Our Sarajevo

The voice of ‘Azaan’ or the first prayer from the mosque didn’t wake me up, so much so as the sound of the horn out of my ground floor window did. It was close to nine in the morning and I liked the feeling of not knowing what to do today. I had slept over many webpages of Sarajevo open. Top things to do, map, a day in Sarajevo, balkonology, etc etc. But when I woke up I just felt like walking out of the room without looking at last nights things. The morning started with, breakfast in a café, which had menu’s only in English and Turkish. Later I realized, this was like many others, a business run by a Turkish

The Bosnian coffee !

The Bosnian coffee is not so much different to taste than its Turkish cousin, maybe a little lighter, but its served with more intimacy, if you have it at the right place that is. I was here to see if Sarajevo has something that the Indian group would ‘feel’, but I guess it took me some minutes the night earlier to say ‘yes’ to Sarajevo.

With a ‘yes’ in me, it was easy to just wander around without a fixed objective. There were places that I had read about on Trip Advisor the night earlier and I was happy when one of them just came in my path. The Gallerie 11/07/95 .. and boom !! you travel back in time for 20 years, to the years of the Siege. At the entrance you are looked at by the 653 missing peoples eyes which follow you through the exhibition and the movies that are on showcase, do the rest. The images whether moving or stationary are a gruesome reminder of what a war is, and the fact that it happened in our times it makes you wonder, how can such a tragedy take place in the 90’s.

The undercurrents are everywhere!

The day earlier the visible effects of the war were the outnumbering damaged houses at the start of the border of BiH, but now with the human content, I could feel the warunder my skin. As I exited the Gallery (after 2.5 hours), I wondered if Sarajevo, is all about the war? ‘Felt like Istanbul last night and Berlin today’.

In 1993 where the city was cut out from the rest of Bosnia, the only way out was a 800 mtr tunnel that went underneath the airport runway. When I entered one part of the tunnel, I couldn’t imagine how 4000 people made this every day for two years. But then food, water, medicines and most importantly cigarretes had to be bought in the city. Actually the only cigarette factory in the city had a year long supply of tobacco but no paper to wrap it in. As cigarettes became the currency to deal in to even buy milk and potatoes, books were torn and old news papers were used to wrap the content to be smoked or any many cases just to barter with.

The city has a distinct feel. The ottomans ruled it and they left their descendants. ‘We are not the regular muslims’, my taxi driver said to me, ‘we have the best of both worlds, we eat all meat, we drink and we have a culture’. It is true, Sarajevo is a city of Culture with a capital C!

This year it will be 20 years since the Serbs, attacked and left, only to be just 30 kms away, where they live in their own republic Srpska.

Everyone lives now .. but they live with scars, that cant be forgotten so soon. I asked a Serb near Sarajevo, ‘will you go to Sarajevo to study’?, This is Sarajevo too he said, Our Sarajevo!

A Serbian Orthodox church .. A Catholic church .. A Mosque and  Synagogue all in 1 sq km!

That’s what the city signifies .. They all belong there .. The Serbs, the Bosniaks and some Croats. The old town maybe muslim, the republica Srpska maybe only 30 kms away. But everyone calls the city, “our Sarajevo”, just as they did, before the war.

Entering BiH (Bosnia .. Herzegovina) and the journey ahead.

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.

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.

Argentina - The Politics of Economy.

Barring a few countries in the world, like North Korea and China, a majority of the planet has democracy as a way of governing. There can be a lot of talk about how democratic this democracy is in these countries, but at least on paper these countries have an elected government by the people of the land.

Many of the countries in South America, have seen dictatorian politics in the past and there have been years of such rule which still torments the souls of those who have been through it. Chile, had Pinochet and Argentina had its own share of young men suddenly disappearing from their houses and taken in as political prisoners in the early 80’s.  Most of them never returned home.

Well, everything looks fine now until you scratch the underbelly of politics here. In Argentina especially, there has been a president who over the last two successive terms has seen through an economy going from not so good to bad and ultimately hitting its worst patch in the last one year. Its only now that the people here are seeing certain uplift in the economic trend, but offcourse this is the election year.

As a tourist I am more concerned about the exchange rate of the Argentinian pesos to the US $. In 2010 when I first set foot here, to change the $ in a bank was the same as changing it on the street. The peso was at around 7 back then to the US $. Last year in 2014, the peso lost double its value to the $ and though the banks official price was still at 8 – 8.5, the street exchange price or as the say here the tipo de cambio had gone to 14 pesos to a dollar.

Finance has always been my weekness but even I could make out that with the inflation hitting the roof at 40 % the people on the street were the ultimate sufferers. The president by 2014 had already made 3 five star hotels in the name of her family but the people of Buenos Aires who loved to eat out suddenly decided that it was becoming a luxury to go to a restaurant, or to drink the national obsession, coffee in a café. I remember my guide telling me that, in April 2014 she bought a bread, butter fruits and milk for 100 pesos. The next month saw milk being knocked out of the list and the following month saw bread zooming to an all time high price.

Even in the internal flights we took in the continent, the tourists all came from Brazil which is the biggest economy in the continent. I hardly saw any Argentinian taking in the luxury of traveling outside the country. So I was a little surprised, to see this couple from Buenos Aires taking a month long vacation and on board my flight from Buenos Aires to Doha. “We had it enough, they said, we saved for 2 years and at the end of it the cost of the air ticket went up by 150 %. I sold a piece of land in the countryside to take this trip”.

Running a restaurant has always been a challenging thing, but with customers dropping and rents rising, the restaurant business here in Buenos Aires is at an all time low. I had my people eat at a restaurant managed and served by two old ladies, who worked overtime and seemed really tired at the end of the day. I didn’t want to ask them, “why wouldn’t you keep some staff to help you with the cleaning and stuff”, instead for that night I decided to help them with the dishes.. It was not out of concern, but for the pure thought of feeling amongst them working.

Its not a common practice to tip in Argentina, but with the wages not going up, the waiters now not only say. “sir the tip is not included, ya” but also wait at the table after they bring in the change. For some this might be a little rude, but if this is the way they will make the extra buck, then it has to be this. The buck then gets that extra piece of bread at the end of the day or keeps the house warm for a little longer, and it is fine.

I don’t know and I am no one to proclaim that with the coming of the new government here, the economic scene will change. I hope it will but at least the so called democratic government’s mouthpiece, The President of the nation wont be heard saying. “Any person who doesn’t support the policies of the government is the enemy of Argentina”.

I wrote this in April this year but didn’t post it. I am in Norway now and Argentina seems so far away. Geographically maybe only!

Rorbu No. 200 in Nusfjord!

Before writing this, I asked myself, ‘have I already written about this place’. The Lofoten Islands in Norway!

Well if travelling for 5 years to this place and it still feels like the first time then might as well write about it like the first time.

In 2010 when I first stayed in the Lofoten islands in Svolver, I loved it. Then over the years as I traveled more and more in the islands the stay always felt less exotic than the travel itself. For, even the islands have hotels with a glass façade where you look out of the window and see the sea but you cant breathe the waters. The group tour dynamics are different and price and food has to be given importance too with the location or the actual authentic feel of the place.

Personally I have always disliked staying in hotels that belong to a chain, or staying in a ‘hotel’ at all. The uniformity simply doesn’t work with me personally and here is the only difference I make between personal liking and what simply has to be done for work to be smooth. I have to choose hotels with a ‘Scandic’, or a ‘Radisson’ in their name to make sure the rooms are available and at a good price. But out of all the ‘chain’ hotels I have stayed in the Lofoten, one hotel I always remember and it was the Hennigsvaer Brygg hotel, which simply means the hotel on the pier of the fishing village Hennigsvaer. The chain is not even a chain and the locals formed a group of hotels in Lofoten to run them in unity and well keep the local spirit intact.

That morning in the June – July of 2010, when I sat looking out at the sea, someone staff mentioned to me, “that’s what we call Rorbu, over there, they are fishing cabins” he said.

A Rorbu, I learnt later, is a  red colour cabin built at the sea. It is a shelter to help the fisherman get some rest after being at the sea for close to 12 - 16 hours of winter catch.  A lot of sights in Lofoten are decorated by these rather simple looking red color cabins. On a clear summer day, the reflection of the red house on the Norwegian bay makes for a more than perfect postcard view. This is all I knew about the word Rorbu till today.

True, Rorbu was only a word for me till today.

The Norway fjords are over on this tour and the Arctics have begun, and the very first night the ‘Rorbu’ made its appearance this time not as a word but as an experience. As we made the 6 kms in road journey from the E 10, into the narrow road towards the Nusfjord, I began to hear expressions of awe from behind in my bus. Awe and Lofoten go hand in hand I know but it wasn’t before we arrived at our place of stay that the awe was replaced by total exhilaration.

Rorbu no. 200 

The Nusfjord was in front of our eyes and the little red cabins were spread out on it. It is midsummer but the weather was not like that, with the clouds looming over us, the people started taking their pictures even before they got the keys to their rorbu’s.

“No. 200 is a slight off track”, the guy at the reception said to me. “You have to go up the hill and then down and you will find it where the nusfjord opens up to the sea”. I know I couldn’t give it to any of my 60 + yr old tourists and so I was the choice by default to go to this Rorbu no. 200.  After showing the way to the Rorbu’s to my guests I started making way to mine, up the hill.  For a moment I wished I had packed light. After following the road for a few minutes I simply decided to follow the waters that lead to the sea. Then a wooden walkway went inwards to two cabins on stilts. My key went through one of them and that’s how I knew it was no. 200.

The Cod Fish .. Symbol of Lofoten

 At first when I entered my Rorbu, I found myself exactly with the same expressions as my tourists. Then I found myself with the camera. It was only after I checked all the rooms and including the living room opening up to the sea, that I went to sit on the patio. The waves don’t make a sound in Lofoten, the silence has its own sound.

I was in a Rorbu! The owners were the same as the Henninswear Brygg hotel, I stayed 5 years ago at.

As I sat there I remembered the time when an American told me some years back as we both looked a huge cruise ship on one of the Norwegian Fjords. “You will own it one day”, he said. I smiled and told him I am not looking at the cruise but at the little cottage behind the huge mass of steel on that hill. He didn’t know what I meant. But I thought, if I ever do find that, I no longer enjoy travelling so much and want to be in one place, this is the place I would be in.

The morning sun on the living area.

This morning as I open my eyes to a clear summer day, I realize I am living in that thought. The Rorbu no. 200 is as close as I have ever been to living on that cottage on the hill. I started writing this last night, but I couldn’t find the inspiration to complete this unless I actually woke up to the morning sun in the Rorbu no. 200.

Such is Norway!

Someone from my tourist group asked me today, how many tours do you do to Norway? I said four! For a second I thought do I really have 4 tours covering only majority of Norway?

Then I thought about that day in the May of 2009, when I didn’t even know if I would be coming back here more than once or twice.

The Norway Fjords and Arctics, is something that came to my mind as I sat in my chair and toiled with the idea of doing  something more in Norway. I dint know how the itinerary would be, let alone the thought that an actual tour would be in picture in the same year of its initiation, and that too from my chair.

But here I am writing from the train which we got from small mountain town called Dombas, where we are connected with the train from Oslo to Trondheim. The last time the ticket collector was helping the people with the luggage was in Myanmar. He didn’t just help with the luggage but also played cards (gambling) in Myanmar. Norway is Norway and here it stays to the luggage. 

After two days of travel through the Norwegian West Central Fjords, I realized that how a camera is a useless device when it comes to the actual capture of natural beauty around you. I started my yesterday a little late coz I thought “I don’t want to go to the hotel for the evening so early”. I had no idea that the day would turn out be one where people even after being hungry and physically tired say, “ can we just be here for sometime more”.  It was still 30 mins and 11 hair pin bends away from our Hotel Aak, which has rooms named after the mountain peaks of the region.

Trolls Path with its hair pin bends.

Aak in Andalsnes, is known to be the first tourist hotel in Norway. So, we stayed in the first hotel that was ever built in Norway. Do I have to even mention that it had character.

The first two days of this travel took us through Alesund, Loen on the Nordfjord and finally the Geiranger Fjord which even though has 2 – 4 cruise ships coming in daily sometimes cant be taken off the number one ranking fjord in Norway. Brings me to a re thought on touristy places and how maybe I do finally have to go to Dubrownik some day. ;-). Dubrownik, the most touristy and beautiful Adriatic sea place in Croatia which I have detested going to for its sheer commercial nature and crowds pouring in.

                                                                Geiranger Fjord 

We have 5 more days on the tour. I was completely new to the Fjords in this area but for the next 5, I will be in my known world of Lofoten Islands and Tromso. I was a little worried about how the first 2 -3 days of the tour would go, whether it would be as beautiful as above the Arctic circle.

Now I am worried about what if they don’t find the north so much interesting. J

Such is Norway !