The other side

After a long train ride via Croatia (go figure) we arrived in Belgrade. Emma had a hostel in mind so we jumped the terrifying, rattly tram and headed for the top of the city. After a bit of wandering around we finally found it but to our dismay, it was full. The next hour and a half saw us wandering around the city in search of accommodation. We got lucky as we passed one hostel that no one had seem to heard of. It was pretty ordinary but good enough.

I was somewhat looking forward to getting to Belgrade as I had heard good things and I wanted to get the other side of the story about the siege of Sarajevo. The problem was that Belgrade is, in my humble opinion, a shit hole. It stinks, it's ugly and its filthy. Too harsh?, well, after so many good places that I had been on this trip, Belgrade is far from topping the list. The other problem, getting locals to talk about Sarajevo isn't easy. They either don't have an opinion or don't want to have an opinion. They are, however, more than happy to talk about the NATO bombing of Belgrade. There was an interesting article in a local English language paper that was about the time. "The good ol' days of NATO bombing" it was called and it went on about how people partied all night, had lots of casual sex and explained about the small amount of disappointment that a lot of people suffered when the bombing was over.

While in town I did manage to pick up an interesting little souvenir. In the early ninety's, Yugoslavia went through the most astonishing hyperinflation in modern history with the rate of inflation often hitting 100 percent a day basically making the Dinar worthless. New notes needed to be printed, so for the bargain price of a few dollars, I managed to pick up a 500000000000 Dinar note. That's 500 BILLION Dinar!!!... Thats 11 zeros!!!! So what did 500 BILLION Dinar buy you in '94? Well the woman tells me you could get bread, milk, eggs, a paper and perhaps the ride home. It seemed a little far fetched but that what she tells me.

Although its a pretty crap city the Kalemegdan Fortress is pretty cool. Little remains of it so nowadays its little more than a fortified parkland but as far as parks go, its great. It looms high above the city so you get great views of the polluted rats nest below, the surrounding bushland and see where the Danube and Sava rivers meet. Kids hang out, trysts occur during the fiery sunsets and spontaneous games of football breakout, its definitely the highlight of the city.

There is little evidence of war damage in Belgrade but in one spot there are two large buildings with the most destruction I have seen. Thats saying something after I have come through Bosnia. Gigantic holes from mortars or bombs in the side and floors collapsed, its quite a sight. The local armed forces have people hanging around who give you death stares the moment you whip out your camera so a bit of surreptitiousness is needed to obtain some snaps but I pulled off a few.

That was it for Belgrade thankfully so we parted ways with Emma who headed for Sofia, Bulgaria and ended up in the police station (check out the story here www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Emy/) So just Rohan and I again as we boarded our wagon-lit night train to Montenegro. In June last year, the country of Serbia and Montenegro split into two and Montenegro was officially recognised as independent a few days after Serbia, therefor making it the newest country in the world.

The train pulls into the Adriatic-side town of Bar. It was absolutely pouring with rain so we made for the nearest cafe to work out our next move. Rohan braved the torrential onslaught to find us a bus headed for our desired destination of Kotor. 2 hours later thats exactly where we were.

Kotor is amazing. Somewhat along the lines of Dubrovnik, Kotor is an old walled city on the waters edge of the deepest Fjord in Southern Europe. On the other side of town are massive, staggering snow capped cliffs. Its picture perfect, its stunning, its stupendous... or at least it would be if it wasn't for the unfeasibly heavy rain, hail and constant power outages. I have seen more power outages there in 2 days than I have in my whole life at home. They are so regular that locals don't even flinch when the power goes out, they just carry on as if nothing has changed, its quite surreal.

Bitching aside, we saw the ancient wall climb from town all the way up the mountain to the castle above knowing thats where we were heading. We started our ascent in one of the short breaks in the weather. As we get higher, the air gets thinner and the temperature drops a few degrees. Hail still sits on the blocks of stone forming a rudimentary stair case up the cliff. It was quite a scary sight to see my boot sliding on the stone towards the sheer cliff. I cant help but laugh at how dodgy it was. In Australia, there would be no way that would be allowed, everyone would be harnessed, wearing helmets and bright orange overalls with a guide constantly telling everyone to stay away from the edge. The problem there wasn't much area to walk, it was funny at first but as we got to the top, it got a little worrying.

We finally arrived at the castle entrance. The problem was, to get in the castle, we had to cross a questionable little bridge over a very long drop. It was something out of an Indiana Jones movie. The castle itself was something out of that same movie, big holes in the ground, overgrown grass and lumps of the stone wall teetering on the edge of a certain long fall. Hazards aside, the view was quite spectacular. Down to the town below, across the Fjord and up to the snow capped mountains in the distance. It was like looking at a living postcard.

We made plans to fly back to England from Athens so it was time to leave the country and make our way there. The quickest way to Athens from Montenegro is through Albania so we tried to get info on the best way to get down there. The LP guide had no real info on it aside from, you cant get international trains there. We asked a few people and the general response was it doesn't seem possible but if it was, our best bet would be from the capital, Podgorica.

The bus passes across the mountains and through thick snow cover. It's a shame about Podgorica. It's in the most stunning of locations, on a massive open plain surrounded by snow capped mountains, but the city is awful. Big grey blocks pretty much sums up the skyline. There are a few newer buildings and a cool looking suspension bridge but thats about it. We weren't to stay there anyway so it didn't really matter. Being dropped off we lined up at the info counter and asked the man "When is the next bus to Albania?"
"There is no bus, you can't get to Albania from here!"


To be continued...

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