Thanks, pal. Sounds like a good trip.
@mickee321, I’m still awaiting your lowdown on Yugoslavia.
@Bandage
Ill recount a 3 week sojurn I undertook in 2004
We fly from Dublin to Dubrovnik with Aer Lingus, we were young lads at the time and had no accommodation booked, on arrival at Dubrovnik, there are a load of fellas targeting scruffy looking backpackers like me in 2004, a lad called Robert told us he had a house that we could rent, he put us into his van and we stayed in a very nice house for 2 days with his mother
Ok, so Dubrovnik, youll see what you need in 2 days, it’s a lovely walled city, now the serbs did their level best to shell the fuck out of it in 1992 but its wonderfuly restored, a lovely place to wander about and spend a day or 2… we then took a day bus trip to Split, 4 hours
A lovely journey up the Dalmatian coast, Split is an impressive city , lots of Roman ruins, beautiful women and a very violent and fanatical football fanbase, I purchased a Torcida (hadjuk split hooligans) t shirt which I wore with pride for an hour or 2,
We headed back down to Dubrovnik that nite but 2 nights split, 2 nights dubrovnik would be a lovely holiday if a lady in tow
Then the real adventure, hopped on a bus from Dubrovnik to Sarajevo, and incredible 8 hour journey thru the Dalmatian alps, the journey is stunning, we passed thru Mostar also that is a beautiful spot and if you so desire Medjigoure is along the way, we spent 3 nights in Sarajevo, now back then the city was only 8 years out of a violent war and was in bits, I revisited in November and its wonderfullyu restored, it’s a remarkable place cut between croat / catholic – serb/orthodox and Turkish/muslim (bosniak), the old town is lovely, we took a trip in a cab to visit a tunnel a few lads dug to esacape the city under serb lines in 1993 when Karadzic and Mladic had it surrounded on all sides, that’s pretty awesome, some lovely bars, the women are as cold as ice, we rented an apt from a couple who owned one in a building that was used to house athletes for the 84 winter Olympics, basic but grand, mosques all around but they were sound people, from there we took a bus to Belgrade,
Now, to do this we had to head to the serb part of the city, the bus station was a smoke filled dungeoun, standard breakfast out there is espresso, Marlboro red and a cheese burerkas, these were in abundance that morning
We hopped and cruised into the serb part or Republika Srbska, as an aside I must tell you that BiH is really divided , the croats and moislems live in some form of peace which is really a miracle after the croats massacred so many Bosnian moslems in 93… the serbs however have created and declared their own de facto rebublic within BiH called Republika Srpska, this is an etchnically cleansed area of 100% serb people who see themselves part of a greater Serbia…
Now I dunno why we did this, probably curiosity, after 4 houst we stopped in Zvornik ( everthing is in Cyrillic, the serbs hate using English or standard lettering), this is a border town that sits across the Drina river before you enter Serbia, we were headed for Belgrade but I think we ( well I ) felt we needed to excplore this place better and we decided to pitch in Zvornik for the nite
It’s a horrible place, eerie, we stayed in some hotel where a guy ( the owner) showed us pictures of Mladic, told us about Arkan and how Milosevic was a hero, we spent the night drinking plum brandy and smoking, he told us a story that once you have killed once you have no problem in doing it again and the first time he shot a croat on the front line was scary but after that it was fine, I had no reason to doubt this man…
We slept two hours and headed onto Prijedor, Prijedor is the site of Ormaska concentration camp, it was also the town that the Bosnian serbs started their propaganda war in, they edited news broadcasts in 1991 calling out the local croat and moslem population and connecting peoples neighbours to croat / nazi atrocities in WW2, ( in Croatia and BiH WW2 is still a big thing, the coats seem to be proud of the fact they supported Hitler in some cases whilst the serbs used it as a propaganda weapon in 91 to stir hate , similar to what Putin did in Crimea in 2014… in Prijedor serbs live in the houses of Croast they evicted,… I think Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s father left there to Sweden, Zlatan would be a Muslim,. Mind u a muslim in bosnia means u can drink and do what you want and that is why when the mujahadiin went there in solidarity with the moslems in 93 they were horrified with the relaxed attitude to Islam and left…
We went to Srebenica from there … this is a horrible place and is where the dutch UN troops stood back and left Mladic kill 8000 people on 14 July 1995… ist a terrible eerie place… If Prijedor is similar to Beit El or some crazy israeli settlement I have never come across a place like this in all my life… I actually wish bad things upon the people who live there… the worst cunts in the world
Ok, from there to Belgrade where I met a woman and ended up with her for a year, Belgrade is a glorious city, like Vienna, its been bombed something like 22 times but has always survived, they fucking hate the US, hate the brits, hate Europe, they are who they are , a really wonderful people with a phenomenal sports culture
a single man will do weel in belgarde, the women are out of this world , the finest i have every seen
In summary… Dubrovnik / split---- ull get a week there… Belgrade via Sarajevo for the adventure
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Unreal, unbelievable. What a summation - thanks, pal.
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Unreal. I was hanging on every word there.
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this is one of the greatest things I have seen
Proud to give that number 10.
Anyone been on a beach holiday to the Phillippines? Any advice?
Want to go for a few relaxing days away at a resort but I’m looking for somewhere other than Malaysia/Thailand/Indonesia.
I know a fella that holidayed in Phillippines last year, a beach holiday type thing, and he said it was unreal. And this fella has travelled to a lot of nice places. What did you think of Malaysia?
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Even though it’s just up the road I’ve only bothered to go to Johor Bahru, which is a kip. Heard pretty negative things about everywhere besides Langkawi and Penang. Singapore and Malaysia are building a train line between both capitals so I’ll visit Kuala Lumpur at some stage. Again though everyone says it’s a kip.
Malaysian food is fantastic however.
Go to Malacca, it’s lovely with a very interesting history. Stay in one of the Nonya houses that are now hotels.
I really like KL, much more than Singapore even if it is far less sanitised and the petty crime rate has burgeoned lately.
Johor Bahru is the worst example of a Malaysian city you could visit, a concrety, industrial, suburban mass which has built up to house the Singaporean workforce.
The more northern cities like Ipoh are different too as they built up right beside the palm plantations on the edges of the jungles, the food there is slightly different again.
I stayed in a beautiful resort on Tioman Island called Japamala, you can get good deals there during Monsoon season but you’d need to be lucky with the weather.
I would also urge you to visit Sarawak and Sabah while you are living relatively near there
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I found Malaysia to be a shit hole during a brief visit there, wouldn’t like to return.
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I know of four islands in the Visayas region which might be good for a beach holiday depending on what you would like.
Balawan :very high end beach resorts.
Bohol: here you will find mid range beach resorts but also the very scenic chocolate hills are accessible from here
Boracay Island: resort island with beaches and good nightlife, probably the best bet for a quick getaway beach holiday
Malapascua : tiny, sand island which barely has electricity, has a few bars etc but the main draw is for the diving
If you want to avoid Manila airport you can fly directly from Singapore to Cebu which is also in the Visayas region
It has its own resort called Shangri-la but it’s not great. The main advantage is that it would be a one stop trip, you’d have to take onward flights or boats from Cebu to the other islands I’ve described
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Yeah I’ve looked into Palawan, Boracay, Cebu and Bohol but all are like twice as expensive as Thailand/Indonesia/Malaysia. So I’m stuck deciding between a new country and somewhere half price.
Did a week in Boracay last year. Wouldn’t put you off it, but can be a bit of an ordeal to get to. Domestic Filipino flights are questionable, at best and Manila is one of the worst airports you’ll ever set foot in.
If you can get past all that, Boracay is quite idyllic. Plenty to do during the day; they’re big into their watersports/ locals are lovely/ and you’ll meet a higher class of traveller than the typical SE Asia spot. The snorkelling ain’t great mind you. It’s very similar to Phi Phi at night with a lot of beachside debauchery. I never got to Palawan but it looks the kinda place you’d want off after 3 days.
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Go to Borneo, pick an island off Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, it’ll be lovely
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Anybody been to Bali on here?
yes
Yep.
A couple of times.