HYPER-TRAVEL, NESTING INSTINCTS, AND THE ETHNIC CLEANSERS OF REPUBLIKA SRPSKI

Fortunately Bosnia/Hercegovina has a local cuisine, presumably via the Turks, similar to what I saw in Kosovo, saucey almost curry-like dishes which, except for goulash, have names that I’m not familiar with, and are not altogether unlike some of the Muslim food that enters Southeast Asia and gets transformed into Thai and Padang (Indonesian) cuisine. In addition to this are moussaka and the local version of lasagna among others. Desserts include baklava and halva and others with difficult names, which should confirm the origin of the influence. Since I discovered the local cuisine and started eating actual meals- not in restaurants, mind you, as that would involve adding smoke to every dish- I realize I’ve been eating like a horse, and I don’t mean apples. At first I figure that must be because of the cold weather- you burn more fuel to stay warm. But mostly I think it’s just that I’ve been eating less simply because a traveler’s diet is so boring. Moral of the story: the boredom diet works.

We Westerners wonder why obesity is such a modern problem while trying to decide whether to order the cheesecake or the tiramisu for dessert. My problem is more one of eating cheaply and healthily at the same time. Eating small but frequent meal-ettes has been vindicated as not only acceptable but actually beneficial to people with weight-control issues. The problem is eating healthily. Pizza is not the answer. Fruits and vegetables are. For a hyper-traveler this helps control costs also. My friends rag on me about how I’m such a tightwad, yet at the same time so unusually rich that I can travel all the time and all the world, while they rack up three-figure bills at the sushi bar, wishing they could travel some day, too. Go figure. Do the math. Get a clue.

Of course for the true backpacker self-catering is the thing, but you have to have a kitchen to do that in style, or at least a mini-fridge and a microwave, almost standard features in US hotel rooms now, much to my approval. Next to internet, this is the most important ingredient of any good hostel. But what good’s a kitchen in an area that doesn’t have instant noodles or rice cookers? That’s half my diet right there. Of course there is a tradition that pre-dates hostels that still persists in some parts of the world and is also a good alternative to the typical businessman’s hotel.

I’ve got the killer deal on local digs here in Sarajevo, in-room internet and cable TV en suite WITH BREAKFAST for less then twenty bucks. Only problem is it’s not right in the Turkey Quarter, with all the other tourist turkeys, so I get malls and supermarkets instead of tourist sites. This place is a part of a tradition that pre-dates modern hotels and restaurants and clubs, when the local inn served all those functions (did you know that the first restaurant in Europe opened for business less then three hundred years ago?). Places like this still exist widely in the UK, rooms above pubs, though mostly outside, or at least on the outskirts, of London. Many even serve ‘full English breakfast’, aka ‘full Irish breakfast’ (don’t light any matches). Their existence may be in peril with the advent of later bar hours, since you could also drink late there if you had a room. Considering the post-smoking fate of many pubs, however, there may be a counter-trend of conversion to hostels. I hope so. Of course the TV here is mostly Serbo-Bosniac-Croatian with assorted European channels, but that’s half the fun, watching the Italian military weather and German reality TV. At least I’ve got the History, Discovery, and NatGeo channels, and for news I’ve got al-Jazeera. It beats Fox hands down. What would a time-lapse movie of this place for the last century reveal? Probably some things you wouldn’t want to see.

This area’s got some heavy karma to deal with, specifically the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990’s and consequent ‘ethnic cleansing’. I saw a program on al-J today about the systematic rape and imprisonment of Bosnian women, not as a random act of violence, which I had assumed, BUT AS AN ACT OF ‘ETHNIC CLEANSING’, TO ENSURE THAT THEIR OFFSPRING WOULD BE SERBIAN (a moment of silence please while I get a towel. If tears could turn turbines...),

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as if religion were transmitted sexually. These hate children are being raised as Muslims of course, and soon will begin asking questions. Aside from any slight ethnic admixtures the Bosnians might have gotten from the Turks, and the Croats from their Italian neighbors across the Sea, and the Serbs from their eastern first cousin Russians, the groups are indistinguishable of course.

It’s time for a new religion, one to unite all the others. When I mention ‘the war’ to my hotel hosts, they clam up like oysters, jaw muscles quivering. Who knows? They might be Serbian. The memories carry weapons; at least the future has some variables in the equation. For better or worse Bosnia & Hercegovina is effectively divided into at least two parts, the recognized Bosniac/Croat government and the Serbian-dominated ‘Republika Srpski’. I guess I’ll have to pass through there just in case they become a UN-recognized independent country one day. Is this what ‘Balkanization’ is all about? It sounds like a process for hardening rubber or something. Ethnic cleansing will harden you or something.

Sarajevo is not a beautiful city, but by regional standards it’s not bad, and has its share of bright spots, mostly around the ‘stari grad’ Turkish Quarter, all gussied up for tourism. The rest of the city is basically Bolshevik Modern Concrete Cell-block, but it could be worse. At least the apartment complexes tend to be color-coded. Of course it’s amazing what a little sunshine can do. The temps have hit a balmy 10C-50F the last two days after hovering only 2-3 degrees above freezing before that. It’s supposed to snow 5-8 inches tonight then warm up later in the week, maybe even ABOVE 15C-59F! Bring on the sun block! Of course by then I may be long gone or… maybe not. I’ve got about two weeks of travel left to accomplish in over three weeks, so I’m idling with the engine running, next stop either Split or Zagreb or Ljubljana, Africa pretty firmly on the back-burner until next month, probably Ethiopia and maybe Kenya, too, along with northern Europe. Ethiopia Airlines will pretty much give you another destination and a stop in Addis Ababa for little more than the flight to Addis itself. You heard it here first. I just bought a water kettle, so I’m getting domestic, wherever that happens to be. The Bosnian word for ‘signature’ is ‘potpis’. I like that.

All good things must come to an end of course. That’s okay. I couldn’t look another ham and cheese breakfast in the face anyway. Sarajevo falls short of a true epiphany regardless. For that I need to blend into a place, not just occupy a corner in its periphery, or just satisfy a financial angle. I need to be inspired linguistically also. Dabbling in Serbo-Croatian is okay, but ultimately just a primer for Russian. I think my hotel wants to get rid of me. The breakfast portions have been getting smaller every day. Then the Internet went out again yesterday, just like the beginning of my stay here. They’d already warned me that a crowd was coming for the vikend, but that I could probably move to another room; sounds ominous. I book onward passage. I also book that long-planned flight to Addis Ababa for a month from now.

I had planned to book on through to Nairobi on Ethiopian Airline, but when their credit card procedure glitches on me, I go back to the drawing board (Expedia), and end up booking on Turkish Airlines, with a long stopover at IST on the way back, something I had previously failed to accomplish through the airline’s website itself, all for the simple ADD price (and less than the Ethiopian options). A little less Africa is fine, since it tends to be intense, and I’m inspired by the Turkish element in Bosnia. Hopefully I can make the Black Sea loop, pending Russian visa. If that’s multiple-entry, then I’ll try to pick up St. Pete on the Scandinavia loop. Since I’m on a roll and my Turkish Air flight lands back at Stansted instead of LHR, I go ahead and book a Ryan Air flight connection to Stockhom on the same day. What the Hell, it’s only fifty bucks. This is hyper-travel.

The next day dawns clear and bright, a perfect day for travel. Finally I find the Chinese, their stores lined up on the edge of town, preparing for the invasion. Don’t forget the chopsticks. Soon we’re driving into snow of course. You don’t get out of Sarajevo without the ritual baptism of snow. It’s like Flagstaff, I checking the Weather Channel constantly. Its checkered past is like Mississippi. Then it hits me- this may not be my epiphany, but at least it’s my catharsis, forcing me to face up to the dark recesses of my own past. I’ve been at odds with all the places I’ve ever lived, so maybe now I’m trying to get even by going to them all. Catharses can be messy.

Somewhere along the way to the Croatian border we start traveling in the same downward direction as the river, the Mosques grow fewer, houses are occupied instead of vacant, and small garden patches under the till appear.

The postal drop-boxes say ‘Republika Srpski’. Maybe the Serbs are bitter at their own tortured past. The words ‘Slav’ and ‘slave’ are cognate, you know; now you do. Crossing the border into Croatia is like turning on the lights, cleaner and brighter. The sun comes out accordingly. We’re on a super-highway now, heading toward Europe, heading toward the future. Me, I’m still looking for an epiphany. Best bet now is Nice, France. It doesn’t sound very ‘me’, but then neither did Vina del Mar or Montego Bay on my last two trips. The future has an infinite number of mathematical possibilities. The past, well… the past sucks. That’s a technical term. Maybe I should go to Cannes instead, thoroughly mix my metaphors. Stay tuned.

15-DAY BALKANIZING, LOOKING FOR… ELVIS?

The bus is pulling in to Mostar, Bosnia and Hercegovina, scene of much violence back in the ‘90’s. There are a few touts for guesthouses there, but no Elvis, the guy who’s supposed to pick me up. I finally decide to start walking since it’s not so cold and my ‘motel’ is not so far. About then a car pulls up to a stop in front of me. It’s Elvis, no impersonator. I ask him if that’s for Presley or Costello. He says he assumes Presley. I tell him that’s too bad since I know all the words to ‘(What’s so Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding’. He’s not impressed. I tell him I’m also from Elvis Presley’s home state. He asks what state that is. I tell him Mississippi. He’s still not impressed.

“But now I live in California.”

Now he’s impressed. “Oh, California is very nice state. Mostar is like California, always sunny. We have famous song, ‘Mostar, California’.” It’s amazing the cache’ California carries overseas, especially LA, i.e. Hollywood.

I tell him I haven’t heard that song, but privately I fail to see much superficial resemblance. Mostar seems more like a Muslim fairy tale, minarets dotting the skyline, at least in the old town, with snowy peaks in the distance. It’s quiet now at least, after the Serbian reign of terror, a mix of old and new. Its big claim to fame is the old bridge, known as ‘Stari Most’, Bosnian for… you guessed it… old bridge. Elvis takes a detour to show it to me by the night’s light. It’s beautiful, sure enough, slim and gracefully arching over frothy waters. Elvis is having fun making detours to the ‘motel’, totally eliminating any chance that I’ll actually remember the route, but that’s okay; he’s having fun. When we finally get to the ‘motel’, it looks like a real place of business, not just somebody renting out some flats and converting it to a hostel. The three parking spaces out front hardly qualify it as a ‘motel’ in my opinion, so I feel justified with the quotation marks.

Elvis soon splits, having done his thing, and despite the fact that besides him the staff speaks little or no English, the room is killer, just like downtown, even a shower stall that looks like science fiction, bells and whistles, massaging me in places I didn’t know water could even reach, everything but… the heat. I can’t coax any heat out of the air conditioner no matter how hard I try, no combination of modes, temps, whatever… so I’m shit out of luck. All I really really want is just some heat in my room, or rather a room with some heat in it. There’s no substitute for that, and I haven’t had any since Kosovo. And sun-bathing doesn’t count. I thought I was leaving the cold by heading to the coast. It turns out I was heading into it. I’d rather have 0C-32F outside and 20C-68F in my room than 10C-50F average in both.

I’m looking for a place to settle down for a week or two, and so far I can’t find it. If I find nothing soon, then it’s on to Ethiopia, or maybe South Africa. My nesting instinct is as strong as my traveling instinct, perhaps heightened by the psychological competition. ‘Home’ is a constant search, a carrot strategically placed. I don’t know but what all my travels are ultimately about finding home, that place where I belong. On the road itself, however, temporary homes are nice, and suffice. Constant travel itself, losing self in the movie screen of images and sounds, gets old. It’s nice to find a place to kick back, buy some groceries, and wash some clothes. It’s just a matter of finding the right combination of low costs, good temps, and interesting activities. But being cold for a week is not attractive and the problem is not outside; it’s inside. Heat is optional in hotels here, like showers in France. 10C-50F is tolerable, especially if that’s the LOW temp, but not comfortable. They probably figure THEY don’t use heaters, so why should the guests? Get a clue- guests don’t have kitchens. Almost any heat source would help, but a TV is not enough, except to maybe dry the socks. I make plans for onward travel to Sarajevo. That may be my last option to kick back. If it’s not suitable, then I may bail.

Mostar is too small anyway. There’s not much to do besides viewing the bridge, dining by the river, and wandering the streets. At least the coffee’s good, rich espresso for less than a buck. Of course a single espresso doesn’t do much more than chase away the withdrawal symptoms for me, so I guess I should do double shooters, or quit altogether. Maybe it’s my imagination, but Bosnia seems friendlier. Maybe that’s what religion does for you, and there’s plenty of that here, both Muslim and Christian, even madrasahs for the kids. The Muslims have small graveyards at every mosque, complete with white pointy headstones, while the Christians have larger detached ones with black headstones. That’s what you wanted to know, right? It seems like I’m the only tourist in town. Hotels are empty and so are the restaurants. I watch TV and hear about AIG bonuses to greedy corporate pigs apparently being rewarded for their ability to screw over the very people making sacrifices to bail them out. I wonder if there’s a connection between that and the slow tourist season. Duh. “Without Communism to keep it honest, capitalism no longer is.” Maybe it’s time for socialism to make a comeback. Just don’t call it ‘communism’, since that’s a dirty word. Reagan’s dead and so’s his ‘revolution’.

Mostar shows heavy scars from the war with Serbia of 1992 and the racist policy of ‘ethnic cleansing’. The irony is that Bosnia and Serbia and Croatia are all the same race, with some notable cultural differences, specifically religion. Most violence is committed within the family, isn’t it? Unfortunately you can’t rebuild history like you can buildings. You’re stuck with the memories, and they die hard. The same is true on a personal level. As I sit soaking up afternoon sun in a Mostar Islamic graveyard I reflect on all the people who have come and gone in my life and wonder why. Then I realize how much time I’ve spent in other countries, a stranger in a strange land, trying to make sense of things ‘back home’. Is this what travel ultimately means?

Be careful what you ask for; you might just get it. If Beograd is cold, and Kosovo freezing, then Sarajevo is absolutely Arctic. If Mostar is the Islamic fairy tale, then Sarajevo must be paradise, virgins optional, with its snow and ice and lofty peaks. I first heard of Sarajevo from the 1984 Winter Olympics. Then I next heard of it during the 1992 War. How could it be the same place, fallen from the heights of international fame to the depths in such a short time? Racism/nationalism is a powerful force and ultimately negative. Religion’s not perfect, but it’s better than that. Unfortunately people of the Book are sometimes on a different page. Sarajevo is like the other Beirut, a modern progressive city brought down by sectarian violence, provoked by those who’d rather condemn than tolerate.

For all their faults, cities do generate a certain psychological warmth that’s attractive, in addition to the heat island effect, the warmth of anonymity in crowds. My room has a heater in it also, though it’s probably not sufficient for the large room. Still a large room is nice, especially with Cable TV and a double bed with breakfast for $20. Unfortunately the Internet’s down, ‘local only’, whatever that means. It means no ‘w’s, no e-mail, no half-dressed web-cam girls in the Philippines staring vacantly at their screens waiting for the signal ‘customer online’ while baby cries in the next room and Grandma tries to calm him. Sarajevo has a well-defined tourist area in the ‘Turkish quarter’, with plenty of budget accommodation, so I may move in closer if Internet stays down here. It’s not exactly Khao Sarn road there yet, but that’s good. I have to decide today whether to stay on or bail out, or at least I feel that way anyway. How can I travel Ethiopia in less than three weeks? I could of course if it were just Ethiopia, but not Somaliland, Djibouti, and Eritrea, too. Of course that’s no more countries to check off the list than I would postpone if I were to exit Europe early anyway, and Ethiopia is not a country to rush. Logic says to be here now. Something else says to get warm now.

My return date to the US is already set, unchanging inviolable, being a frequent flier freebie. If I stay then I get to study Slavic language case endings and conjugations, probably the most fun I’ve had since re-learning differential equations to teach them to my wife’s son, even if it didn’t ‘take’. Maybe then I’ll tour sites of winter Olympics, Innsbruck and Torino after this, just to back-fill some logic onto a rather unpredictable situation as if I planned it like that all along. Unfortunately the Chinese haven’t gotten here yet, or the few that have don’t realize the potential of their hot wok nor their hard work. Then I’d feel right at home. Maybe the Turkish ‘oriental’ cuisine will suffice. I’ll be looking for the real meal deal today. But the rugs are incredible, something I had no idea of, even after a career of dealing handicrafts. They call them ‘kilims’; I wonder why. I wonder if they’re really made here or just imported for sale through Turkish marketing connections. Surprise me.

Internet’s back up and I’ve got work to do. I’ve also got decisions to make, specifically whether to jump ship Europe and bail out to Africa while there’s still time to enjoy it. I can’t decide, so I try to postpone the decision creatively. There’s a bus to Ljubljana Sunday overnight. If I did that I could still get to Rome by the 24^th to catch my theoretical flight to Africa, instead of going to Rome via the ferry to Ancona. That way I can hang here another day, maybe longer if that’s the ultimate decision. This kind of non-decision can have further repercussions in my hyper-travel. Already planning my next trip next month, probably to whichever part of Africa I forego now, if I go at all, for a month with another month in Europe, but the most northern Scandinavian part, assuming the dollar holds up, which right now is questionable, since it’s slid sometime in the last week while I wasn’t watching… but I could at least commit half the way to London, which is where all the cheapest flights originate, and which has NOT re-valued against the dollar like that pesky old Euro has.

Coincidentally today AA sends me a special offer to fly RT to London before July at regular price $800+ and get 25,000 frequent flyer miles worth $250+/-, but now I find British Airways has a RT on the same dates for only $548 TAX INC and then I can continue on to either Johannesburg OR Addis Ababa for less than $600 OR BOTH considering the flight between them at African rip-off prices is twice that. Hell, I can do that. I’m always ready to commit half-way. Today’s the first day of spring and snow is falling here in Sarajevo. There is no logic. Which button do I push? The bus to Ljubljana leaves without me. I guess that’s my non-decision. I find a cafeteria line that’s got all the local food on display with names attached, so I can just point-and-click, learn as I go. It’s not bad either, Muslim food, and reasonably priced. I left Athens on 3-3. When I arrived in Bosnia two weeks later, this was my eighth country within that time, nine if you count Kosovo. What do I do now? I need a line, Trinity. At least it’s warmer now. That’s the nice thing about Internet. It’s warm inside.