DAY 28 and DAY 29 and DAY 30

Trogir –>Mostar –>Dubrovnik

5th -7th October

Trogir, Croatia

Trogir Harbour

The day started with Amy and Bharat bringing the vehicles round to our Trogir accommodation. To get to the door, the two had to go through a parking barrier and take a ticket. Once Bharat had his ticket, he sailed on off into the distance leaving Amy and the tuktuk behind the barrier. Amy pressed the ticket machine button and up flashed “No ticket without vehicle”. Amy pressed it another 10 times only for it to elicit the same response. By this point 15 vehicles were backed up behind the tuk tuk honking impatiently and so Amy took the unrealistic decision to try and squeeze the tuk tuk through the gap between the barrier and the pavement. With a crowd now watching, a plan destined to fail, and Bharat, Rachel and James with their popcorn out, the pressure got to her and she bashed the wing mirror of the tuktuk against the barrier (which is now very loose) and before you could say “tuk tuk” the barrier was poking through the tuktuk “door”. Sheepishly, Amy reversed back to safety and got out to sound the alarm, furious as she saw Bharat revelling in her failure. With a queue now backed up along the whole seafront, the ticket man had no option but to let Amy through ticketless.

Trogir fiasco over, we took the main dual carriage way past Split where there is not one inch of undeveloped land and a lot of half-built apartments named after infamous Russian officials. Later, once the road had quietened and it became less built up, we stopped for a DIY sandwich in a town that had been completely abandoned for winter, except for a nasty wasp that stung Bharat.

At the Croatia-Bosnia & Herzegovina border we were met by the border guards, who laughed hysterically at the tuk tuk. The border was a breeze with none of the queues we had been warned about and we were pleasantly surprised not to be ripped off buying our tuk tuk insurance – nobody would insure us for non-EU countries so we have to buy it on the border for each country to come. What it’s actually worth if we crash is anyone’s guess! Into the mountains of Bosnia and Herzegovina (from now on “BiH”) we went. The scenery was different to what we’ve seen before, huge, often barren mountains that bordered wide, completely flat valleys below. From holiday homes lining every road in Croatia we now had hundreds of roadside businesses – people selling tyres, chopped wood, shovels, cleaning materials, machinery, fruit and veg – sometimes from a shop front, but often out the back of their car on the side of the road. It really reminded us of Kenya. The drive down into Mostar was dramatic, not just because you drive down a very steep slope into the city but because we had many kamikaze drivers overtaking us on treacherous corners.

Drone footage of the Old bridge at Mostar, Bosnia & Herzogovina

Mostar in the early morning by drone

We loved our time in Mostar – it is a city of juxtapositions: there’s a very prominent, large white cross on the top of the hill that overlooks the many beautiful mosques and minarets of Mostar below, the very beautiful old town is just meters away from buildings bullet ridden from the war; cheesy tourist traps are next to poignant murals and memorials reminding the people of Mostar not to forget ’93-’95; very old, traditional locals are sat amongst a modern, ultra-fashionable youth. It is a fascinating place and we wanted to stay longer so we could start to scratch the surface of what happened there and, more generally, get to grip with the complicated history of the Balkan states.

Rach on the Old Bridge, Mostar, Bosnia & Herzogovina

After a night and a morning wandering the streets of Mostar, Bharat with his gimbal/dongle/dingle and Amy and James on the drone, we left for Dubrovnik and the prospect of free 3G once again. We had a quick wander around Počitelj – an old medieval fortress town – which had thousands of pomegranate trees as well as impressive ruins. The tuk tuk and support car are not built for off road driving and as we tried to work our way back to our route we found ourselves on a rocky dirt track, trying not to tear the tyres as we climbed up and over a completely deserted hillside – James elevating cortisol levels further by talking about dormant land mines in the BiH hills.

Tuk Tuk in the Bosnian mountains where we saw barely a soul

The scenery on our route to Croatia was genuinely stunning – unlike other countries where you have main roads traversing the countryside, BiH has tarmac tracks leading through the mountains making it feel much more remote and much more like an adventure. It didn’t ruin it at all, but we couldn’t help but notice how much litter there was everywhere. If anyone’s looking for a business venture – rubbish collection in Bosnia & Herzegovina could be the next big thing – you can thank us later.

Back to Croatia, over the border and on to somewhere “near” Dubrovnik. We were there for 2 nights so we could do some washing and do some much needed life-admin, but we quickly realised we would spend 80% of our time in the local Croatian laundrette and café as the place we stayed in was both WiFi and washing machine-less, much to Rachel’s disgruntlement.

Dubrovnik old town is magical – that is, after all the cruise ships of Americans have left in the afternoon. We were tempted to do a Game of Thrones tour (i.e. Kings Landing for those of you who have watched), but decided that we couldn’t be “those people”, so instead we relied on our resident tour guide, James. James likes to read about each place before we arrive and then tries to nonchalantly pass off Wikipedia knowledge as his own. We haven’t tested the veracity of what he tells us, but there’s a high chance we’ll need to revisit everywhere again to glean the real story.

James in tour guide mode

Highlight of all the days: The people of Bosnia & Herzegovina LOVED the tuktuk. We couldn’t drive more than 5 meters without people smiling, waving and taking pictures. It’s been the best reception the tuk tuk has had on this trip and it made us all feel very welcomed! If anything, drivers spent too much time looking at Sumo when they should have been focused on the mountain roads and hairpin bends!

Sponsors:

Bosnia & Herzegovina: Sushila’s Pickles

If you one of our Kenyan followers then you really need to try Sushila’s homemade cookies and pickles. We have been saved by her biscuits when starving and miles from anywhere in the Bosnian mountains and Bharat has enjoyed the pickles on toast for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Take a look at their website: http://sushilas.co.ke/

Sushila’s cookies stave off starvation in the Bosnian Mountains

Croatia: Le Creuset

Le Creuset’s original and most well known range of products is its cast iron range. Cast iron has been used as “the” material for cooking pots since Roman times. Even with today’s wide choice of cooking materials, cast iron, still forged and crafted by hand, reigns supreme with its versatility, good looks and ability to retain and spread heat evenly. The tuk tuk team all cook with Le Creuset and can attest to it’s superiority. But the company does much more than cast iron so take a look at their website and see their vast range: https://www.lecreuset.co.uk

Tul Tuk to Turkey team cook on Le Creuset whilst camping

Dunce of the Day:

Day 28:Bharat for driving for 20 minutes with his door open.
Day 29: James prides himself on his military-like organisation skills – every item has a place and it has meant that he has been the most organised and efficient team member on the trip. We use the past tense here, because about half way to Dubrovnik it transpired that James had left his travel pouch, containing his and Amy’s passports and the spare tuk tuk keys in Mostar – only a short 2 hour drive away. James was silently furious that his reputation had been tarnished and that we had some ammunition against him in the blog, and drove the majority of the way back without uttering a word.
Day 30: No-one!

Funniest moments:

Day 28: Bharat has struggled for the past few years to accept that his hair is thinning and soon he will have a Friar Tuck halo. So when he saw a photograph of himself from behind he genuinely asked why his hair was brown in the picture…Through the tears of laughter we had to break it to him that his “brown hair” was actually his scalp…

Day 29:James was given a free shot of Croatian grappa (again!) at dinner. Not wanting to be rude, but also not wanting to upset his stomach having just recovered from his food poisoning, he poured it into his water glass. Moments later he was given a small top up of water by the waiter, lifted the glass to his lips, and downed the whole thing completely forgetting what he had poured in there seconds before. Forget the game “gin-face”, it should be “grappa face” from now on.
Day 30: Bharat often gets very upset that we don’t use his photographs in the blog as he sees himself as very skilled photographer. Which might have been true back in the day, (and being fair to him, he has the worst camera of us all) but we thought we’d show you a small sample of what we’re asked to work with and get your view on which of Bharat’s shots you would choose…:

Tuk Tuk Trivia:

Number of additional miles driven because of forgotten passports: 100
Price of our coffee in Bosnia & Herzegovina:50p
Number of minutes footage we have on Bharat’s video tour of Mostar: 2 hours and 13 minutes worth.

Memories of Emily: Just before the war started in Syria we went on a family holiday there before going to Jordan. It was such a special trip, not only because Syria is a beautiful country dripping in history, but because, with hindsight, we have realised that we managed to visit a place that many of our friends and family will now never see, or certainly never see it in the way we did. Emily was a BIG fan of shisha and wandering the souk-esque streets of Mostar, with the minarets sounding, and people sat outside with their ornate shisha pipes reminded us of her creating plumes of smoke from her pipe whilst we had a coffee in Damascus. Talking about this made us also remember the time we were riding camels through the Wadi Rum desert and Emily was taken off into the sunset by a Bedouin man while Amy, Rachel and Bharat, whose camels were all roped together, just went round and round in circles!