Croatia

Seeing as the rain continued I decided to head to Dubrovnik, which is in the very south of Croatia. Sadly the rain continued as I dragged myself around the old walled city. The city is beautiful and it is amazing how heavily bombed the town. When you look over the roof tops of the town the bright orange roofs are new (most of them) and the nicer rustic yellow are old and rare. Even during the rain the place was over run by tourists and quite pricey. I was again staying in private accomodation and finding it quite isolating as it had been over a week since I had a decent chat. If you know me that it is almost equivalent to having mz throat cut. :)
I decided to go to the Island of Korcula for my Birthaday as I had heard that there was a cool hostel there and yummy seafood. I arrived and found the one love hostel easily as the crazy south African guy Zee(how had had his 15min of fam on big brother SA and clearly thought his fam was world wide). As it happened 2 others had there Bday on the same day as me. One of them had organised a huge street party with free everything. I had a great night fun night partly as I had spoken to my family during the day.
I spent the rest of the week lazying on the beach, hiking, snorkling and chilling out. The Croatian waters are astoundingly crystal clear, but I was dismally disappointed with the snorkling and lack of marine life. Particularly, the night snorkel which I could have done alot cheaper by myself, GRRRRR!! I also made a day trip to Mljet National Park, which was the prettiest island, but I really didnt get long enough to get a good look. After a much need rest I set off for Bosnia. After three busś and two ferries I finally made it to Mostar. Mostar is a city of strange contrasts. It you walk to tourist cobbled streets it is gorgeous with lots of handcrafts and beautiful bridges and buildings. Two streets away and it is a completly different different story as you can still see many ruins and bullets holes from the war in the 90ś. I went to a photo exhibition that demonstrated that the gorgeous streets where obliterated not 12 years ago. The people were also quite almost withdrawn and to me it seemed they carried a heavy sadness with them.
I was up early the next day to catch the train to Sarajevo. The journey took me through the mountains and over beautiful aqua rivers. Sarajevo was similar to Mostar in its contrast but obviously more money was invested here. I went on a tour of the war and was the tiny tunnel that the population used to carry goods and weapons (kindly supplied by South American drug lords). The guy sunnie told an amazing story of the struggle of the cilians during the four year siege on Sarajevo and did not think kindly of UNs lack of action. I would have loved to hear a Serbian side of the story. So off to Serbia I go.