Destination 》Europe 》Central and Eastern Europe 》Bosnia and Herzegovina 》Banja Luka
Year Visited: 2018 – October
After couple of days in Sarajevo, we continue our backpacking through the Balkans journey by taking a train to Banja Luka, the capital and the largest city of the Republika Srpska, Bosnian Serbs controlled entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Banja Luka is a picturesque city in the western part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the administrative capital and the largest city of Republika Srpska, and the second largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
During the Bosnian conflict, the civil war that followed Bosnia’s secession from Yugoslavia in 1992, Banja Luka became the main Bosnian Serb center in the northern part of the country. Serbs employed violence and other methods of persecution to drive thousands of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Croats, Roma (Gypsies), and others out of the city and surrounding areas.
Banja Luka is a very safe city, locals are very friendly, ready to help. There are not many travelers visiting this far. As soon we arrived, Raul and I were noted down by local police / security forces. We were followed, an old landlady of the AirBnB where we stayed, was questioned by the local authorities, and if that was not enough, on a second day, just before we were leaving for Zagreb, two army looking officers (with machine guns) stopped us at the international Bus-Stop asking us for the documents. Nothing serious though, they were just curious why two Indian looking men carrying backpacks visiting their city. Once they saw our USA passports, with recent stamps from Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia and rest of the Balkans, they asked us “Tourists?” We said Yes, and they gave us our Passports back with broad smile, saying “Hvala vam” (Thank You).
After a week of backpacking through Bosnia and Herzegovina, we continued our backpacking through the Balkans journey by taking a bus from Banja Luka to Zagreb, the capital city of Croatia.
Window on the World 