Bosnia and Herzegovina

Destinations in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Sarajevo Mostar

Bosnia is famous for war, genocide and landmines. That's probably why so many visitors choose to skip Bosnia and head for friendlier-sounding places, like Iraq. This is a pity, since Bosnia actually has a great deal to offer to anybody who is interested in nightlife, scenery or history, and in reality whilst tensions continue to exist between the two regions of the country, the average tourist has less to fear than they do in pickpocket-infested centres like Rome.

Landscape and scenery

The scenery in Bosnia is little short of epic. The country appears to be end-to-end filled with snow-capped mountains, forests and lakes. This is perhaps not perfect for fans of wide open plains, but most people cannot help but be impressed by what is on offer.

Government

The Dayton Accord, which finally settled the war in Bosnia in the mid-nineties, created a government which was a loose federation between the Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina, and the Republika Srpska. In reality loose is quite an understatement to describe this federation - the two regions even have separate railway companies. Whilst glacial progress is made in melding the governments of the two regions into a more unified entity, the EU continues to have a significant role in banging heads together and making things work smoothly. From the point of view of the traveller things work pretty much as they do anywhere else, with international institutions and conventions respected, reasonably effective local policing and a working currency and banking system. It is difficult to completely ignore the presence of international troops and widespread presence of EU and UN institution though.

Culture and religious attitudes

Bosnia is historically an extremely tolerant country. In the middle ages a large Jewish population grew up in Sarajevo composed of Sephadic jews expelled from Spain. In later times the Bosniak population (who are moderate Muslims) have lived happily with jews and christians of Serbian and Croatian ethnicity alike. Whilst the war has to some extent destroyed this, leaving a defensive and ethnically-monotonous Serbian state, the remainder of the country is broadly welcoming to anybody who respects their right to exist as a nation. Either way there is a feeling that the hatred and destruction of the war was more a temporary aberration from the normal friendliness of the area than a sea-change in peoples' attitudes

Currency and money

The official currency in Bosnia is the Convertible Mark (KM for short). The value of this is fixed (hence the name Convertible) at 1.951... Marks to the Euro. In practice, although most trading is done in Marks, and you will get Marks from cash machines, Euro notes and coins are almost universally accepted at a rate of 2 to 1 (meaning you get a slight discount for paying in Euros). As a rule of thumb the exchange rates to the Mark are approximately:

• 0.5 Euros
• 0.3 British Pounds
• 0.7 US Dollars
• 0.8 Canadian Dollars
• 0.8 Australian Dollars

Travellers Cheques:

Only carry Euro travellers cheques. You will need to exchange them in banks, where you will incur hefty charges. You are better off carrying cash or credit cards.

Credit and Debit cards:

There is little widespread acceptance of Credit or Debit cards except for high value transactions at places such as hotels or travel agents.

ATM Machines:

Bosnia is not overrun with ATMs, and they are generally attached to banks rather than at remote locations. You should not have any problem finding an ATM in general, and they will accept foreign VISA cards etc. Do not bank on being able to find one at the station or airport however. Luckily the habit of accepting Euros means that you are unlikely to be caught short on arrival.

Language

The population of Bosnia is split between Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. All of these speak very similar languages which before the fall of Yugoslavia used to be referred to as Serbo-Croat. Latin script is generally used in the Bosnian/Croat areas (including Sarajevo and Mostar), so you should only really have to worry about the Cyrillic alphabet if you venture in the Bosnian Serbia area. Even then, as with Serbia proper, use of the Latin alphabet becomes more widespread by the day

English is spoken fairly widely in Bosnia, as it has been normal to learn it in schools since long before the fall of communism. If you are having trouble communicating in English you may find the odd German or French speaker. In addition, Serbian/Croatian is quite closely related to other Slavic languages, so knowing Russian, or better yet Bulgarian will do you no harm

Shop opening

Shops are typically open from around 9 or 10 in the morning until around 6 at night. They will often be closed on Mondays, and may close for the afternoon on Saturdays. In larger towns and cities there should be no shortage of convenience stores and food outlets open 24 hours (indicated either by 0-24 or Non-Stop on the signs

Tobaconnists seem to be open until around 10pm, but with more limited hours on Sundays and Mondays. They will be pleased to sell you a variety of insanely cheap cigarettes starting from around half a euro for suspicious-looking brands, up to about a euro for brands which will satisfy even the most narrow-minded western tastes. Why not take the opportunity to smoke twice as many and bring death just that little bit closer?

Crime and punishment

Bosnia is in many ways a developing country, and it has a substantial number of extremely poor and desperate people. In such circumstances there is always a risk of comparatively rich people such as travellers being robbed. Exercise a little care, and try to avoid going out alone at night however and you should be fine.

The justice system in Bosnia is reasonably-well established, and in most cases the police force is large enough to counter crime, without being filled with petty officials looking to collect bribes. There is still a slight feel of border country about Bosnia however, possibly thanks to the patrols of troops, which might lead you to be wary of the police. The best way to avoid them is to take care not to be involved either as the perpetrator or victim in any crime.

Arriving by air.

Sarajevo Airport is positively tiny for a airport in a European capital. It has an interesting recent history as a focal point in the siege of Sarajevo, but unfortunately has a less interesting present with only a couple of restaurants and flights to less than 20 destinations. All the destinations are in Europe, and most are in the Balkans. There are no economy flights into Sarajevo Airport.

Arriving by train.

A daily train runs from Zagreb to Banja Luka, Dobov, Sarajevo and Mostar before going to Ploce on the Croatian coast. There is also a night train from Budapest to Sarajevo, and one from Banja Luka in the north to Belgrade. From Sarajevo you can catch the Budapest train and make a connection to Belgrade when it briefly connects to the Banja Luka to Belgrade service at Doboj. In general all of these routes are served by buses as well as trains, and the buses are usually faster and cheaper, so the trains are really just for travellers with train passes, or people who want a more comfortable if slow journey.

Arriving by ferry.

Bosnia is virtually land-locked, with only a tiny corridor to the sea between Ploce and Dubrovnik. If you want to get a ferry here, the easiest thing to do is to get it to one of these two locations and catch a connecting bus or train.

Arriving by coach.

Centrotrans is the local Eurolines company in Bosnia. They run coaches to various far-flung destinations in Europe, usually involving changing somewhere larger. For destinations within the Balkans there are a range of different operators running from Dubrovnik, Belgrade and Zagreb amongst other places. The most obviously useful destination is Belgrade, which has a service (7/day, 8 hours) from Luka Vica bus station (a short tram ride from the centre of Sarajevo on the other side of the river). This cost 12 euros in 2006

© Ben Stafford, 2006

Getting around by public transport

Coach travel.

Bus services connect all the major centres in Bosnia. Given the slow and patchy nature of the rail network, this is often the best way to get around. Unfortunately there is not much information available online about bus services, since they are generally run by a number of small operators, and do not always use the same stations. A good starting point is Centrotrans, the local Eurolines company. For more information once you arrive, check out the local bus stations or tourist information offices.

Train travel

Bosnia has only a few railway lines, although they do manage to cover a substantial part of the country. They are not currently in good condition however, and journeys are extremely slow. In addition the services are divided between two companies, ZBH, which runs the services in the Bosniak and Croatian half of the country, and ZRS which runs the few routes in the Bosnian Serb territories. Bosnia has now joined the Interrail network, so these passes are now accepted, although Eurrail passes (which are much rarer in Eastern Europe anyway) are still not valid. An indication of how few domestic trains run in Bosnia can be got from the fact that the timetable page on the ZRS website is actually a simple list of all the services run by the company.

© Ben Stafford, 2006

Phone

The international calling code for the Bosnia is 387.

Numbers are generally quoted in the form of a three-digit area code followed by a six-digit number, for example:

    053 322 812

Unless you are in the same area as the number (in this case the 053 area, which is Doboj), you should dial the whole number as written. If you are in the area you can omit the area code and just dial the number (eg. 322812). If you are calling from abroad you should dial the international prefix followed by the area code, but omitting the leading 0. (eg. +387 53 322 812). 080 0 numbers are free, whilst 09x numbers are premium rate.

As a visitor you generally have three options for making calls:

• Using a payphone. Call boxes are mostly operated by BH Telecom - the state-owned telephone company for the whole country.
• Using your mobile phone from home. Check tariffs with your phone provider. North American phones will not work in Bosnia unless they are GSM-compatible.
• Buying a Pay-as-you-go phone or SIM card in Bosnia. BH Telecom offer prepaid SIM cards for around 30KM each. Top-ups start at 10 marks (which will last for up to 60 days). At June 2006, SMS messages cost 0.20KM international and 0.10KM domestic. Calls to other BH Telecom mobiles are around 0.40KM/minute. Calls to Europe cost a little over 2KM/min and calls further afield are a little under 3.50KM/min.

Internet

Internet cafes are not as common here as elsewhere in Europe. There are a couple in every town however, so keep looking out for the signs, which consist of @ signs in the word "internet", just the same as everwhere else. Once you have found one the internet is pretty inexpensive - expect to pay around a 2KM per hour.

Bosnian keyboards are pretty similar to American keyboards. for the benefit of British readers that means that the "@" sign is above the 2.

Hostels

There is no Hostelling International affiliate in Bosnia, network, and a distinct lack of any independant hostels outside of Sarajevo. If your first stop is Sarajevo however, the hostels there should be able to help you find budget accomodation at least in other towns such as Mostar.

Food is similar to that in the rest of the Balkans, with kebabs (lamb-based Doner kebabs are the norm here) and Burek (meat, cheese or spinach wrapped in fried puff pastry) being the order of the day. Amazingly, there are currently no MacDonalds in Bosnia, although just to prove me wrong a branch is probably being airlifted into Sarajevo even as you read this.

Self-catering

There should be little need for self-catering, since restaurants are so plentiful and so cheap. If you do find yourself craving some hostel-cooked pasta or other tasteless rubbish, there are plenty of convenience stores, and market stalls for the more economically-minded. Don't expect to save any money this way though - restaurants and bakeries (Pekara) are already serving up the local food as cheap as it comes, and more varied foreign food comes at a high price.

Drinks

Beer

The local beer is very much in the Balkan style - quite light and sweet, and definately best served cold.

Wine

The locals throughout the former Yugoslavia only seem to drink wine mixed with cola (which is almost as disgusting as it sounds). Our French correspondent (who has the refined pallete for these sorts of things reports that the wine is so bad that it is in fact only fit to be mixed with coke. Unfortunately our second-cheapest-bottle-from-the-corner-shop correspondent agrees. Bosnia is no Bulgaria to be sure.

Coffee

Comes either in the turkish style, with the grinds still in the cup, or as espresso. If you want espresso-style ask for it, otherwise it is pretty much 50-50 what you will get. The actual taste of the coffee seems reasonable. Neskafa instant coffee is starting to make an appearance, but is still a premium product and hardly seems worth it.