Exit Herzegovina .. Enter Republica Srpska (Serbian republic)

There are pretty villages around Mostar, I had heard. The transfer couldn’t be arranged by the agent in Sarajevo and I had to visit a local travel agency the next morning to get me on wheels to Trebinje.

‘I was here, all through the war’ my driver told me. I would talk to him later about it but then in the first few minutes after exiting Mostar, all I wanted to know was more about the villages around. I also for the first time had begun to form an itinerary for the tourists in my mind. It was a little village of Blagaj by the ‘Buna’ river stream that gave me a real picture of how the day would unfold around Mostar with my group. I imagined myself, running around with coffee as my people just sat and watched the river.

Blagaj with the River Buna, the less populated cousin of Mostar 

‘They, Bonians catholics have an additional Croatian Passport, the Bosnian Orthodox have Serbian passport, its only us, the Bosnian Muslims that don’t have a Turkish passport’ and he started laughing. It was a good joke, a trait which all the people in this region have. To make a humor, mostly black humor.

A car with a BiH number plate after being parked at the wrong end was turning in a weird way and Ahmed, my driver was prompt to say, it is a Bosnian! I smiled and I realized he might be replying to the question I had asked him earlier, ‘what is the basic difference between a Bosnian and a Herzegovinan’. Brothers he said, ‘but they have it much more easier than us, and they take things for granted’, just as this Bosnian, who thinks the road belongs to him.

It was just 30 mins into the drive from Blagaj, when Ahmed said, ‘this is it, Republica Srpska, if you are wondering why has the sun disappeared behind the clouds’. He was now really getting into the groove.

I had read about Trebinje and how the old town still has more locals than the tourists walking aimlessly in its shady square. This, one thing was enough for me to want to go there. Many monasteries pass on the way to Trebinje, and the orthodox religion is big especially on the borders. Monastries, and then there are vineyards, and then more vineyards. ‘The wine, you have to drink it’ said Ahmed just as many of the guide books say. With the mercury still above 35, I chose beer over wine, in the afternoon and tuna over meat. It is a really calm this trebinje I thought, more calming was its effect on me. Why do you want to go there? some people had said to me, there is nothing special. True, it is not an eye candy as its big two neighbors, Mostar and Dubrovnik. Trebinje doesn’t shout out to the world, it simply exists.

The quiet old town of Trebinje

 I was happy I was in Trebinje, as the itinerary had began to take shape in my head and I could just spend the evening researching about how to go ahead with the following days. It was like a start off yet a mid point to my journey. , As I walked the square with just one hotel occupying half of it and the other half being cleared off the morning vegetable and fruit market. It was just what I needed after Mostar and Sarajevo, with no touristy place to be seen or to be checked out.

I can’t point exactly why does a crowd of tourists feels more repelling to me than a crowd of local people. I keep telling my agents around the world that people from Mumbai live in crowds so we like silence when we travel. Maybe Trebinje with a local crowd of people who had come to attend a wedding didn’t feel ‘crowded’ ,just full of people maybe. People having a good time without a care and not trying to have a good time by taking pictures and shopping for sovenirs let alone sitting in the square and drinking beer.

I like ‘one of everything’ towns. One square, one market, one church and also the one hotel, Platini, which is a no nonsense place, which as Trebinje, simply existed in its own space. Almost everyone who worked there came from Serbia and had smiles as they served, didn’t feel commercial and that is very refreshing. That was,

I guess my first impression of Serbia, Hmm, good people!

The wine eventually did come to my table in the night, but my appetite gave in and the wine had to be shared with the same waiter who had recommended it to me. Maybe Trebinje would just feature as a lunch halt in my final itinerary or maybe I will stay there. I don’t know. All I know is that it’s a kind of a place that just slows down the pace around, and in you. Sometimes that is all that is needed on a travel.