Greg and Mandy's Travels

There’s many things in life I can’t understand. “Knowing you, I can well imagine that.”, I hear you say.

Take tourism in Bosnia. Now, the tour guides and the AirBnB owners are terrific. The power of the Trip Advisor review is immense. They fall over backwards to be helpful, and beg for good reviews. It’s the difference between being successful, and being hungry.

However, the public face of tourism – bus drivers, ticket staff, toilet watchers, cafe waiters, and so on – fall somewhere on the spectrum between unhelpful and downright surly. I get that a constant stream of tourists day in and day out can be a pain, but without them they don’t have a job, and probably don’t eat, given that the country’s unemployment rate is close to 50%.

And here’s what I don’t get… Why don’t they make it easier for us and easier for them, so that they get less disgruntled visitors, and their job is more pleasant? Take the Bosnia Central Bus Station today. Walked to the station which took us about half an hour. Did what we always do – walked up the footpath towards the platforms – but no, not in Bosnia. Were told something quite firmly, though not rudely, in Bosnian. We guessed by the pointing that we had to go in another way. Perhaps they would have a sign saying ‘entrance’ in a few languages. After all, this is Europe. Nope. Waited a minute and followed somebody else around the corner and into an unmarked doorway. There was a guy at a turnstile ahead of us. Must be wanting to check our tickets before we enter. Nope. Wonder what he wants? No sign anywhere. More pointing by him into another door. OK, in we go.

We had already purchased our tickets, so I didn’t join the Ticket line, I joined the Information line. After 15 minutes she got off the phone, looked at my ticket, and pointed me to the ticket line. Confused, I joined it. After another 20 minutes, I got to the front of that line. She looked at my ticket, and asked for 4 Marks (about $3). Still don’t know why. No signs or information to explain it. Never happened anywhere else. Trouble was, I didn’t have any Marks. Wonder if there is an ATM close by. No signs of course, so off I went. Well, of course it doesn’t dispense just 4 Marks, and we were about to leave the country, so I took the minimum possible.

Back I go in the unmarked door, into the ticket room, and rejoined the ticket line, where for the next 20 minutes I watch a succession of disgruntled tourists find that they needed 4 Marks, and give the ticket lady a hard time. Especially awkward was the poor, young Chinese girl trying to buy her ticket. The terse ticket seller made a mistake and gave her too much change, and then wanted it back. She yelled at her in Bosnian English, and the poor girl was completely at a loss. Even we couldn’t understand the problem. In the end she emptied her purse on the counter and let the ticket lady take what she wanted. 

Eventually with our unfathomable 4 Mark ticket in hand we approached the turnstiles again. We were pointed to the open gate for baggage, and dropped our cases there, then tried to go through the turnstiles with our tickets. No, no was the pantomime. We looked at him perplexed. He looked at us annoyed. Eventually we climbed over our bags and went through that gate. Nobody shot at us, so we figured it must be ok.

At the bus, the driver ignored us, but eventually a ticket collector dude arrived and wanted 2 Euros to put our bags in the buses hold. No sign or warning of course. We did have a few Euros – in the bottom of our bags of course, so out of the queue to get them, and then back into the queue. An hour after we arrived, we finally boarded the bus and chose a seat. Nice bus, complete with a toilet which stayed firmly locked for the six and a half hours of our trip. No sign of course, and a lot of cross legged, disgruntled passengers.

Once we were underway, the ticket dude confiscated our tickets and hand wrote a completely new one for us. Whatever floats his boat. At one point the bus just stopped on the side of the road for over 20 minutes, and the entire bus was antsy. What was wrong? Had we broken down? No explanation of course.

Or take the border crossings. Today we went from Bosnia into Croatia, then back to Bosnia, then back to Croatia. That’s 6 police, customs and passport checks. Maybe. No explanation about the process, so a bus load of wary tourists were clutching their passports for two hours as police came up and down the aisles, even though only two of the six times they were stamped.

Now, I understand that not every country has to do it the same way, but it varies from city to city even in the same country. If you end up with a constant stream of annoyed tourists trying to do the right thing, but not knowing how, it rubs off on the staff who get grumpy with everybody. Just a couple of signs explaining what to do, or even where to go, would make everybody’s life more pleasant. Perhaps a list of charges, and a few arrows for good measure.

Like the Tourist Information Office yesterday in Sarajevo. A4 pieces of paper taped over all of her windows advertising the 5pm walking tour. I popped in to check it was running tonight. When she sighed and got off her mobile phone, I asked if it was running. “Yes.” “Here at 5pm?”, I asked. “No, at 6pm”, she said. ‘Not 5pm?”, I asked. “No, we changed it.”  But that’s just typical of the Balkans. 

So, we are now in Dubrovnik, and still have the 4 Mark tickets just in case somebody wants it tomorrow. You never know.

Finally got to the depot, and hightailed it to the apartment where our host was waiting with a big smile. Completely different vibe here. Smoking is incidental. Butchers are plentiful after being non-existent. Don’t ask me why. People are smiling. Parking signs are being obeyed. Yep, it’s a tourist town.

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