Robbers, crooks, swindlers; bus conductors.

Saturday night I didn't think I was going to sleep well, it was somehow stifling - there is extensive cloud cover this morning - but a little 'returning to the breath' counting meditation, without the overly large pillow, flat supine and it carried me away even when my German room mate came in around midnight. It reminds me not to be fooled by the shining lights and that all that glitters is not gold. To be rich is to be at peace with all of creation.

Now I am in the city market Sibenik with something perhaps looming bright away from fools gold? I think Vis is calling me again. Down to Dubrovnik. Hop a few islands and finish back at Zadar trying to miss out Split, because I really can't do another tourist old town, even if Diocletian's palace is a wonder; too many American, Japanese and other wealthy pleasure seekers. Not today! Not negative today. Leave the average, over priced, wine corked for another naive, gullible alcohol fiend. One positive - the guys working in VinoIno are interesting and didn't sell wine they themselves didn't like; there is nothing worse than the smile of a merchant with eyes of deception and slight of hand.

There is a nice side to the locals even here, when abutted next to the southern city gates. In Dubrovnik I must keep out of tourist harms reach. But then I think of the price I've just been charged in the market and it is more than any supermarket; because I am a tourist. Each Kuna that the locals extort from me feels like an affront to common decency. The least I've paid for a double espresso is 6 kuna, but in the market it is 14. It is not magic.

The further from Zadar I travel the more insane I feel. It is deeper in tourism and I am further from the residential area I slept in for two nights. Like a bullseye I am in a small tight hole and I need to aim more for double top - I must awake from the sleep that has fallen on me. Return to the breath.

Trying to work it out for myself and I need to concentrate because who will give me the answer: there is no answer. The question itself is the error. Before the fall into confusion there was nothing to ask. When we were very young there wasn't a thing to be afraid of. Always trying my best but I don't get this forms function. From the furthest fringes to find fruitful realities for one such as I. Prose is my only bastion when all is hell from where I am standing.

The view of the sea scape - once as distant as the universe now appears - was the barrier. It was never out our abode: waves suggest goodbyes; passing ripples of the mind. Suggestions that there would be an escape east or west. Neither is the change. Need to change mind about the way the world seems.

Before thought and expression there is an interval; in my mind the gap is so wide I hardly have mind for the gap these fools frequently fall out of upon me. Can you please stop talking?

Dubrovnik is a long distance down the coast. On the way back the monotonous predictability has to be broken into a couple of hour chunks. Six and a half hours along the trepidcious Dalmatian Alpine coast, as the space between sea and mountain is negligible, 178 kuna (they charge you extra to put your baggage below). So many beautiful coves, beaches, etc, but enough resorts complexes, as spied from high above. From the mountains to the plains, irrigated gardens green and up back onto the mountainside. The valley floor suggests bounty. Close to Bosnia's border here - up there it all began 1914. Assassination begat a nasty 31 years. Perhaps as far forwards as Yugoslavia Wars. What is Sarajevo like I wonder? A local girl, glamorous and inches deep in mascaras, lipstick, nails an inch long, bleached blond hair and obsession with selfies and I wonder where she misplaced the 'her' amongst this façade? She is a walking metaphor for tourist structures.

Oppressed by too many people when you jump off the bus: I am sure your apartment is lovely at 150 kuna a night but its an hour at least from the old walled city(stari grad). This again suggest there is a little too much supply and not enough demand or too many just jump off the bus and fall weak-at-the-knees for this pitch. Never trust the person waiting for you. Find the place you feel comfortable, ask in shops and restaurants about and voilà 175 kuna exactly in Dubrovnik Stari Head. Oh and there was a bath too: the bus was quite dirty so I am running low on unsoiled clothes must be a Sunday laundry in the bath! Now to see how crazily expensive fortress city is - I am not holding my breath!