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TheTimes wrote:
A brave new world in Bosnia

Tom Chesshyre enjoys an action-packed mountain tour


the 120 year-old houses of Lukomir, the group's host shows off his rifle and Tom Chesshyre (left) goes rafting

WHAT’S that noise? What’s that smell? And where the hell am I? — are my first thoughts of the day as I turn over in my sleeping bag, which seems to be resting on a hard wooden floor.

I open my eyes. A foot from my face — alarmingly close — the tip of a roll-up cigarette is smouldering, wafting smoke across the klix room: the smell. I move away sharply and sit up, still (very) puzzled.

Then it all comes back. I’m in the mountains, in Bosnia. The cigarette belongs to Duran, our 77-year-old host. We are in his one-room hut. “We” consists of two twentysomething American tourists (Chris and Derek), two guides (Drasko and Omer), and Tim Clancy, who runs an adventure tourism company based in Bosnia and who recently published the country’s first guidebook.

It’s cramped. We’re lined up like intermittently snoring sardines on the floor. Duran is jockey-sized and wears a beret at a jaunty slant. He winks, smiles a toothy smile and offers a cigarette.

I decline. Sheep outside are bleating: the noise. I look through the window and see a pen of the brutes, fearfully anticipating their annual shearing, taking place on a grass slope overlooking the breathtaking Rakitinica Canyon.

Women in traditional dress (not worn for the tourists) are cleaning wool in a trough, constantly refilled from a spring. The smell of burning charcoal drifts across the crisp air. I walk through the village, population 50, to take pictures in the soft morning light.

This is what trips to Bosnia are all about — those that don’t just include staying at its pretty, recently restored capital, Sarajevo: roughing it in a stunning setting, experiencing a European lifestyle that has changed little, if at all, in the past century . . . and taking everything as it comes.

Tim’s company, Green Visions, offers activity tours of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the latter being the section of the country south of the Dinaric Alps (where we have been hiking), with a warmer, Mediterranean climate.

Yesterday we walked ten kilometres, rising 800 metres on Bjelasnica mountain to reach Lukomir village, at about 1,400 metres. Today we are mountain biking, tomorrow it’s whitewater rafting.

We have, in the space of 24 hours, become vigorous, healthy-living, outdoor people. We have eaten couscous, goat’s cheese and sweet peppers. We have drunk creamy local milk and Duran’s thick, syrupy coffee. We have blisters on our feet (at least I do). And we’re loving it.

“Is it heavily mined around here?” Derek asked before we started. The mountains we are hiking through were battlegrounds in the 1992-95 civil war between the Serbs and the Muslims.

“Yes it is — but where we’re going’s fine,” assured Tim, a 33-year-old American who escaped the United States a decade ago “because I couldn’t stand all that materialism”. He worked as an aid worker during the war, before starting tours and quickly becoming the country’s authority on tourism (hence the book). He sports a long blond ponytail, wears T-shirts, combat trousers and sandals, and has a laid-back, no-nonsense manner.

“There are mines on that range,” he pointed to the distance, “but we’re completely OK here — trust me.”

This is one of the reasons why Lukomir is so special. The Serb army didn’t make it to the village during the war, as it was so isolated. This means that its 120-year-old A-shaped houses — with cherrywood and corrugated iron roofs and stone walls — escaped the torching suffered by many other villages, most of which have been rebuilt.

Accommodation is either in huts designed for walkers, or with locals such as Duran, who proudly shows us his rifle and ammunition, posing as he might have when he was 14 and one of Tito’s partisans, fighting Germans in these very mountains.

“We were a good army, we were an honest army,” he says, recalling those days, with Drasko acting as interpreter.

The recent Serb forces were, he says, not quite so honest, leaving it at that. Recent history, we soon discover, is still very much a sore point.

Nino arrives, his four-wheel drive laden with mountain bikes. “Come on you guys, let’s go!” he cries.

And we’re off. Nino, 36, a former commander in the Bosnian army that defended Sarajevo, is a gung-ho chap. We’re soon hurtling down hills, rushing past grey limestone cliffs, dark green pine forests, gushing creeks, shepherds, buttercup and daisy fields, the occasional bombed-out farmhouse.

On a wonderful paved stretch, descending Visocica mountain at 40-65km/h, Nino draws to a halt near a spring. He points at what looks like a dinosaur’s footprint in the tarmac. “A grenade mark,” he says.

During a stop, he tells us about the war. “One day I was taking a break and a bomb exploded directly above me. I flew into the air, sucked towards the centre of the explosion, but the metal only hit me slightly on my arm. The tree next to me was torn to pieces. It was a miracle I survived.”

Drasko, also in his mid-30s, recalled his own near miss: “We heard the bombs coming and dived for cover behind a car, trying to grab some children near us. We didn’t all make it. Five children were hit. They were dead. I picked one up, still thinking he was alive. Blood poured all over my arms.”

Both Nino and Drasko have come to terms with the war. Nino’s attitude is “to take what is positive from the war, that it made me value life more”. Drasko said: “It’s made me appreciate nature — the world around us. That’s why I’m doing this.”

That night we stay in klix scout huts by a refreshingly cool lake; 48km of cycling has us bushwhacked and the dip does us good.

The morning heralds the next adventure: whitewater rafting. Goodbye Nino, hello Samir, a human cannonball of a man; completely bald, about 6ft 4in and with a giant belly.


Before long we’re in wet suits careering along the Neretva River, so clean you can scoop up the water and drink it. Deer dart into the forest as we paddle by, sometimes taking two-metre drops through exhilarating, challenging rapids. We don’t see any other people for the first three hours of the four-hour trip.

“Come on, paddle!” is about the extent of Samir’s English, but he cooks great sausage kebabs and proudly shows us a picture of him with Paddy Ashdown, the High Representative of the international community in Bosnia, smiling in a lifejacket.

On my final day, I meet Ashdown at his mirrored-glass tower-block office in Sarajevo (known locally as “Paddy’s Palace”). Tim, who seems to know everyone, has arranged the meeting. Paddy, as he asks to be called, is encouraging tourism to the country: “This country is not for package tourists — it’s for the adventurous. Go to the mountains, see the rivers. Peace has happened here. People should come and enjoy it.”

He’s right. Unlike its neighbour, Croatia, Bosnia does not have a coastline for the bucket-and-spade brigade. And who cares? There’s hiking, biking and rafting — and lots of talking — to Duran, Drasko, Omer, Nino and Tim, and whoever else you’re lucky enough to meet with a story along the way.

Prenj wrote:

TheTimes wrote:
A brave new world in Bosnia

Tom Chesshyre enjoys an action-packed mountain tour


the 120 year-old houses of Lukomir, the group's host shows off his rifle and Tom Chesshyre (left) goes rafting

WHAT’S that noise? What’s that smell? And where the hell am I? — are my first thoughts of the day as I turn over in my sleeping bag, which seems to be resting on a hard wooden floor.

I open my eyes. A foot from my face — alarmingly close — the tip of a roll-up cigarette is smouldering, wafting smoke across the klix room: the smell. I move away sharply and sit up, still (very) puzzled.

Then it all comes back. I’m in the mountains, in Bosnia. The cigarette belongs to Duran, our 77-year-old host. We are in his one-room hut. “We” consists of two twentysomething American tourists (Chris and Derek), two guides (Drasko and Omer), and Tim Clancy, who runs an adventure tourism company based in Bosnia and who recently published the country’s first guidebook.

It’s cramped. We’re lined up like intermittently snoring sardines on the floor. Duran is jockey-sized and wears a beret at a jaunty slant. He winks, smiles a toothy smile and offers a cigarette.

I decline. Sheep outside are bleating: the noise. I look through the window and see a pen of the brutes, fearfully anticipating their annual shearing, taking place on a grass slope overlooking the breathtaking Rakitinica Canyon.

Women in traditional dress (not worn for the tourists) are cleaning wool in a trough, constantly refilled from a spring. The smell of burning charcoal drifts across the crisp air. I walk through the village, population 50, to take pictures in the soft morning light.

This is what trips to Bosnia are all about — those that don’t just include staying at its pretty, recently restored capital, Sarajevo: roughing it in a stunning setting, experiencing a European lifestyle that has changed little, if at all, in the past century . . . and taking everything as it comes.

Tim’s company, Green Visions, offers activity tours of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the latter being the section of the country south of the Dinaric Alps (where we have been hiking), with a warmer, Mediterranean climate.

Yesterday we walked ten kilometres, rising 800 metres on Bjelasnica mountain to reach Lukomir village, at about 1,400 metres. Today we are mountain biking, tomorrow it’s whitewater rafting.

We have, in the space of 24 hours, become vigorous, healthy-living, outdoor people. We have eaten couscous, goat’s cheese and sweet peppers. We have drunk creamy local milk and Duran’s thick, syrupy coffee. We have blisters on our feet (at least I do). And we’re loving it.

“Is it heavily mined around here?” Derek asked before we started. The mountains we are hiking through were battlegrounds in the 1992-95 civil war between the Serbs and the Muslims.
“Yes it is — but where we’re going’s fine,” assured Tim, a 33-year-old American who escaped the United States a decade ago “because I couldn’t stand all that materialism”. He worked as an aid worker during the war, before starting tours and quickly becoming the country’s authority on tourism (hence the book). He sports a long blond ponytail, wears T-shirts, combat trousers and sandals, and has a laid-back, no-nonsense manner.

“There are mines on that range,” he pointed to the distance, “but we’re completely OK here — trust me.”

This is one of the reasons why Lukomir is so special. The Serb army didn’t make it to the village during the war, as it was so isolated. This means that its 120-year-old A-shaped houses — with cherrywood and corrugated iron roofs and stone walls — escaped the torching suffered by many other villages, most of which have been rebuilt.

Accommodation is either in huts designed for walkers, or with locals such as Duran, who proudly shows us his rifle and ammunition, posing as he might have when he was 14 and one of Tito’s partisans, fighting Germans in these very mountains.

“We were a good army, we were an honest army,” he says, recalling those days, with Drasko acting as interpreter.

The recent Serb forces were, he says, not quite so honest, leaving it at that. Recent history, we soon discover, is still very much a sore point.

Nino arrives, his four-wheel drive laden with mountain bikes. “Come on you guys, let’s go!” he cries.

And we’re off. Nino, 36, a former commander in the Bosnian army that defended Sarajevo, is a gung-ho chap. We’re soon hurtling down hills, rushing past grey limestone cliffs, dark green pine forests, gushing creeks, shepherds, buttercup and daisy fields, the occasional bombed-out farmhouse.

On a wonderful paved stretch, descending Visocica mountain at 40-65km/h, Nino draws to a halt near a spring. He points at what looks like a dinosaur’s footprint in the tarmac. “A grenade mark,” he says.

During a stop, he tells us about the war. “One day I was taking a break and a bomb exploded directly above me. I flew into the air, sucked towards the centre of the explosion, but the metal only hit me slightly on my arm. The tree next to me was torn to pieces. It was a miracle I survived.”

Drasko, also in his mid-30s, recalled his own near miss: “We heard the bombs coming and dived for cover behind a car, trying to grab some children near us. We didn’t all make it. Five children were hit. They were dead. I picked one up, still thinking he was alive. Blood poured all over my arms.”

Both Nino and Drasko have come to terms with the war. Nino’s attitude is “to take what is positive from the war, that it made me value life more”. Drasko said: “It’s made me appreciate nature — the world around us. That’s why I’m doing this.”

That night we stay in klix scout huts by a refreshingly cool lake; 48km of cycling has us bushwhacked and the dip does us good.

The morning heralds the next adventure: whitewater rafting. Goodbye Nino, hello Samir, a human cannonball of a man; completely bald, about 6ft 4in and with a giant belly.


Before long we’re in wet suits careering along the Neretva River, so clean you can scoop up the water and drink it. Deer dart into the forest as we paddle by, sometimes taking two-metre drops through exhilarating, challenging rapids. We don’t see any other people for the first three hours of the four-hour trip.

“Come on, paddle!” is about the extent of Samir’s English, but he cooks great sausage kebabs and proudly shows us a picture of him with Paddy Ashdown, the High Representative of the international community in Bosnia, smiling in a lifejacket.

On my final day, I meet Ashdown at his mirrored-glass tower-block office in Sarajevo (known locally as “Paddy’s Palace”). Tim, who seems to know everyone, has arranged the meeting. Paddy, as he asks to be called, is encouraging tourism to the country: “This country is not for package tourists — it’s for the adventurous. Go to the mountains, see the rivers. Peace has happened here. People should come and enjoy it.”

He’s right. Unlike its neighbour, Croatia, Bosnia does not have a coastline for the bucket-and-spade brigade. And who cares? There’s hiking, biking and rafting — and lots of talking — to Duran, Drasko, Omer, Nino and Tim, and whoever else you’re lucky enough to meet with a story along the way.

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