We were reluctant to leave croatia as it was so gorgeous, but I wanted to see sarajevo before we started to head north towards Budapest for the festival, so it was onwards to the border.

Bosnia and serbia in my head was mostly connected with the war, I did check that it was safe to travel there these days, I wanted to see what it was like now, post war. I also wanted to see Sarajevo with all of its history. We reached the border and seemed to get through the passport control OK, mind you we must fit whatever definition of undesirable that they have in  bosnia as they looked at our passports very carefully, scanned them, checked every page and waved us through. I thought we were home and dry, until we reached the customs post when after a lot of flummoxery, and language problems I realised that my car insurance wasnt enough for driving there, but that I could buy border insurance, however border insurance could only be bought at a different border post...that only takes a minute to type..but believe me it took a really long time with some slightly intimidating officers to figure it out....in the end there was a suggestion that we could pay something there..I am not exactly sure it was in the category of a bribe..and then we could be on our way. me being me of course decided I wasnt having any truck with bribes and so we turned around and headed to the other border post.

Now you would imagine that when you get turned around at a border that you just simply get waved through...wrong..you have to line up and go through the whole proceedure again, for the country you have just left...so back through croatian border control, drive to a new border outpost and then it all started again. This was a much bigger place so I parked and approached a likely looking customs chappie, asked him if he spoke english, he said he did, he listened and then said he didnt speak english and waved me away! Like I said we fit whatever description of henious criminals that there is in Bosnia, because when I approached another chappie..police this time, he put his hand on his gun..and I dont mean that figuratively. In the end despite being very cranky that I disturbed him, he spoke english and told me that he was on the croatian side and that I needed to go and find someone else....arrgh

In the end I found the right person and the whole palaver ended up being resolved by a princely sum of 14e ! clutching my border insurance in my hot little hand, we were on our way.

Bosnia is interesting..sad....but let me post this and tell you about it in the next one. I have already lost a long post through some technological ineptitude

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