The Cube

Source: http://www.cftech.com/BrainBank/GEOGRAPHY/FormerYugoslavia.html

To be honest, history wasn't my favourite subject in school but nowadays I find it fascinating. I blame it all on exams taking out all the fun of history :P

1. Josip Broz Tito was the president of Yugoslavia, the creator of modern Yugoslavia - Social Federal Republic (SFR) Yugoslavia.

2. SFR Yugoslavia was established by uniting six republics (BiH, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia), an autonomous province (Kosovo), an autonomous district (Vojvodina).

3. After the death of President Tito, ethnic tension grew in Yugoslavia. After series of wars, Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence in June 1991, Republic of Macedonia in September 1991, followed by BiH on 3 March 1992.

4. In April 1992, Federal Republic (FR) of Yugoslavia was formed, consisting of the former Socialist Republics of Serbia and Montenegro. This was renamed on 4 Feb 2003 as Serbia and Montenegro. Serbia and Montenegro finally broke up during 2006-2008. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia as the Republic of Kosovo.

5. BiH declared independence on 3 March 1992 and received international recognition the following month on 6 April 1992. On the same date, the Serbs responded by declaring the independence of the Republika Srpska and laying seige to Sarajevo, marking the start of the Bosnian War.

6. Socialist Republic (SR) BiH was inhabited by Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats. Bosnian war was principally a territorial conflict, an international armed conflict between 6 April 1992 and 14 December 1995.


Side note: BiH stands for Bosnia and Herzegovina

There was a photo opportunity that I missed because I was busy eating *shifty eye*. I saw a plane from outside of the window, how often do you see another plane flying on a lateral line as your plane up in the sky? I was eating at that time and thought I'll finish my food before grabbing my camera. Unfortunately by the time I finished eating, the other plane was nowhere to be seen :(

Umm, yes I am one of those people who actually like flight food. And if I tell you the food is great, you can be apprehensive but if I said the food is bad, it would be pretty bad ok? ;)

It was a very short transit time and it was quite a rush transit. Somehow we were required to go through another screening, together with all other passengers (even the arrival ones) and the queue was loooongg. To make things more interesting, the other gate as wayyy far. So all I did in Hamad International Airport was queuing up to get through the screening, and brisk walk to the gate. I made it in time, only to have the flight slightly delayed. Grin. That was all to report on Doha, on my way to Europe ;)


Side note: By the way, have you read Gone Girl?

Friend, K and I have been talking about seeing this part of Europe for awhile but it was sidelined many times for some unexpected reasons. Central Europe came up again this year, and the thought was, "Why not?" so got our tickets in May and off we went in mid August.

Despite our numerous chats, there wasn't much dwelling on which country except we both wanted to do Prague, Budapest and Poland. The rest were open for options. We have initially thought of including Russia and Ukraine but it was not the best time to travel there at the time, so we included Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)! After I found an excellent flight option (in reference to timing and number of transit) to Zagreb and out of Warsaw, K told me to go ahead and she will find a flight to coincide with mine.

There isn't much flights going in and out of Sarajevo without many transits. Most transports options out of Sarajevo are through Zagreb and Belgrade, and both of us hold a Malaysian passport which requires tourist visa to Serbia. It doesn't seem feasible in both cost and effort to apply for a visa for one train from Sarajevo to Belgrade, so we abandoned the plan.

Many asked us why not fly from Zagreb to Dubrovnik and travel north from there. Of course, it does seem like a good route but Croatia wasn't in our radar. In fact it wasn't in our itinerary in the first place, the only reason we fly to Zagreb as it was closest to Sarajevo and it involved only one transits for both of us. (I'm sorry Croatia but yes, you are allowed to gasp at me not considering the cities along the Adriatic Sea!)

Initially we wasn't keen on trekking back to Zagreb but direct train from Sarajevo to Budapest is no longer in service. After contemplating many options, we decided to do Sarajevo-Mostar-Split-Budapest. There are direct trains from Split to Budapest running on Wednesdays and Saturdays during the summer months but it didn't suit our plan, so we took a train from Split to Zagreb and from Zagreb to Budapest.

So you can see, my excellent flight option was flying out on a Friday after work (I'm all about optimising my annual leave) and reached on a Saturday afternoon. Return flight involving flying out of Warsaw on a Saturday at 16:45 and reached Melbourne on Sunday night. Back to work on Monday ;)
Both flights only had one transit, in Doha. However the flight out of Melbourne had a technical stop in Budapest. I don't know, airline companies referred the stop as a technical stop - a stop where they pick up passengers at Budapest Airport but the ones going to Zagreb do not need to get off the plane)

N = night, A = afternoon, M = morning, E = evening

15/08, Day 00 - On flight
16/08, Day 01 - Half day in Zagreb, then fly out to Sarajevo* at night (Hostel & Guest House Bistrik)
17/08, Day 02 - Sarajevo
18/08, Day 03 - Sarajevo
19/08, Day 04 - Sarajevo, departed for Mostar* in the morning (Hostel Miran Mostar)
20/08, Day 05 - Mostar*. Day trip to Blagaj, Pocitelj, Krevice
21/08, Day 06 - Mostar, departed for Split in the morning. Night train* to Budapest with stopover in Zagreb
22/08, Day 07 - Reached Zagreb in the morning. Second leg of train to Budapest* (Avenue Hostel)
23/08, Day 08 - Budapest*
24/08, Day 09 - Budapest*
25/08, Day 10 - Budapest*
26/08, Day 11 - Budapest, train out to Prague* (Hostel Mango)
27/08, Day 12 - Prague*
28/08, Day 13 - Prague*
29/08, Day 14 - Prague*
30/08, Day 15 - Prague. Night train* to Krakow
31/08, Day 16 - Krakow* (Let's Rock Hostel)
01/09, Day 17 - Krakow*
02/09, Day 18 - Krakow*
03/09, Day 19 - Krakow. Evening train to Warsaw* (Oki Doki Hostel)
04/09, Day 20 - Warsaw*
05/09, Day 21 - Warsaw*
06/09, Day 22 - Warsaw. Afternoon flight* out to Melbourne, transit in Doha
07/09, Day 23 - Reached Doha just passed midnight. Reached Melbourne* at night.
Note: * referring to where we overnight

We roughly have an idea of where we want to go but decided to keep our options open and only booked our accommodation in Sarajevo. The rest of accommodations were booked after we got our train tickets, generally a day before leaving the city except for the Prague-Krakow leg where we booked our accommodation first. We turned up at the train station asking for the next train out. And many thanks for my friend who paid for my domestic flight from Zagreb to Sarajevo. :)


Side note: I know these countries are also referred to Eastern Europe or East Central Europe, but I'll go with Central Europe as I think Eastern Europe more of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, etc. 

My friend, A asked me to go for a walk on a Saturday morning and she suggested Fairfield Boathouse. It was an easy walk from home and I met her there. Umm.. despite it is more of a walk but we always end our walk with at least an iced coffee. There were once we had brunch there too. If we are planning to lose weight, we have definitely failed our objective. :P










One can also rent a rowboat out, to which we have not done that yet. Just walking around the trail, and having food at the boathouse, of course.


Side note: Another working day to a break!

A little obsessive compulsive trait overcame me, so this is an index page for my 7 day holidays to India.

Pre-travel
Here's some India history in bite size.
And breakdown of travel days and links to accommodation. 



Mumbai:
Day 1 - 12 hours itinerary in Mumbai
Day 2 - A walk in Vikhroli, a suburb in Mumbai. 



Udaipur:
Hotel review: Shikarbadi Hotel
Day 3 - Udaipur's holiday palaces, Sahelion Ki Bari garden and a small walk
Day 4 - drive from Udaipur to Jaipur



Jaipur:
Day 4 - Birla Mandir, 
Day 5 - Amber Fort, Jantar Mantar, City Palace Museum, Albert Hall, other places including best dinner in Jaipur



Agra:
Day 6 - Fatehpur Sikri, Agra Fort, Taj Mahal and followed by a dinner that caused food poisoning. 


Delhi:
Day 7 - Humayun Tomb, Qutb Minar




Side note: I have not re-visited India (yet..) this is purely to re-index the posts.

My second stop in Delhi was Qutb Minar. This was the only day I skipped lunch, somehow I wasn't hungry and was probably worried that if I eat anything, it would disturbed the otherwise only mild throbbing pain tummy.  Our driver dropped me to Qutb Minar from Humayun's Tomb. After letting me know where to look for him thereafter, I proceeded to buy tickets. There were bag checks and if your bag exceeds certain dimension, they would request that you deposit it. As we did not engaged the service of a guide in Delhi, I decided to get an audio guide. I was required to leave a form of ID and if you look at top right of the photo below, you'll see a time limit. The audio guide is to be returned to in two hours' time.

Audio guide loaded in a tablet

I sat on a bench to listen to the introduction of the audio guide. This Qutb Minar audio was presented in the form of story telling. There is one main character, a girl asking questions about the place and she was duly answered some elderly.

After getting through the entrance

After dropping Little P to the airport for her domestic flight back to Mumbai before connecting to the international leg, I had the day to spare as my outbound flight was not till night time. Due to the lack of time in Delhi, I figured I would only have enough time for two sights. Initially I wanted to see Red Fort but it was a little further away, so I abandoned that thought and decided one of the two places I wanted to see was Humayun's Tomb.


The first tomb as I entered the compound was Isa Khan Tomb Enclosure. This tomb is an octagonal tomb, pre-dating Humayun's Tomb by 20 years. There is a three bay wide mosque in red sandstone.



As you can see from the above picture, the tomb was surrounded by two walls, a smaller and lower one nearer to the actual tomb, and another one higher. There were steps if you want to walk around it, which I did, that was where the two pictures were taken.

Once you moved out of this tomb area and continued to walk on the main path, you would come to the the main entrance of the Tomb-Garden of Emperor Humayun which is the West Gate. This West Gateway stood at 16 metres high.


Humayun is the second Mughal Emperor of India. His tomb, yes, named Humayun's Tomb (nothing fancy) was built by his widow, Hamida Banu Begam or Haji Begam 14 years after his death. The construction cost of this tomb was 1.5M rupees.

Humayun's Tomb-Garden is described as an example of a char bagh. In Persian, 'char bagh' means four gardens with four streams). It is also said that Humayun Tomb inspired the architecture of the world famous tomb, Taj Mahal about a hundred years later.

The tomb stands in the centre of a square garden. There's a shallow water-channel right smack in the centre too.


The Tomb Chamber showed of a plain white marble sarcophagus stands on a simple black and white marble platform. The grave itself lies in the rather dark, bat-filled basement below.


Throughout the building, one can see fine trellis work in stone.


Not far from Humayun's Tomb lies the Barber's Tomb. The compound is said to include the tomb of Humayun's favourite barber! Though the information slate stated as, "Folklore refers the building as the 'Barber's Tomb'". Somehow, it feels like it is a folklore, instead of really Humayun's favourite barber...


See the couple at the side of the steps? The girl was crying while talking to the man when I was visiting, I did feel like I was intruding but then again, this place must be really therapeutic if someone paid an entrance fee to sit down when feeling teary... mmm...

Also has beautiful trellis work

My last stop before exiting Humayun's Tomb compound was Afasrwala Tomb & Mosque. It is said that both this building dated from the Mughal period, and likewise the rest of the tomb, covered with red sandstone.



Side note: Got to curb the snacking after dinner habit!!!