I planned on spending two days in Sarajevo – I’m now into my fourth. It’s OK because Lonely Planet told me that this would happen, but what it didn’t mention was because it would be due to my poor bike breaking down. And unfortunately the problem isn’t small. Now I feel just like the locals did 15 years ago – under siege from a lack of bicycle parts, I’m unable to leave the city until it’s fixed.
It’s my fault really, I should have known better than to start the cycling trip with a bottom bracket that I knew would need to be replaced eventually. The bottom bracket is he part that holds the pedal crank in place at the bottom of the frame, allows them to spin around freely, and of all the parts on a bicycle, nothing really cops as much abuse as the bottom bracket because that’s where all the pressure from pedalling ends up. Mine was already a little bit worn before I left London, but it still had plenty of life left in it. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve noticed it finally starting to get worse – a result of the many hill climbs I suspect – and so I took a look, and came to the conclusion that it would probably last me until Athens, and there would likely be a bike shop there that can do a good just in fixing it up.
But the killer blow in this unfolding saga came two nights ago. I was camping in the Bosnian lakeside town of Jajce, and though there were plenty of locations I could possibly string my hammock, I couldn’t really find two trees close enough together to my liking, so I decided that a lamp post would be a good substitute. Around midnight I was just about to nod off to sleep, when I felt something give. A split second later there was a crashing sound and my hammock slowly fell to the ground. My first thought was that the rope must have slipped loose from the metal lamp post, but it was much worse. The entire post had actually come crashing down into the opposite tree. I was very lucky the thing didn’t actually land on me! On closer inspection, the whole concrete foundation of the post had been very poorly laid, and the concrete had come up out of the ground and everything. I mean, who would have thought that a bloody lamp post couldn’t hold my weight? It was dodgy construction at its best. Somehow I’d managed to avoid attracting any attention at all, and the light on the lamp post was amazingly still working. I thought to myself, if I’m quick I’ll get out of this without anybody knowing.
And so in record time I managed to untie my hammock, move it to a new location on the other side of the campsite (using two trees this time), clear up the broken tree branches and then re-right the lamp post, getting it to precariously balance in its original shallow hole. A strong wind probably would blow it over again, but it was a calm night, and in the morning I’d be off and I wouldn’t be around to answer any questions if they were asked. Phew! But of course the one thing that did come back to haunt me was my bike. Poor Bessie was chained to the lamp post when it fell over, and the thing did land on her at an awkward angle. The bottom bracket took a bit of a hit when the pedals got wedged on the ground, and all of a sudden, the rate in which the loose bottom bracket deteriorated now dramatically increased. By the time I had cycled another 100km the next day, the bracket was moaning and groaning and the wobble of the chain rings on each downward pedal was getting annoyingly worse and worse.
I decided that I’d had enough of cycling with the bike in such condition. Coupled with the fact that I couldn’t find a campsite around Travnik where I’d planned on bunking down for the night, I pushed on, still searching in vain, until it made more sense just to head straight to Sarajevo for the night. And so I arrived a day earlier than planned, having covered a good 150km in a single day. Unfortunately I wasn’t in a position to look for my warm shower’s host (being a day early that might have been rude anyway) and it was getting on for 9pm. I just wanted to find a dorm to dump my stuff, then grab a beer and wander around to stretch my legs a bit. Sarajevo threw up a lovely steep climb before it would let me in – the city is located in the centre of a massive valley, which made it the ideal location for a Serbian siege not too long ago.
Due to the darkness, when I arrived, I had no idea exactly where I was, or even which direction I was facing. I discovered that Sarajevo is a city that doesn’t believe in street name signs, and even though Garry Garmin (my GPS unit) was loaded with a basic map of Bosnia & Herzegovina, it was about as pointless as having a large Big Mac meal with a diet coke. The basic Bosnian GPS map has about 10 of the largest cities around the country pinpointed, and a couple of major roads connecting them. This was the first time I found myself having to rely on ‘old skool’ navigation tactics. In other words, asking people for directions and reading paper maps. Unfortunately, even the Lonely Planet guidebook map is only useful if you actually can find something (anything) to use as a point of reference. All I had was the river. So I picked left or right – 50/50. I got it wrong and then headed back into the centre of Sarajevo, accidentally stumbling across a busy pedestrian zone after another half hour that looked like it might have some promise.
Turned out that once you were in the right area, there were plenty of hostels. I pulled over to the side of the road near the first one and a helpful Bosnian fellah who clearly had some association with that particular hostel started chatting to me. He showed me on the Lonely Planet map where I actually was, and for the first time I got my bearings a little. I was now right in the heart of Sarajevo and the hostel here was basically across the road from the old town. I discovered that it would be 11€ per night. Pretty cheap all things considered. I took a mental note of the price especially knowing that I was now entering the guts of Eastern Europe, and it shouldn’t be surprising at all that prices started to get pretty cheap from here on in. I needed a Bosnian benchmark, and Sarajevo was as good as any. Before you knew it, my bike was secured inside a cage and I found myself being marched not into the hostel I thought, but about 300m down the road to what was obviously the ‘overflow’ hostel. Hmm, I wonder what it looks like…
You have to have these experiences when you travel, of course. Otherwise where would all the great stories come from? Every great tale is usually about some extraordinary experience, generally at somebody’s expense. Tonight it was mine, along with 19 other people, who found ourselves crammed in a 20 bed dorm room about 4m x 6m square. Bunks were piled three high and you couldn’t even raise your legs without your knees hitting the bunk above. I was actually surprised that they didn’t have people sleeping on the floor underneath as well. The kitchen was half the size again and was like something out of a brothel, with rubbish everywhere due to the lack of an obvious bin. And when I first walked into the bathroom I nearly slipped over and cracked my head on the tiles. Even worse was the absence of any hot water at all, and I desperately wanted a hot shower after all the cycling. Out of necessity I braved the freezing cold water and rinsed off. Well, the hostel might not have been the greatest, but like I said it was cheap. And in the morning I could get my shit together and find my arranged host and look at getting the bike serviced.
Trying to find parts for a modern bicycle in Eastern Europe is like trying to get Senator Conroy to see sense in an internet filter; nearly impossible. But I had one thing to my advantage, in that I was being hosted by a local guy by the name of Amin, who was the owner of a new startup bicycle rental business in the centre of Sarajevo. I went to the tourist information centre and asked for directions to the bike rental shop. Sure enough, as Amin had indicated, they were able to show me on a map, and they gave me one of the photocopied flyers for his new business. I walked the couple of blocks and found the shop right behind the central fruit and veg market. There was a post-it note on the door saying ‘back in 10’ with a phone number on it. I shot off an SMS and then settled in across the street near some steps and started to read a book and do some people watching. It was a busy area, made more chaotic by all the farmers and women who had come into town to sell their home grown fresh produce. You see, there were the ‘official’ markets under the big central market hall, which took up most of the block. But surrounding this were all the smaller dealers who were selling from unlicensed stalls or just laying out their produce in crates and buckets on the footpath. These people would come in maybe twice a week and just setup as close to the action as possible. Nobody seemed to mind. The guys at the bike shop eventually told me that they got a lot of business, because the licensed sellers in the real market tended to all source their produce from the same place anyway, so even though there were dozens of stalls, they all sold the same stuff. The local farmers would bring in their goods and then head home when they had sold all or enough for the day. Even fresh cow or goat milk was lined up along the gutter in tall, 2 litre glass jars, probably squeezed out that morning. Anyway, all this was fascinating stuff, but the overflow of dealers and boxes of fresh produce everywhere pretty much blocked the narrow footpaths half-way down the street, Even if the bike shop had been open, you wouldn’t be able to wheel a bike in or out without first having to ask a couple of ladies to move their food out of the way. They were happy to oblige when the time came however.
A bloke called Luca came to answer my SMS. Turns out Amin had ‘staff’ to help run the bike rental shop. It was generally open from 10am to 9pm every day, except Tuesdays. Because it was a start-up however, they were there pretty much every day still completing renovations and making the shop look spiffy. Amin rocked up around lunchtime and we started to make some progress with the bike. He arranged for his mechanic to take a look at the bike, and he would be around later that evening (he also ran his own shop and couldn’t leave there until around 6pm). Well at least I could now leave my bags safely at the shop, and I took the opportunity to wander around the town for the afternoon.
I followed Amin for the first hour, as he headed down to the tourist information centre to drop off more flyers, and then via a couple of hostels to drop off flyers there in case any of their guests wanted to rent a bike. It made sense, as a lot of his business was from tourists and backpackers wanting to explore the city or take a mountain bike up around the valley. We talked about his business and I gave him some insight into some possible ideas for marketing and promotion that I’d thought up. When he found out I could design web pages, I agreed to help him update his webpage too. No worries. One of the hostels we dropped flyers at was right in the heart of town, only about 600m from where I’d stayed the previous night. It was the local HI Hostel, and for 14€ per night, you could live in absolute luxury compared to what I’d been through the previous evening at the other soon-to-be-condemned joint. If only I’d known at the time I would gladly have paid the extra 3€. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
I left Amin to his rounds and marched up a hill, following the directions from a tourist brochure past what were supposedly some of Sarajevo’s major attractions. Too be honest, I wasn’t really impressed with any of them so I won’t even bother mentioning them. What is more fascinating about Sarajevo is the modern history, not so much the fancy buildings and centuries old stuff. I mean, the city still shows obvious signs of the recent conflict. Everywhere you go, it’s nearly impossible to find a building that doesn’t still have a bullet hole in it somewhere. Most buildings have never even been patched up in terms of non-structural damage. The building that Amin lived in for example was riddled with bullet holes. Despite this, the interior was being completely redone into modern apartments, and I think in general people were often happy to leave the superficial scars on the outside as a reminder of the conflict.
Sarajevo is a city of many religions. You could argue that Australia is a very multicultural nation yet we never have any of the wars or conflicts that they have over in the Balkans. That is correct, and it is very difficult for an outsider to understand all the religious, political and social issues that combined to bring the situation to a head back in the early 1990’s. When Yugoslavia collapsed back in the 1980’s with the death of the dictator Tito, it started a whole fight for control of the region. Suddenly the various states saw opportunities for expansion and independence from the former republic. But to complicate all matters were the religious ‘factions’ and this is where the issue become very hard to understand. Normally you would think it is not so hard to differentiate between the Croats, Serbs, Bosnians and so forth. Why can’t they just be happy with the land that they have and run their own country in peace and quiet? Because the Balkan nations are a melting pot of different religions and nationalities. In Sarajevo alone you have churches representing several major religious groups including Muslim, Jewish Orthodox, Christian and Catholic. You also have different nationalities practicing them, so you end up with Croatian Muslims, Croatian Serbs, Muslim Serbs and all sorts of classifications and groups of people. It’s altogether confusing, but when the war came about, people found themselves often caught in extremely difficult circumstances. On one hand, they would be of a particular nationality, but on the other they felt more defined by their religion, or belonging to their community or loyalty to friends. With Serbia antagonising the Bosnians and the Croatians also fighting for independence, friendships were torn apart overnight. Friends were fighting friends simply because of one’s background, religion, family name or nationality. It’s such a complicated situation that my mind is nearly exploding right now even to find a simplistic way of summarising the whole situation for this blog. It’s nearly impossible. Watching all the news reports about the war two decades ago, I was always asking my parents “what are they fighting about?” Twenty years on I still struggle to comprehend the situation.
Pushing all the religious complications aside, the issue of political state is much clearer. The Croatians wanted independence (which they got). The Serbs appear to have been the major antagonists because much of the former Yugoslavian army (about 80% I’m told) was made up of Serbians. So naturally they wanted to keep things together and turn it into one large Serbian state. Unfortunately they went about it in a shocking way and there are horrible stories of genocide, against the Bosnians especially. The Bosnians wanted similar to the Croatians with an independent Bosnia & Herzegovina and found themselves under attack from both sides. The war was just as much about a fight for resources as it was for land grabbing, independence and religious reasons. The Bosnians have some of the most fertile ground in the region and also they have a lot of valuable mineral wealth to the south, and also very important water reserves. When you drive along the river from Sarajevo through to Mostar and further towards the coast of the Adriatic Sea, there are no less than 5 hydro-electric power stations. The Croats are a power hungry people and there’s talk of them starting to look at utilising nuclear energy to meet the countries’ growing needs. So the water is a valuable resource that was well fought over. There’s no real mention of that in the media reports from the war, but we all know that control of resources is more often than not the deciding factor in any invasion or expansion. You only need to look at the Iraq war for the most recent example of that.
The siege of Sarajevo is a fascinating story. For a country that hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984, it’s amazing that only six years later the world could have such short memories of the place and let the siege occur at all. One of the best things I did whilst stuck in Sarajevo was to head out on the ‘tunnel tour’. It’s here that I finally grasped the whole situation that occurred in Sarajevo. Our guide was a local Bosnian from Sarajevo, who was probably too young to really have ‘lived’ through the war (as in remembered much of it), but his parents most certainly would have. As informative as his narrative was, you could tell he definitely had a chip on his shoulder and was probably telling the truth only as he saw it. There’s always more than one side to a story.
The valley in which Sarajevo lies lends itself to the perfect siege. When the Serbians decided to surround the town, they had the high ground advantage and for nearly 3-4 years they held the city hostage with mortar fire, snipers in the hills and blocking supply routes and all roads in and out of the city. The Serbians basically wanted Bosnia to give up their inclination for independence and be swallowed up into the larger Serbian state. Sarajevo was the capital and so the siege began in 1992. Looking at a map of the siege, at first I couldn’t understand how one small corner in the south-east of the city was allowed to remain under Bosnian control. Turns out that this was where the airport was located and whilst all of this was happening, the United Nations peacekeeping forces were in town to keep track of developments. They setup camp at the airport and kept it under control, but unfortunately this had both good and bad ramifications. For starters, our guide explained, the UN pretty much sat there watching what was going on for years before actually deciding to do something about the war. There was no international intervention in the Serbian mortar shelling and constant snipering of the residents of Sarajevo, and that left a very bad taste in the mouths of many Bosnians. Technically however, the location of the UN forces stopped the Serbs from completely surrounding the city. This was no great help to residents trying to either flee Sarajevo, or for Bosnian troops trying to enter or resupply the city. As soon as anyone tried to make a run across the airport tarmac, the UN troops would turn the floodlights on, allowing the Serbian snipers to pick them off one by one from the hills.
The answer was for some creative thinkers to come up with the idea of building a tunnel, and so over the course of 4 months, an 800m long tunnel was dug between Sarajevo, underneath the airport runway and exiting in a private house on the other side. It was crude but it did the job and even had a small railway for transporting supplies. Civilians, troops, ammunition, food and water, livestock, injured patients and even the Bosnian President at one time, travelled freely through the tunnel which became the lifeline of Sarajevo for the Bosnians.
The other side of the story that you don’t hear of course, is why the UN stood by and allowed the Serbs to continue their siege. What happened to all the supplies that were air-dropped into the town, or flown in to the UN controlled airport? These are questions I’m yet to answer and I wasn’t getting any positive spin on the UN presence from the Bosnian guide. But I will do my research eventually and try to figure this out. Because it doesn’t make sense that the UN would stand by and allow something like this to happen without reason. The Bosnians claim that it was around 1994-95 when the Serbian army called the bluff of some Dutch troops acting as peacekeepers, and attacked their UN base, murdering around 8,000 innocent Bosnian women and children in the process. This stirred the international community to life. Apparently this event was the biggest ever single genocide event in Europe since the Nazi extermination of Jews in WWII and couldn’t go unpunished. So there you have it, maybe you know a bit more about the Balkan war now, but trust me, what I have mentioned here is but a tip of the iceberg if you are really interested in the subject. I’m currently reading a book called ‘Sarajevo Marlboro’ which was recommended by a lady in the English bookshop in Sarajevo. Every local that I showed it to exclaimed “that’s a great book”. It’s a collection of short stories and memoirs from the author who grew up in Sarajevo and lived through the war as a young man in his 20’s.
Once you are familiar with the story of the siege, and have seen some of the photos at the tunnel museum, places around Sarajevo suddenly take on new meaning. Cycling along the main drag which I found so annoying and uninteresting the first night of my arrival, I suddenly had new appreciation for it. This was the area known as ‘sniper alley’ where during the war, thousands of people were caught in the cross-hairs of the hillside snipers. Some of the most famous war footage was filmed along this road, showing people running the gauntlet on bicycles carrying large bottles of water, or in speeding cars driving down the deserted street. It’s not your average city that the local ‘Holiday Inn’ becomes such a landmark, but Sarajevo is an exception. Built for the winter Olympics back in ’84, the Holiday Inn was where all the press and journalists stayed during the war. The bright yellow tower stood right on the side of ‘sniper alley’ and is home to much of the footage that was broadcast around the world during the seige. Other buildings of note are the burned down public library, where hundreds of thousands of books were incinerated when a mortar shell exploded. And speaking of explosions, Luca told me about the explosion in the central fruit and veg market behind where the bike shop is now located. A bomb went off one day killing over 40 innocent people. They were there lining up to get their allocation of rationed food. Everything in Sarajevo has a story and here I was sitting in the courtyard of the bike shop, literally just 10 metres from the sight of the worst massacre to happen in Sarajevo during the siege.
Anyway, the diagnosis for the bike was that a part that had worn out needed to be replaced, but as I suspected it was not available in Bosnia. However, such is the ingenuity of the people, that I am told that they will contact a metal workshop on Monday and can probably have the part tooled for me to excellent standard. I was impressed. If the same situation arose in London, a bike shop that couldn’t get a part from the manufacturer would have no idea on how to go about that apart from to wait until it was again available, placing a backorder. In Bosnia, they just go ahead and manufacture a part. Anyway, I would wait a few days longer and that meant just chilling out in the town, doubling the length of my intended stay. Oh well, shit happens and there’s worse places to be stranded.
Filling the time I basically hung around the bike shop. With nothing better to do I helped occasionally with some painting to get the renovations out of the way. Amin was hoping to have the place spick and span by Friday as a rep from Shimano was coming out to discuss a potential supplier arrangement. There was a lovely little courtyard space out the back which was also being redecorated to become a small tabled area for serving coffee to customers. Shortly, a new development would be finished next door and people would be able to access Amin’s courtyard not just from walking through his shop, but from an open area adjacent to the fruit and veg market. And he already had an espresso coffee machine behind the counter. I have never drank so many espressos in my life, as we sat outside and chilled. I would read my books, play with the stray cats, write up blogs on my laptop and on the odd occasion I would be left in charge of the shop whilst Amin and Luca wandered off to do perform various errands around town.
I met some lovely people. Salena, Amin’s girlfriend turned up at the shop one day. She was an Australian from Melbourne (in the superior state, Bill?) and had a heritage from the Balkans. She had been living in Germany as an acrobat in a circus, but had injured herself so decided to come to living in Sarajevo for a short time whilst she recovered. I’ll always remember that bag of chocolate coated nuts dipped in cinnamon that Salena bought in one day. A local specialty, beautiful! Then there was Ian, another Australian who had gone to Bosnia for a holiday many years ago and basically never left. He was thinking about starting up a kebab shop in town, but not the local style – more like what we had back at home. We had an hour long chat about this over a coffee and a Sarajevsko beer. I thought it was quite amusing indeed that we were seriously discussing the idea of an Aussie expat opening up an Australian style Turkish kebab shop in the middle of Bosnia. Don’t ask about work visas or anything. Like me, Ian’s entry into the country was somewhat overlooked and he pretty much comes and goes as he pleases. Like I thought, they don’t so much care about border security as much these days and anyone who overstays their official 90 days, or even wants to live there permanently or start up a business, will probably be able to do so without any repercussion. Things may change in future if the Bosnian effort to join the EU is successful, as stronger border protection is a critical part of the entry criteria. For now however, Sarajevo is a haven for people like Ian and expats from many other countries who fall in love with the vibe of the city. It is a very relaxing place after all. I wandered up onto the hill one day, found an old overgrown backyard next to a building site with an old shed, and sat in the shade reading the 3rd and final part of my Steig Larsson “Millenium Trilogy”. Stray cats wandered around everywhere, it was very quiet and people just left you alone. I spoke to a few people about how calm and relaxing it could be walking around Sarajevo and they all agreed that this was part of the charm and the reason why so many people come here for a couple of days, and stay a couple of weeks. Just like the Lonely Planet guide said.
Other people I met were a couple of hippy artists (there’s always at least one) who wanted to get free bike rental to complete an art project they were doing, heading up into the hills to film the lives of stray dogs and cats around town. I think in the end Amin came to some discounted agreement. Next thing you know, the girl is going to decorate the wall of the courtyard for the coffee shop venture. We discussed artistic ideas for an hour one day whilst having another espresso. Then there was Alen, who works for an import/export company and is the supplier of all Amin’s bicycles. He was a very nice bloke and spoke pigeon English. On my last night in town he accompanied me to the bike workshop to pick up my newly fixed bike. We had a chat about the Koran and the history of the town. Then finally there were the numerous customers from different countries. Dutch, Swiss, German, British, American. All popping in to rent a bike from the flyers that Amin had dropped around to the hostels previously. Next summer he said, he would probably need to get more bikes. I hope his business does well in all seriousness. I was his age when I first went into business doing freelance web design. It can be quite rewarding and a lot of fun, if not hard work at times.
When Bessie was fixed, I left Sarajevo around 2pm in the arvo for Mostar. Being the middle of the day and about 34 degrees, it might not have been the smartest time to leave, but if I didn’t, I would not get to Mostar until the next day and I was already a day behind schedule. It wasn’t too hard, because once you got out of Sarajevo and over the first valley climb, the road tended to follow the river all the way, and it was actually quite a good ride. I made excellent progress with the bike handling as good as new, and after four days of resting, I was full of energy and really hammered it along.
And so the next instalment of Foreign Correspondent comes from Mostar. Stay tuned!
