How to buy a train ticket

Before you start reading this post turn on Omni Trio - Twin Town Karaoke.

The time in Sarajevo was much too short but I hat to return. As I like traveling by train I went to the train station to buy a ticket for the trains back home. Astonishingly there were about 10 open counters but there are only 6 trains each day (sic!) from Sarajevo. I also wondered about that their PCs were all turned off and I was curious how the will sell me a ticket. I asked for a ticket directly to Munich because there was a special offer at their website. They tried to sell me a ticket only to Zagreb but as soon as I insisted for Munich nobody could speak some English or German anymore and they also attested that there is nobody in the train station who could speak with me. I was a bit shocked but did not go away from the counter so that the ticket seller called a boss. He explained me that they cannot sell tickets for any other location than Zagreb and that there must be a mistake on the website and that they don't have Internet in the train station.

The railway station.

What a contrast - 40 years old Tatra trams and a business center close the the railway station.

But paying for each train would cost about 150 € more and I don't like to loose until I tried to win. I still had some time and came to the idea to go to the government's department for transportation to ask there. At first I needed Internet access to find the address. Close to the railway station are big business centers so people there should have Internet. And indeed, almost everybody there was running around with a smartphone or a tablet - what a contrast to the rest of the town. Everybody could speak English but nobody wanted to let me have a look at the Internet and they also refused to have a look by themselves and telling me the address. Where the hell was I? Maybe I was too underdressed for this jet set because I had no tie. Slightly frustrated I went back towards the old town and asked some "normal" people on the street. They had no smartphone but they were very friendly and showed me an Internet café. It turns out that the transportation department was not too far away.

A typical building close to the Internet café.
The bullet holes in the walls of the buildings are there omnipresent.

The government buildings are imposing.
The department for transportation is the right one.

At the entrance sat a bored gatekeeper ignoring me completely. But I starred at him for some minutes until he got nervous and called somebody. It was one of the bosses there and once worked in the Netherlands during the war times. I explained him my difficulties and he said that they of course sell international train tickets, that this must have been a misunderstanding and that he will quickly call the railway station. He went back to the doorkeepers bureau so that I could not hear him speaking but see him through the window. His quick call lasts more than 5 minutes and it was great cinema to see him becoming more and more enraged. At the end he yelled something into the phone and threw the handset onto the phone. He needed a minute to calm down until he came out back explaining me very politely that this was all only a misunderstanding he apologizes for. When I go back to the station they will sell me a ticket.

Back there I only put one foot into the station and the personal immediately recognized me. I was "guided" to the counter and surprisingly all PCs were now turned on, they had Internet and I got my ticket to Munich without problems. Later in the train I had a very interesting talk with 2 students who explained me how I should have bought my ticket and how they "bought" it:

• I should have bribed the ticket seller. The reason they did not sell me an international ticket was most probably that such a ticket must be registered electronically so that the other railway companies can check that it is valid. But if it is registered it is impossible to put some money into the own pocket.
• The 2 students did not buy a ticket. When the conductor came he said they should pay each about 50 marks. As the official fee for fare evasion is only 20 marks this is a signal to start negotiations. In the end the students paid less than the normal price and the conductor earned some extra money.

Old rolling stock. This train from Novi Grad to Bihać has only this single car.

A typical railway station.

Corruption really sucks! It always leads to frustration and in the end things get worse. In this case the railway company looses money which is missing to update the infrastructure. The train to Zagreb can for example not ran faster than assumed 50 km/h and in the old wagons we had 45 °C because the ventilation did not work.
Fighting corruption is not easy because it costs a lot of power. In my example I could have bribed the ticket seller, but I decided to spend 2 hours running around until I got my ticket. But in the end it was worth it: In the train from Zagreb to Ljubljana I met an owner of a hostel in Sarajevo. It was the first time he took the train and he was surprised how easy it was to get a ticket directly to Ljubljana. He bought his ticket one day after I did. So I improved the situation (at least for some time).
The boss in the transportation department promised to revise their website after I showed him that the page was outdated, the timetables were different depending on the language version, the online ticket reservation does not work etc. Now that I am writing this post, some months after my visit, the page looks as fancy as before but nothing has been changed. Maybe he ordered the update again (he was surprised and told me that he already ordered an update) but probably the money was "lost" on the way to the webmaster.
By the way, Bosnia has 2 federation railway companies, one for each state. This is stupid because there are only 4 railway lines in the whole country and on each one there are only a few trains per day. But OK, the whole system of 2 entities (states) within a federation that are not willing to work together is stupid. But this is another story.

Corrupted party

The guy from Hong Kong was already in Sarajevo 2 weeks ago to join the Sarajevo film festival and later moved to in Serbia for the Exit festival. But as small as the world is, we met 4 people, he met at the Exit festival, just after leaving the hostel: 2 crazy girls from Norway and 2 party guys from the Netherlands. While exploring the city night we were a bit puzzled that nobody was in the clubs and bars. We asked locals where to go but nobody had a good idea because everything would be too dangerous. The reason was a football game between the FK Sarajevo and Levski Sofia. Two days ago, the other Sarajevo football club lost the Champions League qualifying game and afterwards many idiots trampled through the inner city starting street battles. Moreover some Sofian "fans" ran through the streets with posters of Milošević stating that he was a hero and some Serbian newspapers of course seconded that. So everybody expected blood on the streets. But Sarajevo won the game and you cannot imagine what suddenly was going on. The main streets were full of people dancing, crying with joy and drinking. The scenery was so exaggerated as if the had won the world championships. We could of course not resist, bought some beer at a street shop and joined the party.

Unfortunately we later left the main street still drinking beer when some some police men jelled at us that we are louts not respecting the culture. I did not immediately understand what the problem was and asked one of the policemen. His response was to kick the bottle out of my hand and throwing our other bottles into a litter bin. We ran away still not understanding the problem as everybody around us was drinking beer. It turned out that you can buy beer 24 hours a day in the shops and you can have a bottle in your hand but are not allowed to drink it on public places. Normally nobody cares but this night was special as these cops were from the Serbian part of BiH, not from Sarajevo.

However we forgot the trouble and went into some nice bars. My favorite was that one with an incredible Bohemian style:

In one bar they played a lot of music from the 90'2, like this one Pete Heller - Big Love - great! We had a lot of fun, especially when the the crazy lady from Norway explained me the tattooed signs on her arms: "v" stands for left and "h" for right.

Don't mix left and right - it would be light!

Da hood.

But suddenly the cops joined our party again and initiated a rough "negotiation" with the bar owner. As result everybody in the bar had 5 minutes to leave it. The cops were fully armed and protected and the locals said we better do what they say. The official explanation was that it is Ramadan and nobody is allowed to party. But the bar owner who was behind the bar that time is a Muslim. The opposite is the case - after dusk everybody starts to eat and drink and dance and often it ends up in a party. (In Sarajevo they shoot with canons as sign that Muslims are now allowed to eat and drink.) I told some locals our story and it turned out that policemen often go out after their work for racketeering money. The bar owner simply didn't want to pay. As these cops were only in the city because of the football match they probably invented the stupid story, normally they have more sensible explanations.