Mostar

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Mostar. One of those place names you grew up with for all the wrong reasons. I instantly think of Ethnic cleansing and bridges being blown up. The Balkan war left awful scars in the Former Yugoslavia and Mostar bought the brunt of a lot of unwanted press. Terrible things happened here and its hard to imagine a war torn city killing each other over their religious beliefs. They once lived side by side as neighbours separated only by the river running through the city and as soon as you marvel at the old towns beauty it really is hard to place a war here.

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The bridge has since been rebuilt and looks wonderful. Like no other bridge i've seen, its certainly an impressive sight. The buildings in and around the bridge appear Moorish in design and looks like it should of been in a Star Wars set. The cobbled streets adds to its character and the numerous bars that jut out overlooking the river battle with rival bars for the best vantage points of the Bridge as it is magnificently lit up at night along with the rest of the old town.

"...it should of been in a Star Wars set..."

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We were not to be in Mostar long and a one night stay is all we came for. We needed to be heading back into Croatia and loiter around Split awaiting our pending flight home.

Mostars mood changed during the night and became some what intimidating. The bars situated on the valley sides closed at 11 and it was the sound of the pounding dance music that drew us into a small square that was littered with local youths and party goers. We were naturally drawn in and picked a bar on the square to have a drink in. It was my round so I ventured in and went up to the bar. There was no need and a young barman who was collecting glasses took my order, opened a nearby fridge and duly made my bottles ready for consumption. Only 5 minutes later would I regret him doing this as I was charged an extortionate bill of nearly £7 for each beer. Knowing there and then that I was scammed, i suddenly realised that most people were looking at me with content and obviously did not want me there and this was not the time or place to start querying the bill.

Sighing in defeat i paid him exactly as to give him a larger note of the total sum invited more financial raping of my wallet. I joined Rhys on the table outside and was about to tell him the story when he latched on to the hostility of the 50 or so pairs of eyes that were etching in to the back of my head.

Mostar would be where I would have the most expensive beer to date and the quickest one too. The next day we released ourselves from or small apartment room that was more like Fort Knox with bars on windows, quadruple bolted doors, perimeter fence and security lights that were too sensitive and had us bricking ourselves every 5 minutes. We waited for a diver to plunge into the water below but he never did so we went to the station and only laughed about our experience when we were finally in motion.