Hotel Safir Sarajevo

... flask around his neck &#8211; a gift from a travelling Scottish lady who though he was hilarious (modest, he is not)<br><br> He&#8217;s a blues singer and guitarist and invited us to have dinner at his restaurant the following night, where he would serenade us. He wasn&#8217;t joking. Sitting in the Balkan café with Kovacs, I wished I had my Dictaphone as I thought if I could just get a small bit of what he was saying down, there would be a story in him. I just ...

... Srebrenica, Travnik, Jajce, Jablanica, Konjic and finally Sarajevo where we would split. <br><br>More stories and photo's about those cities later. First some of the bad things we experienced. <br>Unlike other years corruption and tourist rip offs were really a major issue this time. <br><br>It started with the usual things: <br>Asking two or three times the price once they noticed we were tourists. For food there was also another trick. For example: ordering a big ...

... One of them looked like<br>jay from jay and silent bob. Kyle and tom, along joined two Brits, a<br>Canadian who had a ****ed up accent and an Australian and we drank till<br>the English boys passed out because I taught ppl kelowna.....haha.<br><br>They weren't too happy with that one. It was actually kind of funny. <br><br><br><br>The next day saw me take a night bus to Belgrade, so I just ...

... br>The siege of Sarajevo is the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. Serbian forces devastated the city. They bombed Hospitals, blew up ambulances, everything and anything that should have been protected by international law were free targets. In the parts of the city that they occupied they separated families and abused the women. During the long winters they froze and starved to death. The only ...

... very much evident with a simple walk down "Snipers Alley", even 15 years after the war. Most of the buildings are condemed on side roads, being left for demolition, as they are too battered to restore. But it is an extremely slow process. I read somewhere that the unemployment rate is around 40% and this considers bosnia as one of the poorest former yugoslavian republics, although things are slightly improving. They have a beautiful skyscraper, a ...

... good eh? I will update with some more stories tomorrow and also post pictures. ================= update : (Aug 20) Yesterday was really though. I have watched four movies.. Travelling with pets (Russian art house film) , Calle Santa Fe, Waltz With Bashir (very good film) and some film from the 80s. At night i went to a Bosnia party. There was an orchestra (Kocani Orchestra) playing for two hours and the last few hours were Balkanbeats. The Bosnian ...

... 50-60 degrees?? Its nice to spend some time for awhile in the city and just sit and watch people walking in a "hurry". Hurry is understood here in a different way than in North. A lot of good looking people, women are giving much more effort for their looks than what I ever have. This fact makes me feel like a boy. Damn, I didnt come here to feel like a boy! There are not ...

... and ticket checks we got a corrupt conductor who stormed into our cabin and forced us to pay him money for feet on the chair or else we would be kicked off at the next stop in the middle of no where in the dark! Basically it was just that we were tourists as we had had no problems all day. The lady in the next cabin just advised us to pay as then he would leave us alone. 10 euro later he was gone. Very annoying but part of the parcel of travelling in this area of the ...

... ways with those of our fellow travellers. I'm glad I went to Sarajevo but, to be honest, I felt a slight repulsion to the place. I can't put my finger on why that is. It could have something to do with our accomodations, which were recommended to us through our lodging contact in Mostar. While Lena's place in Mostar was convenient and clean, Jasmina's "Hostel Enjoy" in Sarajevo was a depressing slum. I spent the first 20 minutes scrubbing what appeared to be gummy ...

... rice... and meat), along with a side of beautifully flavoured potatoes in a subtle sour cream. Like most of the Balkans, the food in Bosnia is definitely very hearty. One of the other local specialties is Bureck. In Turkey Bureck is a flakey pastry filled with cheese, but in Bosnia they have adapted it with... you guessed it... meat. Mostly they priced it by the kilo, $5 NZ dollars for a kilo pile of Burecky goodness! Most of our time lately has just ...