Travelogue: Day 3: Monday, 6/26: Omis
We decided to stay for an extra day in Omis as we both grew fond of the city and the accommodation was affordable.Â
We rent a boat and rode in canyon of the river Cetina.
 Address
Lady D. Boat Rental
120KN/3 hours
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Travelogue: Day 1: Saturday, 6/24: Sarajevo – Omis
Transportations:
On Friday, Merima called the bus station to inquire information about buses to Omis and found out that the earliest bus to Split through Omis had only three seats left. So J. and I hurried to the bus station to buy our tickets. Often, domestic buses were not packed and I bought tickets before my departures. However, since Split was one of the favorite vacation spot for the Bosnians, and it was the Saturday during vacation season, more people traveled to the seaside.
Our bus departed at 7 a.m. and cost 17KM per person for a 7-hour bus ride, quite a bargain. Upon comfortably seated, I realized that I had forgot my passport. Out of a hopeless desperation, I turned to J. and asked: “Do I really need the passport?” “Get out! Get out right now! We have no choice. How are you going to cross the border?” He raised his voice.
I knew. I was only too desperate.
I remembered to bring everything: razor to shave those oh-so-lovely legs of mine, scarf to put in that unwise head of mine, mini locks and keys to prevent lowly thugs from quickly open my backpack, four panties, an extra one in case the others would still be wet, and many other necessary blah blah. Yet, I left my passport at home.
We exchanged our tickets for the next bus departing at 10 a.m. without any extra charge, except that we lost the two euro fee for our backpacks. While J. stayed at the station, I walked home to get my passport. Not rushed to return to the station right the way, I washed the dishes left over from yesterday and vacuumed my room. On my way to the bus station, I stopped by the nearby open market to grab a swimming suit, bureks, and fruits.
The distinctive mountainous landscape from Sarajevo through Mostar to the south western part of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), though I had seen many times, still had the power to bewitch and saddened me at the same time: the contrast between nature’ superior sights and humans’ debased behaviors during the recent conflict in Bosnia.
The first bus stop was in Lalajna, BiH where I ran into a colleague of mine and her four-year old daughter in a restaurant. They were on their way to Neum, Bosnia’s only seaside city in the Dalmatian coast.
Map interpretation
Bosnian’s seaside looks kinda strange as it has only 30 km of landmass. When you look at the map of Bosnia and Croatia, notice a small wedge in different color near south of the Dalmatian coast. That tiny wedge is Neum. Some of the Bosnians claimed that Croatia stole their seaside, using territorial maps from ancient time. When I asked a Croatian friend about that claim, she sternly looked at me and lectured: “C., look! Bosnia did not even exist for sometime. Some of their parts belonged to Croatia. Look at Croatia’shape (It is a strange up-side-down L shape). What kind of shape is that? Before Croatia was much bigger, but over the years, Bosnia edged in. [Picture] It is interesting to see how different people interpret the same object, namely the map of Croatia. S., my old roommate from Czech Republic once told me: “Croatia wants nothing to do with the Balkan. Look at its shape. It wants to break away.
And what is my opinion about the Dalmatian coast’s original and legitimate owner? I am not certain; the answers can vary depending on our choices of the beginning of history timelines. For now, I can only give you this information. I looked at three historical maps in chronologically order. In the first and second map, the Dalmatian coast was in Croatian territory. In the second map, during the territorial expansion under king X, Bosnia acquired the Dalmatian coast. [Picture]
When our bus was near the Bosnia-Croatia post, I asked J. whether it would be okay if I could bribe the officers to ignore my passport problem. You have to understand; I came from a communist country where bribing officers was the norm if not the must, so it was psychologically normal for me to entertain with the thought about bribing authority.
Our butts bounced up and down comfortably on seat a few hours more as we caught the first glimpse of the Dalmatian coast partly visible under the white-bright sun. I lived near the seaside all my life thus the sight of sea did not impress me as much as it did J., who was born and raised in inland Czech Republic. Exotic sea and ocean brought magic and drew out the twinkling wonders in his boyish brown eyes as he said: “It was amazing.”
“Now I know why the Bosnians flock to the Croatian seaside.” I turned to J. and said.
My excitement died out after some minutes pressing buttons on my camera to capture the coast. All my attempts were not fruitful as the bus drove fast, leaving me with blurred pictures.
The bus did not travel directly from Sarajevo to Split as we thought; instead it went through Mostar to Marcasca, another tourist city to the south of Split and continued to Split after passing through Omis. We thought that the bus driver would stop to drop people off at Omis as it did at other stops, so we idly sat and stared out the windows. However Omis was a small city and was not one of he main stops, and the bus continued rode through downtown to the end of the city until we rushed to the bus driver and asked him to let us off. Frustrated and semi-roasted from the late afternoon heat, we chose to ignore the 2km distance from where we stood and the city center and started walking back, eyeing for a tourist information to inquire about our camp. Sometimes old wisdom proved to be right: good things could come out in a bad situation. After walking for about 15 minutes, we saw the sign “Camp Galeb,” the camp we planned to stay. If the bus had dropped us off at the city center, we would not have seen the camp and spend a significant amount of time to find it.
We checked in with relative ease. There was no designated place, so we roamed around to find a spot in a shade, and finally found an open space between tents of the German tourists, looking over the beach.
We built our tent, took quick showers in the surprising full-equipped bathroom facility, and washed some of our clothes before heading to downtown.
“Wow,” I uttered, “cannot hide my emotion!” In my original plan, Omis was only a cheap stop for our main destination, Split. Camping in Omis saved us a lot of money compared to hostels and private accommodations in Split. We would stay in Omis long enough to find out information about Split and then spend all our time in Split, only if Omis was not this cute. I had not seen such city before in my life, small and thin coastal city surrounded by massive gorges.
Accomodation:
Camp Galeb, next to Studenac. 2km from the center. Located on the coast. Full of campers in trailers and big tents from Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary and a few other countries.
Cost: 310 KN/3 nights.
There is an inland camp called Lišticina near the center and cost only around 10 euros. It was much smaller.
Activities:
We stopped at a pub hidden a dimly lit alley to watch the football match between Argentina and Mexico. After the pub, we sauntered to the marina and saw the signs for fish picnic trips tomorrow. It cost 20 euros/person for a six-hour boat trip to three islands with fish dishes for lunch included. It seemed like fun and worth the money, unfortunately, we had to meet Lidia in Split tomorrow morning.
Then we got into a heated argument, the first of our many arguments in this trip.
Lessons learned:
- Do not wait to buy the ticket right before departure. Most of the time, the buses are not packed, but why risk it?
- Check for passport and do not even think about bribing the customs officers.
Addresses
Autocamp Galeb
21320 Omis
Vukovarska bb, Croatia
385 21 864 430
385 21 864 458
camping@galeb.hr
www.galeb.hr
Autocamp Lisicina
Lisicina 2, 21310 Omis
385 21 862 536
385 91 524 3222
kamp-lisicina@inet.hr
www.ac-lisicina.hr
Travelogue: Day 2: Sunday, 6/25: Omis, Split
Accommodation: camp Galeb.
Transportation: Bused to Split depart every half hour. Cost 19KN each way. The latest bus from Split to Omis at 11.30 p.m.
The bus station in Split was very close and can be seen from the city center.
We bought two bus tickets to Dubrovnik for 89KN each. Lidia told us to ask for the buses, which stopped in Omis so we would not have to return to Split, saving time and money. Turn out, almost all busses stopped in Omis since Omis was on the way south to Dubrovnik.
Food:
We ate at FIFE followed Lidia’s recommendation. This restaurant cooked typical Dalmatian seafood dish but was less expensive than other tourist-oriented restaurants in town. The huge risotto and grilled fish dishes cost 40 KN and 45 KN respectively. They were good for the money and the stomach. The lack of seafood in my frugal diets during my days in Sarajevo made me long for the seafood-based Croatian cuisine in the Dalmatian coast. During my last two months in Sarajevo, whenever I felt the urge of eating out, I resisted by telling myself, “No, soon I will be in Croatian seaside and waste a load of money on seafood.”. I was mistaken into thinking that my risotto dish was traditional Dalmatian food. Risotto originated in Northwestern Italian where rice was plentiful. It is made with rice, represented one of the noblest and one of the most common ways of cooking rice in Italy. Risotto is also traditional dish in Dalmatian.
Activities:
We met up with Lidia, whom I knew during my traineeship in Poland two summers ago, a true Dalmatian who was born and raised in Split until her leaving to Zagreb for school in the university. Before coming to Split, one of my roommates in Sarajevo explained to me the accents of the people from the seaside. (When the Bosnians refer to the “seaside”, most they mean the Croatian seaside as Bosnian has only 30km of the coast.) The Dalmatians speak lighter compared to those in continental Croatian and Bosnian. I asked Lidia to give me some examples by speaking some basic Croatian phrases. However, she said that she spoke differently since she lived in Zagreb as sort of picked up the new accent from this city. I mentioned the some Bosnians’ claim that Dalmatian coast belonged to them and that Croatia stole it from them.
“No, it was not. They, meaning the Bosnians, took it away from us, and we took it back, then we gave them Neum so that they have a place to go for vacation,” Lidia retorted. Her answer and manner were hilarious; however, I was not sure what would be the reaction from a Bosnian hearing such comment.
Notice the tiny yellow coast part along the Dalmatian coast, which colored orange. That city is Neum, the only coastal city in Bosnia.
I looked at ancient map of Bosnia and saw that the Dalmatian coast once belonged to Bosnia after a period of conquering and expansion. Well, if we consider history from this point forward, then yes the Dalmatian coast was stolen from Bosnia by Croatia. But if history is a string of events which has no beginning, then it is also valid that the Dalmatian coast first belonged to what is now Croatia, and then was taken by the Bosnian kingdom when this country was strong.
It was worthwhile to have the local tour guide like Lidia. She showed us around the city and gave brief information about historical buildings and events beside useful information for travelers. In awe with my newfound discovery about Lidia, later I told J., “I am surprised that she knows this stuff. When we met two years ago, she was into partying, drinking and stuff.”
“But she was not drunk when she was in high school, wasn’t she?” J. replied. “This is Europe; she needed to learn that information in school. Don’t you learn about art history in school?” J. asked.
“No, I came from an Asian educational system, remember? We are uncivil salvages from Asian, unlike you intellectual European.” I joked.
My roommate from Sarajevo, Ta. Sent me a sms telling to view Split from the Marjan hill. It was not a steep hike and took about 15 minutes to see the beautiful Split from below.
I watched the match between Netherlands and Portugal with great anxiety after Netherlands was led by one goal. The team has been one of my top favorite three since 8. In Vietnam, they were called “The Orange Tornado.” So much for their tornado-like attack, they have not made an impressive since their capture the Euro Cup in 1998. The great Netherlands player Marco Van Basten, who helped his team to that year title, was also the head coach for the national team in this World Cup. I liked the guy and really hoped his team advance. Not wanting to be late, J. and I took the 11 p.m. bus to Omis and did not finish the game. I was anxious the entire bus ride, almost sure that Netherlands would lose, and they did indeed to Portugal, the team which later won the “Most Entertaining” award. I have nothing against Portugal except for that arrogant and dirty player Cristian Ronaldo.
The city was amazing lit at night, but I was not able to capture the scenery, as I did not have my tripod with me. Tourists and locals flocked the street made us wonder about their whereabouts during the hot hours in the afternoon.
“The locals are clever. They hid in the afternoon and came out when it got cooler,” J. said.
Bare Czech and German airport
Czech Republic FOB
My new destination away from home, once again, is another Eastern European spot. Thrice is enough to make a wildest guess that maybe Eastern Europe holds one of the keys to my destiny. I am spending sometime here until July 24th when I return to the US for my contract job with an old company. In November, I will return to Czech, hopefully by then I have job offers lined up.
I was checking out the bookstore in downtown Prague, searching for a good book to learn Czech. Not sure which to pick though! I am not at all satisfied with my ineffectiveness in learning Bosnian. Czech will turn out better only if I commit to it. Also, I have three months to improve my Spanish as I am going to work with almost exclusively Hispanic co-workers who speak little or no English. For some reason, I did not makde any progress with my Spanish last year albeit it was not a difficult language.
I discovered something hilarious about the Czech and their liberal dressing style: almost not dressing at all. The first day in this Celakovice, I saw an old lady working in her garden in a T-shirt and panty. A few more step, I caught a middle-aged man wearing only panty while closing the gate for his wife. Yesterday, I visited the grandmother and saw her wearing just underwear with a see-through top. Her daughter dressed the same style, but with a night-gown instead of the see-through.
My question about Dusseldorf answered
A few months ago, I bought an air ticket to USA from Dusseldorf, Germany after many attempts to find cheaper airfare flying out of other major European cities, e.g. Paris, Frankfurt, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, etc. Most of the cheapest flight out of these cities shared one thing in common: connecting to Dusseldorf before heading to JFK, New York. I started wondering about the importance of the city, about the role it might play in Germany’s economy. You can read my previous post here. Today I got my answer.
In the June 2006 issue of “The Economist, Dusseldorf is claimed by Joachim Erwin, the Lord Mayor, to have the highest productivity and economic growth among Germany’s major cities and the biggest economic region. Dusseldorf International Airport is the third largest in the country with flights to 170 nations.
Travel initerary
Money
2KM ~ 1 euros (Bosnian)
7KN ~ 1 euros (Croatia)
100 Leke ~ 1 dollar (Albania)
Schedule
Saturday, 24th: Sarajevo to Omis
Sunday, 25th: Split, Omis
Monday, 26th: Omis
Tuesday, 27th: Omis to Dubrovnik
Wednesday, 28th: Dubrovnik
Thursday, 29th: Dubrovnik to Kotor, Kotor to Budva
Friday, 30th: Budva, Sveti Stefan
Saturday, 1st: Budva
Not yet sure
Sunday, 2nd: Budva – Bar – Ucilnj - Skodra – Tirana
Monday, 3rd: Tirana
Tuesday, 4th: somewhere in Albania
Wednesday:5th: to Kosovo
Thursday: 6th: Kosovo
Friday: 7th: Kosovo to some city toward Sarajevo
Saturday, 8th: to Sarajevo
Money and misc.
1. Low on money and spend a bit more than our original budget.
2. Conflicts between different travelling style. I insist in going to Kosovo while J. objects
