final research into it my dear x I am working on some overview items for you too....joys of having some spare time on my hands "between job" Sensual ...
Post a Comment
Read more