ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

My driving record has been tainted! I know this because I was pulled over, not once, not twice, but three times on a holiday to the Balkans not long ago. Why was I pulled over, you ask? Well, let’s start at the beginning.

My son, who lives in Eastern Europe, rented this lemon (read: Citroën), which goes 180 km/hr without even trying and we took off from Budapest towards our ultimate destination of Dubrovnik on the Adriatic coast of Croatia. While driving southwest across Hungary, which looks much like Ontario corn country, we saw oncoming drivers flash their headlights to warn of upcoming speed traps. My son said the police are sticklers for speed limits in urban centres – you’re much easier to catch there – and couldn’t care less about how fast you drive in the countryside.

We got used to slowing down to the exact posted speed upon sight of these traps and it was pedal to metal the rest of the way.

Before long, it came time to cross from Hungary to Croatia. My son said this was just a routine check and we’d be on our way. Yeah, right!

After we cleared the Hungarian határorség (border guard), his Croatian counterpart eyed up the Citroën. He gestured to the left headlight and offered up a curious mix of Hungarian and German: “Blab la lampa bla bla kaput.” And sure enough, the headlight was burnt out. But it was daylight for heaven’s sake! What’s the matter with just having the driving lights on? Didn’t matter. Turns out that in the last few years, many of these Central European countries have passed driving laws requiring that headlights must be on at all times. As we handed the border guard our passports, we promised we’d get it fixed. He let us go with just the warning.

After three hours on Croatia’s bazillion-kuna coastal highway (which must be seen to be believed: it is a breathtakingly perfect fourlane
expressway winding through some very rugged terrain), we arrived at the industrial town of Split. While Mom and Dad occupied themselves at this port city’s walled palace – a summer home built by the Emperor Diocletian over 1700 years ago! – our son went off in search of a Citroën dealership to get the light fixed. An hour later he returned, and off we go.

The Croatian coastline is enjoying a resurgence of tourism after years in the doldrums due to war. Our experience confirmed this: Croatia is definitely open for business. After three smooth and hasslefree days and nights in Makarska and Dubrovnik, though, it was time to head on to a less touristed corner of the Balkans: Bosnia-Herzegovina.

After driving back up the coast a bit, we exited Croatia with little difficulty but then had to contend with getting into Bosnia. In the border guard’s broken English, I heard him say something like “papers”. He already had our passports but he pointed to the glove box. So we figured it was the ownership and insurance he wanted. He pointed to the so-called “green card,” said the insurance was expired, and he motioned for us to pull over and turn off the ignition. Sure enough, the card showed the insurance was not up do date. Now what, son?

My son dutifully got out of the car and walked over to the border guard’s temporary-looking border hut, dodging the EUFOR army trucks rumbling past. The guard told him that we weren’t getting into Bosnia today. We could, in theory, buy some temporary auto insurance at the kiosk down the road, but as it was a national holiday, the insurance office was closed. After some awkward pauses and shrugs and vacant stares off to the horizon, the guard suggested that my son could maybe put 20 Euros into his passport, come back, and give it to him. Problem: we were out of Euros. How about Croatian kuna? Croatian kuna no problem. Unfortunately, we only had about 17 Euros’ worth of kuna between us. Our son went back to the guard, handed over the passport, and after much scowling the border guard waved the three quaking souls on their way. Whew! Got out of that one without much damage.

Now into the second half of the trip, the scenery was just as spectacular as on the coast. I was behind the wheel and we were cruising over the twisty mountain road to Sarajevo without any trouble at all. Headlights were full on, the insurance tag was up-to-date thanks to a fax that the rental company sent through, and I was slowing down at every speed sign. Great holiday, son!

We headed into a town called Mostar in Herzegovina that still bears much of the damage left behind from the conflict between the Bosniaks and the Croats. It’s an uneasy peace there – just two days after we visited, somebody fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a Bosnian mosque in the Croatian side of town. Luckily, nobody was hurt.

Like most visitors to Mostar, we were looking for the famous Turkish bridge that was rebuilt just a few years ago. (The Croatian army destroyed the original in the early 90’s.) I was driving along, looking for direction signs and admittedly moving a little slowly, so I stayed in the right lane of the four lane street. I had seen the flashing headlights coming at me so I knew there was a speed trap ahead. Drive Slowly, John. But hey, what’s this? There’s a cop ahead pulling me over? Over in the former Yugoslavia, being pulled over is somewhat like herding sheep. The copper wields a tiny ping-pong paddle that says STOP. He walks out in front of you and waves you over. Try that in Canada and he’d be flat as a pancake.

I pulled over, and of course out came the passports and the new insurance tag and I was puzzled. “What’s wrong?” I asked. He looked back at me and said my name backwards as it’s written in my passport, pulled out his trusty pad of paper and a pen, and showed me what I did. He drew a picture of the intersection and showed me the arrows painted on the driving lanes, with the left lane going straight ahead and the right lane – where I went through – pointing to the right. For that, I have broken the law. OK. What do we do for that, I asked? He said my name backwards again, followed by something in Bosnian that I took to mean, “This is not so bad of a driving error. And why make me write up a ticket as long as you leave, by mistake, 40 Konvertible Bosnian Marks (roughly 20 Euros) in your passport when you hand it back to me?”

All three of us had no KM at the time and so we asked him if we could go to the Bankomat and get some dough. He gesticulated to say sure, just go over to this street and then turn left, you’ll see the machine right there near the police department. I think they send everyone there just to make them feel Big Brother is watching over them. So we got the money and drove back to where we started this story and sure enough, he was still there, smiling away. This time, my son had taken the wheel and he handed him his passport with a 50 KM note inside just to make sure this all went away.

What happened next was worth the whole holiday. The fuzz opened the passport, took out the 50, and slid a 10 KM note back in. He then handed the passport back and wished us a good day. There is something to be said for honest graft!