Emails from the Edge (30 page)
Read Emails from the Edge Online
Authors: Ken Haley
Everything seemed normal until Sunday, 29 September, when the hotel's director, Marko, studiously ignored my greetings of
âBon appétit
' while dining with his family on the first-floor terrace. This should have rung alarm bells but the hotel staff were treating me cordially, and I was not looking for an argument.
Later in the piece I would admit to not being blameless in the build-up to our explosive falling out. Urged by the waiters and waitresses to partake of the morning buffet, I ignored the fine print of our bargain (price to exclude breakfast), and hoped the management would either not notice or turn a blind eye.
As mentioned, Dubrovnik is almost bereft of wheelchair-friendly accommodation, and it was only on the eve of moving out for my supposedly temporary absence that I managed to find one private room available. Just as the staff were arranging the storage of my heavy luggage, the receptionist said in a low tone, âIt is not sure you will be able to come back and stay here from Sunday, Mr Haley.'
My nostrils instantly smelt rat. âI'm a paying guest,' I said. âYou can't treat me like this.' Behind the receptionist's head I caught a glimpse of Marko disappearing into his office. As he locked himself inside, another staff member told me he was busy and couldn't be reached.
Others in Dubrovnik and elsewhere later informed me that Direktor Marko has only one focus: milking maximum profits from the Hotel P, a landmark that his family bought at a bargain-basement US$3 million just after the war for Croatian independence. At the end of October a guesthouse owner in Slovenia will spit on the floor at the mention of his name: her family recently cancelled a booking at the P, she told me, when Marko indulged in flagrant overcharging.
From what Josip told me through clenched teeth, Marko jacked up on learning that I had been offered a better rate than he could have got by overbooking tour groups. So, he broke a cardinal rule of good hotel-keeping: honour your reservations, especially when they are prepaid.
Next his loyal lieutenant Ivan went on the attack. âYou cannot stay here,' he bellowed. âYou are a liar. You promised to pay for breakfast, and the kitchen staff tell me you have been eating too much.'
That afternoon, from the safety of my private room, I wrote a letter apologising for having taken four unpaid breakfasts. Correct payment accompanied the letter, but both were returned without explanation.
The next day, when I returned to the hotel to take lunch, I paid in advance and had nearly finished my meal when the waiter tried, at Ivan's behest, to return my money for that meal too. Ivan himself then came over and said, âIf the director finds you here, he will throw you off the balcony.' I completed my meal and left.
This is the first time I have actually been kicked out of a hotel and to say it rankles is a gross understatement.
Staff at Dubrovnik's tourist information office tried to assist, but one of them later quoted her director as having said she could do nothing because âIvan is an old friend of mine'. At the police station, though, I thought my luck had finally turned when Domagoj, a young reporter for the local newspaper
Dubrovcka List
, arrived on his daily visit to check the latest news. The police promised to talk to the hotel management, and Domagoj agreed to meet me next morning for an interview.
That evening the receptionist turned up at the room I had taken and told me he was bringing a personal apology from Velimir, a cousin of Marko's (and, I gathered, co-proprietor of the P) with whom he had spoken by mobile phone to Bosnia.
An apology is one thing, but nothing if unaccompanied by action to annul the offence. When I asked if the cancellation of my room booking would be reversed, he promised to pass the message on. But next day management denied all knowledge of any apology.
The interview with Domagoj went well. A week later when I phoned him he said the article had come up well and his editor had assured him âhe will publish it in the edition after next'.
The next week he sounded less confident. He believed (but couldn't prove) that Ivan had phoned the editor. A month after that, the article had still not run. To the best of my knowledge, it never did.
On 5 October, with a heavy heart and even heavier baggage, I set sail for the Dalmatian island of Korcula. With no prior booking, I was directed by the tourist agency around the bay and up the hill to the Hotel Marko Polo, where the managementâin stark contrast to the inhospitality experienced in Dubrovnikâwelcomed me as if I were the island's favourite son returning home from China.
DAY 475 (11 OCTOBER): KORCULA ISLAND
Yes, Marko Polo (to adopt the SerboâCroat spelling) was born here in 1254, exactly 700 years before the birth of your own humble scribeâ although Korcula's claim is contested by Venice.
This morning I follow the road around to the street leading up to his supposed birthplace. But, when I see that the house must have been at the top end of a very steep street that begins at the water's edge, my curiosity fizzles out. I settle for paying respects from afar to my distinguished globetrotting predecessor, and proceed on my own set course.
DAY 476 (12 OCTOBER): KORCULA TO SPLIT
For most of the day I steam through the enchanted Dalmatian islands on a large and luxurious ferry before docking at dusk in the ancient port of Split.
Here I would have undertaken my usual dogged quest for lodgings had a stroke of good luck not spared me the effort. Maya PetrÃc, the manager of a trading company who is at the dock awaiting a shipment of goods, sees me pushing away from the ferry towards the place where I hope taxis will be standing. Stopping me with a word, she says I should stay at a place she just knows will be perfect for me. When she says âa place' rather than âa hotel', I grow a tad suspicious but her evident goodwill soon dispels all qualms. After a few kilometres' drive down the coast we come to it: not a hotel, but a senior citizens' home which keeps spare rooms.
The oddity of this choice of traveller's accommodation appeals at once to me. In a long journey, after all, there should be variety in shelters as there is in cuisines sampled, music heard and cultures observed. And, as a good proportion of the residents here are wheelchair users themselves, no one seems put out by the relatively young addition to their number. It hardly needs to be added that Maya PetrÃc refuses any payment for her good deed.
Old folks go to bed early. Come 9 pm, there is no one in the TV room so I amble in and switch on the set. Good news: we have satellite TV. Tragic news: bombs have exploded in nightclubs on Bali, and well over 100 people are feared dead, most of them ⦠my people. Thoughts mutate into questions faster than they can be formed.
There is more than one Bali: how will this affect Hindus in the villages? Who did it? Islamic extremists, no doubt, but al-Qa'eda? Possibly. Soft target. Why didn't people see this coming? Then, what could they have done to stop it, on an island that thrives on tourism?
And look here: I am maybe five times as far from Bali as Tasmania is, yet because of the time differenceâit must be 6 am Sunday eastern Australian time nowâ I am hearing about this bloodbath before most Australians. How weird is that?
DAY 477 (13 OCTOBER): SPLIT
I sit with a breakfast tray in the TV room. The morning news is still dominated by yesterday's horror. John Howard stands firm, but these deeds, though indefensible, are not mindless. The Axis of Evil keeps spinning faster and faster, but violence is the constant at its hub.
BOSNIAâHERZEGOVINA: 14â21 OCTOBER
DAY 478 (14 OCTOBER): SPLIT TO SARAJEVO
Even before our bus rolls up to the border posts, the conductor is puzzled by my visa stamp instead of impressed as I had rather hoped he would be. Checking with the driver that he is choosing the right English words, he tells me slowly, âNot ne-ce-ssary.' When the seemingly carefree border guards give us a warm welcome and echo the conductor's surprise that I have gone to the trouble of obtaining a visa in advance when they are given out at the border
for free
, the only sensible response is a self-mocking laugh.
Evening brings us into Sarajevo, capital of the MuslimâCroat Federation of BosniaâHerzegovina, one of the two entities established under the 1995 Dayton Accord that concluded the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.
The very name of Sarajevo tugs at the heartstrings of this generation because it's not every day a bomb goes off in a bread queue or the residents of a city have to run the gauntlet of snipers whenever they venture outside. But Sarajevo's most poignant moment came in 1914, when a Bosnian Serb shot dead the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand on one of its street corners, lighting the fuse to World War I.
For a city so closely associated with violence, what can possibly account for its reputation as a place that everyoneâresident and visitor alikeâinstantly falls in love with? I hope to discover the answer for myself before too long.
DAY 479 (15 OCTOBER): SARAJEVO
Quite late last night I found a hotel willing and able to accommodate me. Judging from the stares in the foyer, you would think Bosnians had never seen a wheelchair before. Unlikely, I think, given the severity of war casualties, but, oddly, I see no other wheelchair users on the streets.
Sarajevo's hilly topography makes it postcard-picturesque. Directly opposite the breakfast terrace of my hotel, the Saraj, quaint houses poke up from the hillside as if a sketch in some well-thumbed missal had sprung to life. While much of the city's historic heritage was blasted to rubble by Bosnian Serbs in the 1992â5 war, a surprising amount remains. The UN troop presence is much in evidence, and the fact that you hear of hardly any outbreaks of violence directed against them suggests that their presence is broadly welcomed.
DAY 481 (17 OCTOBER): SARAJEVO
Where the road forks in the centre of town, an eternal flame burns in a brazier. The first reaction on seeing young scamps darting up to hold their hands over it for as long as they can bear the pain is to scold them for irreverence. But I sit back and see that older Sarajevans indulge them. That there are children at all, given the recent horrors, is surely more important than solemnity. This resilience, enabling a love of life to prevail over a powerful death wish, has also inspired the city fathers to âimplant' rubber splotches in the pavement: shaped like hands. Each of these indentations, known as Sarajevo roses, marks the spot where a shell exploded during the 1990s siege in which 60 000 inhabitants were killed or wounded.
On a gentle rise opposite here, a well-shaded public park lies beneath a brown-and-yellow carpet of autumn leaves. What can possibly account for Sarajevo's reputation as a place that everyone falls in love with? I have enough answers now. Thank you.
Armed men keep their own vigil in the square outside the Catholic cathedral and, more discreetly, on the street in front of the city's one active synagogue. But church bells ring and muezzins cry. Sarajevo's bruised spirit is healing.
Tonight I take an outside table at what until recently was the To Be or Not To Be restaurant. In front of me is a confronting photograph of a cellist sitting in the gutted interior of the National Library, over the subtitle âUrbicide '92'. But Enis Selimovic, the restaurateur who created the poster in his other incarnation of graphic designer, has decided that his eatery's name was too equivocal, so he recently renamed it, in the cause of affirmative action, To Be, To Be. No Question.
Despite autumn's chill, this feels like the springtime of hope. If you want to see the world on a confident new morning, now is the best time to be in Sarajevo.
DAY 484 (20 OCTOBER): SARAJEVO TO MOSTAR
In the cool of morning, this long train snakes through misty valleys whose scenery is perhaps the most evocative of the entire journey so far. At 9 am we reach Mostar. The stationmaster carries my bags into his office, happy to let me take as long as necessary to find a room in the town. Following an extensive search in which I cover several kilometres, I find what I am looking for directly opposite the station.
The family renting out this spare room of their house are Serbs, whose very presence in a town run by Muslims and Croats means that they are often treated as symbols of a despised minority. But they are decent people, and their presence here tells me there must be times when the most heroic thing you can do is try to live a ânormal' life.
Its very geography divides Mostar. North of the Neretva River is the Croat quarter, south of it live the Muslims (and a handful of Serb families, of whom my hosts are one). When Stari Most (Mostar Bridge), the six-century-old brick-arched span that was this city's symbol, was blown up in 1993, it represented the collapse of more than a key transport link. Early in 2004 it will reopen amid jubilant scenes on both banks of the Neretva. All you can see today is scaffolding high above the rapids, but that alone is reason to take heart.
DAY 485 (21 OCTOBER): MOSTAR
Hope also resides in a three-storey neoclassical building on what is still known, perhaps wistfully, as Marshal Tito Street. This is home to a remarkable centre dedicated to using music as a way back to normality for children traumatised by the recent war.
The core purpose of the centre, bankrolled by Luciano Pavarotti, is to transform Mostar children's perception of life as a catalogue of horrors. Under the direction of Amela SarÃc, a mother of two and dynamo of energy in her early forties, between 70 and 80 children receive weekly tuition at the centre. The goal is to repair the ravages of years of combat cacophony by regular exposure to more pleasant sounds. âOur aim,' explains SarÃc, âis not for the children to be taught to play or compose music but, by following the rhythm and melodies made by a xylophone, flute or some other instrument, to bring out the sense of harmony.'
SLOVENIA: 25 OCTOBERâ4 NOVEMBER
âBon appétit
' while dining with his family on the first-floor terrace. This should have rung alarm bells but the hotel staff were treating me cordially, and I was not looking for an argument.
Later in the piece I would admit to not being blameless in the build-up to our explosive falling out. Urged by the waiters and waitresses to partake of the morning buffet, I ignored the fine print of our bargain (price to exclude breakfast), and hoped the management would either not notice or turn a blind eye.
As mentioned, Dubrovnik is almost bereft of wheelchair-friendly accommodation, and it was only on the eve of moving out for my supposedly temporary absence that I managed to find one private room available. Just as the staff were arranging the storage of my heavy luggage, the receptionist said in a low tone, âIt is not sure you will be able to come back and stay here from Sunday, Mr Haley.'
My nostrils instantly smelt rat. âI'm a paying guest,' I said. âYou can't treat me like this.' Behind the receptionist's head I caught a glimpse of Marko disappearing into his office. As he locked himself inside, another staff member told me he was busy and couldn't be reached.
Others in Dubrovnik and elsewhere later informed me that Direktor Marko has only one focus: milking maximum profits from the Hotel P, a landmark that his family bought at a bargain-basement US$3 million just after the war for Croatian independence. At the end of October a guesthouse owner in Slovenia will spit on the floor at the mention of his name: her family recently cancelled a booking at the P, she told me, when Marko indulged in flagrant overcharging.
From what Josip told me through clenched teeth, Marko jacked up on learning that I had been offered a better rate than he could have got by overbooking tour groups. So, he broke a cardinal rule of good hotel-keeping: honour your reservations, especially when they are prepaid.
Next his loyal lieutenant Ivan went on the attack. âYou cannot stay here,' he bellowed. âYou are a liar. You promised to pay for breakfast, and the kitchen staff tell me you have been eating too much.'
That afternoon, from the safety of my private room, I wrote a letter apologising for having taken four unpaid breakfasts. Correct payment accompanied the letter, but both were returned without explanation.
The next day, when I returned to the hotel to take lunch, I paid in advance and had nearly finished my meal when the waiter tried, at Ivan's behest, to return my money for that meal too. Ivan himself then came over and said, âIf the director finds you here, he will throw you off the balcony.' I completed my meal and left.
This is the first time I have actually been kicked out of a hotel and to say it rankles is a gross understatement.
Staff at Dubrovnik's tourist information office tried to assist, but one of them later quoted her director as having said she could do nothing because âIvan is an old friend of mine'. At the police station, though, I thought my luck had finally turned when Domagoj, a young reporter for the local newspaper
Dubrovcka List
, arrived on his daily visit to check the latest news. The police promised to talk to the hotel management, and Domagoj agreed to meet me next morning for an interview.
That evening the receptionist turned up at the room I had taken and told me he was bringing a personal apology from Velimir, a cousin of Marko's (and, I gathered, co-proprietor of the P) with whom he had spoken by mobile phone to Bosnia.
An apology is one thing, but nothing if unaccompanied by action to annul the offence. When I asked if the cancellation of my room booking would be reversed, he promised to pass the message on. But next day management denied all knowledge of any apology.
The interview with Domagoj went well. A week later when I phoned him he said the article had come up well and his editor had assured him âhe will publish it in the edition after next'.
The next week he sounded less confident. He believed (but couldn't prove) that Ivan had phoned the editor. A month after that, the article had still not run. To the best of my knowledge, it never did.
On 5 October, with a heavy heart and even heavier baggage, I set sail for the Dalmatian island of Korcula. With no prior booking, I was directed by the tourist agency around the bay and up the hill to the Hotel Marko Polo, where the managementâin stark contrast to the inhospitality experienced in Dubrovnikâwelcomed me as if I were the island's favourite son returning home from China.
DAY 475 (11 OCTOBER): KORCULA ISLAND
Yes, Marko Polo (to adopt the SerboâCroat spelling) was born here in 1254, exactly 700 years before the birth of your own humble scribeâ although Korcula's claim is contested by Venice.
This morning I follow the road around to the street leading up to his supposed birthplace. But, when I see that the house must have been at the top end of a very steep street that begins at the water's edge, my curiosity fizzles out. I settle for paying respects from afar to my distinguished globetrotting predecessor, and proceed on my own set course.
DAY 476 (12 OCTOBER): KORCULA TO SPLIT
For most of the day I steam through the enchanted Dalmatian islands on a large and luxurious ferry before docking at dusk in the ancient port of Split.
Here I would have undertaken my usual dogged quest for lodgings had a stroke of good luck not spared me the effort. Maya PetrÃc, the manager of a trading company who is at the dock awaiting a shipment of goods, sees me pushing away from the ferry towards the place where I hope taxis will be standing. Stopping me with a word, she says I should stay at a place she just knows will be perfect for me. When she says âa place' rather than âa hotel', I grow a tad suspicious but her evident goodwill soon dispels all qualms. After a few kilometres' drive down the coast we come to it: not a hotel, but a senior citizens' home which keeps spare rooms.
The oddity of this choice of traveller's accommodation appeals at once to me. In a long journey, after all, there should be variety in shelters as there is in cuisines sampled, music heard and cultures observed. And, as a good proportion of the residents here are wheelchair users themselves, no one seems put out by the relatively young addition to their number. It hardly needs to be added that Maya PetrÃc refuses any payment for her good deed.
Old folks go to bed early. Come 9 pm, there is no one in the TV room so I amble in and switch on the set. Good news: we have satellite TV. Tragic news: bombs have exploded in nightclubs on Bali, and well over 100 people are feared dead, most of them ⦠my people. Thoughts mutate into questions faster than they can be formed.
There is more than one Bali: how will this affect Hindus in the villages? Who did it? Islamic extremists, no doubt, but al-Qa'eda? Possibly. Soft target. Why didn't people see this coming? Then, what could they have done to stop it, on an island that thrives on tourism?
And look here: I am maybe five times as far from Bali as Tasmania is, yet because of the time differenceâit must be 6 am Sunday eastern Australian time nowâ I am hearing about this bloodbath before most Australians. How weird is that?
DAY 477 (13 OCTOBER): SPLIT
I sit with a breakfast tray in the TV room. The morning news is still dominated by yesterday's horror. John Howard stands firm, but these deeds, though indefensible, are not mindless. The Axis of Evil keeps spinning faster and faster, but violence is the constant at its hub.
BOSNIAâHERZEGOVINA: 14â21 OCTOBER
DAY 478 (14 OCTOBER): SPLIT TO SARAJEVO
Even before our bus rolls up to the border posts, the conductor is puzzled by my visa stamp instead of impressed as I had rather hoped he would be. Checking with the driver that he is choosing the right English words, he tells me slowly, âNot ne-ce-ssary.' When the seemingly carefree border guards give us a warm welcome and echo the conductor's surprise that I have gone to the trouble of obtaining a visa in advance when they are given out at the border
for free
, the only sensible response is a self-mocking laugh.
Evening brings us into Sarajevo, capital of the MuslimâCroat Federation of BosniaâHerzegovina, one of the two entities established under the 1995 Dayton Accord that concluded the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.
The very name of Sarajevo tugs at the heartstrings of this generation because it's not every day a bomb goes off in a bread queue or the residents of a city have to run the gauntlet of snipers whenever they venture outside. But Sarajevo's most poignant moment came in 1914, when a Bosnian Serb shot dead the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand on one of its street corners, lighting the fuse to World War I.
For a city so closely associated with violence, what can possibly account for its reputation as a place that everyoneâresident and visitor alikeâinstantly falls in love with? I hope to discover the answer for myself before too long.
DAY 479 (15 OCTOBER): SARAJEVO
Quite late last night I found a hotel willing and able to accommodate me. Judging from the stares in the foyer, you would think Bosnians had never seen a wheelchair before. Unlikely, I think, given the severity of war casualties, but, oddly, I see no other wheelchair users on the streets.
Sarajevo's hilly topography makes it postcard-picturesque. Directly opposite the breakfast terrace of my hotel, the Saraj, quaint houses poke up from the hillside as if a sketch in some well-thumbed missal had sprung to life. While much of the city's historic heritage was blasted to rubble by Bosnian Serbs in the 1992â5 war, a surprising amount remains. The UN troop presence is much in evidence, and the fact that you hear of hardly any outbreaks of violence directed against them suggests that their presence is broadly welcomed.
DAY 481 (17 OCTOBER): SARAJEVO
Where the road forks in the centre of town, an eternal flame burns in a brazier. The first reaction on seeing young scamps darting up to hold their hands over it for as long as they can bear the pain is to scold them for irreverence. But I sit back and see that older Sarajevans indulge them. That there are children at all, given the recent horrors, is surely more important than solemnity. This resilience, enabling a love of life to prevail over a powerful death wish, has also inspired the city fathers to âimplant' rubber splotches in the pavement: shaped like hands. Each of these indentations, known as Sarajevo roses, marks the spot where a shell exploded during the 1990s siege in which 60 000 inhabitants were killed or wounded.
On a gentle rise opposite here, a well-shaded public park lies beneath a brown-and-yellow carpet of autumn leaves. What can possibly account for Sarajevo's reputation as a place that everyone falls in love with? I have enough answers now. Thank you.
Armed men keep their own vigil in the square outside the Catholic cathedral and, more discreetly, on the street in front of the city's one active synagogue. But church bells ring and muezzins cry. Sarajevo's bruised spirit is healing.
Tonight I take an outside table at what until recently was the To Be or Not To Be restaurant. In front of me is a confronting photograph of a cellist sitting in the gutted interior of the National Library, over the subtitle âUrbicide '92'. But Enis Selimovic, the restaurateur who created the poster in his other incarnation of graphic designer, has decided that his eatery's name was too equivocal, so he recently renamed it, in the cause of affirmative action, To Be, To Be. No Question.
Despite autumn's chill, this feels like the springtime of hope. If you want to see the world on a confident new morning, now is the best time to be in Sarajevo.
DAY 484 (20 OCTOBER): SARAJEVO TO MOSTAR
In the cool of morning, this long train snakes through misty valleys whose scenery is perhaps the most evocative of the entire journey so far. At 9 am we reach Mostar. The stationmaster carries my bags into his office, happy to let me take as long as necessary to find a room in the town. Following an extensive search in which I cover several kilometres, I find what I am looking for directly opposite the station.
The family renting out this spare room of their house are Serbs, whose very presence in a town run by Muslims and Croats means that they are often treated as symbols of a despised minority. But they are decent people, and their presence here tells me there must be times when the most heroic thing you can do is try to live a ânormal' life.
Its very geography divides Mostar. North of the Neretva River is the Croat quarter, south of it live the Muslims (and a handful of Serb families, of whom my hosts are one). When Stari Most (Mostar Bridge), the six-century-old brick-arched span that was this city's symbol, was blown up in 1993, it represented the collapse of more than a key transport link. Early in 2004 it will reopen amid jubilant scenes on both banks of the Neretva. All you can see today is scaffolding high above the rapids, but that alone is reason to take heart.
DAY 485 (21 OCTOBER): MOSTAR
Hope also resides in a three-storey neoclassical building on what is still known, perhaps wistfully, as Marshal Tito Street. This is home to a remarkable centre dedicated to using music as a way back to normality for children traumatised by the recent war.
The core purpose of the centre, bankrolled by Luciano Pavarotti, is to transform Mostar children's perception of life as a catalogue of horrors. Under the direction of Amela SarÃc, a mother of two and dynamo of energy in her early forties, between 70 and 80 children receive weekly tuition at the centre. The goal is to repair the ravages of years of combat cacophony by regular exposure to more pleasant sounds. âOur aim,' explains SarÃc, âis not for the children to be taught to play or compose music but, by following the rhythm and melodies made by a xylophone, flute or some other instrument, to bring out the sense of harmony.'
SLOVENIA: 25 OCTOBERâ4 NOVEMBER
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