The pearl of Tourism Herzegovina, Mostar!

The bus ride from Sarajevo in Bosnia to Mostar the principle city of Herzegovina, starts pretty bland. The bus timetable from the internet is not always spot on. But the difference is more or less under 30 minutes. My 1500 hrs bus (according to the internet) was scheduled to leave at 1530 hrs. ‘Cevapcici’ the national meat dish, of BiH, was a perfect way to spend the 30 minutes if you order a ‘malo’ (small) portion. But even the small, is big in Sarajevo! 5 to 6 pieces of mini sausage sized grilled meat comes in a beautiful soft, crispy open flat bread and is laid by local cheese and a generous helping of onions.

I was eating my way all through, to the bus. Chewing all that meat takes time. They take an extra buck for the luggage everywhere in this part of the world. It was still 38 deg in Sarajevo and the entire row of seats away from the sun were occupied. I need to mention here that even if your ticket bears a seat number, it makes no sense coz there are no seats numbered in any bus all throughout ex Yugoslavia.

As always is the case, the sun shifts once the journey starts, my only option of taking the ‘sun seat’ worked out well. The first 30 minutes of the journey and before the bus really begins its ascent through the mountains, is nothing to write about. It is only after the ‘Neretva’ the icy river flowing through the entire stretch south to Mostar shows its ‘green’ self does the camera’s of the tourists on the bus start clicking. Along with the Neretva, the ‘welcome to Herzegovina’ sign appears. Herzegovina, ‘The home of the Neretva’ the sign says. Geographical signs are good I thought, better, so much better than the political ones.

Herzegovina is the mountainous region south of Sarajevo and the Neretva to Herzegovina is the same as the Nile to Egypt I thought. It gives life to this dry and mountainous region. As the bus winds its way to Mostar, the river is a constant company all throughout, and this makes the journey very scenic. The villages along the way still bear the wounds of the war, but most of the houses have been re constructed and if the windows were open the mountain air even in +30 deg would be good to breathe in. But even the mountains, couldn’t make the temperature scale read less than 30 deg, and as I got down at the Mostar bus station, I realized, why they say, ‘Herzegovina has extreme of everything’.

The 'Stari Most' old bidge in Mostar 

I had decided I wont be visiting the places of war, but even so the 2 km walk from the bus station to my hostel, took me through a lot of damaged buildings. The sniper shots on the walls soon start looking like a design, a homogenous one throughout the town. I knew Mostar had the Croats, who attacked and not the Serbs, but war was not my agenda this hot evening.

The ‘Stari Most’ the old bridge is the symbol of Mostar and as I made my path to the bridge through the string of shops and herds of tourists, I had already lost interest to walk further. It was only after 4 hours more and a few rounds of wheat beer that I finally decided to walk the path again. It was around mid night and finally I could hear Mostar speak to me. The day tripper’s from Dubrovnik and Sarajevo had disappeared after their quick lunch and souvenir shopping and it seemed like the town now belonged to us, the people who stayed back.

The Nertva lined up with Restaurants, selling the view!

As night came, the restaurants around the river bank and facing the bridge twinkled in the Neretva and I decided to go down to the water level just to see how it feels from down there. Faint music from the restaurants combines with the sound of the flowing water and it has its own melody. Just as the right kind of tourism gives the locals a livelihood without them feeling overrun by the commercialization. Mostar at the midnight hour felt like what I had imagined. I would come to sit here again, I thought, as the only thing that pulled me out from there was to know if my agent in Sarajevo has mailed me the details of the transfer to Trebinje for the next day.

At midnight .. from down below !

Who knows with the current speed of development in Mostar, they might even have wifi on the river in a few years, and I wouldn’t need to go to my room to check the emails. But then why would I even come to the river.

Mostar, I hope has no more development and I come here again only before the mad tourist rush of June to August starts. The street to the bridge is full of odd shaped stones, and it would be good to hear my footsteps the next time I come here with the dusk falling on Mostar.