Bosnia-Herzergovina Report

[Rootsman]

I just spent 1 week in this incredible country - a fascinating
place.  Mostar and Sarajevo are predominantly Muslim towns (even
more so after the war) and due to their heritage under the Turkish
Ottoma Empire, I was interested to see if there was any shisha culture
there.  Well the answer is not a lot.

In neither town did I see any public (ie outdoors) smoking of shisha
but in Mostar near the old bridge there is a little Turkish souvenir
store which sells massell.  The only brand on sale was the Turkish
Sima Sultan brand.  I bought 200g of Bahreini flavour (the staff
couldnt tell me what it actually was except saying it was an "arab"
flavour -  I suggested apple, but they said no.  I also got
100g of cappucino.  Cost was 14KM (5 pounds) for 200g, 7KM for
100g.

I saw shisha pipes for sale in both towns although none looked that
good in terms of quality.  In Sarajevo the Turkish brand Serbetli
was on sale at one place but they wanted 25KM for 200g so I passed it
by.  In one little cafe in Biscarsia square I found a nice little
cafe and noticed a shisha pipe in the window.  I asked for a smoke
and the owner said yes, saying he only had apple flavour.  I said
that was fine.  It was an enjoyable smoke despite the lack of a
tight seal between them stem and base.  Kids passing by were very
bemused at seeing someone smoking a pipe!  That smoke was about
2GBP.

I went back that night but it was too late (everything shuts down
early) but they directed me to a little youth cafe called Art-X Club
and when i entered i saw a number of people inside smoking shisha,
mainly teenagers.  After offering my salaams, I asked for an apple
shisha. However I noticed at the same time that the stems
and bases were taped together so thoughts were entering my head about
the cleanliness of the pipes and the regularity of the
water-changing.  Needless to say the shisha was revolting to smoke
so I took it back and he apologetically offered me a strawberry shisha
instead.  It smoked OK but tasted of someone's (probably an
unwashed vagrant's) old socks.  I took a few puffs and decided to
give up and put it down to experience.

Cheers

Rootsman

[steve07]

Bahreini is one of my favorite flavors hard to discribe.

[mushrat]

Thanks for the very cool travel log. It's  interesting to hear about other places, especially when I'm stuck here in Raleigh.