Fifty Euros, No Receipt

Day twenty-one, Montenegro. I'm at the Namaste hostel. The word is Indian and means welcome, or, taken literally, I bow to you. I'm safe here.

That policeman frightened me more than I like to admit. I always knew something of the sort would happen sooner or later, so I could have taken it calmly. He simply caught me on the wrong foot.

Yesterday had been a bad day already: the business with the Egyptian, nearly wrecking the car, a hubcap gone, my journal mislaid. Then the traffic stop.

His face gave the game away before he opened his mouth — cut square, with eyes that were indifferent and going somewhere. „License, license.“ I handed the man with the hat and the badge my papers. He drew himself up.

„Oh. Not allowed.“

Not allowed what? I may not drive with a trailer. Not in Bosnia. Of course I may. No, not in Bosnia. Yes, in Bosnia too. No. Bosnia different. „Police station!“ Come along.

There was no point. He wanted fifty euros. I gave him fifty euros. No receipt, naturally, because he would have to pay it in first. And I was to leave Bosnia at once or there would be real trouble.

If he had said he had a wife and children to feed and needed the money, I would have understood it. At least that would have been honest. But this performance.

It left me doubting myself. Am I actually allowed to drive with a trailer? I had wanted to stay at a rafting camp near the border. Instead I drove until half past one in the morning and crossed into Montenegro.