On to Belgrade

Riding through the long valley that makes up Sarajevo and its environs, little would prepare me for the suddenness with which Bosnia encounters Republika Srpska.The sudden, though inconsistent appearance of Cyrillic is jarring, but most jarring was the appearance of the people. Maybe it was just the unique crew on hand at the Serb Sarajevo Bus Station just outside the Sarajevo city lines (and barely a kilometer from the spanking new King Fahd Mosque, which was obviously not a gift of the EU). But the hair, teet:h, and weathered nylon jackets seemed to tell a story, though one I wasn't yet ready to have told to me in the few minutes I had before my Belgrade bound bus would depart.

While there is one daily bus from the central (Bosnian) Sarajevo bus station, the seven departures from Istochno Sarajevo, otherwise known as East Sarajevo and Serb Sarajevo were far less brutal schedule-wise than the central number that left before dawn from the central depot. Unlike the rough, depressed side of Republika Srpska (RS) experienced on the Zagreb-Sarajevo train route, the road to Belgrade begins with relentless, breathtaking beauty. It is still rustic, though the towns are tidier and have Tito-era midrises along with stucco-covered homes clinging to the hillsides. This is also serious ski country, perhaps with the best-value skiing in all of Europe. All cars in BiH have the same kind of license plate and there is now total freedom of movement across sectors, which makes a ski vacation here with a flight into SJ to a resort in RS very doable. As for the skiing: it was good enough for the Olympics!

That much being said, getting in and out of Sarajevo is not the easiest. Bosnia does not enjoy visa free travel with the US/EU for its citizens, though Yanks/Euros get through the borders without even a stamp. But this limits local-origination traffic that airlines like before setting up direct service. British Airways flies here several days a week, Adria and Croatian offer daily, Star Alliance services, a local commuter line called BH Airlines launched recently, and there is some other service from other European hubs. But Bosnia so far is off the budget airline and package tour radar screen. Bus travel, like train travel in these parts, operates on the principle of "same day service" rather than a quest for speed. Today, with the previous days' snowfall, the trip slows to a crawl. It's cheap: EUR 17 for a full day's scenery and entertainment that included a post-war Bosnian flick (with subtitles, but, alas, no apparent title) about Fudo, a cabbie and small-time gangster who decides to turn a new leaf to the consternation of all around him.Most interesting though have been the unannounced rest stops, of interminate duration. I can decipher cyrillic if I have a few seconds, but I don't catch the place names. So I don't know where I am. And I've been here with my fellow pax for a good half hour, a significant period on a journey that is supposed to take 8. But we're moving now...There are intermittent minarets here in RS. I wonder what stories they could tell.

Belgrade is the first destination that has truly scared me. I have a picture in my mind of a Slavic Bogota--cars running red lights at zebra crossing, clubs filled with desperate revelers zetzed up on Red Bull and Slivovitz, the local plum brandy that fuelled all parties in the Balkan wars. A place where one sees the ever-serious double-head eagle peering every which way from every which where. But I also have to reject the view that the Serbs are "the bad guys" in this region. Unlike the Croats and, to an extent the Bosnians (whose Handzar regiment was one of the most decorated Nazi volunteer regiments), Serbia strongly resisted the Nazis and the Serbs paid dearly, particularly at the hands of the Croats. Even today, facing international pressure to accede to the independence of Kosovo, which has an ethnic Albanian majority, the Serb claim to Kosovo upon examnination is no more ridiculous than Israel's claim on Jerusalem and the "West Bank/Judea & Samaria" or for that matter Ireland's claim to Ulster. In the former parallel, Serbia sees Kosovo as the source of the nation's history, theology and culture. In the latter, just as Irish Republicans claim that "Ulster is Irish and a majority of the Irish would vote to keep Ulster", Serb Nationalists claim with equal fervor that "Kosovo is Serb and a majority of Serbs would vote to keep Kosovo."

Nightfall descended as the bus entered the BiH exit checkpoint, the only place I saw the BiH flag since leaving Sarajevo for the duration of the trip. Entering the Serbian checkpoint, the border guard, with the intimidating uniform with the double-headed eagle and the Serbian cross on the badge ask the passengers to surrender their passports. As nervous as I may have been, I wasn't about to say no to this dude. And, fortunately, my beloved British passport was returned moments later. After an abortive attempt to show a Serb-Slovene flick about a color-blind Bosnian ex-con who likes to joyride trucks-the DVD seized up mid-film, a Bosnian film was then shown. It had no subtitles but it seemed a bit of satire as it showed the Bosnian flag in a number of potentially humorous settings, like on a character's necktie. The fact they were showing a "Bosnian" film on a "Serb" bus speaks to normalcy.

The sudden onset of high rises indicates a relative imminence of arrival in this former "imperial capital."