A hive of (in)activity

The bus journey to Korcula runs daily at 3pm from the bus terminal and seeing that the check-out time at Pension Stankovich is at 10am, the morning was spent wandering about in the sweltering heat and finally into the Taj Mahal, a small konoba off the Stradun that serves strangely, Bosnian rather than Indian food. Bosnian sweets and strong coffee at 11am in the morning couldn’t possibly go wrong. Thus came the tufahijia, a dessert dish made from baked apples, chocolate and walnuts, then topped with a layer of cream.

It was then back to the Pension begging for much needed relief found in a glass of cold water, Mac’s company and a suspicious Stankovich cat staring at me in the kitchen area while Zoran’s brother hung laundry outside to dry. For some reason he seems obsessed with Indonesia (and with the pirates along the Straits of Malacca), as he had, according to Zoran, spent some years ago in the Navy in Southeast Asia.

I found out just how much Croatia is about money and more money as the agencies squeeze the mickey out of the average visitor (and also out of the locals) – when I was informed to my incredulous amazement and stunned disbelief by the bus driver to Korcula that storing my bag in the luggage hold cost 10 kuna, in addition to the bus ticket fare, as well as the extra cost of reserving a seat number.

The coast-hugging ride to Korcula was a 3.5 hr one (and obviously scenic) that included a 15-minute ferry ride across from Orebic. Finding the cheerful-looking Depolo Villa was rather easy as it was located along a lane that leads out of the Old Town into the residential area of Sveti Nikole. Rezi Depolo, its chatty owner, regaled me with a few of her travel stories, the stray cats she feeds, her sunday plans, and her dismal internet wireless, just as I requested for my laundry to get done.

“You must try Maslina,” Rezi said, and launched into a rather complicated set of instructions on the Korculan restaurant’s location en route to Lumbarda. “There is another one in Old Town, but just 5 days ago, a French couple told me that they changed ownership and it’s not very nice, and not very friendly. Go to the one outside. It’s a nice walk. And there is a church on top of a hill, surrounded by cypress trees. You can have a nice view of the town. Before I could process all of it, I was then sent off to the small Old Town on her orders as the last rays of light faded. My full day in Korcula fell on a sunday, which meant most of the town closes to celebrate inactivity and rest.

The sights that Rezi mentioned were a bit of a walk out of town and came at the cost of full-blown hives. Red, angry patches that started out as some pinkness on the arms appeared in full force and looked to spread quickly after I spent an extended length of time walking in the sun. Such irony on a sun-drenched island when tanning is the order of the day! Foolishly, I thought the sunlight would have a *drying* effect, when it did just the opposite.

What did I do after rubbing a lot of hydrocortisone that seemed to have absolutely no effect? I knocked on Rezi’s door apologetically to disturb her once again, and begged for some alternative Croatian “herbal” remedy. Rezi took one look at the increasingly leprous-lookalike arms, and gave me a glass of rubbing alcohol which helped calm the itch a bit but made the skin sore to the touch.

My alcohol-induced commandment of the day: Lead me not into temptation to scratch.

Crna Gora: Shade is Salvation

When someone has food and drink, sit closer. When they are working, move away. It is best not to disturb them. – One of the 10 commandments printed on a postcard of Montenegro

It is rather mind-blowing to enter a country that is a mere 3 years old but has a history that stretches over millenia. Montenegro – bordered by the Adriatic sea in the southwest and Croatia in the west – severed its ties with Serbia in June 2006 and declared its independence. It is an enticing region of monuments (and their ruins), beaches and great weather, situated in the allure of sparkling sea that continues as far as the eye can see.

The group I chose to do the tour with had thankfully, a small bus with a group of 14 persons, which meant nipping around more quickly. I was impressed by everyone’s punctuality and amused by the degree to which sunblock was revered by most of them; in fact, people were even early for the scheduled meeting times despite turning red in the face and hurrying around in the heat. I braved the sun, thinking that my skin must somehow be used to it, and managed to get an uneven browning instead. A crazy woman in the group kept asking for the beach, and wore clothes that were aimed solely for removal at first sight of water and shingle/sand.

We drove through 2 checkpoints, and soon reached Herceg Novi, a town whose industrial Soviet-era architecture sharply contrasts its picturesque setting – the La Dolce Vita standard that Dubrovnik has striven so hard to attain with its villas and available luxury – is still the missing factor in Montenegro’s package.

The bay of Kotor lies further southwards, and winds inland so much that it is an area touted as Europe’s southernmost fjord, inhabited by the Illyrians in Classical Antiquity, overrun by the Romans, changed hands again and for a short time, belonged to Napoleon and the Austro-Hungarians. A city-guide met us in Kotor’s incredibly crowded old town, pointing out the number of aristocratic houses and churches crammed into a rather small square, rattling off way too many dates that flew just over my head. The guided tour meant however, that there wasn’t any time left to climb the 4km surrounding ramparts that provide a dramatic look down onto the city.

The number of stray cats abound. It was after a time, difficult to get around the curious stares of shopkeepers and the slow-trudging of the tourists who arrive by the busload fanning themselves.

A step out of the old town brings the local life into greater focus, and the daily market that lines up outside the town’s walls is probably the daily marketing congregational point of the Montenegrin natives.

Montenegrin beach tourism comes into full swing along the Budva Rivijera (Riviera), which supposedly rivals the south of France’s Riviera with kilometres worth of beach madness to explore. The Budva town itself is over 2 millenia years old and appeals to many because of pulsing nightlife and its beach bum status. Money rules the place: A staggering number of millionaires made their fortunes selling off lands to Russian development companies poured their new found wealth back into real estate in the surrounding towns of Podgorica and Herceg Novi.

The Dubrovnik Gastro festival in the Stradun was gearing up for full swing at 7pm when I returned, going for an unbelievable 10 Kuna per ticket that I snapped up after some hesitation. The shoving that resulted once the gates opened was inevitable and annoying, and by the time I actually got to the food or what was left of it, all that was left really some black seafood risotto and a bit of dessert for dinner, a pity considering that Croatian specialities were up for grabs.

The Adriatic treasures

I’m starting to believe that I never pass up an opportunity to say just how much I hate plane journeys. Given that Edinburgh-Dubrovnik was a new route introduced by FlyGlobespan and seeing that I was on the first trip there, I was half expecting that the pilot would get lost or some other horrible thing would happen. A 45-minute delay just had to prove me right. It was a full and long flight (3.5 hrs) for an intercontinental one on a budget airline, and I tried sleeping to no avail, only to perk up a bit when the plane went over the Swiss Alps.

Things changed however, when the Adriatic coastline – that looked like the curly-wurly patterns that people doodle when bored in class – came into view, littered with islands surrounded by turquoise waters. The airport was 22km down south of the city, and on high ground (!) and it was relatively painless getting on the shuttle, which all but had a grand total of 6 people in a 50-seater bus. (Going back would be a more painful story I suspect) The route to town hugged the coast on some sort of elevation, and I found myself enjoying it thoroughly.

Dubrovnik has been called many things and it’s highly unoriginal of me to repeat how much this small town has been lauded by critics, guidebooks and celebrities alike, and it seems to have shrugged its war-laden baggage 20 years on by turning to tourism. I had been given a room with a (spectacular) view that comes from the generous balcony that overlooks the old town within a family house, at the cost of 350 steps that come between the old town and me.

Old Town is ensconced by a thick, high wall of varying heights, and against my better stewardship of my spending money, I found myself scaling the city walls – 2 km worth of fortifications that date from the 12^th century at least – and looking down on the red roofs that make this place so famous.

The old town is bisected into two parts by the Stradun, a long strip of shiny marble ground where everyone seems to take a stroll in the off-season months, and where everyone cramps into during the summer months. It is not difficult to see why its charm has never failed – and among the Hollywood celebrities – this has also driven prices up quite steeply.

It is only my 2^nd exhausting day; I don’t claim to fully understand Dubrovnik, and in its wider context, the political difficulties of the former Yugoslavia. Maybe all the trips to Dubrovnik I’ll ever be making in my lifetime will never amount to any modicum of understanding even. Yet I cannot in good faith, call upon the simplicity and trigger-happy bumbling that characterises the typical tourist precisely because the scars of war must still exist, simmering under the surface and waiting to boil over once again.

The Former Yugoslavia, unashamedly pilfered

By Cameron Hewitt, co-author of the Rick Steves Best of Eastern Europe and Rick Steves Croatia and Slovenia guidebooks

Americans struggle to understand the complicated breakup of Yugoslavia (especially when visiting countries that rose from its ashes, such as Croatia and Slovenia). During the Yugoslav era, it was no less confusing. As the old joke went, Yugoslavia had eight distinct peoples in six republics, with five languages, three religions (Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim), and two alphabets (Roman and Cyrillic), but only one Yugoslav — Tito.

Everyone you talk to in the former Yugoslavia will have a different version of events. A very wise Bosnian Muslim told me, “Listen to all three sides — Muslim, Serb, and Croat. Then decide for yourself what you think.” That’s the best advice I can offer. But since you likely won’t have time for that on your brief visit, here’s an admittedly oversimplified, as-impartial-as-possible history to get you started.
Balkan Peninsula 101

For starters, it helps to have a handle on the different groups who’ve lived in the Balkans — the southeastern European peninsula between the Adriatic and the Black Sea, stretching from Hungary to Greece. The Balkan Peninsula has always been a crossroads of cultures. The Illyrians, Greeks, and Romans had settlements here before the Slavs moved into the region from the north around the seventh century. During the next millennium and a half, the western part of the peninsula — which would become Yugoslavia — was divided by a series of cultural, ethnic, and religious fault lines.

The most important influences were three religions: Western Christianity (i.e., Roman Catholicism, primarily brought to the western part of the region by Charlemagne, and later reinforced by the Austrian Hapsburgs), Eastern Orthodox Christianity (brought to the east from the Byzantine Empire), and Islam (in the south, from the Ottomans).

Two major historical factors made the Balkans what they are today: The first was the split of the Roman Empire in the fourth century a.d., dividing the Balkans down the middle into Roman Catholic (west) and Byzantine Orthodox (east) — roughly along today’s Bosnian-Serbian border. The second was the invasion of the Islamic Ottomans in the 14th century. The Ottoman victory at the Battle of Kosovo (1389) began five centuries of Islamic influence in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia, further dividing the Balkans into Christian (north) and Muslim (south).

Because of these and other events, several distinct ethnic identities emerged. Confusingly, the major “ethnicities” of Yugoslavia are all South Slavs — they’re descended from the same ancestors, and speak essentially the same language, but they practice different religions. Catholic South Slavs are called Croats or Slovenes (mostly west of the Dinaric Mountains: Croats along the Adriatic coast, and Slovenes farther north, in the Alps); Orthodox South Slavs are called Serbs (mostly east of the Dinaric range); and Muslim South Slavs are called Bosniaks (whose ancestors converted to Islam under the Ottomans, mostly living in the Dinaric Mountains). To complicate matters, the region is also home to several non-Slavic groups, including Hungarians (in the northern province of Vojvodina) and Albanians, concentrated in the southern area of Kosovo (descended from the Illyrians, who lived here long before the Greeks and Romans).

Of course, these geographic divisions are extremely general. The groups overlapped a lot — which is exactly why the breakup of Yugoslavia was so contentious. For example, one of the biggest causes of this ethnic mixing came in the 16th century. The Ottomans were threatening to overrun Europe, and the Austrian Hapsburgs wanted a buffer zone — a “human shield.” The Hapsburgs encouraged Serbs who were fleeing from Ottoman invasions to settle along today’s Croatian-Bosnian border (known as Vojna Krajina, or “Military Frontier”). The Serbs stayed after the Ottomans had left, establishing homes in predominantly Croat communities.

After the Ottoman threat subsided in the late 17th century, some of the Balkans (basically today’s Slovenia and Croatia) became part of the Austrian Hapsburg Empire. The Ottomans stayed longer in the south and east (today’s Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia) — making the cultures in these regions even more different. Serbia finally gained its independence from the Ottomans in the mid-19th century, but it wasn’t too long before World War I started…after a disgruntled Bosnian Serb nationalist killed the Austrian archduke.
South Slavs Unite

When the Austro-Hungarian Empire fell at the end of World War I, the European map was redrawn for the 20th century. After centuries of being governed by foreign powers, the South Slavs began to see their shared history as more important than their minor differences. A tiny country of a few million Croats or Slovenes couldn’t have survived. Rather than be absorbed by a non-Slavic power, the South Slavs decided that there was safety in numbers, and banded together as a single state — first called the “Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes” (1918), later known as Yugoslavia (“Land of the South Slavs” — yugo means “south”). “Yugoslav unity” was in the air, but this new union was artificial and ultimately bound to fail (not unlike the partnership between the Czechs and Slovaks, formed at the same time and for much the same reasons).

From the very beginning, the various ethnicities struggled for power within the new union. Croats in particular often felt they were treated as lesser partners under the Serbs. (For example, many Croats objected to naming the country’s official language “Serbo-Croatian” — why not “Croato-Serbian?”) Serbia already had a very strong king, Alexander Karađorđević, who immediately made attempts to give his nation a leading role in the federation. A nationalistic Croatian politician named Stjepan Radić, pushing for a more equitable division of powers, was shot by a Serb during a parliament session in 1928. Karađorđević abolished the parliament and became dictator. Six years later, infuriated Croatian separatists killed him.

Many Croat nationalists sided with the Nazis in World War II in the hopes that it would be their ticket to independence from Serbia. The Nazi puppet government in Croatia (called the Ustaše) conducted an extermination campaign, murdering many Serbs (along with Jews and Roma) living in Croatia; other Serbs were forced to flee the country or convert to Catholicism. Most historians consider the Ustaše concentration camps to be the first instance of “ethnic cleansing” in the Balkans…and the Serbs’ long memory of it may go far in explaining their own ethnic cleansing of the Croats in the 1990s.

At the end of World War II, the rest of Eastern Europe was “liberated” by the Soviets — but the Yugoslavs regained their independence on their own, as their communist Partisan Army forced out the Nazis. After the short but rocky Yugoslav union between the World Wars, it seemed that no one could hold the southern Slavs together in a single nation. But there was one man who could, and did: Tito.
Tito

Communist Party president and war hero Josip Broz — who dubbed himself with the simple nickname Tito — emerged as a political leader after World War II. With a Slovene for a mother, a Croat for a father, a Serb for a wife, and a home in Belgrade, Tito was a true Yugoslav. Tito had a compelling vision that this fractured union of the South Slavs could function. And it did. For the next three decades, Tito managed to keep Yugoslavia intact, essentially by the force of his own personality.

Tito’s new incarnation of Yugoslavia aimed for a more equitable division of powers. It was made up of six republics, each with its own parliament and president: Croatia (mostly Catholic Croats), Slovenia (mostly Catholic Slovenes), Serbia (mostly Orthodox Serbs), Bosnia-Herzegovina (the most diverse — mostly Muslim Bosniaks, but with very large Croat and Serb populations), Montenegro (mostly Serb-like Montenegrins), and Macedonia (with about 25 percent Albanians and 75 percent Macedonians — who are claimed variously by Bulgarians and Serbs). There were also two autonomous provinces, each one dominated by an ethnicity that was a minority in greater Yugoslavia: Albanians in Kosovo (to the south) and Hungarians in Vojvodina (to the north). Tito hoped that by allowing these two provinces some degree of independence — including voting rights — they could balance the political clout of Serbia, preventing a single republic from dominating the union.

Each republic managed its own affairs…but always under the watchful eye of president-for-life Tito, who said that the borders between the republics should be “like white lines in a marble column.”

Tito was unquestionably a political genius, carefully crafting a workable union. For example, every Yugoslav had to serve in the National Army, and Tito made sure that each unit was a microcosm of the complete Yugoslavia — with equal representation from each ethnic group. (Allowing an all-Slovene unit, stationed in Slovenia, would be begging for trouble.) There was also a dark side to Tito, who resorted to violent, strong-arming measures to assert his power, especially early in his reign. He staged brutal, Stalin-esque “show trials” to intimidate potential dissidents, and imprisoned church leaders, such as Alojzije Stepinac. Nationalism was strongly discouraged, and this tight control — though sometimes oppressive — kept the country from unraveling. In retrospect, most former Yugoslavs forgive Tito for governing with an iron fist, believing that this was necessary for keeping the country strong and united. Today, most of them consider Tito more of a hero than a villain, and usually speak of him with reverence.

Tito’s Yugoslavia was communist, but it wasn’t Soviet communism; you’ll find no statues of Lenin or Stalin here. Despite strong pressure from Moscow, Tito refused to ally himself with the Soviets — and therefore received good will (and $2 billion) from the United States. Tito’s vision was for a “third way,” where Yugoslavia could work with both East and West, without being dominated by either. Yugoslavia was the most free of the communist states: While large industry was nationalized, Tito’s system allowed for small businesses. This experience with market economy benefited Yugoslavs when Eastern Europe’s communist regimes eventually fell. And even during the communist era, Yugoslavia remained a popular tourist destination, keeping its standards more in line with the West than the Soviet states.
Things Fall Apart

With Tito’s death in 1980, Yugoslavia’s six constituent republics gained more autonomy, with a rotating presidency. But before long, the delicate union Tito had held together began to unravel. In the late 1980s, Serbian politician Slobodan Milošević took advantage of ethnic-motivated conflicts in the province of Kosovo to become president of Serbia and grab more centralized power. Other republics (especially Slovenia and Croatia) feared that he would gut their nation to create a “Greater Serbia,” instead of a friendly coalition of diverse Yugoslav republics. Some of the leaders — most notably Milan Kučan of Slovenia — tried to avoid warfare by suggesting a plan for a loosely united Yugoslavia, based on the Swiss model of independent yet confederated cantons. But other parties, who wanted complete autonomy, refused. Over the next decade, Yugoslavia broke apart, with much bloodshed.
The Slovene Secession

Slovenia was the first Yugoslav republic to hold free elections, in the spring of 1990. The voters wanted the communists out — and their own independent nation. Along with being the most ethnically homogeneous of the Yugoslav nations, Slovenia was also the most Western-oriented, most prosperous, and most geographically isolated — so secession just made sense. But that didn’t mean that there was no violence.

After months of stockpiling weapons, Slovenia closed its borders and declared independence from Yugoslavia on June 25, 1991. Belgrade sent in the Yugoslav National Army to take control of Slovenia’s borders with Italy and Austria, figuring that whoever controlled the borders had a legitimate claim on sovereignty. Fighting broke out around these borders. Because the Yugoslav National Army was made up of soldiers from all republics, many Slovenian soldiers found themselves fighting their own countrymen. (The army had cut off communication between these conscripts and the home front, so they didn’t know what was going on — and often didn’t realize they were fighting their friends and neighbors until they were close enough to see them.)

Slovenian civilians bravely entered the fray, blockading the Yugoslav barracks with their own cars and trucks. Most of the Yugoslav soldiers — now trapped — were young and inexperienced, and were terrified of the ragtag (but relentless) Slovenian militia even though their own resources were far superior.

After 10 days of fighting and fewer than a hundred deaths, Belgrade relented. The Slovenes stepped aside and allowed the Yugoslav National Army to take all of the weapons with them back into Yugoslavia, and destroy all remaining military installations. When the Yugoslav National Army had cleared out, they left the Slovenes with their freedom.

The Croatian Conflict

In April of 1990, a historian named Franjo Tuđman — and his highly nationalistic, right-wing party, the HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) — won Croatia’s first free elections. Like the Slovenian reformers, Tuđman and the HDZ wanted more autonomy from Yugoslavia. But Tuđman’s methods were more extreme than that of the gently progressive Slovenes. Tuđman immediately invoked the spirit of the last group that led an “independent” Croatia — the Ustaše, who had ruthlessly run Croatia’s puppet government under the Nazis. Tuđman reintroduced the Ustaše’s red-and-white checkerboard flag and their currency (the kuna). The 600,000 Serbs living in Croatia, mindful of their grandparents who had been massacred by the Ustaše, saw the writing on the wall and began to rise up.

The first conflicts were in the Serb-dominated Croatian city of Knin. Among Tuđman’s reforms was the decree that all of Croatia’s policemen wear a new uniform, which bore a striking resemblance to Nazi-era Ustaše uniforms. Infuriated by this slap in the face, and inspired by Slobodan Milošević’s rhetoric, Serb police officers in Knin refused. Over the next few months, tense negotiations ensued. Serbs from Knin and elsewhere began the so-called “tree trunk revolution” — blocking important tourist roads to the coast with logs and other barriers. Meanwhile, the Croatian government — after being denied support from the United States — illegally purchased truckloads of guns from Hungary. Tensions escalated, and the first shots of the conflict were fired on Easter Sunday of 1991 at Plitvice Lakes National Park, between Croatian policemen and Serb irregulars from Knin.

By the time Croatia declared its independence (on June 25, 1991 — the same day as Slovenia), it was already embroiled in the beginnings of a bloody war. Croatia’s more than half-million Serb residents immediately declared their own independence from Croatia. The Serb-dominated Yugoslav National Army swept in, supposedly to keep the peace between Serbs and Croats — but it soon became obvious that they were there to support the Serbs. The ill-prepared Croatian resistance, made up mostly of policemen and a few soldiers who defected from the Yugoslav National Army, were quickly overwhelmed. The Serbs gained control over a large swath of inland Croatia, mostly around the Bosnian border (including Plitvice) and in Croatia’s inland panhandle (the region of Slavonia). They called this territory — about a quarter of Croatia — the Republic of Serbian Krajina (krajina means “border”). This new “country” (hardly recognized by any other nations) minted its own money and had its own army, much to the consternation of Croatia — which was now worried about the safety of Croats living in Krajina.

As the Serbs advanced, hundreds of thousands of Croats fled to the coast and lived as refugees in resort hotels. The Serbs began a campaign of ethnic cleansing, systematically removing Croats from their territory — often by murdering them. The bloodiest siege was at the town of Vukovar, which the Yugoslav army surrounded and shelled relentlessly for three months. At the end of the siege, thousands of Croat soldiers and civilians mysteriously disappeared. Many of these people were later discovered in mass graves; hundreds are still missing, and bodies are still being found. In a surprise move, Serbs also attacked the tourist resort of Dubrovnik. By early 1992, both Croatia and the Republic of Serbian Krajina had established their borders, and a tense ceasefire fell over the region.

The standoff lasted until 1995, when the now well-equipped Croatian Army retook the Serbian-occupied areas in a series of two offensives — “Lightning” (Blijesak), in the northern part of the country, and “Storm” (Oluja), farther south. Some Croats retaliated for earlier ethnic cleansing by doing much of the same to Serbs — torturing and murdering them, and dynamiting their homes. Croatia quickly established the borders that exist today, and the Erdut Agreement brought peace to the region — but most of the 600,000 Serbs who once lived in Croatia/Krajina were forced into Serbia or were killed. Today, only a few thousand Serbs remain in Croatia. While Serbs have long since been legally invited back to their ancestral Croatian homes, few have returned — afraid of the “welcome” they might receive from the Croat neighbors who killed their relatives or blew up their houses just a few years ago.
The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Bosnia-Herzegovina declared its independence from Yugoslavia four months after Croatia and Slovenia did. But Bosnia-Herzegovina was always at the crossroads of Balkan culture, and therefore even more diverse than Croatia — predominantly Muslim Bosniaks (mostly in the cities), but also with large Serb and Croat populations (often farmers), as well as Albanian Kosovars.

In the spring of 1992, Serbs within Bosnia-Herzegovina (with the support of Serbia) began a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Bosniaks and Croats. Before long, the Croats did the same against the Serbs. A three-way war (between the Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats) raged for years. Even the many mixed families were forced to choose sides. If you had a Serb mother and a Croat father, you were expected to pick one ethnicity or the other — and your brother might choose the opposite. As families and former neighbors trained their guns on each other, proud and beautiful cities such as Sarajevo and Mostar were turned to rubble, and people throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina lived in a state of constant terror.

Serb sieges of Bosnian Muslim cities — such as the notorious siege of Srebrenica in July of 1995, which ended with a massacre of about 7,000 Bosniak civilians — brought the ongoing atrocities to the world’s attention. Perhaps most despicable was the establishment of so-called “rape camps” — concentration camps where Bosniak women were imprisoned and systematically raped by Serb soldiers.

The United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) — dubbed “Smurfs” both for their light-blue helmets and for their ineffectiveness — exercised their limited authority to try to suppress the violence. This ugly situation was brilliantly parodied in the film No Man’s Land (which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 2002), a very dark comedy about the absurdity of the Bosnian war.

Finally, in 1995, the Dayton Peace Accords carefully divided Bosnia-Herzegovina among the different ethnicities. Today, Bosnia-Herzegovina continues to work on its tenuous peace, rebuild its devastated country, and bring its infrastructure up to its neighbors’ standards.
Kosovo

The ongoing Yugoslav crisis finally reached its peak in the Serbian province of Kosovo. After years of poor treatment by the Serbs, Kosovars rebelled in 1998. Milošević sent in the army, and in March 1999, they began a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Thousands of Kosovars were murdered, and hundreds of thousands fled into Albania and Macedonia. NATO planes, under the command of US General and Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark, bombed Serb positions for two months, forcing the Serb army to leave Kosovo in the summer of 1999. In February of 2008, Kosovo declared independence from a very unhappy Serbia.
The Fall of Milošević

After years of bloody conflicts, Serbian public opinion had decisively swung against their president. The transition began gradually in early 2000, spearheaded by Otpor and other nonviolent, grassroots, student-based opposition movements. These organizations used clever PR strategies to gain support and convince Serbians that real change was possible. As anti-Milošević sentiments gained momentum, opposing political parties banded together and got behind one candidate, Vojislav Koštunica. Public support for Koštunica mounted, and when the arrogant Milošević called an early election in September 2000, he was soundly defeated. Though Milošević tried to claim that the election results were invalid, determined Serbs streamed into their capital, marched on their parliament, and — like the Czechs and Slovaks a decade before — peacefully took back their nation.

In 2001, Milošević was arrested and sent to The Hague, in the Netherlands, to stand trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Milošević served as his own attorney as his trial wore on for five years, frequently delayed due to his health problems. Then, on March 11, 2006 — as his trial was coming to a close — Milošević was found dead in his cell. Ruled a heart attack, Milošević’s death, like his life, was controversial. Supporters claimed that Milošević was denied suitable medical care while on trial, some speculated that he was poisoned, and others suspected that he’d intentionally worsened his heart condition to avoid the completion of his trial. Whatever the cause, it seems that in the end Milošević avoided coming to justice — he was never found guilty of a thing.
Finding Their Way: The Former Yugoslav Republics

Today, Slovenia and Croatia are as stable as Western Europe, Bosnia-Herzegovina is slowly putting itself back together, Macedonia feels closer to Bulgaria than to Belgrade, and more pieces of “Yugoslavia” — such as Montenegro and Kosovo — declare independence every year.

And yet, nagging questions remain. Making the wars even more difficult to grasp is the fact that there were no “good guys” and no “bad guys” in these wars — just a lot of ugliness on all sides. When considering specifically the war between the Croats and the Serbs, it’s tempting for Americans to take Croatia’s “side” — because we saw them in the role of victims first; because they’re Catholic, so they seem more “like us” than the Orthodox Serbs; and because we admire their striving for an independent nation. But in the streets and the trenches, it was never that clear-cut. The Serbs believe that they were the victims first — back in World War II, when their grandparents were executed in Croat-run Ustaše concentration camps. And when Croatians retook Serb-occupied areas in 1995, they were every bit as brutal as the Serbs had been a few years before. Both sides resorted to ethnic cleansing, both sides had victims, and both sides had victimizers.

Even so, many can’t help but look for victims and villains. During the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina, several prominent and respected reporters began to show things from one “side” more than the others — specifically, depicting the Bosniaks (Muslims) as victims. This re-awakened an old debate in the journalism community: Should reporters above all be impartial, even if “showing all sides” might make them feel complicit in ongoing atrocities?

As for villains, it’s easy to point a finger at Slobodan Miloševic, Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, and other military leaders who are wanted or standing trial at The Hague. Others condemn the late Croatian President Franjo Tudman, who, it’s becoming increasingly clear, secretly conspired with Miloševic to redraw the maps of their respective territories throughout the course of the war.

Finally comes the inevitable question: Why did any of it happen in the first place? Explanations tend to gravitate to two extremes. Some observers say that in this inherently warlike part of the world, deep-seated hatreds and age-old tribal passions between the various ethnic groups have flared up at several points throughout history. According to these people, there’s an air of inevitability about the recent wars…and about the potential for future conflict. Others believe that this theory is an insulting oversimplification. Sure, animosity has long simmered in this region — but it takes a selfish leader to exploit it to advance his own interests. It wasn’t until Miloševic, Tudman, and others expertly manipulated the people’s grudges that the country fell into war. By vigorously fanning the embers of ethnic discord, and carefully controlling media coverage of the escalating violence, these leaders turned what could have been a healthy political debate into a holocaust.

Tension still exists throughout the former Yugoslavia — especially areas that were most war-torn. Croatians and Slovenes continue to split hairs over silly border disputes, and Serbs ominously warn that they’ll take up arms to defend their claim on Kosovo. When the people of this region encounter other Yugoslavs in their travels, they immediately evaluate each other’s accent to determine: Are they one of us, or one of them?

But, with time, these hard feelings are fading. The younger generations don’t look back — teenaged Slovenes no longer learn Serbo-Croatian, can’t imagine not living in an independent little country, and get bored (and a little irritated) when their old-fashioned parents wax nostalgic about the days of a united Yugoslavia. A middle-aged Slovene friend of mine thinks fondly of his months of compulsory service in the Yugoslav National Army, when his unit was made up of Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, Albanians, Macedonians, and Montenegrins — all of them countrymen, and all good friends. To these young Yugoslavs, minor ethnic differences didn’t matter. He still often visits with his army buddy from Dubrovnik — 600 miles away, not long ago part of the same nation — and wishes there had been a way to keep it all together. But he says, optimistically, “I look forward to the day when the other former Yugoslav republics also join the European Union. Then, in a way, we will all be united once again.”

In a mere 5 days…

I leave for Croatia. Months of planning for a week’s work of splurging that I can even barely afford and I’m still asking myself why the hell I’m doing this.

The love of travel?

Wanting to visit a place I’ve heard of for so long that the length of time I’ve waited has only added to the impatience and the longing?

I don’t have clear answers myself, and am filled with more trepidation that I normally have for my previous trips.

Wonder why.

Insane Balkanology

“I don’t know why you always plan your trips like it’s the first and only time you’ll ever see these places,” TC told me. “When we were in London, it was like boot camp! No wonder I was so grumpy always.”

How was I to articulate that spontaneously that it could very well be the last time I stepped foot into some place, when there are so many other places in the world to see, so urgently? It certainly wasn’t because I feared that ageing would slow me down, or that inertia would catch up. The idea of seeing more and more countries as displaying the “traveller’s trophy cabinet” sounded equally ludicruous.

I still can’t explain it. But that urgency is alive and, shall we say, far too driving to ignore.

The frustration planning this 1-week trip to the Balkans has been more of than not, hairy, frustrating, insane, merry-geese chasing and many more adjectives worth than my muddled mind can come up with at the moment.

Bus journeys/ferry timetables (multiple companies running similar services!) are particularly difficult to plan off-season, coupled with the fact that the language is in no way comprehensible. Now throw in possible day-tours and excursions, and other trips to some other islands. Many forum posts, furious but surreptitious perusals of itineraries and other trigger-happy travel blog posts aimed to show off the extent to which a human being can get absolutely plastered, I was led back to the very beginning of it all.

A very knowledgeable and wonderful website I’ve come across in the initial stages of planning, reminded myself to go back to it, but never did.

Balkanology: A comprehensive and traveller-savvy site by someone who know the region like the back of his hand.

And finally, bus timetables that make sense:

Balkanology’s Croatia links

Less than a month away, I’m scrambling madly for things to make sense still.

The Pearl of the Adriatic

In a fit of madness, I have decided to make the Pearl of the Adriatic my next destination – despite the flagging budget, the insance flight schedule and shortage of time. Flyglobespan’s service to Dubrovnik starts its run for the summer, and of course, I pounced.

Ok, I’ve always longed to visit the Balkans, and in particular, Croatia.

In a month’s time at least.

London the Good Version

The Travel Companion (TC) was with me once again this month, and we decided to make the 5-hour train journey to London from Edinburgh. I was adamant that he should be the one to write this entry because our last trip to London last December was pretty much accidental. My own memories of London spent in the summer of 2007 were exceptionally good, and I had desperately hoped that TC would have at least enjoyed that same privileged experience which I had.

This meant packing a heck of a lot of activities in the 3 days we were there (the majority of them consisting of visiting galleries in the day, in between sightseeing, and watching West End plays at night) and TC surprised me by enjoying the gallery visits as much as I needed to look at them for work’s sake.

It was even more pleasantly surprising to learn that TC had developed a fondness for art by Titian and Jacopo Bassano. In fact, he could not stop exulting their artistic techniques and the textures, happily stepping into the Scottish National Gallery after we returned to look at more.

Here, recounted in TC’s own words, are his feelings and memories –  eccentric, weird, mutedly funny and sometimes plain cynical.

It all started with a rush – which pretty much characterised all of our trips.

********************

The journey to the train station consisted of my International Babe of Mystery (IBOM) and I running through the streets of Edinburgh to the train station, in pelting snow.

“Great”, I thought to myself. “A brilliant way to change my impression of London”. For those wondering why the title is what it is, my first visit to London was an absolute nightmare. On my way out of Edinburgh at the end of last year, my flight was cancelled and I was rudely diverted to Heathrow (which I had tried to avoid due to its infamous reputation for screwing up flights and luggage – and now to no avail). What followed was a mad dash from gate to counter to counter with an ill IBOM in tow, as one thing after another went wrong until both of us nearly ended up spending the night sleeping on the floor in Heathrow.

I decided there and then, that I was never going to watch the Amazing Race ever again, having just lived through it in the worst possible way. We eventually ended up getting back to our intended destination one day late, with our luggage still in limbo in Heathrow. Having decided that this first, foul tasting morsel of London was not a fair impression, I therefore declared this trip to be the “good” version of London. Thus far, the weather did not augur well.

As the National Express East Coast moved from Scotland to England (Berwick upon Tweed, Newcastle, York, Durham, Doncaster, Peterborough, and finally, London), the weather actually improved. Instead of the expected dull, dreary grey skies topped with steady drizzles, the sun actually made a rare appearance. By the time we reached King’s Cross/St Pancras, it was evident that the weather was doing its penitent best to improve my impression of London.

1. By and large, transport seemed decent. The tube was, predictably, small, crowded and expensive with the occasional line breakdown (we had to make 2 transfers on 3 lines to get to our hotel because the line we needed to take was down for maintenance). It was fast, if nothing else. We soon discovered that taking certain buses at the right time of day was much cheaper and a much more pleasant way to travel – route directions were well laid out and easy to follow.

2. London House Hotel lived up to its reputation. The room was clean and fairly comfortable, the staff friendly, and breakfast was decent (although not fantastic). The only quibble I had was the noise from the workmen and other vehicles on the lane just below my room, a compromise for price and a central location in London (we stayed near Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens).

3. Oxford Street (London’s premier shopping street) had its range of interesting shops. Never much of a shopaholic myself, I nonetheless discovered the wonders of Primark. I ended up buying a number of things which cost a total of about 20 quid. At such prices, the shop was an absolute madhouse of people from various countries. IBOM and I ended up returning in the morning in order to get any shopping done at all. As usual, the stuff we needed to find was in fact, way nearer than we needed to go.

4. Our trip to two museums had mixed outcomes. The National Gallery was quite a surprise for me. The amount of famous paintings left me a bit stunned. It was rather surreal. I found myself standing next to the real Sunflowers by Van Gogh. I nearly ended up slapping myself to ensure that I was not dreaming. What I also discovered was that the various paintings by famous artists actually were in vivid colours. Prior to this, my visit to the Uffizi gallery in Florence left me convinced that the old masters only painted in a dull olive green and dirty yellow, with a very occasional grudging blue. I had just realised that the lazy buggers in Florence never cleaned or restored anything.

The British museum, on the other hand, was overrun with tourist groups and school children on tour. The quality and variety of the exhibits on display was unquestionable. However, the fact that virtually everything was probably looted left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. With the crowds filling nearly every corner (they all showed a fascination with ancient Egypt), IBOM and I decided to leave there early, taking off for the customary sights of Westminster and the (gag) London Eye.

5. Meals were a strange thing. We went from eating takeaways at a kebab store to having lunch at a small quaint café frequented by locals.

6. We naturally paid homage to Fortnum & Masons and Twinings.

I suppose London did its best to redeem itself in my eyes. I can say that this really was, London (good version).

Englishmen in (Old) York

I decided that England is a dreadfully dismal place to be in the whole of God’s cheery earth, as the National Express East Coast wound it way southwards towards York. Clear skies in Edinburgh soon became a memory as the train chugged through England – and fog intuitively seemed to roll in at the Scottish borders after Berwick-upon-Tweed, hugging the coast line and passing Holy Isle en route to Newcastle, Durham, Darlington and finally, York. Even the weather hates the English, I thought. Thankfully the 2.5 hour-long journey to York was mostly without incident (save for screaming children who got excited over sheep and inconsiderate parents sitting in the quiet coach) and I gratefully got off the train, straight into the fog and right into the old town of York. Light, misty rain followed soon after. Despite the abysmal weather, York has history spilling out from its very name, and admittedly does pack quite a punch. 3-miles worth of the York walls still encircle the old town, and a short walk around half of it (they are actually wide enough for running on them) gave me the view that the Romans, Vikings, Anglo Saxons, and Normans had as well.

A detour en-route to the old town took me along those walks, past Micklegate, and past the last bridge across the river Ouse, and finally into the heart of the town, where all the shopping is concentrated on Coney street and the lanes that grow haphazardly around it.

York Minster, a gothic cathedral that rivals Cologne, dominates the town, and stands at the end of the spidery tourist roads.

It so happened that my day visit coincided with the Jovik Viking Festival, a week’s worth of brutal Viking debauchery (and some educational talks for good measure) which I strangely did not get to experience as all the exciting events will only be taking place in the weekend. Even the queue to the Jorvik theme-park museum (which promises an actual reconstruction of Viking life in the 10th century right down to its cesspits) was regretfully too long – in winter. One takes what one gets – a small Viking stand near the Jorvik Museum that is meant for educating children about Viking daily life.

Even the obligatory ghost tours start only at night. Instead, I found myself walking through a farmer’s market, and nursing a necessary hot cup of tea while resting the legs in a bookshop/cafe combination along Micklegate.

In a town of ancient history, archaeology and artefacts, perhaps the biggest irony was the stroll through York Gardens, around ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey that led to the city art gallery.

Winter of (Dis)content

TC and I congratulated ourselves on the relatively fuss-free and brilliant KLM internet check-in procedure as we were ensconced in the Airport Shuttle (also pleased that the driver found the pick-up location) en-route to Edinburgh Turnhouse Airport, replete with our bagfuls of gifts and other stuff sitting behind us.

Once more, the security checks and baggage drops seemed effortless, as we found a nook adjacent to the gate that had reclining chairs on which no one seemed willing to lie. Near-slumberous repose overtook us, until an announcement for the KL 1286 flight woke us into anticipation, and catapulted us into dread and unprecedented panic as we were told that this flight to Amsterdam had been cancelled due to technical faults – its obvious repercussion being that we would miss our long-haul connection back.

A horrendously long queue formed quickly behind the KLM ticket desk, whose harried and hassled staff worked to sort out 105 different connections that arose from this cancellation. A young man behind us was obviously upset at having missed his flight as well to the same place we were flying back to, and spoke with expletives peppering every sentence as he made call after call in escalating desperation, seeking other alternative flights.

A 90-minute wait in the ticket desk queue had us re-scheduled on a BMI Flight to London Heathrow, which would thereafter give us a 45-minute to an hour’s dash to another Terminal to catch the British Airways (BA 11) flight back. BMI brought us to Heathrow with no issues, or so we thought (having passed through Edinburgh’s security yet again). A 10-minute bus-ride from Terminal 1 to 4 led to a mad dash to a premier lounge that told us the BA 11 gate was closed and a boarding pass might possibly be obtained at the gate itself – and the outcome speaks for itself – where the flight was fully booked, and the computer system had either apparently bumped us off, or we were in fact, never really booked on BA 11 at all.

The hunt for KLM’s Heathrow office began before the office shut down for the night, in a version of what TC described as “The Amazing Race gone so terribly wrong”, taking us through wrong turns, closed offices, false directions, a reverse route through immigration (telling our story as we go along, each step lengthening it all the more) explaining why we are going through customs not having left the UK at all, and finally, the ticket desk in the departure hall.

The explanation of the missteps so far (that was starting to become the default explanation to every person we met) ensued once again.

The customer service officer booked a room with breakfast in the Hilton Heathrow without preamble, an admission that nothing more could be done for the night, and she was gone for an amazingly long time after which she had arranged everything rather pleasantly for us. Possibly pitying our ragged, vagabond state, she frankly told us that Edinburgh Airport made no mistake in the booking, but as all airlines are overbooked, British Airways had given up our seats as we had probably reached the gate too late.

QF 32 the next morning was to be our lucky card. TC was grudgingly impressed with the overhaul of the Qantas flights, and while griping about the recent safety record (or lack thereof), admitted that the leg room and the entertainment system were decent – until we were told by the pilot rather apologetically that it wasn’t working. Only 3 movies could be shown at a time and while TC busied himself with “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan”, the only excerpt I watched throughout the 12-hour flight was the last 20 minutes of “Kung-Fu Panda”.

Our bags’ location however, remains a mystery still after enquiring exhaustively at every turn.

I write this now in the uncanny surroundings of what is termed ‘home’, at once a temporary and permanent place, unsure of the passing of night and day, or how many hours have passed since we last boarded a plane, gone through the numerous rounds of security and what date it was (is).

Commiserating people have come and gone, but it was horrifyingly mind-warping to hear my father proclaim this absolute nightmare a ‘good’ learning experience.

Day 3 – The Road Back

In many ways we were anxious to retrace our route back to Invergarry to finally see the landscape in the daylight, and take in all that we missed on the way up to Skye. The car was frosted over and we realised that for much of the day temperatures would hover at -3 to -1 deg under the deceptively sunny skies.

In many ways, we weren’t disappointed. Skye’s Cuillin Hills (its Himalaya lowland equivalent) dominated the Southern landscape as we headed towards Kyle of Lochalsh and the Skye bridge. I alternated between marvelling loudly at the hills and protesting in fright as TC wrestled with slow vans, Royal Mail trucks and annoying drivers.

Back on the mainland, Eilean Donan castle’s (literally: Island of Donan Castle) romantic air was spoilt by the reconstruction of its bridge, but its location on the picturesque Loch Duich made it a breathtaking stretch to drive through.

And then it was back up into Glen Garry, the scenic route that was covered in snow, onto Dalwhinnie for lunch, a place people stop over for its whisky distillery more than anything else. It was from Invergarry to Spean Bridge that our route differed – this time to Dalwhinnie, down to Pitlochry, Perth, Dunfermline, the Forth Bridge down to Edinburgh.

The default mode of stopping and taking more shots kicked in.

It was an organic cafe - something TC has always sniffed at – but it offered all the fuel our bodies needed for the rest of the way home. The photo-taking pretty much stopped after Dalwhinnie when we got onto the M9 back to Edinburgh – both exhilarating and terrifying to drive and overtake at 140 km/hr.

Of course, the trip would not have been complete without yet another round of getting lost in Edinburgh itself.

Day 2 – Skye unravelled

The morning in Portree began with a frenzied photo-taking session of the harbour from the room window.

Sated with Charlotte’s vanilla plums and the generous breakfast a little later, Bill proceeded to tell us that hordes of tourists queue up in front of their door, taking photos of the harbour.

“The second game we play is figuring out where they come from,” he smiled in glee. TC and I filled him in on the clues when it came to recognising Asian tourists – down to the cameras and the colours of their coats.

Breakfast was heavy, and we were soon on our way once more. A855 towards Staffin from Portree is a single carriageway (and at times a single road!), and an RBS truck and other larger vehicles hilariously overtook our leisurely romp in the Vectra as they looked in danger of tipping sideways.

I finally understood why so many people laud the ethereal light and its shadow-effects on Skye.

The Trotternish peninsula’s coastal drive exceeded our expectations, and we marvelled at the unfairness of the location of some Leadership training camp in Staffin as we made our way up the hairpin turns of the Quiraing, an spectacular and alien landscape of rock formations, stopping to guess at the kind of animal that could have made bean-like droppings. Somehow, the occasional scatalogical nature of our conversations never did diminish.

My words do the pictures no justice. We continued around the peninsula, and the highland bulls finally came into view. It excited me greatly, and TC was highly disturbed by my ‘unholy fascination’ and excitement with them.

Lunch took place at Dunvegan Hotel (we were the only visitors in this low season) and in the setting sun at 2pm, after which it was a short route to Dunvegan Castle, the traditional seat of the Macleod Clan for several centuries.

But we had more to look. Up from Dunvegan Castle lay a dirt track road to Claigan that was supposed to lead to Coral Beach, something that Charlotte promised was a nice and easy walk. What she did not mention however, was that it seemed to be a shingle beach and its walking track smelled overwhelmingly of dung.

“Gallantry is dead,” I remarked casually as TC hopped past a stream and ambled on. He turned immediately and grimaced, holding out his hand.

“That was just once! All the other times I did so, it went unnoticed!” He protested gamely.

The setting sun promised good pictures, but also meant that we couldn’t finish the walk in order to hit the road back in time. It was only later when we were back in Edinburgh did we realise Coral Beach had indeed a sandy portion, but we needed to walk 2 miles to reach it.

Bill commented that it was “quite a drive” that we had done for the day. Indeed it was – the route back was a single track road for 9 miles, a rather remote area uphill on which we saw a passing taxi (!), a lone walker and several other trucks.