After a good day walking around Mostar, I left the city driving around Herzegovina slowly enjoying the landscape. I drove less than 100km that day… seems that I travel further on my bicycle. I usually cycle around 80-120km a day.. sometimes even more when the road is mostly flat and easy. But when the terrain is tough I do less than 50km. But now as I’m driving, I think I spent about 5 hours on the road but the distance I covered was only about 70km. I was slowed down not by the difficult terrain but the beautiful landscape in the southwest here in Herzegovina. The weather was good, a lot of sunshine and blue sky giving me a very good mood to enjoy the scenery. I wasn’t tired at all since I’m not pulling the pedal of my bicycle this time, so I took the advantage to climb some hills to get a good view of the landscape here.
I made my first stop in Pocitelj, a beautiful historical site sitting along the river of Neretva, that flow all the way to the Adriatic sea. It looks like a nice neighbourhood with a huge ancient watch tower on top on the hills. The town was heavily destroyed during the war in the 90s by the Croats forces but walking around the areas climbing the hill to see the surroundings, it looks like this place is forever calm like never been touched before. I saw bullet holes, some destroyed parts but the ray of light from the sun and the calm and cold breeze coming the sea of Adriatic and the sound of birds making this place looks rather calm and peaceful.
After spending some time there I kept going further entering many small roads to see where will the road lead me. Often I got stared by locals when I entered small roads, probably they are not used to see foreigners driving on small roads since these roads usually lead to places that doesn’t interest tourists. On late afternoon I arrived a beautiful waterfall called the Kravice waterfall. It’s a famous tourist spot in Bosnia, probably the most impressive waterfall in the country but since I came at this time of the year, I saw almost no one there… I was basically alone for almost the whole day. This is not the season for tourists. I stayed a few hours there hiking to nearby hills just to explore the surroundings. I watched the waterfall for hours, watching the drop of water followed by their movement along the river. It isn’t huge, only about 20-30 meters high but beautiful. I just kept looking at it… keep praising on the Hand that created all these.. the same hand that provides energy and allowing the water to flow from the high mountain towards the vast sea passing by this beautiful waterfall… When the sun was touching the horizon, I couldn’t move a muscle, I could only breath to see the beautiful surroundings… all under the last light of the day.
After I’ve been staying a long time in Central Asia, I wanted something new here in Bosnia… something totally different, just to refresh my mind. I want to see different kind of people, different attitude and listening to different language. But once when I bought something in a nearby shop… the woman said “cetiri piet sot” which means 4.50. “Oh you guys speak Russian here?”, I asked her. She said “Da… quite similar”. I then realized here in the Balkans, they speak Slavic language, similar to Russian. I guess I didn’t travel far enough then. It’s fine with the Russian language, its just that I would prefer something totally different, as I hope this trip will refresh my mind from my long journey in Central Asia. But at least this helps a bit, when I go to countryside… I will speak English first to the locals and if they don’t understand me I will switch to Russian… and perhaps they will catch a word or two which is similar to Bosnian language.
I finally decided to rent a small car, the cheapest car available and drive around the country. I think that’s the best idea to spend two weeks here in Bosnia… to drive around the country. I then found the cheapest car here at 30 euros or around 60km (Bosnian currency) per day. While its quite pricey for me, I can reduce my travel cost here by sleeping in the car at night so I can save on accomodation. And this is much better than taking public transportation. After so long I’ve been travelling free like a bird on my bicycle, I just couldn’t travel the normal way anymore, I just couldn’t be punctual to take the public transportation and let the timetable influence my freedom. Plus the access to places is very limited if I take public transportation. I want to go wherever I want anytime I want… just like how I do it on my bicycle. So I bought 2 books in Sarajevo and rent a small car… and the journey starts right after I ignite the engine of the car.
I then drove to Mostar which is only about 130km southwest of Sarajevo. The view is amazing and I drove slowly and stopped a few times to capture the surroundings on my camera. The road is winding and narrow but it’s a good experience. Traffic isnt so heavy and I think it gonna be great to explore this country on a bicycle soon. Everytime when I came across nice places, I will stop the car and start making timelapse videos… and start reading the book I purchased in Sarajevo while waiting for the timelapse videos to be recorded. I talked to many curious local people too along the way…
While I was filming some timelapse scene in one of the beautiful village not so far from Mostar, a local came and talked to me… curious on which part of the world I came from. We started talking and he said please take good photographs of this country and say good things about Bosnia. Many people thought that they are barbarians and the country isn’t a safe place to visit. I then replied that no one actually think that theyre barbarians and everyone knows that Bosnia is a really safe country to travel. At least us Malaysians… we love Bosnia and its people. I told him we had the same problems too sometimes. Lately my country always appeared in the international headlines for all the wrong reasons. Let it be politics, economy, plane crash or crime… but deep inside we are all a lovely nation. But thats a normal thing. The news seems to be concentrating only on the bad things. I guess thats what the audiences want… reading about bad things. Maybe not many want to read about the good things that are happening around the world. The news concentrates so much about wars and crimes… making the people having this impression that anywhere outside their home country isnt a safe place.
After a few hours driving slowly and taking photos on the road, I finally reached the city of Mostar. It’s rather a small and quiet town. Looks very peaceful and people are laidback here. I stayed in a guesthouse near the old bridge of Mostar. Woke up very early in the morning and walked around the town. It was so nice to walk around this town when everyone is still sleeping. I was practically the only person on the street. Climbed one of the hill nearby to see the surrounding view of the city… and sit on top of a rock for hours reading my book under the sunshine. It was great. This city has been badly destroyed during the war but no one here talks about it. People here are so friendly. They live in harmony now as I see it. Mosques and cathedrals are standing side by side. Sometimes I heard the sound of Azan (muslim prayer call) and sometimes I heard the sound of bell from the church just next to it. The food is good and cheap… probably even cheaper than in Kyrgyzstan. I stayed two days in this lovely town… exploring it very slowly… as slow as when I take my time drinking a nice hot coffee in a cold morning.
After I completed my short journey through the Tien Shan Mountains on my ski and snowshoes, I took a few days rest in Karakol, editing my film and writing my diary… putting my thoughts and all the things I experienced during the journey on paper… while they were still fresh in my mind. I then rushed back to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan to purchase a flight ticket out of Kyrgyzstan since my visa is expiring. I can simply cross the border of Kazakhstan which is only 20 minutes away north of Bishkek, but I got bored crossing that border, meeting the same immigration officer again on both the Kyrgyz and Kazakh side. I guess they are bored to see my face too.
I wanted to get away from the world of Central Asia temporarily, guess I stayed too long here. At first I was thinking why not go back to Southeast Asia, away from the snow and cold weather, maybe to the beach southern Philipines. Then I realized it’s a bad idea since flight ticket is really expensive to go there from here, while I can pay really cheap ticket if I go from my home country instead. I then began to put my eye on the map of Balkans, I had Greece, Romania, Bosnia, Crotia etc on my list and the flight is real cheap to those places from Bishkek. The thing is, its so difficult for me to decide where to go. On the day I purchased the ticket, I had either Bosnia or Romania left on my list. When I wanted to purchase the flight ticket, the woman asked me what is my destination… I looked at her and said wait… Im not sure… and a moment later I finally said okay… Sarajevo.
I don’t really know much about Bosnia. The last I heard about the country was when they appeared on the international news 20 years ago during the Yugoslavia war. When I went back home, I wanted to find some information about Bosnia on Google but I was too lazy to do it. I’m so used to travel without making any reseach beforehand.. and it always turned out to be great. So I decided to keep it that way. My thinking is simple, why bother spending time reading about the taste of coffee, while you are just about to taste the coffee itself… to experience it firsthand. So I just spent the rest of the days chilling with family and friends, editing my film and enjoy the spring in Bishkek. This supposed to be the trip for me to relax from my journey which means… no bicycle, no skis, no tent, no climbing equipments or whatsoever. I just gonna carry light, probably buy 2 books in Sarajevo and spend 2 weeks in Bosnia chilling, being lazy, sitting on the grass under the hot sun for hours and try to finish the books. Also probably make some new friends and try to gain new contacts here in the Balkans. I think this is a better way to spend my time rather than filling it with heavy itinerary such as visiting mosques, cathedrals, castles, bridges, ruins, pile of stones, rocks, pebbles, muds etc.
Sarajevo Old Town
So there you go, I finally flew away from the realm of Central Asia into the European continent… crossing 5 time zones. Once I reached Sarajevo airport, there were not so many people, not a busy airport, the queue to pass the immigration checkpoint is very short and its quiet unlike any other major airports. I just love it. Once I’m outside the airport building, I just sit calmly enjoying the the sunshine and not so cold weather like in the Tien Shan, thinking on what to do and where to go. After a few minutes I then walked to the main road and decided to turn right and just keep walking. So there you go, after a few minutes of walking I saw a signboard saying “Welcome to the Republic of Srpska”! Opss… wrong way… I went to the totally wrong way entering into Srpska so I turned back to the airport and took a bus to the centre of Sarajevo.
Sarajevo
Sarajevo looks like a normal city of Europe. Comparing to big cities in Asia, it has less skyscrappers, not so crowded, traffic is flowing well and the most important thing, the air is not so polluted. It is surrounded by hills filled with residential areas and snow. It looks beautiful. I stopped in the old town area to find a cheap place to sleep… and my communication with the local people started from there. That was when I started to discover things, by talking directly to the locals… to find out nice places to go, nice places to eat etc. I used to find information on guidebooks surely… it’s a great source to find good information on places but it also gives a bad impact. I realized most places that are listed on guidebook such as Lonely Planet tend to really increase the price once they discovered that they are listed on popular guidebooks. And things are getting more expensive from time to time… sometimes almost double from what is written on the guidebook. And also they receive too many tourists and this sometimes turned them unfriendly and arrogant. And this is also the same reason why I prefer not to find out much information online… since usually only the popular ones have information on the internet or guidebooks. To me, being friendly to the locals really helps… and they are usually very helpful by giving me great information.
lovely residential areas on the hills surrounding Sarajevo… just lovely… it melts my heart like a sugarcube
I then spent 2 days in Sarajevo walking around the city and climbing the nearby hills. I just love the neighbourhood on the hillside. The surroundings are beautiful. It looks like a nice place to live. The city isn’t too crowded, living cost is cheap, people are friendly and the location is just great. Its like the centre of everywhere, I can easily access to western Europe or the Arctic from here… or back to Asia since Turkey is just next door or I can even cross into Africa from here. This might look like the next potential place for me to stay for a long time soon after Kyrgyzstan. But whatever it is, I will not plan too much, time will give me the answer… As for now, I should gather as much information as possible while I’m here in the country. So far people are so friendly to me. I met a few cyclists here while I was walking on the hills making timelapse photographs and we exchanged contacts. It’s a good start of a short adventure…
hehe, a cool guy wanted me to capture 1/400 seconds of his moment into the memory card of my camera
i think i want live in one of these houses soon
Hello everyone,
I decided to share another short video for this month, this one is about the life of a Kyrgyz horseman who live at the foot of the Tien Shan Mountains on eastern part of Kyrgyzstan. This is a small part of my upcoming full documentary “Dengan Basikal Aku Menjelajah” (With Bicycle I Travel) Season 3 which is coming soon to our local Malaysian TV Station (TV AlHijrah) this year.
Shot almost entirely on raw format at 4K resolution with my Blackmagic Production Camera 4K, Canon 5Dm3 and the new GoPro Hero4 but scaled down to 1080p for Internet view.
This is a tribute video to the kind Kyrgyz people who has helped me a lot on my adventure in Kyrgyzstan and taught me so many things in life.
Filmed & edited entirely by myself
Music by Tony Anderson, The Impossible (www.musicbed.com)
Being long here in Kyrgyzstan, I got the chance to experience the Kyrgyz culture… diving deeper into their world… to see their way of life and trying to look at life from their point of view. Living quite sometime in Karakol town on the eastern part of the country, I got lucky to know some guys from a local tour guide company called Ecotrek. They got attracted by my travel stories, photography and videos about my journey in Kyrgyzstan and it was really a good opportunity to know these people since they’re local people who know a lot about their mountains and have great contacts all over the country. They helped me getting great ideas on my filming here in Kyrgyzstan. By using their contacts, I also get to know a local man who live in the mountain with his horses, who is also a guide taking tourists for multiple days tour on horseback through the Tien Shan Mountains. His name is Almaz, a good hearted guy, down to earth who taught me a lot about horses and the connection of the Kyrgyz people with their lovely companion, the horse.
Almaz with his horse in the Tien Shan mountains
After I completed my journey on skis and snowshoes in the Tien Shan Mountains on the eastern part of the country, I decided to pitch my tent near his house in the mountains, far from civilization. He live with his family here at the foot of the Tien Shan, owning many horses and a taigan breed dog… one of a type of dog who doesnt fear the wolves… a wolf hunter. He was so kind to let me into his home, into his family and getting to know them and see their way of life taught me many new things. Having a close relation with animals gives us a different perspective looking at life. Being a horse master, he takes care of his horses and they have mutual relationship. His horses depend on him as much as he depend on his horses.
He continues the lifestyle of his ancestors, the real Kyrgyz people who live the nomadic life in the Tien Shan mountains for thousands of years. He took many tourists, mainly Europeans and Russians to the mountains of Tien Shan on horseback between 1-10 days trip. He uses his horses as a transport to get to the mountains, the carpark in his home is filled with horses instead of cars. His family takes the horse milk to make kymyz, a type of traditional Kyrgyz drink… similar to yogurt… and its fresh without containing any additional chemical things. His house is small and humble… but surrounded by towering mountains of Arashan. It’s a beautiful place to live a peaceful life. I told him that he’s a rich man, he denied it, telling me that to be rich he has to move to the city. I told him that’s not what I meant, I said that he’s rich spiritually… he just smiled back.
Probably living all his life taking care of his horses has influence him on other things as well. I see the way he treated his children is unique… very strict but soft at the same time. He looks like a serious father… talks with a serious voice with his kids, pronouncing each words accurately with strong and thick tone… but very kind to them, seeing him holding and playing with his kids is lovely. He knows how to handle his kids and they’re very discipline and have a strong respect towards him. His eldest son knows how to handle a horse really well… a future horse master.
And this is the same as he handle his horses, he’s very firm with his horses but very gentle handling them… feeding them… taking care of them. The horses obey him as in they understand him… as in he speaks the language of horses. Sometimes I see the way people drive here in Kyrgyzstan, almost the same style like in Mongolia. Probably riding horses too much influence the way they drive. Some of them drive dangerously but I rarely see road accident here. They control their car well just like their horses. There are many animals crossing the road here and they drive fast but nothing bad happen so far as I see it… road accident is uncommon here. It happens only in big city of Bishkek mostly at night, but those are different cases, some are drunk drivers… and they’re no horsemen.
playing with his taigan dog, a wolf hunter
From now on I will be staying close with him and his family, he let me come with my cameras to film him and his life with his horses in the mountains. Only after a few days, he treated me like his own family, calling me brother… letting me to eat the same food that his family eats. Kyrgyz are kind people. They might look rough at first, especially the way they talk, especially when they pronounce the word “Jokh Jokh!!!” which means no… but once you come to them, giving them your smile and try to speak 1-2 Kyrgyz words, they will return you their smile and embrace you like one of their own. It reminds me of the Mongols and Tibetans. They’re almost the same if you ask me. Their appearance tells us that they’re probably rough and unfriendly people, but once they change their gesture to shake your hand, you will start think otherwise. I think I will stay another few months here in Kyrgyzstan, there are still a lot for me to learn from these people, before continuing my journey somewhere else towards the west. They survived for centuries here in the Tien Shan and know the secret to live in harsh places. I need to unlock that secret.. and the Kyrgyz will help me do that…
Diary Of A Traveller 