Straws in hot chocolate and bumper-car buses

Hello, John here, about time I wrote a post on the blog methinks.

Belgrade is not a beautiful city. Apart for the grounds of the fortress and the views from there it's a smoky, industrial town with cars belching out rancid fumes all over the place. Its centre is small and is nothing special to see. However, Eurovision or no Eurovision we loved the place; mainly due to the people we met, plus the city has a lively, positive vibe in general. It's definitely somewhere you have to get lost down the backstreets to properly find and enjoy the cool little buildings and open spaces. There are interesting political undertones to a lot of aspects, not least Eurovision which was at times like a rally set to backing music.

Serbia is a place where the events guides list Fish Soup Contests immediately after international music festivals with no less honour. And there were more Fish Soup Contests than festivals. In Novi Sad a lot of the graffiti was on the lines of graphical descriptions of safe sex, no doubt the work of a local cad called Wanksy was our reckoning. Joinees have been amongst us in spirit: HOBO is on a bunch of products including a coffee machine called WEG. Vixie has mentioned the multitude of silly product names; we picked up some Šlag in Belgrade we've had along with us ever since.

So since then we've been across the border, a couple of nights in Sarajevo and now here in Mostar. The journey from Belgrade to Sarajevo was not fun. Over 10 hours in a bus, and half an hour spent at customs in the middle of that - during which the driver had to turn off his engine and thus the air conditioning, so the heat hit us like a fox filled with rocks. About that time was when I found half a dozen huge insect bites welling up on me to add to my collection of smaller ones from the previous days (much to the amusement of a certain Vixie who never, ever gets insect bites). The driver was a typical Slavic driver from our experience, whose hobbies included taking off as many car wing mirrors as cigarettes he smoked. Similar to the taxi driver earlier on (the 'regular' tram never turned up) who quite happily ducked and weaved through traffic and traffic lights, but would beep his horn loudly at anyone who drove like him, which, being in Belgrade, meant everyone. We found it funny that although drivers in this part of the world are maniacs towards other drivers they are always courteous towards pedestrians. Being pedestrians most of the time that suits us.

We finally ended up at the Serbian part of Sarajevo which is totally separate to the main city, despite asking specifically for a ticket that went to the main centre. The Serbs don't seem to readily admit the existence of the main city of Sarajevo, from the ticket office to the bus station we arrived at, since people there told us there were no buses from there to the main city just around the hill. The taxi driver feigned ignorance of the city and after deciding on where he was going to drop us off (after a few changes in direction including off-roading it for a short while) refused to alter course to somewhere more useful, so we were fortunate to end up pretty close to where we wanted. We did have to walk up a very steep hill with our backpacks before we could finally collapse on our beds though (which looked ready to collapse themselves).

Though the journey was annoying the scenery was incredible. It was flat all the way to the border, but the places we passed and countryside itself very pretty. It was when we eventually reached the hills and started going up (and up and up and up) that things started getting absolutely marvellous. The hills and mountains here are absolutely covered in trees, like a scaled-up version of moss-covered rocks. Every time we reached the end of a plateau the coach would sweep round a corner to reveal yet another luscious panorama. We were immediately glad of the good weather and for making the journey in the daytime, otherwise we would have missed out on one of the best parts of the journey so far. Basically the road and scenery was something like the Top Gear crew have wet dreams about.

Sarajevo is a far prettier city than Belgrade. There are hills/mountains all around it - a lot of the residential districts are up in the hills and there are Muslim graveyards up there too, which could be rather macabre if they weren't so pretty and well-maintained. The 'old town' of the city centre has been totally renovated since the war, and reminded us of a large version of the high street in Taormina: stylish and slick, and good for wandering at night. It seems that a lot more money has gone into developing and maintaining the centre there than in Belgrade. It did feel a lot like walking through a big-budget Hollywood film set at times though, like a mock-up of what a quaint European old town district should look like. The genuine mosques, churches and other buildings that it was built around were gorgeous though and so we enjoyed it there.

Three highlights for immediate mention:
*Club Bill Gates, a bar serving drinks and pizzas including the 'Jumbo Bill'.
*A bunch of old men playing giant chess in the park in the middle of town. We came across old men playing chess in pretty bizarre locations in Serbia but this sight made us very happy.
*An attempted thievery from an old woman with a 'baby': grabbing me by the arm up close, I noticed a sneaky hand on my wallet - the baby then clearly a fake, as it had grown an extra limb between its legs, in the shape of her previously hidden arm. I shook her off and found the experience exciting, but Vixie was ready to smack her in the face and see how far the baby flew.

The journey from Sarajevo to Mostar was even better to the one described above. Nothing to do with the fact it was shorter and sans stress but because the scenery was even more awesome, in the most literal sense of the word. A lot of it was a gradual ride downhill, and the terrain was rockier and more dramatic. We met up with the river, which due to the brilliant blue sky and vivid greenery was a wonderfully shiny turquoise, the kind you usually only see on photoshopped pictures in Haven Holiday adverts for Bognor Regis.

Good quotes that I can remember right now:
"This time next year we'll be milliners"
"John Terry... he's worse than Hitler isn't he? Well OK maybe not that bad... worse than Steps then"

Finally for now: I am 'growing' a 'beard'. This is due to Vixie thinking it would be a good idea mixed with me thinking it makes shaving much easier on our travels. Vixie seems to like it so far, claiming I look like a pirate. Since pirates these days are Nigerian ones being a major contributing factor to higher oil prices, the jury is out as to whether this is a Good Thing. I personally reckon that anything would look better on my face than hair but I think we're coming to a good compromise after a sideburn-related discussion.

P.S. Oh yes, as for the title of the post: they put straws in hot chocolate and they have buses that are like bumper cars.