Time to leave the coast of Croatia! But first a little history lesson. The country is named for the two historical regions, the northern 2/3 being Bosnia and the southern 1/3 being Herzegovina. What the name does not tell you, and honestly I did not know this, but nowadays the country is basically split into two autonomous entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina – 51% of the country, and Republika Srpska – 49% of the country. (I obviously would have guessed that the two autonomous entities were Bosnia and the other Herzegovina, but nope!)
These newish regions, which are more like an east/west divide (but not really), are from the 1995 Dayton peace accords to stop the Serbia/Bosnia wars, as well as the Croatia/Bosnia wars, in which Bosnia was mostly the victim. I would be staying in the BiH part, but it’s perfectly free to travel in between the two. BiH is predominantly muslim while SR is predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christian. And then there’s plenty of croats around as well, which are Roman Catholic. On the whole, the country is over 50% muslim, and the term Bosniak refers to muslims living in the country. It’s a complicated place.
From Split I’d be heading into Mostar, which is the largest city in Herzegovina. The 3.5 hour bus trip was more like 5 hours, it feels like Bosnia is a little bit more casual about bus punctuality, and just things in general. The bus driver assistant person who was sitting in one of the front seats was leaned all the way back had his legs splayed up on the front railing, which in some places might be considered a tad bit unprofessional, but not here! We were getting in kinda late, maybe a bit past 11:00, which at bigger hotels it’s no problem obviously, but some of these family run guesthouses and hostels you feel like you might have to wake someone up out of bed to check in late! But it was fine, the owner was still up. I even had to time to go find myself a snack, burek, the popular Balkan pastry with meat or cheese in it.
First thing I noticed was the prices, much cheaper than Croatia. In Bosnia they use the mark and 2 marks = 1 euro. Which works out kinda similarly with prices, as Bosnia is generally about half the price of Croatia (or more), so in Croatia a decent meal would cost 20 Euros, or it would cost 20 Marks in Bosnia (10E/11$). I’d definitely be eating out more in Bosnia!
Bosnia’s most popular dish, like much of the Balkans, is the cevapi, small grilled sausages served in something like a pita, but more fluffier and bready. Plus you get usually get some onions cucumber and your choice of sauce, a white cheese sauce (kajmak), or a red pepper sauce (ajvar), both are pretty tasty. These cost about 10 marks or $5.50. Another popular meal is stuffed peppers, or actually stuffed anything. If they can stuff it they will, things like eggplants, zucchinis, onions, cabbage are things you might see on menus. There is a stronger Turkish influence on the food, which is a good thing! The meal above rightt, which is a stuffed pepper, stuffed zucchini, chickpeas, rice, plus some bread and complimentary tap water (it’s actually really nice to get free tap water in lots of Europe, they’re super stingy about giving people free water) was 8 marks or $4.50.
If I had to guess, these women are tourists
Bosnia, outside of Sarajevo is still a pretty traditional, relatively conservative society. In Mostar you see more full length dresses on women, usually older women, sometimes with a light headscarf as well. For the younger people, they pretty much dress however. Religion overall is not take very seriously in BiH though, most people are religious in name, but the vast majority of Bosniaks don’t follow the Quran very strictly and pray 5 times a day or anything like that. It’s pretty Europeanized. I’ve read that if anything the Serbian Bosnians are more religious than the Bosniaks. Mosques are mostly empty except during holidays and major religious days. Almost all the burqas you see around are tourists from Arab countries, which does drive a decent amount of their tourism. But the mosques and some of the Ottoman architecture definitely give Bosnia a bit of a different flair than other Balkan countries.
looking down the river from the old bridge
view of the old bridge from a little rock outcropping
As for Mostar it’s signature feature is the old bridge that stretches across the river, which used to be one of the oldest of it’s kind, built in the 1500’s. It was unfortunately blown up by Croatian forces in 1993. It really shows you how senseless these wars in the early 90’s were, not just the killing, but also targeting the other country’s cultural heritage. Pretty sad. It was rebuilt in 2001 after two years of research how to rebuild it the traditional methods, using similar rocks from quarries and also from the same rocks gathered by scuba divers from the river.
Mostar is certainly a cute small town, with quite few scars, although not exactly a lot to do there. I took a short trip out of town to a dervish monastery from the 1500’s poised on the river on a rocky outcropping. It’s also a popular spot to eat along the river. The one thing I liked was there was a good selection of salads (and not meaning some slice of tomato and cucumber and cabbage), there were greek salads, couscous salads, bulgur salads, woo! So that was my excitement for the day.
Another thing that I really like about being in Muslim areas is their affinity for smoking shisha. I would say drinking and pub culture isn’t as popular, but the shisha culture is certainly alive and well, with a few different cafes littered around the old town. It’s definitely the young persons hangout, which to be fair isn’t exactly the healthiest thing to do be doing at a young age, but hey, probably beats college binge drinking! And the cost is super cheap, 4-5 Euros, I bet it would cost 5x that on the Croatian coast. So it was a nice, relaxed 2 night trip to Mostar, I got some nice shots of the bridge, and next up would be the capital Sarajevo.