The sign at the immigration
read ‘Welcome to Bosnia and Hercegovina’. There was no flag fluttering but the
colors of the flag were marked on the same welcome sign. Next, someone (me), in
the public bus pointed the camera to a water tank 20 mtrs above the town and on
it, was a flag. The colors of blue, red and white were fluttering in the air,
almost like someone wanted them to be seen and shout out from way up there. It
was BiH(Bosnia and Herzegovina) alright, but its blue and yellow were not seen.
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| The tri colors of Serbia in Bosnia |
I had read all about the
history of BiH and how a separate republic, Republica Srpska existed inside the
Federation of BiH. Still it hit me then, that things might be far from being
what an outsider like me thinks. I was waiting to read one more signage saying,
‘welcome to Republica Srpska’ but I guess the ‘only cyrilic’ (Russian) letters road
signs all through our first stop said it all. As the sun began its decent in
the west, the lights in the passing ‘not so characteristic’ towns, faded away.
When I woke up, it read, Sarjevo 24 kms, with a petrol station displaying the
flag of BiH. Welcome to Bosnia, I thought!
‘This year we are so full,
there are so many tourists in Sarajevo’ the lady still biting on her late night
dinner said to me from behind the make shift reception counter. The guest house
or pansion, had bumped my booking coz the lady thought that I would never come.
It was late and I couldn’t blame her for this. I was arranged to be shifted to
smaller guest house and ‘Noor’ the uncle came to pick me up. He kept on
speaking to me in Bosniak, and the only word that I could utter other than my
nodding was, Da! The car ride was a short one as everything is in the Stari
Grad (old town) of Sarajevo.
I soon realized that the
location of Noor’s guesthouse was far better than the one earlier and since it
was still 28 deg outside, I asked if I could have a fan. ‘Nema problem’, he
said and waited there with a smile. The ‘no problem’ didn’t mean that ‘ya I can
get the fan’ but, ‘sleep, and there will be no problem’. With the old town so
close I had to let myself out and get the first feel of the place.
The smoke from the meat
grills loomed in the air and as I got close to the maze of streets where the
smoke from the sheesha’s mixed with that of the grills, I smiled. I hadn’t seen
this combination since Aswan, Egypt in 2011.
The small bazaar wooden shops
were all closed and the distinct voices could only be heard from the small
café’s that were tucked in the alleys. A familiar language, Turkish was mixed
with the local Bosniak. If you have been to Turkey before then you will realize
that even without the Turkish sounds, Sarajevo still feels like Istanbul. A
much less crowded version of Istanbul, this was. It would take me 24 hours and
a lot of walking around to feel how different Sarajevo is and how much of a
character it possesses maybe much more than any city I have ever been to.
This was my first night in
Sarajevo and in BiH. I had wanted to come here for a long time .. I was just
glad I had finally made it.
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