IN Zagreb, the Avis representative said that of course I could drive my rented car into Bosnia. Would I just sign this form saying that if I do, and it gets damaged or stolen, I will not just repair the damage but buy them a new car.
The traffic leaving Zagreb at 8 a.m. on the "Highway of Brotherhood and Unity" is heavy. For several miles the highway passes through industrial sprawl. Then you are speeding through forest, the traffic vanishes somewhere and you have the road almost to yourself.
At the far end of this highway is Belgrade, although you wouldn't know it from the road signs. They tell you, you are heading for Lipovac, a tiny town 350 kilometres away on the border with Serbia. Belgrade, and anything beyond Lipovac, are written out of geography. This major highway - Tito's grand project - which once brought a huge amount of heavy goods traffic from Belgrade to Zagreb and on to central and western Europe is now ghostly. Petrol stations lie empty, some burnt out during the Croatian-Serbian war, some out of business due to lack of traffic. Not many people go from Zagreb to Belgrade now.
I wasn't going to Belgrade either. I was going to Sarajevo. A notion that would have seemed laugh. able - and possibly suicidal - during the last five years suddenly seemed possible. The route would take me through Croatia, the Serb part of Bosnia "Republika Sipska", across the inter-entity boundary line" into Croat and Moslem regions, and finally into Sarajevo where I could drive down what last year was "snipers' alley" into the city centre.
Route 66 for aspiring war correspondents - and all without a war to deal with.
About 120 kilometres out of Zagreb, shortly before the sharp right turn to Bosnia, I asked for directions to Gradiska, the first town inside Republika Srpska, at a deserted roadside cafe. The man, seemed to think I was mistaken. Bosanska Gradiska? he repeated, meaning "Bosnian Gradiska". Yes, I assured him. He shrugged and told me I should turn in a few kilometres.
Off the road, the first bridge was down, and the only way across the divide was to, follow a mucky track down and up again. Three kilometres further on was the little village of Novi Varos, the first monument to that new term former, Yugoslavia has given to the English language, "ethnic cleansing".
A once pretty country road, lined with red-roofed houses, was devastated. Homes owned once by Serbs were riddled with bullet holes, some burned out, most without roofs. A few - presumably inhabited by Croats, - were undamaged. An old woman picked fruit off a tree. An old man slowly rode his bicycle along the road. Two Hungarian IFOR soldiers in singlets jogged through the village. There were no other signs of life.
A few kilometres further on was the bridge into Bosnia. Bombed by Serbs to prevent the Croats launching a counter-offensive into their territory, it has been rebuilt by IFOR's Hungarian engineer corps.
The Croatian policeman at the barrier wagged his index finger. I must go back to Zagreb for accreditation, he said. He shook his head at my passport, then at my NUJ card, then at an out-of-date Croatian foreign press card. Finally he took my out-of-date UN press card, examined it front and back, looked at me, looked at it, looked at the bridge, and nodded. I was free to enter Republika Srpska.
Across the bridge in Gradiska, the Serb policeman wanted no cards at all and waved me on. I stopped near Gradiska's police station to wait for he who had promised to meet me.
It wasn't the best, town for a Croatian car. Not, far south west of Gradiska are the Kozara mountains, where in 1942 the Croat fascist government, supported by the German, Italian and Hungarian armies, captured 4,000 Serb refugees and partisans, including 4,000 children. Almost all were slaughtered. One called Kurt Waldheim played a small role in Kozara, as a junior intelligence officer.
Serb inhabitants of Gradiska passed me on the street as I stood by the car. All of them who were more than 50 years old were alive when the Kozara massacre happened. The younger ones who stopped on the street and pointed out my registration plates to each other would have been told about it, over and over.
A Set policeman, no more than 21, approached from the police station across the road. He pointed at the registration plate and then laughed. He went away.
My escort, one Frank McDonald, this newspaper's environment correspondent working as an OSCE election supervisor arrived with a Serb translator called Evice, a burly, bearded Serb called Vlad and a Serb driver called Dragan.
Vlad was a Serb refugee from Mostar, where Croats and Muslims now live on different sides of the divided town. Dragan had been shot in the stomach by a Croat bullet during the war. Vlad scowled at the car.
I shook Vlad's hand firmly and smiled a lot, not sure in which direction his mood was turning. He decided to be helpful and began sticking bits of paper onto the number plates, but we decided that while the Croat registration might say "I am a Croat", the paper-covered plates said "I am a Croat and pretending not to be". We decided to leave the plates uncovered, hoping they would say "I couldn't be a Croat, because if I was I'd have covered these plates". Dragan led the way to Srbac. People stopped and watched our car go by. It was an effect that the car would have until we left Republika Sipska.
Dragan and Evice drove us around the area for the day, showing us the devastated towns of Derventa and Brod and telling war stories as we went. Evice told of how the Muslims had captured a group of teenage Serb consripts and roasted them alive on a spit, using a microphone to broadcast their screams to the locality. He seemed to believe such barbarity was unique to Muslims, and appeared sceptical, when, I told him that last year a Serb in Sarajevo's prison, convicted of raping 10 Muslim women and then cutting their throats, had described his crimes to me.
He told you this himself? he asked. He did, I said. Then he looked shocked. I think this young Serb, who had not left Republika Sipska for five years and got all his news from, army-controlled propaganda sources, actually believed me a small blow for freedom of information.
Dragan drove us past the spot in an empty Croat village where he had been shot in the stomach. He had a pre-war Yugoslav National Army (JNA) tattoo on his right arm. He didn't talk much.
The next morning we taped white paper over the Croatian number plates before leaving Srbac at 10 a.m., taking a back road to Banja Luka in the hope of avoiding anyone who would wish injury upon the occupants of a Croatian car.
To the passing observer, rural Bosnia hasn't changed much for several hundred years. Traditional organic farms with pigs and hens running free in the fields dominate the landscape.
The taped-over plates did indeed say to people that we were Croats. The car attracted hostile looks from many young men in scruffy uniform on the route, but we had passed by the time anyone who felt inclined could throw any rocks. To be inside the car, passing Serbs, was like what it must feel like to walk into a crowded room with your underpants on outside your trousers, hoping nobody will notice.
After an hour we reached Banja Luka, what was once a mixed, prosperous town boasting hotels, restaurants and healthy industry and commerce. Here, as the war began, Muslims were first driven from their jobs, then any who were in nice apartments had them taken away. To give the men an added incentive to leave, many were told they must join the army. Then the killing started and those who had the chance to escape, fled.
All 14 mosques were dynamited - including the Ferhadia mosque dating back to 1580 - most of them in one night. Their sites provide car parking spaces now.
From Banja Luka another detour off the main road, towards a highway which was supposed to have freedom of movement through Republika.
Sipska, brought us through spectacular gorges along a river, with granite outcrops hanging right over the road.
After 45 minutes, we reached Mrkonic Grad and the highway. From there it was a question of guessing when we had passed into the Bosnian Federadion. We knew we hadn't when, just before noon, we passed a group of drunk Serb soldiers. Apart from that, all the silent, ethnically-cleansed villages looked the same, whether they were originally Serb, Croat or Muslim.
Then there was a Croat car, then another, then a Bosnia/Herzegovin plate. We had crossed the unmanned "inter-entity boundary line". We stopped and pulled the paper off the registration plates.
Here, it was easier to know where you were. If the Muslim graveyard was overgrown, it was a Croat town, if it was well tended, it was Muslim. Every town, village and settlement on the road to Sarajevo was damaged, deserted gable-fronted, alpine-style houses dotting the landscape.
At the small town of Turbe, where Muslims massacred many Croats in 1993, we stopped for lunch. The cafe owner recommended cepaki - a Bosnian speciality". The previous day in Srpska the same food, with the same name, was a Serb speciality In both places it consisted of sausages made of dubious meat sandwiched between thick, greasy, white doorsteps of bread.
Ninety minutes later we were there. To arrive in the city driving a car seemed peculiar. This time last year, a seven-hour ordeal over mountains in an armoured jeep by night with the headlights off was the only route available.
This time I drove slowly - slower than necessary - along what was "sniper alley", into the city centre and back to the Holiday Inn. The next bay I changed a punctured tyre in the hotel car park, in full view of the hills from which snipers picked off civilians for over three years. The sun shone, the hills were silent.