Montenegro

WEDNESDAY 12 AUGUST 2009

The easy jet queue was enormous and it took me about an hour and a half to check in, drop bags and get through security, which left me almost no time to top up my mobile phone and get some money changed and dig out my kunas from two weeks ago.

I was asleep before the plane took off, don’t even think I saw the security demo. Woke up with about half hour flight time to go and read a little.

Got the airport shuttle which was easy, to the bus station. Had expected to be attacked by little old grannies trying to get rid of their room as I didn’t have anything booked - but apart from one creepy old man there was no one trying to sell rooms. So I resorted to the YHA a short bus journey away. Met another Aussie girl who was very lost, looking very anxious, heading the same way so I think it made her feel better that I was heading the same was she was - she said she had never travelled on her own before - and she was only about 21 or 22.

Got to the hostel, checked in, put everything on charge and got stuck into my uni assignment, finishing it all bar one reference which I needed internet access to check (which the hostel didn’t have). Obviously need to email it off as well, but that has to wait until I have email.

THURSDAY 13 AUGUST 2009

Took my time getting up and ready this morning before walking down to the ferry terminal to get wifi and submit my uni assignment. From there it was a short walk to the bus terminal where I bought my ticket to Budva and waited for my bus. The bus ride was supposed to be about two and a half hours but ended up taking about three and a half. We stopped for ages at the border, they collected our passports, went away with them. After about 15 minutes the bus drove to the second border crossing (ie/ the Montenegran side) and we sat there for about another half an hour. Eventually the bus ticket man got handed a rather large stack of passports and we were on our way. It took him a good half hour to hand out the passports as he couldn’t pronounce any of the names and so no one knew if it was theirs or not - and even some that people claimed they then handed back because it actually wasn’t theirs!! It was a terrible way of doing it - usually it is a lot more organised and they get given them back in the same (or reverse) order they were collected in and it is just a matter of walking them down the rows. Guess they like to make things difficult. The only good thing was I had this very friendly Croatian girl who was happy to chat away - studying law and living somewhere outside of Zagreb, who was going to visit some friends in Belgrade, Serbia, and was concerned about that, given previous conflicts between the countries. She also told me she loves speaking English and that the Slavic dialogues are ‘ugly.’ Interestingly, she also said that Croatians could no longer afford to go on holidays to Dubrovnik because it was so expensive, and that Montenegro is very poor (kind of knew that already!) and that she disliked the people. This last bit would come back and haunt me pretty much for most of the rest of the day!!

Got into Budva and I made for the tourist info place which took a little bit of finding. The guy was incredibly unhelpful and rude and pointed in the general direction of one of the camping grounds so I headed there. Again, wasn’t easy to find, and despite the fact I had looked online to check they rented tents, it turned out they didn’t, or they were out, I am not sure. He was quite rude as well but did try to point me in the direction of another camp site that ‘might’ have tents. It didn’t - or maybe they didn’t have any left - don’t know. I should add that I had also emailed the first park I went to twice in the last fortnight and had no reply to either of my emails - if they had of it would have saved me a bit of time.

So then I headed to a couple of places with signs saying they had rooms available. No answer at the first one. The second one the next door neighbours told me to ‘come back’ but didn’t know when, and I wasn’t about to hang around. So I headed for a two star hotel which was close. Trekked up to reception and the lady asked me how many people and how many nights. Then she said they were full. So why bother asking me that to start with??? My experience with locals by that stage was not very good. By this stage I had basically been lugging my pack in the extreme heat for about three hours (lots of rest breaks in between).

So I did what most people would have done. I gave up and went back to the bus station and got the bus back to Kotor, thinking my luck might be better there. It turned out it was and it wasn’t!!

Arrived into Kotor at around 8pm and there were another two ‘backpackers’ getting off at the same place and had found a budget hotel in their Lonely Planet. It was about a kilometre out of the old town so we figured we would walk out as there were no taxis around. Got out there and were told that they had no beds available. Right. Again.

So we stopped to take a breather and some pics of the old town, since we were on the other side of the bay from it. That’s when the Scottish (but been living in the states for 10 years) guy realised he had left his camera on the bus we had just got off of. Too late to do much about it by then though. There were no taxis around so we started walking and hailed the next cab that went past - which happened to have a very helpful and friendly female driver. We asked her to head to old town (Stari Grad) and asked her about accommodation and she recommended the ‘student accommodation’ on the other side of town as old town was apparently quite expensive. Drove us there which cost a grand total of one euro each; they had beds (two beds to a room, 10 euros each), so it was a nice relief at the end of a very long day (for me anyway!!).

After a quick shower in one of the crappiest showers ever (most of the water came out of the hose rather than the shower head, one shower didn’t even have a shower head, and one didn’t have a door) we had a quick beer at the accommodation (cost 70 cents euro each - can’t complain much about the prices here) and headed by cab into the old town. Grabbed a slice of pizza as we did a bit of a night tour before heading up to the bus station. No one was around so went back to old town and had a few beers sitting up at a café basically on one section of the city walls. The American guy (his name was Bruce - first time I have ever met a Bruce!! Other than you of course Dad J) also had one of the biggest banana splits I have ever seen - and even their food was relatively decently priced.

So while it looked like it was expensive and anywhere else it would have been - beers were still less than two euros. When they closed we headed downstairs for a beer on the way back to the student accommodation and off to bed.

FRIDAY 14 AUGUST 2009

Took my time getting up again this morning as I had a room to myself (have to make the most of not being woken by other people when I can!) and headed down to the free breakfast; which basically consisted of bread, pastries and some more bread. Was half way through when the American and Scot showed up, so after breakfast I headed into town with them before we went our separate ways. Since I had been to Kotor before I didn’t spend too much time wandering around the old town, although did go into some of the churches and cathedrals we didn’t have time to do last time. Also went into the Maritime Museum which had some great models of boats, some great paintings of boats, and some MASSIVE guns. Don’t know how anyone could have lifted some of them they were that big.

After grabbing a quick bite to eat I decided to head to Sventi Stefan which a Croatian girl I had been talking to on the bus the day before had recommended. There was nothing in Lonely Planet about it so figured I might as well take a look, and it was only an hour away.

From the top of the hill where the bus dropped me off, it was quite spectactular. It is basically a fortified old town that used to once be an island, but is now connected to the mainland by a bridge of sorts. On either side is really long, quite pleasant, rocky beaches. These were bigger than pebbles - although not boulders. You couldn’t lie on just a towel here - if you didn’t hire a sun lounge you needed liked a camping map or something - which a lot of the locals brought with them. The beach was absolutely packed - heaps of people in the water and sunbaking, people sitting under umbrellas, etc. I wandered over the ‘bridge’ towards the old town thinking I would be able to wander around and have a look but for some strange reason it was all locked up so you couldn’t get in. I was quite disappointed really. Seems a lot of other people were much the same as quite a few tourists (not just from outside the country either) showed up and also tried to get in.

Since I couldn’t get in, and I hadn’t brought my swimmers or a towel, I had a very quick paddle hoping it would help the blister on my right foot and to cool down before sitting for a while, then getting the bus back to Kotor. I had to change in Budva this time as I couldn’t work out which bus went to Kotor and I basically just jumped into the first one that stopped!!

Got back into Kotor at around 6pm, grabbed some food, used the internet and headed back to the dorms to get some uni reading in before an early night. Still had the room to myself as well so figured I should concentrate on some reading and thinking about the next lot of assignments… yuck.

SATURDAY 15 AUGUST 2009

As usual, my plan for the day didn’t work out. I got up at a fairly leisurely pace, had my free breakfast (bread bread and more bread) and washed it down with water and hot milk (lovely combination I am sure you will agree). Checked out of the student accommodation at a bit after 9am and got a taxi to the bus station for a grand total of two euro. I expected the next bus to be at 10am, but there was one at 9:30am to Podgorica which is the capital so I hopped onto that. The ‘plan’ was to spend the day in Podgorica (leaving my luggage in left luggage) and carry on to Prishtina, Kosovo, on the night bus. That bus ride went relatively smoothly. The bus was pretty full and I had a bit of a nutter sit next to me. Kept trying, in very broken English, to talk to me, but I could barely understand half of what he was saying. I think he was saying that even though he is Montenegrin, that he hates it; it is a very poor country and he wants to go somewhere else. He was talking about kangaroos and koalas and acting out a roo jumping. He asked me my star sign, told me his, and told me that my star sign was ‘very good, very good.’ Not the sort of conversation I expected to have.

Got to Podgorica to discover there were no left luggage facilities and there was a bus leaving in an hours time. The 1pm bus should take seven hours, which would get me into Prishtina at a reasonable time to be able to find accommodation, etc. Since I also expected at least one decent stop on route, I bought a sandwich, only ate half of it as I didn’t like the taste of the ‘chicken’ and an extra bottle of water, quickly used the toilets and jumped on what would become the never ending bus journey.

We drove for about 40 minutes before we stopped in what appeared to be the middle of no where - but was actually a bus station - for half an hour. Then we drove 10 minutes when we happened to run into traffic. And we sat there. There was obviously an accident as fire services and police went past. And we sat and sweated in the stinky hot bus, as the driver had turned off the engine and there was no air con. And we sat some more. Sat for a good hour before we started to move, having seen an ambulance go flying past. Past the car; which looked like it had had a head-on collision with an unknown object, before driving another 10 minutes and stopping again. After about 20 minutes people started piling out of the bus (as did I) and we all sat by the bus in the shade of the bus for about two hours. I finished my book half an hour into the second stop. Very dull and boring. I was the only ‘tourist’ on the bus and from what I could gather, no one really spoke any English. So very fun times.

We eventually arrived into Prishtina at 11pm, three hours after the intended arrival time. I managed to get a taxi out to the guesthouse which I had identified and luckily it was still open and not only that; had some dorm rooms available. Grabbed a quick bit to eat from the local shop (crisps, I know, not exactly food but better than nothing and I hadn’t eaten since the half a ‘chicken’ roll) and headed to bed.

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