Hi friends,

After saying a sad goodbye to wonderful Birgit (whom i met once again in Budapest and traveled with), I traveled to Sarajevo by myself.

On the train ride via Croatia I tried to imagine what Sarajevo would actually be like. I realized Sarajevo was unique for me because, unlike every other place I had traveled to, I had absolutely no idea to what Sarajevo would be like or even look like!

If you've not been there, try to think about it for a second. For me it was really hard to have any vision of the place.

What I found was really truly wonderful, a beautifully located lovely friendly town. Almost no where on my travels have I felt so safe, almost no where have i met so many inviting genuinely friendly people.

Sarajevo was the site for the 1984 winter Olympics and is beautifully located. It is a small town (about 200 thousand people - no one knows for sure), it is surrounded by gorgeous hills and has many lovely rivers running through and around it. The town now is quite quaint, a bit of an eclectic mix of styles, with the old main quarter being pretty Turkish in style. The coffees are perhaps the strongest I’ve had and (surprising) perhaps the best I’ve had. They are really thick and the coffee is cooked in a brass pot (dzezva). Mmmmm with standard two sugars they are really first-class!

The town is part of the 51% of Bosnia-Hercegovina that is Muslim-Croat federation; however in Sarajevo there is a minority of Christian Orthodox and Jews that live here. There are many churches and Mosque from each faith often right next to each other.

The city most definitely bears the scars of the resent wars; about 95% of buildings are absolutely littered with bullet holes (on every side). Not one or two bullet holes but literally hundreds. The town’s beautiful hills that surround it once allowed a devastating siege by the Serbian army and snipers. In the war years when the Serb army (armed and controlled by Slobodan Milosevic) was performing systematic genocide of Bosnians Muslims, Sarajevo lost ten thousand people (50 thousand were also injured). In this time every man, women, and child was a target. Our tour guide (Sonin/Sunny) told us in this time everyone was a soldier, everyone did and gave what they could. One of the only reasons this town was not taken was due to an underground tunnel allowed goods to be transported in and out.

I won’t say much about the war but ill quickly mention two jokes Sunny said to me that gives a good idea into their perspectives.

The first joke Sunny used as an example to explain how even when the war was on life went on, life had to go on in some form, and so they even joked about the war. He really emphasized that the “normality” of life that (had to) exist for the people of Sarajevo. Even though they would be constantly shot at, kids went to school, people went out, and people fell in love. He recalled fondly a great night out when he was a young kid who got really drunk with his friends, he told of the great time they had even though the sound of grenades exploding was so close. Anyway here is the joke: -

A (Bosnian) soldier is on a kids swing swinging, another (Bosnian) soldier yells out – “what are you doing?” the soldier on the swing yells back “fucking a sniper” J - harharhar

The second jokes emphasize the commonly held view to why the UN/US/Nato took so long to intervene and stop the genocide. From 1991 the UN was deployed in Sarajevo/Bosnia but was effectively powerless and did essentially nothing, even when horrors were committed in the line of sight of UN troops they were not allowed to act... During the time the UN was deployed tens/hundreds of thousands of Bosnians were killed. The UN also stopped both sides buying weapons (this was terrible for Bosnians because they had no weapons to begin with while the Serbs were funded by Milosevic), the only good thing they did was take control of the Sarajevo airport. In 1995 10000 Muslim men (the entire male population of a small town) were systematically exterminated, only at this time did Nato (not the UN) finally intervene in the war and bring about the end of the war and the Dayton agreement.

Anyway the joke goes:

A (Bosnian) soldier asks another (Bosnian) soldier why he is digging the trench so deep, the soldier answers “I’m looking for oil”.

I had such good times in Sarajevo, I met some very intelligent people and had a great night out with Sunny and his friends (the former ‘tiger company’), we drank lots of Sarajevska Pivo and plum brandy (most of the Muslims are fairly moderate and drink alcohol), we partied, ate delicious mouth watering buroks (pastry meat things), and had many laughs together. In the day I walked all around the town up to the hills and down to the former ‘sniper ally’, I visited a beautiful Mosque and was kindly invited to a prayer time (however I was not able to attend for the day I was invited I had to be back at the airport).

I learnt lots and made many friends.

I highly recommend Sarajevo and all of Bosnia to everyone, if I had to choose it could well be my favorite place I visited.

~Searching4Something

PS - for a great t-shirt buy “Don’t panic – I’m Islamic”

PPS - for fellow backpackers I highly recommend Sunny’s tour at the Ljubicica travel agency.