BIH, not BZH !

Hello from Banja Luka, Bosnia, Republic of Serbska.

Last Saturday, the concerts in Valpovo did start a bit late, as the weather was stormy and it rained around 8pm, but some bands could play until 1 am or so. They were a bit too heavy metal for me, not really punk, and i did not like them so much.
On Sunday lots of people who had comen for the festival leaved the camp and only the few foreigners staid. Merige, George and Paul left during the day. We cleaned the place a bit, went to some internet to try to plan our next days, then has a quiet evening in restaurants and then making a point about the week in the camp.

On Monday, without any real plan, Francois and I took the way to Bosnia, in direction to Slavonski Brod. The day went ok in a flat land, Slavonia, the northern part of Croatia. We avoided a few hills and took some gravel roads with no problem.
Arriving there we looked for a cheep place to stay or to camp. 2 placed told us 200 Kunas, around 15 E per person, and the second one did answer my question about staying around the hotel camping, but with some misunderstanding. I understood we could camp for free behind a stair in a hidden place and use the showers, when the man from the hotel meant we could have a room then put our bikes for free in the hidden place close to the stairs, then we could use the showers etc.
Because of this misunderstanding and as i was ready to thank the man by spending some money there anyway, we ate a warm meal there. Then when paying we discovered the misunderstanding and decided to leave and try to find a place to camp even if it was already night.
We succeeded not so easily but spent a good night anyway.

On Tuesday, as we still had no one waiting for us, we decided to go to Doboj, on the way to Sarajevo. We has our 1st impression about Bosnia. For me, I feel like a real mix between Europe and Northern Africa, and a bit of Russia. 1st there are the mosques that you see, then there are the legal fake CDs for sale, then later we saw some market where you have to enter through a small passage and then you can buy anything from vegetables to clothes.
In Doboj we visited the Fortress then found an internet cafe and could send some messages to people in Bosnia, to ask for meeting of hosting us.

Wednesday we checked the mail and decided to take a train to Tuzla to meet Alison.
In the train we had this strange experience of the controller asking us to pay 15 Mark, so 7.5 E, for our bikes, when our tickets for both people were 12.2 Marks... and we managed not to pay for this...
In Tuzla we met Alison, an American girl working for the Bosfam NGO there. We had a coffee and she could tell us about her work there with women from Bosnia whose husband have been killed during the war, and often in Sebrenitsa. She could tell us about Republic of Srbska and Federation of Bosnia Hersegovina, plus the other small part of Bosnia, as the country is actually still with 3 entities.
Alison could not host us in her center for women only, so we asked around to her friend for a place to put a tent, but no one answered positively and we only were offered a room for 20 E, so decided to put our tent in a remote place of the city in a park on the hill. We also decided to go to Banja Luka and be there on Friday as we had a host ready to host us there.

After visiting the city in the morning of Thursday, and saying hello to the Centre Culturel Francais and Pascal its director, we rode down on a main road or through industries to Doboj again, bought some things for diner and even were given some vegetables at the market. I touched me really deep in the hart.
We started our way to Banja Luka on a yellow road, following the train line, and found a place to camp close to the train line and some corn fields. It rained a bit during the night but nothing bad.

Friday, we took a coffee at a petrol station, then rode for 30km including a quite big hill, before Fran had a problem with his bike... flat tire with tire broken and tube too. We tried to repair, then changed with spare, and decided to go back to the previous village and wait for the train. For comfort we ate a hot meal with soup, salad, rice and chicken and coffee plus beer, for 7 Mark each. Than we took the train at4pm and had to pay this time for our bike... as we had to pay too for ourselves... 11 plus 15.8 Mark, more expensive for the bikes than for us...

Arriving in Banja Luka we found our meeting place with Isodora, but as she was working late a friend of hers, Verdrana, took us to her place where her sister and grandparents welcomed us. We could offer them a bottle of Tokaj in return. Then when Isodora came back we went in the city, which had an electricity blackout, and enjoyed some beers under the moonlight and its shadows, before joining a club where electricity was working...

Today, waking us and... plans to make... unknown plans...

Photos of the way to Valpovo here...