DAY 54 – BANJA LUKA
Woke late at Simon’s flat and surprisingly had no hangover. Trammed to the bus station for the 14.30 bus to Banja Luka only to find out that the internet site we used the previous evening had lied and the next bus was at 22.00. Gutted. We are running out of days fast so we convened an emergency executive meeting of the Team Kiwi board (Me and the Runt) so assess our options of getting to smoo central for Saturday night. We ruled out busing (wastes the whole day) training (no train until tomorrow) flying (no flights to BL) renting a car (very expensive because of international drop-off in Sarajevo) and hitching (it was hosing down). We ended up catching a cab which we haggled down to 1100 dingbats or Å55 each. Talk about the cab ride you should definitely do a runner from.
Banja Luka is a town that has received an absolute hiding over the years. It has damage from WW2, an earthquake in 1969 and In 1993 the local serbs blew up all 16 mosques in the town. These days it just seems very quiet.
After dinner we found a pub where some local Serbian boys bought us a beer each because we were foreign. They were good value and one of them took a shine to the Runt and even asked if he would like to go to the toilet with him three times. Greg politely declined and the guy didn’t seem offended because he kept his arm around Greg whist massaging his shoulder. When we escaped one of them showed us where the biggest club in town was. This place was about the size of the She’ Bu’ Walky and was packed. Once again found myself feeling averagely tall. Greg, at five foot eleven, looked more like a dwarf that has escaped from the circus.
Greg asked a local girl about the seven to one girl to guy ratio thing. She said that during the war that was true but now the ratio is more like two to one and that they just use the seven to one ‘story’ to get more tourists in. It certainly worked on us :)
