I Go Slav, Yugoslav

As much as the Adriatic coast was beautiful and the highways of Croatia were an attraction for people eager to move about quickly, there is nothing like wading one’s way through the back roads of Ex-oslavia  to avoid paying tolls at those modern and EU-financed toll booths.  But pay did we ever at the border to Bosnia.  Why, one might ask, is there even a border between Bosnia and Croatia when it appears Bosnia’s territorial integrity is so loosely regarded by even the border guards themselves?  Who can know?  And who could have expected that this particular crossing, in the middle of nowhere, would cause us the most hassle on our trip?  

Apparently this border wasn’t arbitrary.  I refuse to believe that all borders are not arbitrary, but that’s about as post-colonialist as I am willing to get right now.  What’s important is how our hopes and dreams nearly came to a crashing halt all because the border guards to the Bosnian Federation could not read Albanian.  Harvard-educated though he was (/is), my chauffeur could not anticipate that there would be any problems showing the rented vehicle’s registration papers to the border guards.  Unfortunately for all parties involved, they refused to believe that the date of issue was not the date of expiry.*  So while he argued with the guards in English, I took this opportunity to hop out of the car and anger and alarm everyone by taking a picture of the ancient Turkish border post across the street.        

   

While the guards were up in arms and shouting and rushing over to me, I used my vague understanding of Russian to turn the situation into a history lesson and learn that for 300 years this has been a major crossing between the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires.  The border guards seemed pleased enough that someone was interested and I like this little distraction resulted in getting us through the border eventually with no fines and no hassle.  Garrett, of course, believes his US passport and smooth diplomatic skills allowed us and the car in.  But I think it’s glaringly obvious, retrospectively, that the border guards’ fiery dislike of paperwork is what truly carried the day, and we were free to pass without hindrance.  

We hit Banja Luka, the capital of the Respublika Srpska, a place you probably have not heard of (but if you go to Belgrade and look up tours at the bus station, it’s listed as its own country), which I think we can all agreed we liked.  The café scene was pretty impressive, the pizza was okay, and a friendly waiter warned us to stay off the streets after 11pm because there was a soccer game that night and soccer hooligans might mistake us for Croats and beat us up.  We thanked him for the hot tip and moved indoors.  

*A similar and arguably less-disastrous incident happened at the Bulgarian National Museum, where the matron would not accept my student card.  The fact that I was no longer a student notwithstanding, it was still valid until 2013.  To my luck, she didn’t care, about anything anymore apparently, and let me in at the 1/10 student rate.