Trip to Banja Luka - Adventures in the balkans

This is a travel report of our journey from Szeged, Hungary to Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Travelers: me (German citizen) and my friend Andrew (Taiwanese citizen).

Scheduled trip was:

• Train from Szeged to Budapest-Nyugati on Sunday morning (06:45)
  
• Transfer from Budapest-Nyugati to Budapest-Déli by metro
  
• Train from Budapest-Déli to Doboj (Bosnia)
  
• Bus from Doboj to Banja Luka (arrive around 22:00).
  

We got up early on Sunday morning and hurried to the train station in Szeged. The train left on time and up to shortly before Budapest, everything looked fine. But things changed. The train stopped in Üllő and stood there for about one hour. There was an announcement in Hungarian and then we were left there without knowing what was going on. In the meantime our connecting train to Doboj has left without us and the next train was going the next day. When finally the conductor came along, I approached her and asked what to do. According to her face expression, she was not comfortable with the situation either. Since we had a seat reservation for the train to Doboj, she advised us to go to Déli station, once we arrive in Budapest and change the reservation. Our ticket was valid for one month, so it didn't need to get changed.

Being an experienced traveler, I expected the staff at the station to ignore my request if I cannot prove that my train was delayed and that I didn't oversleep instead. So, I asked the conductor to produce some kind of receipt that I could show to the ticket counter. She finally typed something on her handheld device which looked like from the 1990s (handheld device connected with a serial cable to a portable computer in a big bag hanging from her shoulder, which was half the size of a ghetto blaster) and produced the requested receipt for me.

After arrival in Budapest-Nyugati, we went on to Déli station, which is on the Buda side of the town, while we arrived on the Pest side. At the ticket counter the lady understood the problem, but was not able to change the reservation for some reason. Instead she offered me a refund and said, on the train to Doboj (continuing to Sarajevo), a reservation was not really needed.
So, we got the refund, but still had no place to stay over night. Since the delay was not our fault, we asked the lady at the ticket counter if they could organize a hotel for us. After some discussion with her superiors, she requested the refund back, returned me the old reservation and the delay receipt and told us to go to Keleti station, which is across town on the Pest side again. The Keleti station staff would handle everything for us, since they have contracted hotels there for stranded passengers. They didn't have any one near the Déli station.

So, back again, this time to Keleti station. At the customer service counter, they understood our problem and had already been informed by the Déli station staff that we would show up there. After some paper shuffling she produced a hotel voucher for us and asked me to bring the voucher with the hotel signature back to them the next morning. After that I was supposed to go to the ticket counter and change the train reservation to a new one.

The hotel turned out to be just next to the station. A four star hotel, which obviously had some spare rooms just under the roof for stranded railway passengers. A glance on the room rates told us that the room we were staying in was more than double price of what we had payed for the train ticket to Doboj (for 2 persons)! But since the railway company payed for the room, we didn't bother.
So, we had one more spare day in Budapest and went to do some sightseeing.

The next morning, we got up early to not have any bad surprises again. After checkout Andrew waited in the hotel lobby while I did a quick run to the station, handing in the voucher receipt and getting the reservation changed. It turned out that the computer had already locked down the reservations for our train, so I got the reservation refunded instead.

After that was settled, we went back to Déli station and got on the train to Sarajevo.
The train went on and upon arriving the Hungarian/Croatian border, I got reminded what it means to cross an outside-EU border (in this case leaving the EU and entering Croatia). Two border controls, one on the Hungarian side, the next stop on the Croatian side. Each time border police enters the train to check everyone's passport. The train waits at the station until everything is done.
The Hungarian side was not a problem, since we were leaving the EU.

On the Croatian side they took Andrew's passport with them, carrying it back to the police office for a check, then continuing the passport checks on the train.
Croatia has a policy that Chinese passport holders don't need a visa for transit or staying up to 90 days. And they count Taiwan as part of China. Obviously the police officers on the train didn't know this rule and had to check the facts first.
Well, after they were done with the rest of the passengers on the train, the train left the station... but Andrew hadn't got his passport back yet!

We were sitting in the first car and the conductor entered the train through the door next where we were sitting. We approached him at once and just said: "passport missing!" and he immediately understood the situation. He opened the door of the car, pulled the emergency brake and leaned out of the running train, wildly gesticulating and shouting to the driver in the locomotive to stop the train. When the train finally stopped, the driver backed it up back into the station. The conductor sprinted to the police office and a moment later the border patrol officer came back with Andrew's passport, grinning.

The train set off again, but what was that? The front door of our car, manually opened by the conductor, was still open and the train was speeding up... did we leave the conductor at the station?
Luckily not. A few minutes later he came from the other end of the train checking everyone's tickets. He realized that the door was still open and closed it. Turning towards us, he asked smiling: "passport ok?". And yes, it was okay... until we reached the Bosnian border.

Same game like before, first check by the Croatian border police was no problem. Although the train stood at the station of Slavonski-Šamac for about one hour, because we had to wait for an oncoming train on the single track railway line. Next stop was Šamac on the Bosnian side of the border.

Some background information here:
Bosnia and Herzegovina requires Taiwanese passport holders to get a visa either in Beijing, London or Budapest. Originally we planned to go via Budapest and apply for a visa for Andrew there. So we asked the conference organizer to give us an invitation letter to show to the officials. Instead of doing that they said, we won't need to go to Budapest for the visa, we can get a visa directly at the border. Bosnia and Herzegovina has a rule that for special reasons, they can issue a visa at the border.
So, they organized that the border police would know when we show up at the border and issue a visa for Andrew right there. We, being experienced travelers, worried a bit that there might be problems. So we asked our organizer to issue a letter in Bosnian language, which we could hand over to the border police. We got that letter. The Debconf11 event we were going to, is largely sponsored by the Republika Srpska government. The letter was issued by the organization who organizes this event.

Didn't work out like planned.

When we arrived at Šamac train station, the border police took Andrew's passport and the letter, and went back to his office after checking all the other passengers on the train. We waited for about half an hour. Then he came back and ordered us to get off the train and follow him to his office.
It was only a small office with two low ranking officers, who didn't know anything about our arrival and said they cannot issue a visa for us. They talked about sending us back to Croatia. Then we made a phone call to our organizer and let the border police officer talk to him. Didn't solve the problem, but the letter that we provided stated that the visa has been approved by the ministry already. And the issuer of that letter, the organization which organizes the DebConf11 event we wanted to go to, seemed to have made an impression to the border police.

We had to take our luggage off the train and the train left without us and with 45 minutes delay. Of course my papers were fine, but Andrew's were not. But I refused to travel on on my own and insisted that I stay with Andrew.

They drove us to the nearby Šamac border control for cars. They had more officers working there and a computer, where they tried to find information supporting our case. They didn't find any. They tried to make phone calls but didn't reach anyone.
And all that to ship us back to Croatia? No, there must have been more than that. They really tried everything to get our status clarified and to get the situation resolved.
Finally, they ended up with taking copies of our passports and the letter, typing a report (single finger typing) and driving off with those papers to some location we don't know. One of the remaining officers were able to speak a bit broken English and explained us that he would drive us to another bigger border control and that we could get our visa there and then travel on to Banja Luka.
So, we put our luggage on the VW bus of the border control and drove off. The border control we were going to was already in direction to Banja Luka, so we hoped that this issue would get resolved soon.

That border police officer was a really funny guy. He showed us the villages and gave us some sightseeing while driving. We did a bit of chit chat, when suddenly about half the way, he received a phone call, which changed everything.
He suddenly made a U-turn and was speeding off in the direction where we came from. His only comment was: "change of plan. We are going to Orašje border control."
A phone call to our organizer confirmed that we would need to wait there for an hour or so and then can get the visa right there.
The next comment our driver made explained why he was suddenly speeding with high speed and violating any possible traffic law, including running red lights: "you are special guest to Bosnia!" Maybe some high ranking official did put some pressure on him?

When we arrived at Orašje border control, it turned out that they had some higher ranking officials there and that everyone available was working on our case. We still had to wait for three hours until the chief officer was able to issue us the visa by hand writing.
He apologized for the delay and blamed their computer system, which was based on Windows and was broken for the past 3 years(!), so they couldn't get the necessary information and had to rely on telephone. He also mentioned that he privately uses Ubuntu and that he doesn't like Windows.
When we introduced ourselves as a Debian developer and a Ubuntu developer respectively, the officials on the scene were very excited.

Meanwhile it was 23:30 and there was no way that we could get to Banja Luka by bus or train at that time. But since we were "special guests", they offered us a VIP transport to Banja Luka: they drove us to our hotel! And that was about 150 km away. Despite turning their blue lights on, violating a lot of traffic laws and speeding up to 140 km/h along the winding country side roads (traffic limit is 50 or 60 km/h there), it still took us 2½ hours until we reached our hotel.

When arriving at the hotel, they helped us to get our luggage out of the car and shook hands with us. Then they drove all the way back to Orašje.

Later it turned out, that our contact person got the organizers involved, who called the head of the border police, who then phoned the border police station is Orašje and got our case resolved.

[English] Lunar New Year in Taiwan

In Taiwan, as well as in China, we do celebrate New Year according to the Gregorian calendar, but not as big as in western countries. The lunar calendar is much more important here. Lunar New Year falls usually somewhere between middle of January and end of February each year. The New Year period consists of seven important holidays in total:

• New Year's Eve -- This is like Thanksgiving and Christmas together. The family members come together and have a great feast. After that they exchange red envelopes with money inside to wish each other luck, prosperity, health, etc. Usually this takes place at the paternal side of the family, i.e. the family travels to the husbands' parents and stays over night.
  It's a tradition that the children stay up longer than the parents at night. It is said that the longer the children stay awake, the longer the parents will live.
  
• New Year's Day -- while still in the paternal home, friends will come over for a visit or they will get visited.
  
• Second Day -- aka "Married-daughter-comes-home Day". On this day the family will visit the maternal parents.
  
• Third Day -- aka "Sleeping Day". Since the past days were quite exhausting, this day is meant to be a resting day.
  
• Fourth Day -- Praying Day to welcome the fortune god to come back to Earth. According to local believes the gods went back to heaven on New Year's Eve to do the yearly report. On the forth day, they will return to Earth. Therefor they are welcomed with a big feast.
  
• Fifth Day -- last holiday, have fun! The sixth day is the first working day.
  

Many shops stay closed for the entire period, however many big shops and supermarkets just close early on New Year's Eve and open on New Year's day again.

Fireworks will be lit during the whole period. Companies will light a bunch of firecrackers on their first business day in the New Year in order to keep bad spirits away.

There is no limitation in Taiwan regarding on when you can light fireworks. You can do it any time of the year for any occasion.

The 15th day is Lantern Festival, where the animal of the year is greeted with lots of lanterns. This is the officially last day of the festivities, although the days between 5th and 15th are not so important and therefor normal working days.

The weeks before New Year's Eve are the busiest of the year, since people will replace old furniture, household items, electronics and even cars with new ones, or buy new equipment altogether. Companies earn a lot of money during this time.
Also, the days before the New Year, people will clean their houses and cars thoroughly, so that everything shines when the New Year arrives.

On New Year's Day however, you are not supposed to clean or take a shower, since you would wash off the luck of the New Year.

During Lunar New Year holidays, the bigger cities are kind of deserted compared to the rest of the year. That's because many families who live and work in the cities, have their family roots in the countryside. The days before and after the holidays are the ones with the most traffic on the streets, full trains and planes. The government therefor closes the toll gates on the freeways during the holidays in order to ease congestions.

Because most workers only have a few days vacation per year, many families use the Lunar New Year holidays and take their yearly vacation around this period in order to go on a longer vacation to the east coast of Taiwan or overseas.

In that regard, Happy New Lunar Year!

[English] What it means to speak Japanese

Last week on my way back home from work, I ate at a Yoshinoya (吉野家) restaurant in Xinzhu (新竹). And like in many japanese shops and restaurants, the employees greet their customers in Japanese. Now it happened that there were two Japanese men standing in line in front of me and they didn't hesistate and started to order in Japanese. :D

The poor girl behind the counter of course didn't speak or understand any Japanese except the hard practiced greeting sentence. Her face expression was quite funny: PANIC!!! he he he

But they managed to get the order done somehow... :)

[Deutsch] "Schnappi" nach Taiwan importiert

Au weia! Ich war am Samstag in unserem Tesco Store zum Einkaufen. Da schallte es doch plötzlich "Schnappi, das kleine Krokodil" aus der Musikabteilung. Hilfe! Müssen die denn hier jeden Mist aus Deutschland importieren?

Normalerweise bin ich ja froh, dass ich hier deutsche Produkte kaufen kann, aber bei sowas hört es dann doch auf.