My time in Bosnia was an accident. I fled the developed, Dalmatian coast of Croatia despite having every intention of lounging on its beaches. Chilly weather and massive crowds of Spanish tourists, shepherded in on cruise ships moored in Dubrovnik, convinced me to think otherwise. And so I headed south to bordering Montenegro, to a quaint town called Kotor.

Travelling in the Balkans is a fascinating process. The region possesses a remarkably efficient system of buses, plying the mountainous region with consistency– day or night. These gains are nullified by frequent border crossings, ID checks, and intransigent customs officials. But you become accustomed to a rhythm that in time becomes soothing: winding roads, speeding buses, and then long periods of idling as the border officials comb through your documents.

A few hours later, my bus passed into Montenegro. Montenegro is known for its pristine beaches, which its citizens contend are sandier and more hospitable than its more famous northern neighbor, Croatia. But on the road from Dubrovnik, I was greeted first by a sleepy, sprawling industrial town. As the bus circled the stunning Bay of Kotor on its way to the town of Kotor, my eye wandered not to its gleaming waters, but to the abundant billboards advertising land and products from Russia. This was no accident: until 1989, Montenegro was part of Yugoslavia, one of the last bastions of the Soviet Union.

I spent a day in Kotor, but didn’t linger. Like much of the Balkans, Montenegro is stunning. In Kotor, steep, contoured mountains slope down to the placid Bay of Kotor. Little towns dot the road that wraps itself around the bay, a mix of fancy Mercedes and older Soviet-era cars zipping around its many bends.

I had grand plans to venture into Albania from Kotor, but with the onset of Easter in just four days, I was unable to arrange any transportation without fear of being stranded there. Even during my brief time in Montenegro, it struck me as a land of paradoxes. Fancy yachts moored next to decrepit, Soviet-era hotels languishing unnoticed. I sensed a significant presence of organized crime, a feeling later corroborated by the US State Department, which declares that there are “significant problems with organized crime and corruption, which are widely believed to be pervasive at all levels of society.” I certainly didn’t feel unsafe, but perhaps the intransigence of organized crime explained why an ATM refused to give me anything but one-hundred euro bills.

And so I moved onward to Mostar, Bosnia by bus. Doing so required me to retrace my steps, change buses in Dubrovnik, Croatia– underscoring the fluidity with which people cross borders in this region. That evening I arrived in Mostar, a city neatly split down the middle by a river that separates the Croat majority from the Muslim quarter. Night time disguised the wounds from the war sixteen years prior, but I learned the next morning of the ethnic tensions that while no longer violent, still simmer to this day.