June 16-17, Mostar-the city that rebuilt the bridg

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  Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Tuesday, June 16, 2009

It took me 5 hours to get to this city from Sarajevo, my bus went thru winding (but good) roads that follow river valleys amount the mountains, but it was worth it. Mostar is beautiful, a city of long history with a very famous, very elegant one-arch bridge built in the Ottoman era ("most" in Slav means bridge, "mostar" means the bridge keeper), but was known by the world mostly because of what happen here in 1993, during the civil war. At that time, the city and the area around it were populated by Muslim and Croatians, with a smaller number of Serb, all of them citizen of BiH (short for Bosnia and Herzegovina). They lived side-by-side for hundreds of year, became friends, intermarried, peaceful. In the city and each of the villages around it, temples of all three faiths were found. Then when the war was started in 92, the Serb wanted to expell the others so the place could be part of a "greater Serbia" that they dreamed of. the Muslims and Croatians fought alongside each other, defeated (and expelled) the Serbs; and then the event took an even more ugly turn: the Croatians and Muslims became bitter enemies, a vicious battle was fought, and the bridge, the symbol of the city's harmonous racial relationship (the Croats and the Muslims lived in the different side of the river), was purposely destroyed, the TV cameras captured the moment that it was hit by several Croat shells and collapsed into the river.
But I was able to see the bridge, walked across it, feel the marble steps that have been smoothed by hundreds of years of foot traffic under my feet.

the Old Bridge of Mostar

The people of Mostar, determined to right the past wrong and reclaim the harmony that used to be here (and some tourist money too?), have painstakingly rebuilt the bridge as it was, using savaged material when possible. But, ony this biggest scar has been repaired. All over the city there are hundreds of damaged buildings that are waiting for their turns.

I enjoyed my stay in the city tremendously. Mostar has a lot of history and interesting buildings, but to me, its main attraction is its friendly citizens.

They were everywhere: The staff in the hostel who took my luggage to my room and let me sample her dinner; the shopkeeper who rendered service with a genuine, heart-felt smile, the waitress who looked for me to return my money when I paid her too much; the brother of the hostel owner who gave me a free ride to the nearby village after I missed the bus, and then took me to a café there to show the proper way to drink Bosnian coffee; the Serb who gave me a ride back to the city when he saw me waiting at the bus stop.

I spent the first day walking all over the old city thru its narrow winding alleys (the most historical areas that attract the tourists had been completely renovated after the war), crossing the famous old bridge several times, visited the mosques, the churches and the old houses. At the end of all that I had a very enjoyable dinner and conversation with a young Canadian couple, both of them are from Sarajevo, left the city during the war.

On the next day, I wanted to take bus to a small town called Blagaj but for some reason the bus did not stop for me. However, this turned out to be a luck in disguise because the hostel owner's brother offered to take me there, free, and when we were there, he took me to the Tekija’s (a monastery of the Muslim Dervish sect) café and show me the right way to drink Bosnia coffee (no, it’s not as complicated as Japanese’s tea ceremony, but the coffee was really good). The Tekija, of course, is the main attraction of the town. I don’t know about it’s religious value, but its location is very pristine: next to a deep pond formed by the gushing water coming out of a cave by a cliff. After that I hiked up to the ruin of an old castle to enjoy the view, and then back to a bar to try some locally produced red and white wine, before going to the bus stop, where, within minutes, without asking, somebody offered me a ride. He is a Serb, and was a captain in the Yugoslavian military during the war. So he must be a bad guy? I don’t know. His English wasn’t that good, but we did talk, mainly about the civil war, but somehow both of us avoid the subject of what exactly he had done during that period of time. Based on the fact that his parents still live in the area and he could safely comeback to visit them (he and his family is living in Rome now), it is possible that he hasn’t done anything bad.

I am fascinated by this country, and I’m sure I’ll be back for more. Besides the nice people who made me feel at home, I like the contradiction, the ambiguity, the mountain (great for skiing), and the nothing-is-predictable environment.

I have posted more photos in Facebook, and since the spaces in the 1st album is full, I created a second album for this trip too. Here are the links to the 1st and 2nd albums:


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24104&id=1042568774&l=ca29351727


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26514&id=1042568774&l=cc3b27b535

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