Japan to Australia via Eastern Europe Part 21 - Day 18 - First Day in Sarajevo...

Despite being in a seedy hotel with bad pron - I had managed to get my best night's sleep in all of Eastern Europe.... where we woke up about 8ish (which is really late in my book). But the hotel was determined to put me in a bad mood and my shower was stone cold...

We had a free Continental Breakfast included with our room rate at the Banana City Hotel.. It was the whole bread, cheese and meat deal that we were starting to get accustomed too... Although the surroundings were a little divey.... sleazy looking guys smoking and stuff... but we couldn't figure out why everyone staying here were all guys... (That mystery was solved the next day).

I had sorted of mucked around and started to watch some really bad live-action Snow White movie that had looked like it was dubbed into English - then had Bosnian subtitles... as you do.

As we had become experts with Sarajevo transport - we caught a tram into town. Ant noticed that the tram trip was a bit on the tram "rocking in a violent fashion" side.. it was a bit worse for wear. Maybe it had something to do with the tram driver - who was busy flirting and talking to most of the customers.

We got off the tram in the "Novo Sarajevo" side of town (eg: New Sarajevo). There was the big bright yellow tetris building that was the Holiday Inn - complete with shelling marks at the top of it. The Holiday Inn (according to LP) was the only functioning hotel during the siege in Sarajevo - it also housed all of the foreign journalist covering the war...

I make a quick detour to buy a drink (there wasn't all that much to drink at the hotel breakfast... they didn't offer me any coffee!) then we made tracks to the Sarajevo Museum - which had a great little exhibit on the war and the siege of Sarajevo. It was a great start to Sarajevo as it put a bit of perspective on what had happened here and why shelling and stuff is visible in most places... Some of the pics were a bit bloody - I'm sure there was one photo where you could seen inside someone's rib cage... neyoce! Although the museum was a bit on the small side - there was remarkably no one there about from another couple... Yes - no tourists!

It had sort of felt pretty amazing wandering around and seeing chunks out of buildings missing and holes in the footpath. It sort of felt our visit here was a bit like "Spot the shelling"... Despite this - Sarajevo was really really kodak moment-y.

We wandered up a very gorgeous stream running through the city - the water was quite clear and not polluted. There were plenty of hilly areas and a couple of skiing mountains nearby. LP recommends that you stick to the runs here - because there are land mines if you head off piste... My brother wouldn't last here... Despite there being snow on nearby mountains - it was quite warm - T-shirt weather for the most part. It sort of reminded me a bit of Santiago in Chile (with the Andes in the background) - although for the most part - Sarajevo didn't have the whole "Completo Hot Dog" thing happening.

We explored the "ye-olde" cobblestoned road district (it seems to be a mandatory thing for all eastern european cities to have) - and everything was very quaint. There were even some beautiful looking mosques around the place.

Speaking of Muslims - we checked out a old Muslim family house - which was how a wealthy Muslim family used to live back in the day. Although a little on the "bear" side - it did have some funky bedrooms - the kind where you sleep on the floor and smoke crack cocaine (or whatever they smoke in those middle eastern pipes). Rock and Roll..

We then checked out a Serb Bosnian orthodox church - which had survived the war. There was some cool looking orthodox christian art (and some killer St Nicholas art - who suspiciously looks like Santa) and a strange little rant about how the Serb Bosnians churches were all blown up during the war... maybe it had something to do with the whole "Serbs killing bosnians thing" or something... We even checked out the Orthodox Church without having to pay the 3km entrance fee - its a miracle.

We get some traditional bosnian lunch in the form of these turkish pide bread with marinated bits of lamb and onion to go with it... Although the onion is just a side dish - I sort of got a bit carried away with them and my throat was "onion goodness" for the rest of the day.

We head over to the train station - which feels a lot less seedier than it did at 10pm at night. Our original plan for this holiday to catch a bus from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik - but to do that we would have to catch an 8 hour bus from 7am at Sarajevo.. Since that was a bit hazardous to our health - we decide instead to catch a bus at 10am to Mostar (a smallish town about 2 hours away from Sarajevo) and stop there for the night before heading to Dubrovnik the day after.

To be continued....